The super edgy stuff in anime and JRPGs almost always end up being unintentionally funny, but she does sound like a pretty fresh protagonist.
Early 2017 is the second coming of the JRPG Christ.
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Tales of Berseria Import Thread
- Thread starter Rpgmonkey
- Start date
The super edgy stuff in anime and JRPGs almost always end up being unintentionally funny, but she does sound like a pretty fresh protagonist.
Early 2017 is the second coming of the JRPG Christ.
What makes Velvet work is that she's more like Heero(if you know who i'm talking about) than someone like Sasuke in terms of attitude.
She has a goal, and she'll do whatever it takes to achieve that, but she herself is not a dumb person and will never try to bring other people who have nothing to do with her objectives into the situation just because she's so tortured.
Everyone's edgy in the party. Except for the adorable+manly shota and Eleanor, of course.
Wait, are we talking about that Heero? The guy who straight up said "I'm gonna kill you" at Relena's face episode 1 of Gundam Wing? Because that scene cracked me up and is the perfect embodiment of the "funny super edgy" stuff Muntu was talking about. Maybe he gets better later on, but from the little I've seen of Heero I don't know if he qualifies as the good kind of edgy. If we're talking about some other Heero then forget what I just said.
Heero's damn awesome and his character arc in the series is really great.
Anyways, yeah, its that Heero. He was supposed to kill Relena because she had seen him and could potentially compromise his mission on earth, but never ends up doing it because he's a softy who doesn't intentionally kill innocents even though he was drilled to be able to accomplish such things.
And then they get married. -shrug-
Question about the hoverboard.I got the hoverboard and I can use it on the open areas. But when I get to the smaller areas I can't use it, even on marked places that looks like I'll need the heverboard to jump over. Am I missing something?
Thanks.
Hoverboard into the point.
Did you find the tuning point? I think that's what it's called, I forget. Anyway, you have to find that point for every new area in order to use the board.
plasmawave
Banned
So what is the general consensus on the game? The game is 25% off on PSN right now...
The best Tales game in almost a decade.
plasmawave
Banned
Isn't it a bit soon for a discount?
25% off already? Isn't it too fast? The game only came out little more than a month ago
plasmawave
Banned
Oh my god, yes.
Cornbread78
Member
Almost forcing my hand to go digital again like I did with Zestiria... damn.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
I'm buying on steam and Namco doesnt do PC physical...so no sexy cover art for me
they will probably botch the NA cover anyway, though at least the NA placeholder is already using that art
they will probably botch the NA cover anyway, though at least the NA placeholder is already using that art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gISV0xq49ng
I've never been able to do such combos playing Tales games. Is it just me?
I've never been able to do such combos playing Tales games. Is it just me?
No reason to think that considering they've been using the JP art in the West since Graces f. Xilla 2 had the same art, but just changed the background color to something other than plain white, which honestly made the cover look better.
Just need to bee good at character action games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta to be able to pull stuff off like that. All know how to stun enemies/take advantage of weakenesses. I can pull stuff like that off, though the absurd shit you could do with Ludgar in Xilla 2 is still beyond my grasps.
I'm doing the hidden dungeon and it's absolute garbage. Like the worst one yet for Tales, and that was already a really low bar. They're recycling fields/dungeons, which is about what one could expect, but this time with a timer. I'm on floor 4 : I have to search and clear 6 sources of malevolence (6 fights) within 6 minutes, through a map full of monsters running faster than you, and full of traps giving time penalty. I take like 2 minutes per fight on normal mode because there are 30 levels of difference between the party and the enemies. I've been trying for like 6-7 times now, know where all the sources are, leveled up a lot and I am still far from doing it withing 6 minutes ¯\_(ツ_/¯
You can pay to make it easier but screw that, I'll just start Persona 5.
_/¯You can pay to make it easier but screw that, I'll just start Persona 5.
MasterMenace
Member
Anyone who has the import copy can tell me if the game supports co-op and to what extent? Can you play the entire game together with a buddy couch co-op style? Thanks.
Sanasanasan
Member
Aside from a couple solo fights, you can play through the game co-op. There's this annoying thing where other players can't join in during combat(you have to put them on semi-auto/manual before the fight), but otherwise it should be fine.
Except for Legendia all console Tales games since Destiny on PS1 support up to 4 player local co-op in battles.
I'm stuck at the final dungeon.
I really hate Japanese game devs for doing this, but it seems like a lot of JRPG just have an unnecessary final dungeon to drag the game on. FF13-2 did this with the infamous platforming, Xenoblade did this with like 2 extra dungeons before you can get to the final boss. I'm so done with this game right now, I'll probably find a walkthrough later, when people actually knows what to do, not the blind playthroughs.
Didn't Xillia games have some problems due to how linking worked? If P1 was Jude and P2 was Milla, and you linked Jude with Milla P2 lost control of said character.
Er, final dungeon isn't even hard. It's just long
So did Zestiria (where the "linked" character completely disappears). And I complained non-stop about that fact. Doesn't change that they technically still allow for 4 player co-op (at times). Should also note that in Destiny PS1 and Phantasia PS1 characters need to find and equip the Channel Ring first to access multiplayers.
It's the random teleport points that annoyed me, it got better after I got the hoverboard working, then I just try all the combinations. *Ending Spoilers*
Other than that annoyance of the final dungeon (which is consider it's a quirk of JRPG), the game is great. I love Velvet's seiyuu (Satou Rina) and also Magilou's seiyuu (Satou Satomi) because I recognize their voices from Railgun and K-On. The motive of Artorius and Velvet are very clear, they are much better presented than Zesteria. I can even sympathize with the other church members like Teresa and Oscar, because they fully bought into Artorius' vision of a perfectly calm world.
Artorius asked Laphicet (the original) to sacrifice himself because he knows Laphicet will die by 12. But if you play Lib's (リーブ side quest till the end, you'll see that the Omega Elixir can cure the 12 year old illness. Which means this whole tragedy could've been avoided. At that point Celica already became Shiarizu, so they even have the seirei's blessing if they could find the other ingredients. I was so sad when the Omega Elixir actually worked. I thought it would be a dead-end side quest where they just let you do some busy work to get some exp.
Story-wise I really liked it, the ending of Velvet and Laphicet (reincarnation) holding each other for an infinite loop is bitter sweet. Obviously the ending is kinda constrained by Zestiria, as they can't change it too much. I wish Laphicet doesn't have to become the next Kanonushi.
Gameplay-wise I feel like it's a slight step back from Zestiria. The new system feels more button-mashy. I just set basically each type of element to a button, depending on the weakness of the enemy I just mash that button. They have introduced the kamui later in game for enemies, I wish the player could've used it. Elenoa and Magilou are human, so they could've fuse with the other seirei or goma. Also I don't like the skill system where you have to use different equipments to learn new skills. This caused me to constantly swap out equipments for the characters. But once I swapped out their equipments, I had to upgrade them again to make them comparable to the old equipment (and that requires components, which requires breaking down of other useless equipments). The whole process is just boring and time consuming, I probably spent hours in that menu.
Artorius asked Laphicet (the original) to sacrifice himself because he knows Laphicet will die by 12. But if you play Lib's (リーブ
side quest till the end, you'll see that the Omega Elixir can cure the 12 year old illness. Which means this whole tragedy could've been avoided. At that point Celica already became Shiarizu, so they even have the seirei's blessing if they could find the other ingredients. I was so sad when the Omega Elixir actually worked. I thought it would be a dead-end side quest where they just let you do some busy work to get some exp.Story-wise I really liked it, the ending of Velvet and Laphicet (reincarnation) holding each other for an infinite loop is bitter sweet. Obviously the ending is kinda constrained by Zestiria, as they can't change it too much. I wish Laphicet doesn't have to become the next Kanonushi.
Gameplay-wise I feel like it's a slight step back from Zestiria. The new system feels more button-mashy. I just set basically each type of element to a button, depending on the weakness of the enemy I just mash that button. They have introduced the kamui later in game for enemies, I wish the player could've used it. Elenoa and Magilou are human, so they could've fuse with the other seirei or goma. Also I don't like the skill system where you have to use different equipments to learn new skills. This caused me to constantly swap out equipments for the characters. But once I swapped out their equipments, I had to upgrade them again to make them comparable to the old equipment (and that requires components, which requires breaking down of other useless equipments). The whole process is just boring and time consuming, I probably spent hours in that menu.
Overall, the positives outweights the negatives. This is my favorite Tales games so far (I have only played Vesperia, Xillia, and Zestiria).
Link1110
Member
I'm almost at the volcano, but can't play it again till I move since my ps4 is packed away.
Kanonushi is a great villain. I like how as soon as he's resurreted, he immediately starts toying with Velvet's emotions, rather than just laughing how powerful he is. He even continues being a threat as he effortlessly follows the party wherever they go, popping up out of nowhere. Even in a genre wjhere you regularly fight god like creatures, this guy oozes every kind of threat both physical and psycological.
...That IS kanonushi's personality, right? I seriously hope I wasn't fighting all this time to avenge a little shit with that personality.
Did anyone else scream PERUSONA at the top of their lungs every time Zaveid put the gun to his head in the scene where you fight AIfread?
Also, the end of Theresa and Oscar was great the way it made Velvet question herself and if she's as bad as Artorius, and when that and the above made her lose all her character development to become the animal we met in the prison, it was really effective.
A rare Tales that's both fun to play and has a really great story (no magic spells to turn the whole world racist.) Can't wait to finish it. I did check the table of contents on a walkthrough and noticed I'm on the second to last dungeon so this won't be an AByss/Vesperia I wish it ended 20 hours ago situation.
...That IS kanonushi's personality, right? I seriously hope I wasn't fighting all this time to avenge a little shit with that personality.
Did anyone else scream PERUSONA at the top of their lungs every time Zaveid put the gun to his head in the scene where you fight AIfread?
Also, the end of Theresa and Oscar was great the way it made Velvet question herself and if she's as bad as Artorius, and when that and the above made her lose all her character development to become the animal we met in the prison, it was really effective.
A rare Tales that's both fun to play and has a really great story (no magic spells to turn the whole world racist.) Can't wait to finish it. I did check the table of contents on a walkthrough and noticed I'm on the second to last dungeon so this won't be an AByss/Vesperia I wish it ended 20 hours ago situation.
Yes. That's his personality. Even Velvet admits that he's shit.
The story is good until the end. It's kinda rare for a Tales game
The story is good until the end. It's kinda rare for a Tales game
Big Green Anus
Member
Wow, was not expecting so many great impressions for this game. Sounds like it might be arguably tue Best Tales games yet.
I hope this one will be better than Zestiria!
My main grips about it were the battle camera either too far from the action or right inside the enemies.
The combat tips upon tips even after 30 hours of play.. it looked way too convoluted, as was the equipment system.
Character development nearly non-existent but I might be getting ahead of myself, as the game is still sitting inside the console, unfinished..
I'm wondering if I should continue to play those games (I really liked Symphonia and Vesperia).
My main grips about it were the battle camera either too far from the action or right inside the enemies.
The combat tips upon tips even after 30 hours of play.. it looked way too convoluted, as was the equipment system.
Character development nearly non-existent but I might be getting ahead of myself, as the game is still sitting inside the console, unfinished..
I'm wondering if I should continue to play those games (I really liked Symphonia and Vesperia).
Cornbread78
Member
Been playing this some more after I finished up Tokyo Xandu Ex+, got to the first cutscene I enjoyed in the game about 40 hours in when
Kinda hoping I'll enjoy the game from this point since the MC finally has turned around.
At this point the battle system is fine in a Hearts-way. I'm not a huge fan of spam-fest, but it gets the job done and I don't really have any problems with it. The non-battle gameplay is still dreadful though with empty fields that just go on and on and an insane amount of padding. I can't even count the number of times the game makes you go back and forth across the prison dungeon over and over just to watch one new cutscene at a different end, or all the dungeons you can't warp out of after you beat them because there is one little minor skit on the way out, so you have to run for 10 minutes through the dungeon again. The fields are really really bad in how their padded, like the first time you encounter a dragon the field has you go up the dragon path, then go back down the other path to town, then go back up to the dragon path again. Or the fields with switches where you need to run a few screens to figure out what switch you need to press, run back and press it, then run back again. The whole game is designed to really stretch out the content as much as possible. Was excited to get the hoverboard to finally speed up the field movement and then I got it and it's barely a speed above running, so much for that.
On the plus side, I really like the art direction. Very nice looking game. The cutscene direction is also really good for Tales, lots of animation. Just wish the visual side was tied to a better game. The story, while not good, isn't worse than most Tales stories either, but for me, it's definitely been the worst cast in a Tales mainline game since Rebirth, which I guess makes sense since it's the same writer. It's also not surprisng that I'd really hate their writing/cast in Berseria. Very few people know how much I absolute loathe Rebirth outside it's amazing battle system. For a very long time, I really felt Rebirth was the worst story & cast in an rpg.period. (I think my review gave it like an F for story/cast and A for combat), and the only saving grace was how unintentionally hilarious Veige was. In Berseria not only is it full of the usual stereotypical anime cliche characters, but now they're all pretending to be edgy angsty/emo which is even worse than if it was just a bunch of angsty/emo characters. But instead of real anti-heroes, it's a whole cast of characters trying to act "cool" and put up fronts and only in the endgame do they finally open up to being real actual characters. It's all just so fake. The whole premise of playing as a bunch of killers/anti-hero's is a joke as these are the nice traditional jrpg cast but putting on "tough killers" fronts. It's an entire party of the Tsundere trope outside Rafi and Elenore who are alright. Yuri is 10x more of an anti-hero in Vesperia and goes to WAY darker places than anyone in Berseria. Also I feel game is offensively bad in how it writes Velvet as a woman with her extreme mood swings that are just insanely cringeworthy. So that combined with the padded the fields and being stopped every 20 feet for a cutscene for the entire game often makes the game frustrating to play.
Velvet is about to give up and get sucked in kanunushi and raphi grabs her hand and Velvet finally wakes the fuck up and stops being an emo/angsty MC.
At this point the battle system is fine in a Hearts-way. I'm not a huge fan of spam-fest, but it gets the job done and I don't really have any problems with it. The non-battle gameplay is still dreadful though with empty fields that just go on and on and an insane amount of padding. I can't even count the number of times the game makes you go back and forth across the prison dungeon over and over just to watch one new cutscene at a different end, or all the dungeons you can't warp out of after you beat them because there is one little minor skit on the way out, so you have to run for 10 minutes through the dungeon again. The fields are really really bad in how their padded, like the first time you encounter a dragon the field has you go up the dragon path, then go back down the other path to town, then go back up to the dragon path again. Or the fields with switches where you need to run a few screens to figure out what switch you need to press, run back and press it, then run back again. The whole game is designed to really stretch out the content as much as possible. Was excited to get the hoverboard to finally speed up the field movement and then I got it and it's barely a speed above running, so much for that.
On the plus side, I really like the art direction. Very nice looking game. The cutscene direction is also really good for Tales, lots of animation. Just wish the visual side was tied to a better game. The story, while not good, isn't worse than most Tales stories either, but for me, it's definitely been the worst cast in a Tales mainline game since Rebirth, which I guess makes sense since it's the same writer. It's also not surprisng that I'd really hate their writing/cast in Berseria. Very few people know how much I absolute loathe Rebirth outside it's amazing battle system. For a very long time, I really felt Rebirth was the worst story & cast in an rpg.period. (I think my review gave it like an F for story/cast and A for combat), and the only saving grace was how unintentionally hilarious Veige was. In Berseria not only is it full of the usual stereotypical anime cliche characters, but now they're all pretending to be edgy angsty/emo which is even worse than if it was just a bunch of angsty/emo characters. But instead of real anti-heroes, it's a whole cast of characters trying to act "cool" and put up fronts and only in the endgame do they finally open up to being real actual characters. It's all just so fake. The whole premise of playing as a bunch of killers/anti-hero's is a joke as these are the nice traditional jrpg cast but putting on "tough killers" fronts. It's an entire party of the Tsundere trope outside Rafi and Elenore who are alright. Yuri is 10x more of an anti-hero in Vesperia and goes to WAY darker places than anyone in Berseria. Also I feel game is offensively bad in how it writes Velvet as a woman with her extreme mood swings that are just insanely cringeworthy. So that combined with the padded the fields and being stopped every 20 feet for a cutscene for the entire game often makes the game frustrating to play.
So I'm up to the point before the final dungeon where I'm free to complete all the sidequests I've been saving up. They still won't let me go back to Titania though. Do I gain access in the post game or am I locked out until NG+?
Also wanted to ask - I didn't play Zestiria because it looked boring as all hell. Playing this has made me curious about the fates of some of the characters who directly appear in Zestiria though. Is it worth the slog if Berseria is ending up as my favorite Tales game character/story-wise?
Also wanted to ask - I didn't play Zestiria because it looked boring as all hell. Playing this has made me curious about the fates of some of the characters who directly appear in Zestiria though. Is it worth the slog if Berseria is ending up as my favorite Tales game character/story-wise?
That's pretty much the best scene in the game, though it was probably more effective for me because I actually like the cast. I'll agree with you on the combat and dungeons though.
To go back to Titania, you have to go to the port. You can't warp there.
Just watch Zestiria anime
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
This is all I needed to hear to know I'll absolutely love this game. Rebirth is my second or third favorite in the series.
Berseria's main writer is Naoki Yamamoto from Bandai Namco Studios, who worked on Hearts, Xillia 2 and Zestiria (he also did some some sub events/lore for Xillia and Graces). The other ones who are not as involved in the writing are Yuuta Hase, also from Bandai Namco Studios, who never wrote anything afaik but was Zestiria's director, and Masaki Hiramatsu, a freelancer who worked on Rebirth and Symphonia 2. The track record of the latter is pretty bad but I doubt you can blame him for anything in this game.
It's locked until you do Einzen's quest with the dolls. And yeah, I would suggest watching the tv series too, it improved a lot of things. The first episode (episode 0) and the last one are pretty bad though.
Played all day and got up to the final dungeon and my enjoyment of the game has done almost a 180 and I had a really good time today and couldn't put the game down. I don't love the cast, but at this point it feels like a normal good Tales game. Gonna take a look at the side stuff available now and do some questing before I do the final dungeon.
My problem with the entire narrative really was Velvet. I just found her to be the most unlikeable angsty MC ever and I couldn't stand her party interactions because all she does is be a jerk to everyone or have crazy out of character mood swings. It's like how some people can't stand Luke for the first 30 hours of Tales of the Abyss (Luke didn't bother me because he was just pompous and naive, but Velvet's combination of a tsundere trope angst character just really rubbed me the wrong way), or how some people can't stand Lightning (Velvet to me really feels like a huge clone of her trying to appeal to the Japanese audience that loves Lightning even though Western audiences dislike her; Velvet and Lightning have that same cold, unfriendly group leader attitude). When Velvet finally drops the angst and becomes a normal functional human being that you'd actually care about, it instantly fixes everything wrong with the cast dynamic.
It doesn't help that the support characters aren't there to pick up the slack as well and sometimes make it even worse. A lot of the playable cast are really one dimensional. Magiru is probably my least favorite Tales support party member ever. Her slapstick sarcasm jokes non-stop with zero actual character development until the endgame gets old after 10 minutes of her introduction. Rokurou seems like an alright guy, until 50 hours later in the game it's apparent that he just has his one shtick and that's all he does the entire game. Like Magiru, he has very little character development and there just isn't much to his character. Aizen is a little better, but he's another tsundere trope whose often fairly one note angry grimace emo shinigami, at least he lightens up a little.
On the plus side, Lafeed is fantastic. Easily the best character in the game. If you tune out Velvet's angsty ramblings, he can pretty much be the main character of the game. He's got a full good character development arc, is very likeable, and jut gets better and better. Elenore is a bit dull, but she's not a bad character and she develops which is nice since a lot of these character don't develop much.
I feel like maybe if the cast had 2 more characters there'd be enough good characters to fill out the cast to counter some of the one-note characters although Velvet would still be Velvet.
The sub-antagonists while nice to have around, are just too shallow and one-note as well (but that's always been a Tales problem outside of some major antagonists that are occasionally well developed).
I've never had much of a problem with the story other than there wasn't much too it for a lot of the game, just "chase guy X for revenge / go collect stuff", but that's usual for Tales. Now that the story's picked up in the last 20-25% it's pretty good. One thing I've enjoyed the whole game has been all the connections to Zestiria, because unlike most people I don't hate Zestiria, it's just an incomplete game similar to MGSV where you can tell the 2nd half was cobbled together to release in some shape but tons of plotlines are underdeveloped or disappear. Anyhow, in retrospect Berseria definitely improves my opinion of Zestiria as I feel like when they wrote Zestiria and created the world & lore they spent a lot of time making it and you don't get half of it in the game of Zestiria, now with Berseria's extra worldview info it adds, you can see a better picture of the world they created with Zestiria and a lot of the plotlines there that fell apart have more weight now and you can see where they were meant to be going.
Usually Tales games fall apart in the last 20 hours or so, but I'm finding Berseria to the be the opposite where the best part of the game is this last 15-20 hours. Until I got to this part, Berseria had killed the Tales franchise for me and I wasn't going to buy anymore Tales games because I felt like the series just isn't for me anymore. But now with this good endgame, I'm looking forward to the next Tales announcement, I just hope they never try another ultra-angsty lead again and I also hope at some point they finally go away from this Xillia-Zestiria-Berseria direction of awful huge fields. Graces is still 10x more fun to actually play than any of those three partly because the battle system, but mostly because it doesn't have huge empty fields to backtrack across the entire game and instead has traditional Tales dungeons, and towns and short road connectors. Would also be nice if they can have music too in the next one. In Berseria it literally sounds like some elevator music is playing in the back from some other game while you are playing the game. Outside of the one theme track it doesn't have anything memorable.
Oh hmmm, earlier in the thread someone had said the lead writer was from Rebirth & Symphonia 2. I didn't like Hearts either outside the battle system and haven't played Xillia 2, but I really liked the Zestiria cast. Hmmm. When I do play Xillia 2 I hope the cast is more fun like the Zestiria & Hearts cast, than the Berseria cast.
One really big issue I have with the writing in this game that doesn't exist in any of the like 18 other Tales games, is that someone made an executive decision to lengthen every dialogue set substantially. Skits which were always about 30 seconds long and a few lines and then a punchline are essentially mini-cutscenes and go on for anything from 1-3 minutes. Also talking to NPCs instead of giving you 1 or 2 lines of dialogue now every NPC goes on for 6-10 lines if you press circle next to them. The end result is that while I still watch the skits because I like skits and don't want to miss anything, in Berseria unlike other Tales games I avoid talking to NPCs because I don't want to read through 6-10 lines of dialogue every time. Even Kiseki which fills its world with rich NPCs doesn't give them 6-10 lines of dialogue, it's still 1-3. When you're running around an you just wanna talk to all NPCs and hear a few lines, it drags when the NPC dialogues are so long. And the skits being so incredibly long this time around means when you get past an event and you've got several new skits, it's literally time to stop doing everything, stand still and watch 5-8 minutes of additional cutscenes through skits compared to having a couple short funny skits. Also when you're running through dungeons or towns and the game constantly stops you to do a 1-3 minute forced skit it just feels incredibly disruptive which I've never felt before in a Tales game. Berseria was clearly made with a decision to have LOTS of content, which they thought also meant making skits and NPC dialogues 3-4x longer than normal and I feel that single decision really detracted from my enjoyment of the game and the narrative. Hopefully they don't continue in this direction with future games. It reminds me of Disgaea 4 when N1 decided to start doubling the length of their pre-stage cutscenes and it made the game drag when you just wanted to get into battle and play the map.
My problem with the entire narrative really was Velvet. I just found her to be the most unlikeable angsty MC ever and I couldn't stand her party interactions because all she does is be a jerk to everyone or have crazy out of character mood swings. It's like how some people can't stand Luke for the first 30 hours of Tales of the Abyss (Luke didn't bother me because he was just pompous and naive, but Velvet's combination of a tsundere trope angst character just really rubbed me the wrong way), or how some people can't stand Lightning (Velvet to me really feels like a huge clone of her trying to appeal to the Japanese audience that loves Lightning even though Western audiences dislike her; Velvet and Lightning have that same cold, unfriendly group leader attitude). When Velvet finally drops the angst and becomes a normal functional human being that you'd actually care about, it instantly fixes everything wrong with the cast dynamic.
It doesn't help that the support characters aren't there to pick up the slack as well and sometimes make it even worse. A lot of the playable cast are really one dimensional. Magiru is probably my least favorite Tales support party member ever. Her slapstick sarcasm jokes non-stop with zero actual character development until the endgame gets old after 10 minutes of her introduction. Rokurou seems like an alright guy, until 50 hours later in the game it's apparent that he just has his one shtick and that's all he does the entire game. Like Magiru, he has very little character development and there just isn't much to his character. Aizen is a little better, but he's another tsundere trope whose often fairly one note angry grimace emo shinigami, at least he lightens up a little.
On the plus side, Lafeed is fantastic. Easily the best character in the game. If you tune out Velvet's angsty ramblings, he can pretty much be the main character of the game. He's got a full good character development arc, is very likeable, and jut gets better and better. Elenore is a bit dull, but she's not a bad character and she develops which is nice since a lot of these character don't develop much.
I feel like maybe if the cast had 2 more characters there'd be enough good characters to fill out the cast to counter some of the one-note characters although Velvet would still be Velvet.
The sub-antagonists while nice to have around, are just too shallow and one-note as well (but that's always been a Tales problem outside of some major antagonists that are occasionally well developed).
I've never had much of a problem with the story other than there wasn't much too it for a lot of the game, just "chase guy X for revenge / go collect stuff", but that's usual for Tales. Now that the story's picked up in the last 20-25% it's pretty good. One thing I've enjoyed the whole game has been all the connections to Zestiria, because unlike most people I don't hate Zestiria, it's just an incomplete game similar to MGSV where you can tell the 2nd half was cobbled together to release in some shape but tons of plotlines are underdeveloped or disappear. Anyhow, in retrospect Berseria definitely improves my opinion of Zestiria as I feel like when they wrote Zestiria and created the world & lore they spent a lot of time making it and you don't get half of it in the game of Zestiria, now with Berseria's extra worldview info it adds, you can see a better picture of the world they created with Zestiria and a lot of the plotlines there that fell apart have more weight now and you can see where they were meant to be going.
Usually Tales games fall apart in the last 20 hours or so, but I'm finding Berseria to the be the opposite where the best part of the game is this last 15-20 hours. Until I got to this part, Berseria had killed the Tales franchise for me and I wasn't going to buy anymore Tales games because I felt like the series just isn't for me anymore. But now with this good endgame, I'm looking forward to the next Tales announcement, I just hope they never try another ultra-angsty lead again and I also hope at some point they finally go away from this Xillia-Zestiria-Berseria direction of awful huge fields. Graces is still 10x more fun to actually play than any of those three partly because the battle system, but mostly because it doesn't have huge empty fields to backtrack across the entire game and instead has traditional Tales dungeons, and towns and short road connectors. Would also be nice if they can have music too in the next one. In Berseria it literally sounds like some elevator music is playing in the back from some other game while you are playing the game. Outside of the one theme track it doesn't have anything memorable.
Oh hmmm, earlier in the thread someone had said the lead writer was from Rebirth & Symphonia 2. I didn't like Hearts either outside the battle system and haven't played Xillia 2, but I really liked the Zestiria cast. Hmmm. When I do play Xillia 2 I hope the cast is more fun like the Zestiria & Hearts cast, than the Berseria cast.
One really big issue I have with the writing in this game that doesn't exist in any of the like 18 other Tales games, is that someone made an executive decision to lengthen every dialogue set substantially. Skits which were always about 30 seconds long and a few lines and then a punchline are essentially mini-cutscenes and go on for anything from 1-3 minutes. Also talking to NPCs instead of giving you 1 or 2 lines of dialogue now every NPC goes on for 6-10 lines if you press circle next to them. The end result is that while I still watch the skits because I like skits and don't want to miss anything, in Berseria unlike other Tales games I avoid talking to NPCs because I don't want to read through 6-10 lines of dialogue every time. Even Kiseki which fills its world with rich NPCs doesn't give them 6-10 lines of dialogue, it's still 1-3. When you're running around an you just wanna talk to all NPCs and hear a few lines, it drags when the NPC dialogues are so long. And the skits being so incredibly long this time around means when you get past an event and you've got several new skits, it's literally time to stop doing everything, stand still and watch 5-8 minutes of additional cutscenes through skits compared to having a couple short funny skits. Also when you're running through dungeons or towns and the game constantly stops you to do a 1-3 minute forced skit it just feels incredibly disruptive which I've never felt before in a Tales game. Berseria was clearly made with a decision to have LOTS of content, which they thought also meant making skits and NPC dialogues 3-4x longer than normal and I feel that single decision really detracted from my enjoyment of the game and the narrative. Hopefully they don't continue in this direction with future games. It reminds me of Disgaea 4 when N1 decided to start doubling the length of their pre-stage cutscenes and it made the game drag when you just wanted to get into battle and play the map.
They're similar and maybe they were trying to go for a female Jade. The difference between the two is that Jade's comedy style was pretty witty from what I recall, whereas Magi's comedy style is a very Japanese style humor of constantly being the jester/fool and acting like an idiot for the entire game (and obviously you can tell from the start she isn't one, but it's the front she puts on).
Shouta
Member
I could have done without longer random NPC dialogue though that's in large part due to how they display NPC dialogues now. I don't really enjoy the way they've been doing it for a long while now.
I was totally fine with the skits in the game though. In fact, I really liked it because it helped them play out more naturally. Skits have gotten to be very routine in the more recent titles. First time in awhile I felt like they were actually interacting and then we got a punch-line rather than skits existing solely for that joke.
I was totally fine with the skits in the game though. In fact, I really liked it because it helped them play out more naturally. Skits have gotten to be very routine in the more recent titles. First time in awhile I felt like they were actually interacting and then we got a punch-line rather than skits existing solely for that joke.
Going through the sidequests, it's nice when the game world is open like this and you can quest around. Wish the game let you warp to each location at least, having to warp to a town 4 areas away from where you need to backtrack through for a sidequest and then spending 5-10 mins hoverboarding back is lame. No reason why they could let you warp to the start of each area, I mean they have no probably grey locking out 95% of the areas most of the time anyhow during the story, so it'd only be useful in endgame where it would actually be useful.