Tales of Berseria Review

Tales of Berseria is a RPG video game released by Bandai Namco for Playstation 3, Playstation 4, and PC. Tales of Berseria takes place in the same world of Tales of Zestiria but the events occur in the distant past of Zestiria. Unlike any other Tales series, Tales of Berseria story focused on the dark side, protagonist and her companion main purpose is not saving the world and also have a dark personality (except for Eleanor and Laphicet of course), they will not let anyone or anything blocking their way.

The main theme of Berseria is Emotion vs Reason. The main character and her companion is a group of people that live and act based on their emotion, their enemy are cold and detach, live and act based on reason. It’s kind of refreshing to play a game where most of your character is anti-heroine and the story really make my heart break. Velvet Crowe is the first solo female protagonist in a Tales Series and her ultimate purpose is to take revenge on her brother’s murderer, Rokurou Rangetsu is a free-spirited swordsman who wants to return a favor to Velvet, Eizen the cursed malak and a pirate who happens to have the same enemy, an eccentric and unpredictable witch Magilou, the most righteous person in a group Eleanor Hume, and a cute innocent little malak Laphicet.

The story start with 16 years old Velvet who lost her sister years ago and now live with her sickly younger brother and her brother-in-law Artorius. But that happy life change when Artorius sacrifice her younger brother in a ritual. After witnessing her brother die, Velvet possessed by a daemon and confined in a prison for three years. Betrayed by her brother-in-law and witnessing the murder of her brother change a once kind, cheery, and family-oriented Velvet into a woman full of hate and rage.

I really like Berseria combat system. The combat system allow you to run freely around the battlefield and rotate the camera in battle. How many actions character can take in battle depends on the character Soul Gauge. Soul Gauge can range between one to five soul, it depletes when character perform an arte and replenish with time. Soul gauge will be lost when character is stunned, getting status ailments, or using a Break Souls and can be stealed back by attacking enemy weaknesses or pick the soul up from the field after dodging an enemy attack. The system also enable the player to set up and use a complex combo and along with Break Souls player can chain a great deal of combo. Each character has different Break Souls and so it’s takes me some time to master.

Unfortunately the graphics looks dated and rough and the dungeons looks dull and not exciting. But still, I like the animated movie scene and the Japanese voice actor (fortunately there are choice to choose between Japanese voice or English voice). But the dated graphics is compensated by exciting story, dark characters, and interesting combat system.

Tales of Berseria is highly linear though, unlike many other Tales series, the character main objective is consistent until the end. There are some twists but no major development overall. I really recommend this game especially if you like an anti-heroine and dark tales. This is surely one of the games I will replay.