I’ll fully admit that what made me want to play Tales of
Berseria is that I really, really liked the main character, Velvet. She just
looked awesome and I’m always up for playing a game with a female protagonist,
particularly a JRPG, so I bought the game during a recent PSN Flash Sale. I’m
happy to say that Velvet herself lived up to my expectations, but the rest of
the game was a little rougher. Considering that the only other Tales game I’ve
played is Tales of Vesperia, Berseria had somewhat impossibly high standards to
meet, but coming up short compared to near perfection still means Tales of
Berseria is pretty darn good. Continue reading our full Tales of Berseria
review for all of the details.Game Details
- Publisher: Bandai Namco
- Developer: Bandai Namco
- ESRB Rating: “T” for Teen
- Genre: JRPG
- Pros: Velvet is awesome; instant load times; Kitty Klumps; solid cast; therapy cats
- Cons: Story is so-so; convoluted combat
- MSRP: $60
 |
| Buy Tales of Berseria at Amazon.com |
Most JRPGs are stories of some innocent happy go lucky kid
that leaves their isolated village on a seemingly simple quest but end up
saving the world. Not in Tales of Berseria. This is a tale of violent revenge
where you play as characters who are pretty indisputably the bad guys. Main
character Velvet lives in a small village with her younger brother Laphicet and
older brother-in-law Arthur. Their world is one that is under constant attack
by demons and a mysterious disease even turns regular people into demons. In
order to try to stop this, Arthur sacrifices Laphicet in a magical ritual.
As you can guess, Velvet is none too pleased that her little
brother is now dead and that they were betrayed by the person they thought they
could trust most. The ritual not only took Laphicet’s life but also turned
Velvet into a demon-eating demon called a Therion. Arthur locks Velvet up in
the deepest dungeon of the toughest prison of the world where she waits for
three long years until she is (with a little help) able to escape. Even though
the ritual didn’t get rid of the demons, it did grant humans additional magical
powers as well as the ability to see magical beings known as Malakin, which
allowed them to fight back the demons and stabilize the world. Arthur is known
as a hero and the Shepard of Mankind and most people are happy living in
blissful ignorance of the real goings-on behind the scenes of the world.
Seeking revenge on the beloved man most people think saved
the world puts Velvet squarely in the role of villain in this story in the eyes
of the public. Velvet somewhat relishes in this role, too, as she doesn’t care
who she has to hurt or what she has to destroy as long as she gets her revenge.
She’s even known as the Lord of Calamity by the end of the game. Of course
she’s not the real villain and it turns out that Arthur and his followers are
doing some incredibly shady stuff in the name of making the world a better
place, but there is no denying you are doing a lot of questionable stuff in
Tales of Berseria that most other JRPG heroes wouldn’t dare consider.
A colorful cast of characters joins Velvet on her journey
such as a demon man who wants to become stronger so he can kill his brother, a
pirate Malakin with a curse so misfortune follows him everywhere, and a witch
woman with a dark history of her own. Keeping this band of rogues somewhat in
check is an innocent Malakin child and an exorcist from the church who is
forced to join them. The cast is really varied and the dynamic between all of
them works really well. I was also surprised that the characters that I was
most annoyed by at first, the Malakin child and exorcist Elanor, actually had a
lot of character growth and ended up being very likable and interesting by the
end. Velvet also has a satisfying character arc as well.
While I like the cast, the story itself in Tales of Berseria
is pretty mediocre. It is extremely predictable and just kind of boring. There
is also way, way, way too much dialogue as every scene gets dragged out for far
too long. I know JRPGs are all about story and dialogue, but this is crazy over
the top. There are also optional vignettes you can activate whenever an icon
appears in the corner to get a little extra insight on the story and characters
but they just go on and on and on. These vignettes are where most of the
character depth comes from, so they’re worth watching, but the writing really
could have been tightened up considerably. Maybe I’m just getting tired of JRPG
dialogue in general, though. This is the third RPG I’ve played this year, along
with Star Ocean 4 HD Remaster and SAO: Fatal Bullet, and I ended up skipping
most of the dialogue in all of them.
The gameplay in Tales of Berseria similarly could have
probably used an editor as it just unloads tons and tons of mechanics on you
over the course of the game. Exploring the world is straightforward enough as
it works like any other RPG. You walk around and talk to people and initiate
battles with monsters by touching them. When you enter combat the basics are
that it is like other Tales games where it is an action RPG where you can move
around the battlefield and attack enemies with melee and magic attacks by
pressing different buttons. The basics are dead simple and feel pretty good
here, just like in every Tales game.
There’s a lot more to the combat than just the basics,
though. I honestly just got confused and forgot most of it. Something about
soul gems affecting attack power and doing break moves does something and you
counter with something. I don’t know. I honestly forget most of it. And as you
play even more mechanics get piled on. It’s way over the top.
The good news is that you can actually ignore pretty much
everything the game tells you and just mash buttons and beat the game pretty
easily. That is, if you’re playing on easy difficulty. Harder difficulty modes
probably require you to learn the mechanics, but on easy you can breeze through
pretty much everything. I honestly really like this approach. It allows people
looking for more challenge and depth to get it, but also lets people that don’t
care about combat and just get through the story enjoy it as well. I do think,
however, that the combat is way too ridiculously complex and convoluted and has
too many mechanics and simpler ultimately would have been better.
Outside of combat there are even more mechanics. Such as
sending a scout pirate ship around the world to explore and bring back
treasures. Or collecting ingredients and cooking. Or collecting materials so
you can upgrade your weapons. Or playing a bunch of mediocre minigames. The
game just has so many mechanics and so much stuff that it feels unnecessarily
padded.
Even though I didn’t like the combat much and the story is
only so-so, there were still a lot of little things in Tales of Berseria that I
enjoyed that kept me playing. Collecting Katz orbs (adorably called Kitty
Klumps by a character in game) lets you open special chests that unlock
customization items. I like customizing characters, particularly anime-style
characters like in these games, so collecting all the stuff to play dress up
was fun (you can put a sleeping white cat on everyone’s head, which makes the
boring cutscenes slightly better). I also really liked the side quests that had
you hunting down super tough special monsters tucked into the corners of pretty
much every area. And I really loved the character quests you could unlock that
really let you get to know each character better.
I also have to say that part of what kept me playing was
just how easy and fast and convenient exploring the world was. You can fast
travel that lets you teleport all around the world and, since the game has
basically no load times, you can instantly go pretty much anywhere in the world
which was why doing side quests and wrapping up end game content was so
addictive for me. The load times really are impressive as they’re pretty much
nonexistent even when you first boot up the game. Tales of Berseria’s lightning
fast load times are like witchcraft compared to most slow ass games these days.
The presentation in the game is quite good overall. There
are still some areas that make it pretty obvious this was originally a PS3
game, but there are also some environments that look really stunningly
beautiful, too. The character models are uniformly fantastic. I know some
people are put off by Velvet’s default costume because “OMG, boobies!” (which,
really, they aren’t even that big or pronounced like in other games), but she’s
literally a demon that doesn’t feel cold or heat or care about what she looks
like, so her wearing ragged clothes makes sense. Whatever, man. Velvet’s the
best.
The sound is also good with decent music and solid voice
acting. The game also makes some of the better use of the speaker in the DS4
controller by having characters make little side comments and remarks through
the speaker. I also really, really, really loved that (spoilers maybe but the
game has been out for more than a year) that Velvet is allergic to cats so when
you go to the secret Katz Korner area you hear her sneezing now and then
through the speaker. That was a freaking awesome detail that I absolutely
love.
I know it might not seem like I liked Tales of Berseria that
much in this review, considering that I kind of whined about a lot of stuff,
but I did enjoy it quite a bit. I beat the story in about 29 hours and then
continued to play for another 10+ hours finishing up side quests and other
stuff. I wouldn’t have spent 40+ hours on something I didn’t really enjoy. Even
if individual aspects are a little weak, like the story and the combat, they
all do ultimately come together into a very solid and very enjoyable overall
package. It’s not nearly as good as Vesperia, but few games are. Tales fans and
RPG fans in general will have a good time with Tales of Berseria, so definitely
give it a try if you haven’t already.
