How to Use Mystic Arts in Tales of Berseria
Tom's Guide Verdict
While Tales of Berseria isn't quite as good as the series gets, in one case this game gets its daemonic claws into you, information technology'due south hard to put downwardly.
Pros
- +
Great boxing organisation
- +
Interesting characters
- +
Dark, unpredictable story
- +
Immersive graphics and sound
Cons
- -
Level design is zippo special
- -
Normal difficulty presents little challenge
Imagine the following scenario: It's Friday night. You lot're beat from a long week at work, and the fridge is empty. Are y'all going to schlep to the grocery shop, buy a one thousand ingredients and prepare yourself a steak dinner with an boosted end at the wine store for a perfect pairing? Or are you going to use the last vestiges of your willpower to drag yourself off the couch and into the bar effectually the corner for a burger and a beer?
If y'all'd have the latter option, yous'll probably like Tales of Berseria ($lx, PS4; $50, Steam). This Japanese role-playing game is pure condolement food, simply as any weary worker can attest, comfort nutrient is sometimes worth all the fancy fixings in the world. If yous want a sweeping story about a group of quirky, attractive immature people saving the world through the ability of friendship, you've come to the correct place.
And however, familiarity isn't the just thing Tales of Berseria has going for information technology. The battle arrangement is fast-paced and fun, the story is much darker and more unpredictable than usual, and the improved graphics make a tangible difference for gameplay. While Tales of Berseria isn't quite every bit expert as the serial gets, once this game gets its daemonic claws into you, it'southward hard to put downwards.
Gameplay: Daemonic possession
Tales of Berseria stars Velvet Crowe, a young woman out for revenge against her conniving blood brother-in-law. Through a complicated series of events, Velvet loses her left arm and gains a daemonic one in its place. Armed with the powers of darkness and a party full of agreeing misfits, Velvet has a lot of exploration, combat and party management between her and her goal.
As with most Japanese function-playing games, you'll split your time fairly evenly among exploring the earth, engaging enemies in battle, and improving your characters' stats and equipment. There's not too much to say virtually exploration. Velvet and her coiffure explore the standard array of towns, fields and dungeons. The world feels sufficiently large and packed with stuff to collect, from money to healing items to side-quest doodads that give you lot cosmetic items.
Grapheme management is also adequately straightforward. As you defeat enemies and gain experience, your characters will level up, improving their stats and calculation new techniques to their arsenals. You can also acquire passive abilities if you keep weapons and armor equipped for long enough. Tales of Zestiria (the previous installment in the Tales serial) used a similar system, but this mechanic is much less central to Berseria's gameplay, and as a issue, feels more like a bonus than a chore.
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The battle system is where things get interesting, for both new and returning fans. Even players with a passing interest in the Tales serial probably know that information technology has real-time gainsay that lets characters move freely around the battleground, unlike what happens in traditional, turn-based JRPGs. Running betwixt enemies, landing strikes, building combos and letting your three AI-controlled party members back you up are all familiar, but the overall flow of battle feels new.
Battle System: Keeping busy
Different in previous Tales games, characters in Berseria have no default "attack" command. Instead, they can create four distinct sets of combos, choosing from amid various Artes. These techniques range from high kicks to destructive spells. While at that place's no limit to how many times you can use magical techniques, they do accept much longer to bandage than their physical counterparts. Some attacks are devastating for human foes, while other attacks take special aim at beasts.
Add in attacks based on height, area of event and philharmonic-building potential, and the battle system has enough of flexibility, although yous don't need meticulously crafted combos to succeed, at least on lower-difficulty levels. The Tales series has never been particularly punishing, just information technology's hard to really mess up in Berseria as long equally you keep a few healing items on mitt.
Velvet's daemonic arm adds an additional contraction to combat, and it's a welcome 1. Rather than merely attack and defend indefinitely, characters tin can possess anywhere from one to five "souls" that represent the graphic symbol's stamina. When Velvet activates her arm's special powers, she can sacrifice a soul to gain bonuses from enemies, such as amend defence force or faster movement speed, in addition to a powerful special assail.
Defeating enemies confers additional souls, and so souls are pretty like shooting fish in a barrel to manage in ordinary battles. Boss battles, on the other hand, get a delicate balancing act: Will you lot risk Velvet'south survivability for a outburst of power, or play the long game? Combined with the fast-paced battle system, these split-second decisions help make Tales of Berseria compulsively playable, even though the gameplay doesn't modify significantly from your offset battle to your last.
Story: A dish best served cold
Years agone, Velvet lost her sister, Celica, when daemons attacked the siblings' boondocks. After that, Velvet picked upward the pieces along with her younger brother, Laphicet, and Celica's husband, Artorius, and carved out a comfortable rural life for herself — or so she thought. Artorius betrays her and murders Laphicet in gild to appease the daemon hordes, and so throws Velvet, now possessed by a daemon in her left arm, in prison, where she stays for the following 3 years.
What happens next takes a little bit from "The Count of Monte Cristo" and a little fleck from other Tales games. A much more than sinister Velvet escapes from prison and recruits a canaille band of daemons, spirits, witches and outcasts, all of whom accept their own vendettas against Artorius, who has since become i of the well-nigh powerful men in the state of Midgand.
The offbeat characters are easily the best role of the game. From the friendly samurai Rokurou, to the conflicted knight Eleanor, to the zany witch Magilou (whose costume seems to be as an "I dare you" to cosplayers everywhere), every political party member has something to add to the story. Improve nonetheless, rather than consisting of the traditional Tales mix of fresh-faced practise-gooders, every party fellow member this time around has a dark agenda and relatively few moral scruples. As such, everything from theft to assassination is on the table, and seeing each grapheme remainder a desire to do good with a resignation to doing what must exist washed creates some fascinating drama, both internal and interpersonal.
The ultimate arc of Tales of Berseria isn't radically different from that of the games that preceded it. However, players oasis't really had the hazard to view this story through the lens of some morally complicated protagonists earlier at present.
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Information technology'south as well worth pointing out that Velvet is the first female protagonist in the series (not counting Milla from Tales of Xillia, who was merely one of ii possible choices). She's a well-rounded character with a conceivable story arc. This is good, but not terribly surprising, since the Tales series has had lots of great female party members over the years. It'southward nice to see i finally have center stage, though.
Graphics and Sound: A faster frame charge per unit
Tales of Berseria is not the beginning Tales game on the PS4, merely it is the outset one designed to take full reward of more powerful PS4 and PC hardware. The game runs at a full 1080p and 60 frames per 2d, and that makes a big difference, especially during boxing. There's never whatever sort of slowdown, and seeing all of the characters perform complex, particle-effects-laden acrobatics dozens of times in each fight never gets erstwhile.
Beyond that, the graphics aren't terribly different from those in the games that preceded this one. Tales of Berseria uses a cel-shaded, anime-inspired aesthetic with a robust color palette and extremely memorable grapheme designs. Some of the costumes (like Magilou's and Velvet's) are simply ridiculous, merely I'm non liable to forget them anytime soon; others, like Rokurou's and Eleanor's outfits, are elegant and cool.
The music is standard Tales fare, meaning that it'southward perfectly pleasant in the moment and not as well memorable after. The voice acting, though, is a treat, as usual. Cristina Valenzuela every bit Velvet displays an impressive range, portraying both a cheerful villager at the beginning and a scarred killer out for revenge afterwards. Erica Lindbeck every bit Magilou is too a standout. I would chance that her unpredictable demeanor and off-kilter humour volition brand her the breakout character of this detail installment.
Lesser Line: Render to form
Tales of Zestiria wasn't bad, per se, but it did leave me feeling bored. I worried that the serial was becoming stale, content to deliver the same thing over and over without any real innovation. While calling Tales of Berseria "inventive" might be a stretch, it'south fair to say the game is polished and fun, and takes quite a few risks with a well-worn formula. It'due south exactly what a new Tales game should be.
Whereas a game like Final Fantasy XV succeeded by shaking upward a formula and giving fans something totally new, that approach would have felt out of identify in the Tales series. What gamers got instead is mayhap non as memorable every bit FFXV, simply information technology'south exactly what JRPG fans need every one time in awhile. Tales of Berseria may just be pub grub on the grand smorgasbord of gaming, merely the beautiful matter about pub grub is that you lot'll always come dorsum for seconds.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/tales-of-berseria,review-4159.html
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