Tales of Berseria Review [Minor Spoilers]

Number of hours played: ~56 hours

Completion status: Main story finished + some sidequests

Click here for a TL;DR version

The Tales series has always been games that I had wanted to try out. Being a huge fan of action RPGs and story-driven games, an example being Kingdom Hearts, It seems like the Tales series would fit right in with the type of games I like to play. So, I decided to finally start off my Tales journey with Bandai Namco’s newest release in the Tales series, Tales of Berseria. Since this review will be based around a newcomer’s perspective into the franchise, I will not be making comparisons to any other previous instalments in the Tales franchise, every aspect of the game will be judged entirely on its own.

Now before I begin, I would like to briefly explain how this review will be structured. I will be breaking down different aspects of the game into separate categories. I also will not be giving the game a numerical score, and instead will give it one of these four statements:

• I hated it
• I liked it
• I really liked it
• I loved it

I decided to go with this approach as I feel that there are simply too many different factors in a game that it makes it hard to simply summarize all of them into a single number. If you wish to see my overall thoughts on the game, you can skip to the last paragraph where I will give a brief summary of my thoughts on the game.

Without further ado, let’s get onto the review

Story (Skip the first paragraph if you want to avoid any type of spoilers)

Tales of Berseria tells the story of Velvet Crowe, a young girl living a peaceful life in a village named Aball with her little brother Laphicet and the lover of their late sister Artorius. On the night of the Scarlet Moon, the villagers in Aball all succumb to a disease called Daemonblight, causing them to turn into Daemons and attack their village. During the attack, Velvet had lost contact with Laphicet and Artorius, and frantically searches for them amidst the chaos. It is then that she witnesses Artorius sacrifice her brother in a ritual in order to summon beings called Malakhim to the world, so that they may help combat the Daemonblight threat. Velvet in the meantime also gets possessed by the Daemonblight, but she manages to resist it, causing it to only mutate her arm. In a fit of fury, she slaughters the rest of the daemons in her village, before getting thrown into a prison for Daemons in an island called Titania, where she would stay for the next three years. It is during this time that Velvet swears that she will have her revenge on Artorius for the murder of her brother, no matter the cost, and through a multitude of encounters and events, she would meet up with other characters, who for various reasons, both personal and coincidental, would end up joining her on her quest.

The story by and large is great, the plot is complex enough to have you constantly guessing on what will happen next, while also not being too complex and convoluted to the point where you just want to stand up in frustration and wonder just what the hell is going on anymore. The world of Berseria is an interesting and well thought out one, although considering this is a prequel that takes place thousands of years before Tales’ previous entry, Tales of Zestiria, I’m not sure if I can commend them on that fact.

The pacing of the story while mostly consistent, does have slight hiccups every now and then, mainly on the earlier parts of the game. This is a game that in my opinion starts off on a slow burn, as the plot progresses at a snail’s pace, with very little being accomplished in terms of the grand narrative in the first 20ish hours of the game. This, however, allows the player to slowly become invested in the characters through a variety of interactions before really throwing them into the fray. As such if you’re a player who seeks to have an earlier payoff in your investment to the story, this game might not be the one for you, but if you prefer becoming invested in the characters you play as before the story really kicks in, then you’ll be happy to know that the game delivers incredibly well in that aspect.

The story also has some moments near the later parts of the game that seem to entice the player into thinking that it’s about to end, only to present them with a twist or a new plot point. This creates a perception of a grand narrative, having the player feel like the journey is much larger than what it was set out to be. While I like this concept, I feel that the way it was used in Berseria could have been better. The main gripe I have is that I feel the game didn’t use it in a way that felt natural, and that it instead created the feeling that the story was dragging itself when it didn’t need to. Unfortunately, I can’t say more than this as then I would be diving into spoiler territory, so I’ll just leave my thoughts at that.

Characters

The main characters in Berseria are all excellent. The character designs of all of them (with the exception of maybe Velvet) were both colorful and distinctive, and blended naturally with the world around them, absolutely superb. Their personalities also played together very well, providing both funny, quirky dialogue between all characters that often had me laughing hard, as well deep, insightful conversations that had lasting effects on both the story and characters.

All of these strengths come together through the skit system. The skit system features cutscenes that are animated entirely almost like a manga, with very stiff yet very expressive transitions that emphasizes the character’s actions, along with a minimal background that serves to highlight the emotions the characters are feeling at the moment. The skit system I would say is where the character designs were at their best, as their portraits were incredibly articulate and energetic, almost as if they were going to pop out of the screen. It is also where the bulk of character interactions take place, providing a nice change of pace in between the traveling and combat.

With that being said, there are some flaws that are worth mentioning in regards to the characters. There is one character named Rokurou, a dual-sword wielding man, that I feel had a much more diminished role in the story compared to other characters. Which is a shame because I really liked his character and personality. Because of his minimal involvement in the story, his character, in my opinion, is the most stagnant of the whole cast. This highlights some inconsistencies in the character writing of Berseria, as not all of the main characters were given the same quality of writing, and although I believe that not all characters should be given the same amount of depth. in this case, I feel like Rokurou was more of a wasted potential, especially since he was one of the first characters to join your party.

Another flaw in characterization concerns the main villain of the story, which I will not mention the name of to avoid spoilers. I feel that there definitely should have been more focus on the villain overall, as their presence in the story felt very weak, to the point where I had to question myself what they were even doing throughout the whole story while our main band of misfits was out terrorizing the world. When I first saw the villain, I had incredibly high hopes for them, and what their motivation was for their actions.

It was only during the last few hours of the game where the game tried to explain the villain’s motivations, it was pretty basic, and by then it was already too late, and their presence had already left far before then. Overall, I wish the villain had a larger presence throughout the story in providing obstacles to the main party, as well as a more complex backstory, as their transition felt a bit too unnatural.

The side characters were all pretty good, everyone had their own role in the story, and no character felt like a tack-on that was added on last minute. There was also lots of interactions between the side characters themselves and with the main cast. The only minor nitpick I have is that Berseria introduced just a little too much side characters, as there were some characters that would not appear until 10-20 hours after their last appearance. I feel like Bandai Namco could’ve either reduced the number of side characters as a whole, or have them interact more with the main party.

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