LTTP Tales of Berseria (and the Tales series)

[Manu]

And I really like it! I'm 30 hours in and while the combat is both utterly simplistic and convoluted as fuck (I wish I knew what half of these tutorial screens mean) I'm having a blast. The story is standard anime JRPG stuff (there's even a literal "punch God in the face" scene) but it's also super easy to follow and doesn't fall into common pitfalls of the genre, like the needlessly super convoluted stuff or the plot twists that make no sense and/or come out of nowhere, at least so far. Everything that's happened in the story up to this point has felt like natural progression and I'm really enjoying it, some convenient stuff aside.

I really like the characters despite some of them starting off REALLY annoying (Magilou was unbearable for the first 8 hours or so, also I wish Kamoana would stop crying so much.) Also yeah, Velvet's design is dumb as shit with her tits hanging out and all but I'm a sucker for the edgy black/red color scheme and I love her personality. Sure, she's all about revenge and A N G E R but damn if this girl doesn't have good reason to. If her design was less revealing it would be perfect. As it is right now, it's a needless blight on a really good game and it does a disservice to her character.

Speaking of Kamoana it's so funny how her name is clearly "Moana" in Japanese but they probably changed it to avoid issues with the Mouse.

Also holy shit battles are LOUD AS FUCK. But then turning voices volume down makes dialogue inaudible at times. Sound balance in this game is wack.

ALSO the game spoiled some of its reveals in the first few hours, like how I knew Malak Number Two was gonna be called Laphicet by Velvet because even when his name was "Number Two" on the menus it would say "Laphicet" under his selected clothes. Or a super easy to find book that outright says Rokurou's brother was one of the Praetors.

Anyway I'm really liking this game so far, the story seems to be nearing its end now but I heard there's a ton of stuff to do before the end.

What are the best Tales games I should check after this one? Are they available on current platforms (especially PS4 and Switch)?

 

[Dukie85]

Vesperia Definitive Edition is on both. Symphonia is on PC/PS3/Gamecube. Abyss is on PS2/3DS. Those are my 3 favorites.

 

[Brazil]

If you can, avoid Symphonia on PS3. 30 fps mess. Do play it, though.

Vesperia and Abyss are also great choices.

 

[Manu]

Funny story: I actually did buy Abyss for PS2 but my disc tray was already busted so the game never actually started.

I may pick it up for the 3DS someday.

 

[unholyFarmer]

Vesperia Definitive Edition is on both. Symphonia is on PC/PS3/Gamecube. Abyss is on PS2/3DS. Those are my 3 favorites.

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Exactly this OP. I also quite like Tales of Xillia on PS3 (the 1st one only, I found the sequel abysmal), and if you enjoy snes/ps1 era jrpgs, don't miss out Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny! On current platforms, just go for Vesperia.

 

[Normal]

What are the best Tales games I should check after this one? Are they available on current platforms (especially PS4 and Switch)?

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Tales of the Abyss has the best story and characters. Tales of Graces F has the best battle system, terrible story and cast tho.
You'll like the Xillia games too if you liked Berseria.

 

[KhandoleezzaRice]

Vesperia, Abyss, and Symphonia are great games but it can feel a little constraining when you go back to their battle systems. What they do have though is more classic world design which can feel like a breath of fresh air. Conversely something like Xillia has a battle system that's so much snappier but you'll have to deal with a world made of hallways.

 

[Manu]

Something I forgot to say in the OP but this game feels straight out of the PS2 era in every way, both good and bad.

I love it.

 

[Lunchbox]

Abyss, Vesperia & Berseria are the best.

 

[Valkerion]

I played through this one near the end of last year. I mostly agree with the OP though on a lot of things. I straight up skipped Kamoana's scenes after they established her haha.

" ALSO the game spoiled some of its reveals in the first few hours, like how I knew Malak Number Two was gonna be called Laphicet by Velvet because even when his name was "Number Two" on the menus it would say "Laphicet" under his selected clothes. Or a super easy to find book that outright says Rokurou's brother was one of the Praetors "

I thought that was a silly miss by the dev team. They made such a big deal about him not having a name for him to only be named instantly if you just happen to look in the menu, which of course anyone would since the game has you constantly learning/finding new stuff.

But yeah, I dug it for the most part. I like Velvet but thought she was too one sided for too long and the outfit as a whole is stupid despite the general atheistic is trying to convey being awesome. I think most are in agreement that a "completed" version of that default outfit would be just as badass. Her eventual change was great though and her outbursts were awesome. I loved Magilou personally though but shes too damn coy for the whole game aside from a very few handful of scenes at the end. Some of the dialog for her is well written and witty imo, though sometimes not haha.

Supposedly this one takes place before Zesteria, the game that released before it but I did not play that/don't intend to. So some of the character call outs and a bit of the ending references were lost on me.

I'm pretty excited for Arise since this one clearly had a lot of caveats for being on PS3 as well. I'm begging to the Bamco gods though, tone down the mechanics spam that is the Tales combat system though. It's simple but shockingly convoluted at the same time with 30 mechanics per game to remember.

 

[Why would you do that?]

Gameplay-wise, people tend to like Graces f the best.
Story-wise, Vesperia or Symphonia.

Personally, I don't like JRPGs because I sadly find the gameplay boring, but I looooove Tales. It has everything I ever wished for in a JRPG, lots of items, numbers, characters to talk to, towns to explore, and fun gameplay that speaks to me. As such, my favorite Tales game is Graces f. Many people who care about story say Graces f is one of the worst games, but I personally care way more about the gameplay, and it's incredible.


I kind of fell out of the Tales series for a while because Xillia really burned me out and playing Zesteria right after wasn't fun for me, so I have yet to play Berseria. But I did buy it recently because I've heard nothing but good things about it when compared to Xillia and Zesteria, so I am excited to try it at some point.

 

[Papercuts]

Berseria has a great cast, probably one of the best. Vesperia has one of my other favorites but the battle system was clunkier than I remembered it being, it can be harder to go backwards but it's still worth checking out. Symphonia and Abyss are good but even harder to go back to due to that.

I generally like all of the games though. Zesteria is one of the weaker ones but Berseria is technically a prequel to it, so you might be interested in that. Xillia 1 and 2 are solid if not amazing, Graces is the only one I really don't like at all.

 

[SolVanderlyn]

Berseria was definitely a return to form in terms of story and characters, but you described the battle system perfectly. Complicated as hell but also too simple to be really engaging. Towards the back half of the game I started getting really tired of battles altogether.

The "trifecta" of Tales games is Symphonia, Abyss, and Vesperia, and you can't really go wrong with any of those, but these are the optimal ways to play them:

-Symphonia with the PC release and Japanese voices. Skits are unvoiced in English (although the dub is actually very very good). Also take note that the original GCN release is terrible for multiplayer, because the camera only focuses on 1P - this was fixed in all other versions.

-Abyss undub on an emulator with Japanese voices, for the same reason (again, fantastic dub, though)

-Vesperia on PS4, Switch, or PC.

All of these games have their own strengths and weaknesses, but if you want my personal opinion, Symphonia is the most well balanced in terms of narrative, but suffers from a dated battle system. Abyss has the best world building and the darkest storyline, with the most complex characters, but can suffer under the weight of its own jargon. Vesperia has far and away the best battle system and graphical presentation of the three, but its story is less focused - and a bit more lighthearted than the others.

Destiny PS2 and Rebirth are just as good as any of those, but you'll need translation guides if you don't speak Japanese, unfortunately.

Phantasia PSX has a translation patch, so I'd go for that if you want a taste of old school Tales. It's the perfect entry point for the 2D titles.

 

[Manu]

^super informative stuff. Unfortunately I don't have a gaming PC but as far as the rest goes I'm taking notes.

 

[Aexact]

Man I really enjoyed Velvet, especially as a follow up from the other Tales protagonists. She's so loudly driven and moves the plot at her own pace. The outfit is a bummer. I know some people say just change into the villager costume, it's available right away, but that thing is hella boring and the dull colors clash with everyone else in the party.

Vesperia is the most highly regarded available on current systems but as a remaster, it's showing its age. Zestiria is a sequel to Berseria but the plot and characters were just not engaging and by that I mean that main character Sorey is a classic good guy chosen one and that framing narrative sets a tone that will look utterly boring after something like Berseria. The character skits are as cute as ever (minus the fun edginess that Berseria's cast of misfits has) and the battle system is a close iteration if that aspect doesn't bother you.

 

[Strings]

The cast is a huge strength in Berseria. They work as a unit, and there's tons of interesting little splinter groups.

 

[Hogendaz85]

No one going back to ps1 or snes?

Phantasia
Destiny
Destiny 2 (eternia)
Symphonia
Vesperia
Abyss

All good

 

[ConVito]

My two favs are still Vesperia and, oddly enough, Xillia 2. The former for obvious reasons and the latter for its focus on the (very endearing) characters. Side quests to develop each party member, light dialogue choices, I'm a sucker for that sort of thing. It's why I like BioWare and Persona games so much. I even named one of my cats after Rollo from Xillia 2.

 

[Oreiller]

Playing Vesperia after Berseria was tough. It has better dungeons and a better OST but I was really disappointed in basically everything else.

 

[Mekanos]

The only Tales game I've played but a great cast and especially a great protagonist.

 

[Dark_Castle]

Eternia is great, play it.

 

[Rean]

Playing Vesperia after Berseria was tough. It has better dungeons and a better OST but I was really disappointed in basically everything else.

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i second this notion. vesperia didnt age well at all and if you dont have the nostalgia its unbearable to get through. i hated it so much.
just finished Xillia 1, loved it. highly recommend playing that after berseria because its combat system is somewhat similar to berseria so you'll feel right at home. great cast too

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

It was a very strange experience for me, because while playing it I thought I loved it. But then maybe a couple of weeks afterwards, I realized I really didn't like it at all.

Gameplay was honestly bad (overly long and repetitive environments and a badly designed combat system), music was bad, I didn't really like Velvet, visuals were bland, the pacing was absolutely atrocious, and the story gets really silly once all the revelations start happening.

One of my least favorite Tales games that I've played. I liked Symphonia, Eternia, Legendia, Abyss, Vesperia, and Zestiria all more. Only ones I would probably say are worse from the ones I've played are Xillia 1 and Symphonia 2.

 

[yurr]

Vesperia didn't age the best, especially the combat, but Yuri is still my guy. Abyss is fire, and symphonies too. The rest can get tossed in the bushes. Graces F included.

 

[Monstress]

I really loved Berseria, despite the tedious side quests.
I also played Phantasia, Eternia, Symphonia, Vesperia and Zestiria (I need to finish this one).

 

[StraySheep]

I'm still planning on getting to Beseria eventually. Maybe this will be the year.

 

[SavoyPrime]

The best Tales games in my opinion are Vesperia (The GOAT of Tales games), Symphonia, and Xillia. Vesperia Definitive Edition is available on PS4. The others are on last-gen. Though they might be on Switch. I don't keep up with what's available on the Switch catalog.

 

[Aexact]

Eternia is great, play it.

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As far as I can tell, they cut out all the skits and the voice acting is PSX era and man, the loss of skits is a bummer cause cute character interactions is like a top three reason to play Tales.

The small cast dynamics were fun and the cast felt like they all had complete stories in the plot compared to larger Tales casts where some characters have to rely on sidequests or nothing at all. And through it all, it's not feasible to play as the mages (don't think mages became fun to play until Graces) so it's either Reid or Farah for the whole game so the variety aspect would be limited. The optional characters have a very limited arte pool that they don't feel like proper characters (gameplay and plot wise) compared to the main 4.

Also of all the random minigames I've seen through Tales, I randomly remember playing Craymel Ball a few times after I'd gotten all the prizes. That's gotta count for something.

 

[xendless]

If you can, play the Gamecube version of Symphonia or mod the hell out of the PC one

 

[Manu]

I really loved Berseria, despite the tedious side quests.
I also played Phantasia, Eternia, Symphonia, Vesperia and Zestiria (I need to finish this one).

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Is it wrong that I'm really enjoying the side quests? There's some great character stuff there.

I fought Phoenix last night and hooooly crap it was the hardest fight in the game by far. Even the supposedly super powerful Legates were a cakewalk in comparison. Only some quests and then the final dungeon left.

I also noticed the game has like 50% of people in PSN got the trophy for beating the game, which is impressive for such a long game.

 

[Manu]

And that's all the character quests done. I'm still missing Laphicet's alternate color scheme though so I'm probably missing something.

Does the game have a post game? Or should I do everything before finishing? I know there's a super hard dungeon that ends on a hot spring scene (??) from the trophies but I'm not sure where to access it.

 

[Manu]

Aaand finished the story. Really nice ending overall, maybe not as impactful as I'd hoped but the ending for each character was really nice.

Not sure I want to tackle any post game content though. It feels as if the story ended for good. Anything that happens from this point on is basically non canon so eh.