Tales of Berseria is the sixteenth mothership title in the Tales series. It was released for the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4 and PC, although only the PS4 and PC version was released in English. The PS4 version runs at 60 FPS in 1080p compared to the PS3's 720p. While the PS3 roots show up in the occasional bland environments, on the whole, the game looks great thanks to its anime style and vibrant color palette. Certain environments look fantastic and are very impressive, while the indoor dungeons are weaker with copy paste designs.
The combat is deceptively simple at first. Named the Liberation Linear Motion Battle System, four face buttons corresponds to different artes. Berseria gets rid of the analogue stick directional requirement to unleash different artes from past games which makes it feel a lot more button mashy. You'll also tend to stick to using the same button. Each character is able to chain together different artes and the rest of the battle system unlocks fairly quickly by introducing finishing moves, moves at the end of chains and special abilities.
The combat is fast paced and flashy. It gets chaotic once you gain a full four member party and it looks as good as it plays. You're able to instantly swap characters in your party against the ones in the reserves during battle, with bonuses. Once a character comes in, they perform a combo attack, and characters not in the main party will regain health. Unlike Tales of Zestiria, the battles take place in a separate battle screen, so the camera issues that plagued that previous game isn't present. Another improvement over Zestiria is that environments aren't big empty maps; they're smaller and more focused, making it more fun to traverse. The enemies continue to roam the environments and you're able to avoid them if required.
If you have played other Tales games then the music may sound familiar in places. However, there are certain tracks that you will notice while you're exploring because they have a catchy tune. The theme is fantastic in that it is emotionally rousing, especially when used during key scenes in the story. While each character has levels and you raise them by gaining experience points from defeating enemies, a big part of developing each character comes from the equipment system. Each character gains permanent passive abilities and stat boosts from using the same equipment for a period of time. This is addictive and encourages constant rotation of equipment, even if it isn't the strongest piece that the character can equip.
There's a bunch of other stuff going on to take a little bit of your interest. There are plenty of minigames, cooking, ship exploration, sidequests and monster hunts. While each doesn't take long, combined it will probably eat up your time. Plus, completing these activities gives you some nice cosmetic rewards. Tales of Berseria's story isn't as lighthearted and colorful as previous games. It's a bit more serious; the main character of Velvet Crowe is filled with rage and bent on revenge. The prologue is slow and can be boring. It's only around two hours long and once you're through with that, it picks up and is a lot more interesting.
Most of the party comes together within the first ten hours, and you'll get your full party of six by 15 hours. The characters are likable for the most part (Magilou is probably the funniest character of the lot) and the numerous skits (visual novel styled cutscenes, many of which are optional) help in fleshing out the interactions between the characters. While there are definitely cheesy dialogue pieces more often than not, the friendships and bonds created can culminate into some rousing scenes towards the end of the game.
The whole game is basically a straightforward revenge plot in which Velvet tracks down the person who ripped her whole family apart. She builds up quite a band of characters to journey with and as more characters continue to join her cause, it really feels like an adventure. Each character has their own reasons for joining, and in the beginning, it's pretty much just because their interests align.
Berseria is set as a distant prequel to Zestiria, taking place 1000 years in the past. While you can enjoy Berseria's story without playing Zestiria, as the game progresses, there are more and more nods towards Zestiria. To be honest, to get the most out of Berseria, it is definitely recommended to have played Zestiria first as it helps a lot in explaining how all the unique world aspects of Zestiria began. It's really interesting to see how Berseria introduces an element of the world, and then the characters discover an explanation for the cause which in turn explains how it turned up in Zestiria.
While Velvet seems one dimensional after the prologue and only bent on revenge, there are some softer parts of her. This comes into the forefront near the end of the game where all the setup in the earliest parts of the story come together to give us a heartrending scenario full of longing and regret. The cutscenes and fights between characters are a lot better choreographed and animated compared to previous games. Character movements are more fluid and less stiff. This leads to an epic finale fight with a satisfying ending, although the overall plot itself was a tad on the simple side since it never deviated from a revenge plot but the things we've learnt made it worthwhile.
Tales of Berseria takes around 50 hours to finish, however, there are a handful of sidequests and a bonus dungeon that is unlocked upon completion. Of course, there's the staple New Game Plus which allows you to carry over certain elements depending on how much "Grade" you accumulated during the game. You get neat bonuses such as double and triple experience (which stacks to six times the normal amount), double gald, and carrying over pretty much everything.
Overall, Tales of Berseria is a great Tales game and successfully removes the sour taste left over from Tales of Zestiria. The characters are more likable, the story is better and the game mechanics are finely balanced. The environments and dungeons are great to explore, big enough to hide a few secrets but not huge to the point of feeling tedious. As a JRPG, Tales of Berseria is one of the better ones we've had recently.
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