as someone who just started to get in the Tales of series and I am halfway trough berseria right now (50 hours) , I have to say that I love the long skits, I just really enjoy the animation and how detailed they are. also it allows to the writers to go more in depth without having to worry about cutscenes
I think the music is very very memorable. just my opinion and the skits are in my opinion, used for character development. maybe they're not skits. I don't think the games storys impact is anywhere near the same if I didn't go through all the skits
I would easily take every character being awesome over just a handful of characters being awesome. And in Berseria, I do mean every single character, including the villains, is awesome. There is not a single character I would call bad
I agree with you that this game is pretty solid. The only thing I don’t understand is that you said there isn’t really one character in this game that you truly loved, but conversely, you describe them as an “incredible” cast of characters.
I can definitely agree with just about everything in your review. It has been poking at my mind with the skits, and yeah, now that I hear someone else say it I truly realize that I too find them a bit too long a lot of times, especially when several appear back to back. Although I'm also slightly old school and miss a field map, rather than every area is connected, sometimes feeling like long, boring hallways. But I guess that's just the way of the future. Some sidequests at the end also feel misplaced to me, like they could've been spread out more throughout the main story. Especially one case where you go back to a lvl 35'ish area you never had to visit otherwise. But overall, greatly enjoying the game myself and happy to learn some backstory for Zestiria.
I also miss the field map, Symphonia and Final Fantasy IX are my 2 favourite games of all time. The overworld map/field map is something I really lament the loss of, I didn't think it was an 'old' or 'bad' thing that needed to be dropped completely in the 'modern era'.
I don't agree with your opinion on skits. They're gorgeous and fun no matter how long. I love Velvet, she's way more interesting than characters like Sheena in my opinion. Honestly I think Tales has outdone Symphonia many times over.
OtakuDaiKun Yeah I agree, but people keep comparing new tales games to symphonia and in many other cases to Vesperia a lot. And it annoys me, especially vesperia, because nothing seems to be better than it in their opinion.
Tales at its best for me is either Eternia or Graces F. It's a shame that Tales games have abandoned traditional dungeons with actual puzzles. I love Berseria but so far it's just been fields and caves as far as the eye can see.
Just to be clear, my remark about Symphonia in this review wasn't about the whole game being the best (or about comparing Berseria to Symphonia) it was strictly about characters, and it was mainly a comment about my own personal love of many of the chracters in Symphonia. Not to say that there aren't great characters in Berseria, I actually think it's one of the strongest casts of any Tales game, but there just isn't that "killer character" for me (like I said in the review). I like Magilou a lot, but I don't love her like I do Edna, Agria, Gaius, or Kratos. I do think Symphonia was a superb game but it hasn't exactly aged brilliantly (still perfectly playable but the quality of the later games far surpasses Symphonia), I tried to keep comparisons in this Berseria review to Zestiria only, I feel like Zesty/Berseria is a fair comparison - it would make no sense to me to compare Berseria to Vesperia (which I think is way overrated btw) or Abyss.
Fair enough. I have favorites from every game as well. I find Magilou more fun than Edna but both are awesome. I do love Edna complaining as you hunt the Minotaur.
You mean Velvet the Edge lord? How is she more interesting, she's a standard revenge seeking anime character. Where Sheena took the initiative of going alone in a foreign world to assianate Colette to save her world.
I loved this game, and it was my first RPG that I have actually finished. I loved this story, although hated the end. I really enjoyed the character of Velvet I loved playing as her.
I hope what you said this being the last ps3 release is true. I feel like that having to develop for that system as well has been holding the series back. Rather on focusing all their budget on multiple generations of consoles, they should able to really ramp up the new releases by focusing only on the current gen.
The amount of easter eggs they have hidden in this game is honestly ridicious. I do agree with all your points but there was one thing that bothered me in the beginning of the game and that is the uninspired dungeon layouts. The became better when you got further into the game but fuuuuuuuck me were those first few dungeons boring. Also I hated how I had to find the geo point first before you could use the geo board. Just let me use the damn thing lol
I really like how you took what I thought was gonna be a criticism ("There's no standout awesome character") and turned it into ironic praise ("Cause the awesomeness is spread out"). XD
A 47 page skit? correct me if i am wrong but skits are supposed to be short... like 2 or 3 pages. Well as long as the battle system is better then zesterias. I have yet to finish that game.
47 pages is even on the low-end compared to some of the monster scripts for skits I've run into since lol. I just don't know what they were thinking here, it's really not a good move to freeze the whole game to watch a skit that could last several minutes. Everything else is pretty much better than Zestiria though, even though my Bae Edna isn't around :P
First time watching your review, and I like how you review JRPGs. It is to me, kinda unique in a way. Also agree with you there, anime looking characters aged way better than realistic looking characters. Which is why I found the character design for Xenoblade 2 better than the original Xenoblade.
mmm It made sense that the skits weren't as lighthearted and funny imo just cause of the more extrinsically serious tone of the game, but there were defintely plenty that made me laugh. I will agree they do go on and on though. As an avid tales fan, I was super pleased with this entry and would give it an 8/10, only one soundtrack has really captured me so far which is kinda sad. I hate to say it but it may just overtake Vesperia as my series favorite.
Great review as usual Mr RPG, I've played most localised Tales games and this has my least favourite battle system, maybe I'm not completely understanding it but I hate how often I need to stop and wait. Vespers is easily my favourite battle system.
I prefer the battle systems that aren't based on the underpinnings of Tales of Graces (which is what Zestiria and Berseria are). I thought Xillia/Xillia 2 had really good battle systems, and the perfect simplicity of Symphonia is also one that I love. Vesperia was maybe a touch too slow but I still prefer it to Graces/Zesty/Berseria.
I may be the biggest fan of Graces going around, pretty much my favourite game in the series gameplay-wise, whereas Vesperia has the best character in the series, Yuri Lowell. Somehow, the Vesperia battle system somehow destroyed the B button on my 360 controller
I'm glad they finally sorted their poor PC port track record out with Berseria, it does run well on PC (especially compared to Zestiria and Symphonia).
I loved zestiria 2 yrs ago combat and platinumed it. was looking to play the evolution gameplay with beseria after a long while for my next tales installement (but did play tales of hearts on vita) but the skits in beseria will just kill it for me. I would most likely be skipping skits since Im mostly in it for the combat gameplay that is awesome with tales series
ive beaten Berseria and honestly it felt really weak :/, i defiantly see how people would like it, but every game is going from point A to point B and this was one of the only games where i really felt that, i rank games based on how much i felt the "point A to point B" how i feel about it when im done, and the characters i just felt disappointed when i beat it, the graphics i thought where lacking compared to Xillia and Zestiria, the combat annoyed me as when you get to make your own combo all moves must be a start middle and end and connect to all the other moves, and it makes combos feel wrong and buttery i often found myself in the pause menu changing my combos then actually fighting, and i tried every character and none of them stuck. The skits where another big problem and made me remember most of the characters as just tools for info dump not characters, it was espiecially bad with Eleanor, a character i thought had the most potential out of the cast ended up being my least favorite because all i can remember is how much i hated her combat, and that in skits she was almost always rather the Velvet hype girl or used to info dump. The post game dungeon and the final boss are some of the worst ive had to play, the final boss was extremely easy and like every other fight in the game, the post dungeon was long, boring, and only left me more confused about the seraph/malak connections and to top it all off, i was heavily into Zestiria when i played Berseria, and most of the connections to Zestiria felt so cheap to me, something i thought i would have loved about it. the reveal that demon blight was malevolence didnt make me happy, or surprise me, it pissed me off because it was something i had already figured out and something that would have meant nothing to players who didnt play Zestiria maybe its just me, i could very well be the problem, but the fact that it left me so disappointed to the point where i think praise to Berseria is funny and when im buying a new tales game i get so much anxiety on it leaving me so disappointed again, i do need to play Berseria again, its been at least 3 years sense i played it and maybe its just my mind looking back and hating it, but if you cant look back on a game fondly, was it even good? sorry for being so negative on an old video praising the game
as someone who just started to get in the Tales of series and I am halfway trough berseria right now (50 hours) , I have to say that I love the long skits, I just really enjoy the animation and how detailed they are.
also it allows to the writers to go more in depth without having to worry about cutscenes
I think the music is very very memorable.
just my opinion
and the skits are in my opinion, used for character development.
maybe they're not skits.
I don't think the games storys impact is anywhere near the same if I didn't go through all the skits
I would easily take every character being awesome over just a handful of characters being awesome. And in Berseria, I do mean every single character, including the villains, is awesome. There is not a single character I would call bad
I agree with you that this game is pretty solid. The only thing I don’t understand is that you said there isn’t really one character in this game that you truly loved, but conversely, you describe them as an “incredible” cast of characters.
I can definitely agree with just about everything in your review.
It has been poking at my mind with the skits, and yeah, now that I hear someone else say it I truly realize that I too find them a bit too long a lot of times, especially when several appear back to back.
Although I'm also slightly old school and miss a field map, rather than every area is connected, sometimes feeling like long, boring hallways. But I guess that's just the way of the future.
Some sidequests at the end also feel misplaced to me, like they could've been spread out more throughout the main story. Especially one case where you go back to a lvl 35'ish area you never had to visit otherwise.
But overall, greatly enjoying the game myself and happy to learn some backstory for Zestiria.
I also miss the field map, Symphonia and Final Fantasy IX are my 2 favourite games of all time. The overworld map/field map is something I really lament the loss of, I didn't think it was an 'old' or 'bad' thing that needed to be dropped completely in the 'modern era'.
I love that all four reviews I've watched start with Magilou's theme. The Great Magilou has achieved celebrity status!
I love watching all the skits. A lot of the character changes can be seen from the skits. It's nice.
I don't agree with your opinion on skits. They're gorgeous and fun no matter how long. I love Velvet, she's way more interesting than characters like Sheena in my opinion. Honestly I think Tales has outdone Symphonia many times over.
OtakuDaiKun Yeah I agree, but people keep comparing new tales games to symphonia and in many other cases to Vesperia a lot. And it annoys me, especially vesperia, because nothing seems to be better than it in their opinion.
Tales at its best for me is either Eternia or Graces F. It's a shame that Tales games have abandoned traditional dungeons with actual puzzles. I love Berseria but so far it's just been fields and caves as far as the eye can see.
Just to be clear, my remark about Symphonia in this review wasn't about the whole game being the best (or about comparing Berseria to Symphonia) it was strictly about characters, and it was mainly a comment about my own personal love of many of the chracters in Symphonia.
Not to say that there aren't great characters in Berseria, I actually think it's one of the strongest casts of any Tales game, but there just isn't that "killer character" for me (like I said in the review). I like Magilou a lot, but I don't love her like I do Edna, Agria, Gaius, or Kratos.
I do think Symphonia was a superb game but it hasn't exactly aged brilliantly (still perfectly playable but the quality of the later games far surpasses Symphonia), I tried to keep comparisons in this Berseria review to Zestiria only, I feel like Zesty/Berseria is a fair comparison - it would make no sense to me to compare Berseria to Vesperia (which I think is way overrated btw) or Abyss.
Fair enough. I have favorites from every game as well. I find Magilou more fun than Edna but both are awesome. I do love Edna complaining as you hunt the Minotaur.
You mean Velvet the Edge lord? How is she more interesting, she's a standard revenge seeking anime character. Where Sheena took the initiative of going alone in a foreign world to assianate Colette to save her world.
Great video! I like how you get straight to the point.
I loved this game, and it was my first RPG that I have actually finished. I loved this story, although hated the end. I really enjoyed the character of Velvet I loved playing as her.
I hope what you said this being the last ps3 release is true. I feel like that having to develop for that system as well has been holding the series back. Rather on focusing all their budget on multiple generations of consoles, they should able to really ramp up the new releases by focusing only on the current gen.
I only played Tales of Destiny 2 on PS1 and now playing this Tales of Berseria on PC both games is really good
The amount of easter eggs they have hidden in this game is honestly ridicious.
I do agree with all your points but there was one thing that bothered me in the beginning of the game and that is the uninspired dungeon layouts. The became better when you got further into the game but fuuuuuuuck me were those first few dungeons boring. Also I hated how I had to find the geo point first before you could use the geo board. Just let me use the damn thing lol
I played the game already but I loved this review. So good 🔥
100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000% agree about the skits, almost quit just because of them and this is my first tales of game
Foolishness
I really like how you took what I thought was gonna be a criticism ("There's no standout awesome character") and turned it into ironic praise ("Cause the awesomeness is spread out"). XD
Hey hey jay. Just saw you on Eddie’s Millionaire Hotseat!! :)
A 47 page skit? correct me if i am wrong but skits are supposed to be short... like 2 or 3 pages. Well as long as the battle system is better then zesterias. I have yet to finish that game.
47 pages is even on the low-end compared to some of the monster scripts for skits I've run into since lol. I just don't know what they were thinking here, it's really not a good move to freeze the whole game to watch a skit that could last several minutes.
Everything else is pretty much better than Zestiria though, even though my Bae Edna isn't around :P
First time watching your review, and I like how you review JRPGs. It is to me, kinda unique in a way. Also agree with you there, anime looking characters aged way better than realistic looking characters. Which is why I found the character design for Xenoblade 2 better than the original Xenoblade.
mmm It made sense that the skits weren't as lighthearted and funny imo just cause of the more extrinsically serious tone of the game, but there were defintely plenty that made me laugh. I will agree they do go on and on though. As an avid tales fan, I was super pleased with this entry and would give it an 8/10, only one soundtrack has really captured me so far which is kinda sad. I hate to say it but it may just overtake Vesperia as my series favorite.
I LOVE the song that they play when anything is about to get like, depressing. Other than that I agree.
Great review as usual Mr RPG, I've played most localised Tales games and this has my least favourite battle system, maybe I'm not completely understanding it but I hate how often I need to stop and wait. Vespers is easily my favourite battle system.
I prefer the battle systems that aren't based on the underpinnings of Tales of Graces (which is what Zestiria and Berseria are). I thought Xillia/Xillia 2 had really good battle systems, and the perfect simplicity of Symphonia is also one that I love. Vesperia was maybe a touch too slow but I still prefer it to Graces/Zesty/Berseria.
I may be the biggest fan of Graces going around, pretty much my favourite game in the series gameplay-wise, whereas Vesperia has the best character in the series, Yuri Lowell.
Somehow, the Vesperia battle system somehow destroyed the B button on my 360 controller
At least it's easy to run. my 1060 is maxing it out at 4K locked 60fps
I'm glad they finally sorted their poor PC port track record out with Berseria, it does run well on PC (especially compared to Zestiria and Symphonia).
doesn't mention gui from abyss top notch
but its "empty" i d say though
I loved zestiria 2 yrs ago combat and platinumed it. was looking to play the evolution gameplay with beseria after a long while for my next tales installement (but did play tales of hearts on vita) but the skits in beseria will just kill it for me. I would most likely be skipping skits since Im mostly in it for the combat gameplay that is awesome with tales series
I wonder how good this is?
ive beaten Berseria and honestly it felt really weak :/, i defiantly see how people would like it, but every game is going from point A to point B and this was one of the only games where i really felt that, i rank games based on how much i felt the "point A to point B" how i feel about it when im done, and the characters
i just felt disappointed when i beat it, the graphics i thought where lacking compared to Xillia and Zestiria, the combat annoyed me as when you get to make your own combo all moves must be a start middle and end and connect to all the other moves, and it makes combos feel wrong and buttery i often found myself in the pause menu changing my combos then actually fighting, and i tried every character and none of them stuck. The skits where another big problem and made me remember most of the characters as just tools for info dump not characters, it was espiecially bad with Eleanor, a character i thought had the most potential out of the cast ended up being my least favorite because all i can remember is how much i hated her combat, and that in skits she was almost always rather the Velvet hype girl or used to info dump. The post game dungeon and the final boss are some of the worst ive had to play, the final boss was extremely easy and like every other fight in the game, the post dungeon was long, boring, and only left me more confused about the seraph/malak connections
and to top it all off, i was heavily into Zestiria when i played Berseria, and most of the connections to Zestiria felt so cheap to me, something i thought i would have loved about it. the reveal that demon blight was malevolence didnt make me happy, or surprise me, it pissed me off because it was something i had already figured out and something that would have meant nothing to players who didnt play Zestiria
maybe its just me, i could very well be the problem, but the fact that it left me so disappointed to the point where i think praise to Berseria is funny and when im buying a new tales game i get so much anxiety on it leaving me so disappointed again, i do need to play Berseria again, its been at least 3 years sense i played it and maybe its just my mind looking back and hating it, but if you cant look back on a game fondly, was it even good? sorry for being so negative on an old video praising the game
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Eh, Tales of Vesperia, and Tales of the Abyss were still way better.