Berseria still has my favorite main cast in a JRPG. I really just love all of them even after 5 playthroughs. Also another fun post game detail is on the route between Taliesin and Aball, there's some characters you can talk to that mention the lake there has a sword laying at the bottom, and also that there's plans to build a city at that lake, which is probably Ladylake by the time of Zestiness. This also implies that Lailah is older than the events of Berseria, which makes me really want a Berseria prequel that properly explores her whole story.
Honestly Berseria was the best way for me to entry the tales series, shame that i found out it was a prequel, and that everyone's fates were already decided.
@@Mr._Matt Nah, Magilou has a small cameo in Zestiria (she is supposed to be the deceased Mayvin in Zestiria). At least we get some clearance about her fate (even if we don't know how or when she died)
Velvet Crowe. Ragna the Bloodedge with the voice of Noel Vermillion. Seriously, that's Velvet in her entirety. A lot of the Tales of characters are very similar to ASW characters for some reason, no idea why.
Berseria was the first Tales I completed after Tales of Destiny 1 and "2" back in the days on PSX. I loved it and was disappointed there wasnt any real review of it at the time. Years later I found yours thanks man 2 and a half hour of amazing commentary keep it up you got a new sub
It wasn't my first Tales of experience, but still years after getting invested into all the mainline titles, its absolutely my favorite. Honestly, these assholes are my favorite RPG cast in general no contest. And you comedically go into why pretty well lol. Great review, as for difficulty looking into a guide, for me the best place i found was playstation trophies when i was looking into all the side achievements and how to get all the cosmetic stuff (the jacketless versions of the default outfits go hard). It still is pretty funny how some things in this game just kinda trigger at a different time for everyone, so guides aren't crazy consistent. As for the dual mystic artes, iirc you get them fighting special mini bosses in the final main dungeon. There are these colored orbs for each character you get after beating them and bada bing. The actual in battle requirements to trigger them is tough but rewarding (a lot easier to do when you use the mechanic that activates mystic artes back to back in a combo if the blast gauge is high enough). But yeah great fair and funny review. Pretty much my only disagreement is about the battle system. Weird to say to someone on their 3rd playthrough, but the issues you had with the combat just amounted to some gitting gud. And maybe controller responsiveness idk, i played this game on steam and ps4 and never had issues timing dodges for souls outside my own mistakes. And someone brought up the casting speed thing for spells, but i admit that one isn't really explained at all iirc, you just gotta pick up on it when playing with mages or watching a combo video. Still, fun ass 2 and half hours.
I played the game a year ago and I still think it has some of the best character interactions between party members of any game. I gotta play it again for the fun of it sometime.
Great retrospective! This one in particular is one of my favorites in the series. I can’t wait for you to cover other Tales of games. Abyss is another favorite of mine and first one I ever beat
This game honestly makes me want to replay it. It's been so long, but I got to the final dungeon and just didn't finish the game. I don't know why. I should really just give it another go.
So you’re telling me, that everything that’s ever happened here, daemons and the destruction they’ve caused, Innominat, Laphicet’s sacrifice, Velvet, *EVERYTHING…* Was caused by some Seraphim being salty that they didn’t get their way?
But hey, at least it's not the backstory for Zestiria: "Man, I sure am angry at that guy! I'm going to make him immortal so he suffers forever...oh and he'll be the most powerful being on the planet. But that's beside the point! =O"
Depending on which stage you are in when performing an arte you get a faster spell. Also when you dodge or quickstep it changes which stage you are in. There are four stages, and once you complete those stages you restart at stage one.(the reason why it’s feels so slow). 8:33
I thought berseria was alright but I couldn't get into the battle system. The most memorable part of it for me was strangely the main menu with the character profile pics. It just looked so clean.
"WILL YOU STOP WHINING" -Phi I loved how someone actually told Velvet that, ti was needed throughout the game to stop the telenovela-level melodrama she had.
It’s Rare for me to sub to a channel early on that’s so clearly going to grow to be massive. Your videos are great! You make the exact type of videos I like
Velvets desire for Vengeance really kept me playing this Game. I was sure that when we got to hear the Story as to WHY Artorius did it it would be a "good" reason, but was I WRONG. When we saw that not only did he Betray her, but Lofy did to, I was pissed. Great Story that did not stray from its Darker Side.
27:15 yes attacking the enemy weaknesses are important but the most important thing is starting a combo so you can eventually stun them and get back your soul you shouldn't B swapping every single fight you have 4 combo strings so create four builds that can deal with various different types of enemies and when in doubt just remember Aizen is the nastiest character in the game.
I always thought that using the power of the Shepard you learned to use in Zestiria against you in Berseria was a pretty cool idea. I really like Zestiria and I will defend it to death, but Berseria really feels like a refined version of Zestiria.
You can actually map every single arte onto every character. Martial artes can self-combo by holding down buttons, the block button adds 4 more arte slots, and magic can be chain-casted, so you only need to map the weak spells, and cycling them to the strongest spells also is faster than directly casting the strongest spells, anyway.
This is probably on the second half of your video, but you keep mentioning how the spellcasting times are inconsistent and you can't tell when a spell would activate. In general, the further right they are along the chart with the arts the faster the cast time is. It was meant to allow characters to incorporate spells into their combos. For example, Eleanor can do three physical attacks and finish off with a spell that will be cast almost as fast. It allows for tactics like hitting someone with a spell, healing someone else quickly, and then hitting again with another spell quickly.
Saved me the time commenting it myself lol. I don't blame him for knowing though, it's admittedly something you don't really pick up on a playing casually unless you're labbing combos with the mages specifically or watching combo videos on UA-cam.
This is one of my favorite jrpgs. I've always enjoyed how well it did the concept of "play as the bad guys" and actually made it so all the characters got a "bad ending" that had to be fixed down the line.
You know the whole bit with Rokuro from what I gathered and I’m probably reading into it or copping, is that there clan chooses it’s next head by having the potentially strongest at the time take on the current head, Shigurei had to take out his mother, and I think that deep down that bothered Rokuro and Shigurei but raised the way they where, they didn’t understand what they where feeling, Shigurei was already heading towards the door when Rokuro spread the rumors, I think the two didn’t like there lot in life, Shigurei having to kill his mother just cause he was the strongest which naturally ate at the both of them with Rokuro subconsciously wanting revenge but justifying it as I have to kill my brother, I think Rokuro is just getting revenge in a way that makes sense to him-or maybe I’m reading too far into it😅
Velvet is the best female protagonist in terms of overall development and motivation I know. Honestly compared to all others tales of games Berseria is by far the most mechanically demanding of them all, apart from the different battle system. The amount of different combos for all characters is borderline insane. Bro the secret boss at max difficulty had me tweaking for 2 hours straight
I'm assuming this video got recommended to me because after 6 years I finally decided to go back and get the last few trophies I needed for platinum (the most annoying ones of course - level 200, 20 million gald, and 200k tales coins). Anyway, great video! Tales games are so underrated.
I love seeing adoration for my favorite games. Played it a plethora of times. Also, you make the combat look more confusing than it is. Or maybe I'm just too in tune with Tales combat that it was natural to comprehend and learn its normal mechanics and hidden mechanics(which makes the battle system be even more amazing).
Your magic wouldn't cast fast because I believe the combat is similar to Zestiria where it needs to be at the end of a chain to increase cast speed. is you dodge step 3 times and then cast it will drastically increase the speed of casting in Zestiria but I am unsure if this is the same in Beseria or if basic attack chains work as well
@@ShadohFyre that’s what I found when googling it but it wasn’t there I played on pc but I don’t think that mattered and I did beat the games main story but not much of the side quests so idk
Even though this is my 2nd favorite Tales game, the main cast is my number 1 favorite of all the game. Also, 1:16:57 Magilou will not be beating the allegations 😂.
7:14 Berseria does have a pretty bloated combat system in terms of mechanics, but at least it's in the combat itself that it gets complicated instead of the equipment skill fusing gimmick of Zestiria which could get frustrating very quickly. I have to object to the similarity with Zestiria combat system though. They only look similar on the surface. Zestiria is built around the Human/Seraphim duo setup and Armatization, whereas Berseria is all about ridiculous combo setups through Break Souls. They do share the same Arte types, but they are not used the same. You can also refill SG by using a Break Soul. Using Break Soul restores up to 3 full units of SG, which means Break Souls are also combo extenders. Early game it is a bit hard to keep a long string going without applying Stuns or chaining enemy kills (which give a Soul to the ally who landed the killing blow) but further in the game you can play with the system to gain a bigger Soul cap as well as more starting Souls. That means that you usually do not want to start a combo with a Break Soul move unless the enemy is guarding a lot, as Break Souls can break guards *OR* if you're going for a shorter chain into a Mystic Arte nuke. The inconsistency with casting times is due to how combos work. If you chain actions before a spell, the spell charges faster, and this *can* stack if you do consecutive spells as long as your SG isn't in the blinking red (which applies various debuffs to you). Once your combo resets, the spell speedup resets as well. You *can* use Artes if your SG is empty but it will have a bunch of drawbacks applied like slower animation, easier guarding for enemies, hit-block stun for the player if the enemy guards and so on, hence its better to let yourself reset and reposition if the situation isn't good at the moment. Berseria works kinda like a figting game in that sense. Regarding Mystic Artes: I don't think you ever mentioned in the video if you went past the Lvl 1 Mystic Artes. Lvl 2 Mystics require 8-action chain combos and 4 BG before you can use it and everyone leans theirs over the course of the game. Then Lvl 3 Mystic Artes (as well as their final Break Soul moves) are learned by doing certain things in the final dungeon and hitting lvl 60+. THEN Dual Mystic Artes are learned by beating certain bosses in the bonus dungeon. Also, Bonus Dungeons are supposed to be hard, that's why it's post-game optional content bruh. I can give you that the game doesn't tell you you can chain Mystic Arts though, which is a really big thing to omit because if you time it right you can do massive damage to a boss.
After the disappointment I felt playing and dropping Zestiria, I played Berseria for the first time like a year or two ago. It was tolerable, but I prefer the older style of Tales of games, like Vesperia, Abyss, Symphonia, Phantasia, etc. Nonetheless, it is good to have your takes on these games,.
I was playing Berseria and saw Magilou’s mystic arte and was like ohhh she’s foreshadowing for the next game! Cause she says Arise (I’m going to star in that game) arise and the last bit lol
I randomly got this game on my brothers account for $3 on his ps4 I loved it so much that I got it on my own ps4 and finished the entire game Im close to getting all trophies
In berseria to get more soul you have to stun or sidestep. But to make it more consistent there is the "break" mechanic. Let me explain it by taking velvet as the example. In console when you use r2 button you Activate velvet's monster hand. What happens is that you lose one soul in exchange for your remaining soul being filled the thing is the targeted enemy gains an extra soul now you must be wondering why give an enemy extra soul the answer is because the more soul the enemy has the greater the chance of stunning that enemy. So the concept is that you have to balance having a soul and at the same time making sure the enemy also has it. As an enemy with one soul cannot be stunned and at the same time you wont get the soul out of that enemy. Hope this helps basically r2 of any character is the key for consistent soul management.
Tales of Berseria was my first Tales of game and I found the revenge story more appealing due to some personal matters. 😅 But after playing Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Arise I understand why that game was not received well overall.
Hm? From what I know, Berseria was pretty well received, even if everyone agreed that it could have used a longer development cycle. If anything, I've seen people way more critical of Arise.
I think some people get too hyperfocus on revenge (which to be fair is the overtone directly told) and not the aspect of choice which can be determined through reason and emotion, and weighing both in decision making (which is also overt but I think people are more likely to meme the why birds fly thing). I don't remember people not receiving it well, but a lot more players newer to the franchise bought it so I might have missed some discussion in some groups.
Play Tales of Xillia 1 and 2 if you can. They were not only based on FF XIII, the title is a reference to the number 13 in latin due to how it looks. It even has the crystarium orb. Berseria was based on the anime Berserk instead. Also a few similarities to Tales of Vesperia. Seriously, play Tales of Xillia, it'll blow your mind as an FF13 enjoyer. It even has some similar plot points across its two games with Xillia 1 and 2 almost mirroring FFXIII 1 and 2, even with the dialogue system. Just be prepared for one of the most technical battle systems ever. BTW, the Crimson Night scene was so controversial that it had to be censored outside of Japan since they wanted to make it their own Eclipse. Eclipse is basically the most horrific thing happening in the Berserk series. It's a doozy. So they changed Laphi's death to be an Evangelion reference in the west. Just to give a bit more context. As for Tales being mid-budget FF games, it's kind of not like that; like other anime-styled games of their era, Tales, Star Ocean, Sakura Taisen, were all not only insanely pricey they were very demanding technologically. IIRC, Sakura Taisen 1 opening on the Sega Saturn cost them like 10 million yen back in the day or something...while the cost of developing the game itself was less than a million. The latest Sakura Taisen game? Just 3 million yen for dev costs. So yeah, Tales has the same price tags as FF, they just spent it on the anime visuals, the character designers and the voice acting. An insane amount of budget is dedicated to anything except for the gameplay...because the gameplay is usually so esoteric it's mind-boggling. Berseria has a lot of carry over battle mechanics from Zestiria as well, such as the way the guard works as you mentioned with the restoration of the BG. In Zestiria you can skip attacks with guarding and stepping, shorten cast times, recover TP faster etc. There a few video guides only as far as I know that teach you how to effectively play Zestiria and Berseria properly and they are 30 minute to 1 hour video guides. As a final note, I prefer Zestiria over Berseria. Apart from Rokuro's and Eizen's stories, the rest weren't so good, meanwhile Zestiria may have fumbled quite a bit but its characters were better*, considering it was a story about a messiah saving the world and his troubles compared to rule63-ing Guts in order to have a romance with Puck(Phi). Also prefer its gameplay a lot more out of the two. *Except for Rose, smug Alisia forever. PS : The Katz thing with the dead souls is a japanese myth thing, special cats that follow the souls of the dead and guide them, with the souls of the dead looking like silver balls of fire. Berseria is extremely japanese for some reason compared to Zestiria.
To explain the spell casting speed differences, ever since Graces f, the farther along in a combo a spell is, the faster it casts. For example, if you just do a spell, it casts at normal speed. But the next spell in the same chain will cast 10% faster than normal, and the third spell will cast 20% faster. This is also true when going from normal attacks into spells. So you can do two basic attacks then a spell and that spell will cast 20% faster. That's why when you stop attacking to recover your souls, the next spell casts slower than what you were just doing. New combo, so the spell casting time buff has been reset. You could say "Oh that's stupid" or whatever, but it rewards you for learning the game mechanics and knowing how to keep your combo going. Yeah, you're punished for dropping a combo, but...don't drop your combo lol If done correctly, you end up casting high-tier spells in like 1.5 seconds.
The first and hopefully only Tales game that I abandoned at the halfway point after realizing that the combat - my personal main attraction point absolutety sucks this time. Unlike Zestiria where your worst enemy in coop is the camera while most other things work well enough in Berseria literally nothing seems to work properly as it was partly mentioned here already. Enemies only stagger if their weakness is attacked, otherwise they'll just plunge through your attacks as if you're doing nothing or even worse they'll just dodge by moving a few steps away from you while you miss them completely, especially because many attacks seem to have limited range and often don't hit even if it feels like they should. At least I felt like every other character than Velvet had this problem. As a side note the fact that normal combos just don't exist anymore is another huge letdown since this way you're always forced to attack enemies in short bursts and recover the gauge afterwards to be able to attack again. Yes, if you hit a weakness you get some of that gauge back but long combos are still basically impossible and the best case scenario is you beating each enemy with 1-2 combos which can be easy to do if the other 3 characters act as intended but in the end that just boils down to putting attacks with each element on 1 of the 4 buttons and then spam the required button until the battle is over. Before having enough of this I even put all the characters on auto mode and realized that it didn't change anything and the battles played out almost the same way while even the ai doesn't always land hits with certain attacks. All this just led me here since I did want to know how the story ended... Or rather to refresh my memory because I actually spoiled myself with the original video by Ramzaes many years ago. At least I can agree that the story and characters are great but if the game part of the game is way weaker I certainly can't comprehend why some people call this one of the best Tales titles out there... This rant was a bit longer than I expected.
I can’t decide!!! Help I’ve been looking to scratch my tails itch lately. And I need a break from ff7 rebirth, before I do the hard mode play through. I played vesperia definitive addition back in the day. Than again years later, 100%, because I loved it so much. And I played arise and 100% that because I like it a lot. But not as much as vesperia. and I spent a little Time with xillia, and was enjoying it. But lost my opportunity to finish it because it was just on a roommates ps3 at the time. Lol. And I recently got a ps5, I was hoping xillia would be on the store but it wasn’t (I can buy the disc, I know). Anyways! Zesteria or berseria. I can’t decide which one to play first. Or if I should just skip zesteria all together. I can’t just rush a story. I am a tragic completionist
This sums up my take very well. Great story and characters, terrible combat and tedious walking around. I've played a half dozen or so tales games, and I've only finished 1. (Takes of Hearts which I think is underappreciated). I came close on this one. Got to the final dungeon and couldn't force myself to slog through it, so I watched the end on UA-cam.
Oh my God finally someone has my same opinion regarding Arise's skits being so lifeless while Berseria did so much more with just the character drawings/portraits like the other games.
Yeah even after I 100% Arise, not one of the skits stood out to me all these yrs later vs the amount of creativity the sprites had in Zestiria and Berseria (in my opinion)
Instead of a FF13/lightning comparison, I would instead liken Velvet to a gender-swapped version of Guts from Berserk. Heck, its even in the name, arguably.
Artorius also has a lot in common with Griffith. A white haired war hero that betrays the protagonist, slaughters all their loved ones, and becomes a false messiah that tricks the whole world into worshipping him for his own crazy god complex shenanigans.
Before watching: Tales of? Generally the one thing I'd say is I'd appreciate a remake of Phantasia or Destiny, but since that's not gonna happen I'll say I liked Berseria in a lot of ways and in also in a lot of ways I hated it. I generally liked the characters, but I hated Velvet's sacrifice. I just couldn't take it. I think that trauma is part of the reason I don't feel like playing Arise. Velvet's sacrifice killed something else in me.
I would've watched this till the end if not for the stupid costumes. Sadge, because there are hardly any 2hr+ Tales of Series Retrospectives on youtube
I had to refund this fucking game because it REFUSED TO OPEN! I bought it to see if I could change my mind about the franchise and what I get is the game itself refusing to be played... Guess my dislike towards the franchise is mutual.
@@DaveTheeMan-wj2nk RX550 isn't crappy. My Windows 10 is on the last update before the ones that fuck it up. Guess it's just horrible luck, because I know people that don't even have a GPU and run this game.
@@ilucasz it could be your amd drivers. AMD drivers are extremely unstable. One driver version could cause a game to crash while in order one doesn't. If it runs fine for other people, even people who use that card then that tells you you have a driver somewhere doing something it shouldn't
Tales of Bersaria: here a really cool start to the thing you where actually curious about in Zesteria but have some loli’s and a sob story that goes basically nowhere without risk as well as a child “demon” wearing nothing hope that fit the bill for a “tales” game which you have heard are so good. Btw the Edna plot line doesn’t actually go anywhere except a shit ending scene hope you’re happy. This is my experience with tales as a gamer that grew up in the mid 2000’s that never played until Zest really. Utter disappointment with more cheap archetypes and a shit grinding system only alleviated with microtransactions. Don’t waste my time with battle animations that only amount to numbers when the easiest way to achieve them is through mindless monotony. Abyss was cool but as an adult I’m sorry I can only say the main character was absolutely unenthralling with situations that are entirely unrelatable. Both Zest and Bers started out cool but they quickly fell into typical archetype feeding and highscool drama, which only works when your fanbase is actual children who don’t have money. RPG’s especially turn based are basic math at this point, any undefendable without a proper story to back them and that’s where modern tales games have failed. Give me a basic system to play exploit that’ll carry me through 80% of the game outside a few boss fights and I would have rather sat down with a book. Voice of cards fails at this, and even the esteemed FFVII fails this. You can’t expect me to stay invested if your state of play is static but your story side of things only caters to the bare minimum of thought but hey: I’m only put up with it because I expect everything to tie together in a way that will truly justify the dollars per hour I spent on it.
WHY do people insist on putting weird costumes on the characters? At this point I think it would be bette4 if this feature didn‘t exist. Hey, our characters have a discussion about the fate of the world, the importance of free will and other important topics, but oh no, the player put them all in swimsuits, ruining the serious cutszene. I HATE IT!
better, weird typo aside, my point still stands. Just get rid of the feature or disable it for cutszenes and put everyone into their default outfits, those are the standard for a reason.
The default costumes are ridiculous and fan-servicey to begin with. There's no scenario in which they are meant to be taken seriously, they just better reflect the intended personalities of the characters but the script is too stuffed with amateurish comedy routines and needlessly convoluted world building for it to matter what they're wearing.
I absolutely hate it tales of bazaria, it just felt like there was something wrong with it, It took me a very long to realize it was the stiff animation Oh but tales of arise was even worse and soured me on jrpg for so long
Great game, and the best tales game by far. I say that having never played any of the other ones, and probably never will because dear god do the characters and stories seem so insanely bland.
Tales of the Abyss has some really complex and morally flawed characters like Jade, Luke, Van and the God Generals. Tales of Xilia also has some really complex and interesting characters like Alvin, Rowen, Ludger and Muzet.
Berseria is still one of my favorite Tales of games. Good times, been replaying it. Velvet good
I think I barely prefer Abyss, but Berseria was amazing. Had it gotten a few months of polish, I'd probably put it at the top.
2 hours and a half? What a treat!
Berseria still has my favorite main cast in a JRPG. I really just love all of them even after 5 playthroughs.
Also another fun post game detail is on the route between Taliesin and Aball, there's some characters you can talk to that mention the lake there has a sword laying at the bottom, and also that there's plans to build a city at that lake, which is probably Ladylake by the time of Zestiness.
This also implies that Lailah is older than the events of Berseria, which makes me really want a Berseria prequel that properly explores her whole story.
Honestly Berseria was the best way for me to entry the tales series, shame that i found out it was a prequel, and that everyone's fates were already decided.
I played through Zestiria first, and the only character's fate you know for certain until extremely late-game in Berseria is Eizen.
Not really. They never tell you what happens to most of the berseria characters even if you play both games
@@alumlovescake except for eizen and zavied.
@@Mr._Matt Nah, Magilou has a small cameo in Zestiria (she is supposed to be the deceased Mayvin in Zestiria). At least we get some clearance about her fate (even if we don't know how or when she died)
@@drattoX How do we know it's her tomb and not another female Mayvin's tomb?
Wooooo boy!!! Found a new favorite channel!!
Velvet is one of my favorite protags in jrpg history.
artorius is gonna be real embarrassed when he finds out not all birds fly.
Holy crap i literally started playing this today, and i found this video that was uploaded yesterday?! What a coincidence!
Velvet Crowe. Ragna the Bloodedge with the voice of Noel Vermillion. Seriously, that's Velvet in her entirety. A lot of the Tales of characters are very similar to ASW characters for some reason, no idea why.
Same thoughts especially when I compared the 2 backstories,personalities,and of course their Demonic Claw Hand
Finally, 2 hours of peak, on the topic of peak.
This is crazy cause I was watching your old Tales of Beseria vid last night!
Its so nice seeing new tales fans. Xillia was rumored to be the best one to start with mechanical wise
You sound so natural reading your script. Great job on the video. I'm sure you will blow up one day if you keep it up. Thanks for the content.
Berseria was the first Tales I completed after Tales of Destiny 1 and "2" back in the days on PSX. I loved it and was disappointed there wasnt any real review of it at the time. Years later I found yours thanks man 2 and a half hour of amazing commentary keep it up you got a new sub
Mazhigigika Miludin do Din Nolurun Dou (Magilou for short) has somehow always been one of my favorite characters.
Strong Bayonetta energy I think.
It wasn't my first Tales of experience, but still years after getting invested into all the mainline titles, its absolutely my favorite. Honestly, these assholes are my favorite RPG cast in general no contest. And you comedically go into why pretty well lol. Great review, as for difficulty looking into a guide, for me the best place i found was playstation trophies when i was looking into all the side achievements and how to get all the cosmetic stuff (the jacketless versions of the default outfits go hard). It still is pretty funny how some things in this game just kinda trigger at a different time for everyone, so guides aren't crazy consistent.
As for the dual mystic artes, iirc you get them fighting special mini bosses in the final main dungeon. There are these colored orbs for each character you get after beating them and bada bing. The actual in battle requirements to trigger them is tough but rewarding (a lot easier to do when you use the mechanic that activates mystic artes back to back in a combo if the blast gauge is high enough).
But yeah great fair and funny review. Pretty much my only disagreement is about the battle system. Weird to say to someone on their 3rd playthrough, but the issues you had with the combat just amounted to some gitting gud. And maybe controller responsiveness idk, i played this game on steam and ps4 and never had issues timing dodges for souls outside my own mistakes. And someone brought up the casting speed thing for spells, but i admit that one isn't really explained at all iirc, you just gotta pick up on it when playing with mages or watching a combo video. Still, fun ass 2 and half hours.
Found this video after literally finishing the main game! Great video! Tales of Arise when?
I played the game a year ago and I still think it has some of the best character interactions between party members of any game. I gotta play it again for the fun of it sometime.
The only Tales game I've ever gotten into. Absolutely loved it.
Great retrospective! This one in particular is one of my favorites in the series. I can’t wait for you to cover other Tales of games. Abyss is another favorite of mine and first one I ever beat
This game honestly makes me want to replay it. It's been so long, but I got to the final dungeon and just didn't finish the game. I don't know why. I should really just give it another go.
So you’re telling me, that everything that’s ever happened here, daemons and the destruction they’ve caused, Innominat, Laphicet’s sacrifice, Velvet, *EVERYTHING…*
Was caused by some Seraphim being salty that they didn’t get their way?
Yes that is the plot. And nobody can do anything about them either since they’re still locked away behind Heaven.
But hey, at least it's not the backstory for Zestiria: "Man, I sure am angry at that guy! I'm going to make him immortal so he suffers forever...oh and he'll be the most powerful being on the planet. But that's beside the point! =O"
Great content bro this is one of my favorite tales finally something a little bit darker.
I haven't played this game in about 7 years and just started replaying. Berseria is probably my favorite tales game as well.
Depending on which stage you are in when performing an arte you get a faster spell. Also when you dodge or quickstep it changes which stage you are in. There are four stages, and once you complete those stages you restart at stage one.(the reason why it’s feels so slow). 8:33
I thought berseria was alright but I couldn't get into the battle system. The most memorable part of it for me was strangely the main menu with the character profile pics. It just looked so clean.
"WILL YOU STOP WHINING"
-Phi
I loved how someone actually told Velvet that, ti was needed throughout the game to stop the telenovela-level melodrama she had.
Great video, great game. My main gripe was that Velvet's combat just felt way better than everyone elses, still did 3 playthroughs though lol.
It’s Rare for me to sub to a channel early on that’s so clearly going to grow to be massive. Your videos are great! You make the exact type of videos I like
Velvets desire for Vengeance really kept me playing this Game. I was sure that when we got to hear the Story as to WHY Artorius did it it would be a "good" reason, but was I WRONG. When we saw that not only did he Betray her, but Lofy did to, I was pissed. Great Story that did not stray from its Darker Side.
27:15 yes attacking the enemy weaknesses are important but the most important thing is starting a combo so you can eventually stun them and get back your soul you shouldn't B swapping every single fight you have 4 combo strings so create four builds that can deal with various different types of enemies and when in doubt just remember Aizen is the nastiest character in the game.
Berseria have amazing main characters! they all have part of their weird group.
Thanks for the video!
I always thought that using the power of the Shepard you learned to use in Zestiria against you in Berseria was a pretty cool idea. I really like Zestiria and I will defend it to death, but Berseria really feels like a refined version of Zestiria.
When that damn turtlz started singing the hymn of proof I lost it. It was great that we got a Xillia 2 and a Xillia reference.
You can actually map every single arte onto every character. Martial artes can self-combo by holding down buttons, the block button adds 4 more arte slots, and magic can be chain-casted, so you only need to map the weak spells, and cycling them to the strongest spells also is faster than directly casting the strongest spells, anyway.
I’ve only played Tales of Berseria and Tales of Arise and I enjoy both of them for their gameplay, story and characters.
This is probably on the second half of your video, but you keep mentioning how the spellcasting times are inconsistent and you can't tell when a spell would activate.
In general, the further right they are along the chart with the arts the faster the cast time is. It was meant to allow characters to incorporate spells into their combos. For example, Eleanor can do three physical attacks and finish off with a spell that will be cast almost as fast. It allows for tactics like hitting someone with a spell, healing someone else quickly, and then hitting again with another spell quickly.
Saved me the time commenting it myself lol. I don't blame him for knowing though, it's admittedly something you don't really pick up on a playing casually unless you're labbing combos with the mages specifically or watching combo videos on UA-cam.
The "Eto, Bleh" Magilou is so charming. I adore her so much.
That's the game that rekindled my love for gaming. After having a kid, i had little time to play. But it ran on my laptop flawlessly
This is one of my favorite jrpgs. I've always enjoyed how well it did the concept of "play as the bad guys" and actually made it so all the characters got a "bad ending" that had to be fixed down the line.
You know the whole bit with Rokuro from what I gathered and I’m probably reading into it or copping, is that there clan chooses it’s next head by having the potentially strongest at the time take on the current head, Shigurei had to take out his mother, and I think that deep down that bothered Rokuro and Shigurei but raised the way they where, they didn’t understand what they where feeling, Shigurei was already heading towards the door when Rokuro spread the rumors, I think the two didn’t like there lot in life, Shigurei having to kill his mother just cause he was the strongest which naturally ate at the both of them with Rokuro subconsciously wanting revenge but justifying it as I have to kill my brother, I think Rokuro is just getting revenge in a way that makes sense to him-or maybe I’m reading too far into it😅
Velvet is the best female protagonist in terms of overall development and motivation I know.
Honestly compared to all others tales of games Berseria is by far the most mechanically demanding of them all, apart from the different battle system.
The amount of different combos for all characters is borderline insane.
Bro the secret boss at max difficulty had me tweaking for 2 hours straight
Peak Berseria Gaming and “take their souls my queen” or whatever the fuck you said..
Convinced me to sub. Lmao
I'm assuming this video got recommended to me because after 6 years I finally decided to go back and get the last few trophies I needed for platinum (the most annoying ones of course - level 200, 20 million gald, and 200k tales coins). Anyway, great video! Tales games are so underrated.
I love the video u made my day
I love your humor so much.
Yo man what’s that song at the scene with Chozo I know it but can remember the name
I love seeing adoration for my favorite games. Played it a plethora of times.
Also, you make the combat look more confusing than it is. Or maybe I'm just too in tune with Tales combat that it was natural to comprehend and learn its normal mechanics and hidden mechanics(which makes the battle system be even more amazing).
Your magic wouldn't cast fast because I believe the combat is similar to Zestiria where it needs to be at the end of a chain to increase cast speed. is you dodge step 3 times and then cast it will drastically increase the speed of casting in Zestiria but I am unsure if this is the same in Beseria or if basic attack chains work as well
i still have not figured out how to start a new game + lol
It should be on the main menu after you beat the game an option for it and then you pick the bonuses or limits for the next run
@@ShadohFyre that’s what I found when googling it but it wasn’t there I played on pc but I don’t think that mattered and I did beat the games main story but not much of the side quests so idk
Cyber Sleuth music, nice touch.
Nice video. But just one small correction, Zestiria takes place 1000 years after Berseria, not 500 years.
Even though this is my 2nd favorite Tales game, the main cast is my number 1 favorite of all the game.
Also, 1:16:57 Magilou will not be beating the allegations 😂.
7:14
Berseria does have a pretty bloated combat system in terms of mechanics, but at least it's in the combat itself that it gets complicated instead of the equipment skill fusing gimmick of Zestiria which could get frustrating very quickly. I have to object to the similarity with Zestiria combat system though. They only look similar on the surface. Zestiria is built around the Human/Seraphim duo setup and Armatization, whereas Berseria is all about ridiculous combo setups through Break Souls. They do share the same Arte types, but they are not used the same.
You can also refill SG by using a Break Soul. Using Break Soul restores up to 3 full units of SG, which means Break Souls are also combo extenders. Early game it is a bit hard to keep a long string going without applying Stuns or chaining enemy kills (which give a Soul to the ally who landed the killing blow) but further in the game you can play with the system to gain a bigger Soul cap as well as more starting Souls. That means that you usually do not want to start a combo with a Break Soul move unless the enemy is guarding a lot, as Break Souls can break guards *OR* if you're going for a shorter chain into a Mystic Arte nuke.
The inconsistency with casting times is due to how combos work. If you chain actions before a spell, the spell charges faster, and this *can* stack if you do consecutive spells as long as your SG isn't in the blinking red (which applies various debuffs to you). Once your combo resets, the spell speedup resets as well. You *can* use Artes if your SG is empty but it will have a bunch of drawbacks applied like slower animation, easier guarding for enemies, hit-block stun for the player if the enemy guards and so on, hence its better to let yourself reset and reposition if the situation isn't good at the moment. Berseria works kinda like a figting game in that sense.
Regarding Mystic Artes: I don't think you ever mentioned in the video if you went past the Lvl 1 Mystic Artes. Lvl 2 Mystics require 8-action chain combos and 4 BG before you can use it and everyone leans theirs over the course of the game. Then Lvl 3 Mystic Artes (as well as their final Break Soul moves) are learned by doing certain things in the final dungeon and hitting lvl 60+. THEN Dual Mystic Artes are learned by beating certain bosses in the bonus dungeon. Also, Bonus Dungeons are supposed to be hard, that's why it's post-game optional content bruh. I can give you that the game doesn't tell you you can chain Mystic Arts though, which is a really big thing to omit because if you time it right you can do massive damage to a boss.
After the disappointment I felt playing and dropping Zestiria, I played Berseria for the first time like a year or two ago.
It was tolerable, but I prefer the older style of Tales of games, like Vesperia, Abyss, Symphonia, Phantasia, etc.
Nonetheless, it is good to have your takes on these games,.
I was playing Berseria and saw Magilou’s mystic arte and was like ohhh she’s foreshadowing for the next game! Cause she says Arise (I’m going to star in that game) arise and the last bit lol
I randomly got this game on my brothers account for $3 on his ps4
I loved it so much that I got it on my own ps4 and finished the entire game
Im close to getting all trophies
In berseria to get more soul you have to stun or sidestep. But to make it more consistent there is the "break" mechanic. Let me explain it by taking velvet as the example. In console when you use r2 button you Activate velvet's monster hand. What happens is that you lose one soul in exchange for your remaining soul being filled the thing is the targeted enemy gains an extra soul now you must be wondering why give an enemy extra soul the answer is because the more soul the enemy has the greater the chance of stunning that enemy. So the concept is that you have to balance having a soul and at the same time making sure the enemy also has it. As an enemy with one soul cannot be stunned and at the same time you wont get the soul out of that enemy. Hope this helps basically r2 of any character is the key for consistent soul management.
Tales of Berseria was my first Tales of game and I found the revenge story more appealing due to some personal matters. 😅 But after playing Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Arise I understand why that game was not received well overall.
Hm? From what I know, Berseria was pretty well received, even if everyone agreed that it could have used a longer development cycle. If anything, I've seen people way more critical of Arise.
I think some people get too hyperfocus on revenge (which to be fair is the overtone directly told) and not the aspect of choice which can be determined through reason and emotion, and weighing both in decision making (which is also overt but I think people are more likely to meme the why birds fly thing). I don't remember people not receiving it well, but a lot more players newer to the franchise bought it so I might have missed some discussion in some groups.
27:04 34:29 1:42:29 1:43:10 1:55:40
Theresa and her bro have the same dad. It isn't the brady bunch or kissxsis step relations up in here.
Great video
Thanks!
Play Tales of Xillia 1 and 2 if you can. They were not only based on FF XIII, the title is a reference to the number 13 in latin due to how it looks. It even has the crystarium orb. Berseria was based on the anime Berserk instead. Also a few similarities to Tales of Vesperia. Seriously, play Tales of Xillia, it'll blow your mind as an FF13 enjoyer. It even has some similar plot points across its two games with Xillia 1 and 2 almost mirroring FFXIII 1 and 2, even with the dialogue system. Just be prepared for one of the most technical battle systems ever.
BTW, the Crimson Night scene was so controversial that it had to be censored outside of Japan since they wanted to make it their own Eclipse. Eclipse is basically the most horrific thing happening in the Berserk series. It's a doozy. So they changed Laphi's death to be an Evangelion reference in the west. Just to give a bit more context.
As for Tales being mid-budget FF games, it's kind of not like that; like other anime-styled games of their era, Tales, Star Ocean, Sakura Taisen, were all not only insanely pricey they were very demanding technologically. IIRC, Sakura Taisen 1 opening on the Sega Saturn cost them like 10 million yen back in the day or something...while the cost of developing the game itself was less than a million. The latest Sakura Taisen game? Just 3 million yen for dev costs. So yeah, Tales has the same price tags as FF, they just spent it on the anime visuals, the character designers and the voice acting. An insane amount of budget is dedicated to anything except for the gameplay...because the gameplay is usually so esoteric it's mind-boggling.
Berseria has a lot of carry over battle mechanics from Zestiria as well, such as the way the guard works as you mentioned with the restoration of the BG. In Zestiria you can skip attacks with guarding and stepping, shorten cast times, recover TP faster etc. There a few video guides only as far as I know that teach you how to effectively play Zestiria and Berseria properly and they are 30 minute to 1 hour video guides.
As a final note, I prefer Zestiria over Berseria. Apart from Rokuro's and Eizen's stories, the rest weren't so good, meanwhile Zestiria may have fumbled quite a bit but its characters were better*, considering it was a story about a messiah saving the world and his troubles compared to rule63-ing Guts in order to have a romance with Puck(Phi). Also prefer its gameplay a lot more out of the two.
*Except for Rose, smug Alisia forever.
PS : The Katz thing with the dead souls is a japanese myth thing, special cats that follow the souls of the dead and guide them, with the souls of the dead looking like silver balls of fire. Berseria is extremely japanese for some reason compared to Zestiria.
I play on PS4 pro like make 10- 20 hours in and it looks pretty good
I believe this game is before Zestiria...
Chronologically yes, but Zestiria was released before it.
17:49 …
To explain the spell casting speed differences, ever since Graces f, the farther along in a combo a spell is, the faster it casts. For example, if you just do a spell, it casts at normal speed. But the next spell in the same chain will cast 10% faster than normal, and the third spell will cast 20% faster. This is also true when going from normal attacks into spells. So you can do two basic attacks then a spell and that spell will cast 20% faster. That's why when you stop attacking to recover your souls, the next spell casts slower than what you were just doing. New combo, so the spell casting time buff has been reset.
You could say "Oh that's stupid" or whatever, but it rewards you for learning the game mechanics and knowing how to keep your combo going. Yeah, you're punished for dropping a combo, but...don't drop your combo lol If done correctly, you end up casting high-tier spells in like 1.5 seconds.
ahh ok that makes sense, thank you! Maybe its time for a fourth playthrough... heh
The first and hopefully only Tales game that I abandoned at the halfway point after realizing that the combat - my personal main attraction point absolutety sucks this time.
Unlike Zestiria where your worst enemy in coop is the camera while most other things work well enough in Berseria literally nothing seems to work properly as it was partly mentioned here already. Enemies only stagger if their weakness is attacked, otherwise they'll just plunge through your attacks as if you're doing nothing or even worse they'll just dodge by moving a few steps away from you while you miss them completely, especially because many attacks seem to have limited range and often don't hit even if it feels like they should. At least I felt like every other character than Velvet had this problem.
As a side note the fact that normal combos just don't exist anymore is another huge letdown since this way you're always forced to attack enemies in short bursts and recover the gauge afterwards to be able to attack again. Yes, if you hit a weakness you get some of that gauge back but long combos are still basically impossible and the best case scenario is you beating each enemy with 1-2 combos which can be easy to do if the other 3 characters act as intended but in the end that just boils down to putting attacks with each element on 1 of the 4 buttons and then spam the required button until the battle is over.
Before having enough of this I even put all the characters on auto mode and realized that it didn't change anything and the battles played out almost the same way while even the ai doesn't always land hits with certain attacks. All this just led me here since I did want to know how the story ended... Or rather to refresh my memory because I actually spoiled myself with the original video by Ramzaes many years ago. At least I can agree that the story and characters are great but if the game part of the game is way weaker I certainly can't comprehend why some people call this one of the best Tales titles out there... This rant was a bit longer than I expected.
Good and fun video
I think that Bandai Namco should remake every tales of game just to include Magilou in everything
And whenever Magilou's not on screen, all the other characters should be asking, "Where's Magilou?"
I can’t decide!!! Help
I’ve been looking to scratch my tails itch lately. And I need a break from ff7 rebirth, before I do the hard mode play through.
I played vesperia definitive addition back in the day. Than again years later, 100%, because I loved it so much. And I played arise and 100% that because I like it a lot. But not as much as vesperia. and I spent a little
Time with xillia, and was enjoying it. But lost my opportunity to finish it because it was just on a roommates ps3 at the time. Lol. And I recently got a ps5, I was hoping xillia would be on the store but it wasn’t (I can buy the disc, I know).
Anyways! Zesteria or berseria. I can’t decide which one to play first. Or if I should just skip zesteria all together. I can’t just rush a story. I am a tragic completionist
Dyle should have been a playable character
This sums up my take very well. Great story and characters, terrible combat and tedious walking around.
I've played a half dozen or so tales games, and I've only finished 1. (Takes of Hearts which I think is underappreciated). I came close on this one. Got to the final dungeon and couldn't force myself to slog through it, so I watched the end on UA-cam.
Berseria is “pick a button simulator” by setting Artes to auto and go to semi-auto then just click. Thats it.
Oh my God finally someone has my same opinion regarding Arise's skits being so lifeless while Berseria did so much more with just the character drawings/portraits like the other games.
Yeah even after I 100% Arise, not one of the skits stood out to me all these yrs later vs the amount of creativity the sprites had in Zestiria and Berseria (in my opinion)
Please play Xenoblade 2 (my personal fav game of all time, I think you’ll love it)
Instead of a FF13/lightning comparison, I would instead liken Velvet to a gender-swapped version of Guts from Berserk. Heck, its even in the name, arguably.
Artorius also has a lot in common with Griffith. A white haired war hero that betrays the protagonist, slaughters all their loved ones, and becomes a false messiah that tricks the whole world into worshipping him for his own crazy god complex shenanigans.
Another one is Ragna from Blazblue Velvet is also considered a Gender swapped version of him
Tales of xilla next or abyss
Ok you sound similar to a different youtube I've watched
Tales of Xillia PS3
TALES OF XILLIA 2 PS3
TALES OF ZESTIRIA PS3
TALES OF BERSERIA PS3
HOLL DONE THE ONE GAME PS4 IS TALES OF ARISE
Before watching: Tales of? Generally the one thing I'd say is I'd appreciate a remake of Phantasia or Destiny, but since that's not gonna happen I'll say I liked Berseria in a lot of ways and in also in a lot of ways I hated it. I generally liked the characters, but I hated Velvet's sacrifice. I just couldn't take it. I think that trauma is part of the reason I don't feel like playing Arise. Velvet's sacrifice killed something else in me.
I would've watched this till the end if not for the stupid costumes. Sadge, because there are hardly any 2hr+ Tales of Series Retrospectives on youtube
This would be my favourite game if it was turn based
I really enjoyed this game. I found the characters fun and gameplay solid. Zestria and Arise were pretty bad.
Im 1:13:48 into the video and the whole story just seems to be edgy for the sake of edge without substance
So long as i don’t end up like I did with the most recent one.
I was convinced to play Arise and that horrible piece of trash filled me with regret
I had to refund this fucking game because it REFUSED TO OPEN! I bought it to see if I could change my mind about the franchise and what I get is the game itself refusing to be played... Guess my dislike towards the franchise is mutual.
HAHAHA
Your computer is trash.
Loads fine.
You got either 1:ah crappy AMD card. 2:Glitched windows/not updated windows or 3: Badf luck
@@DaveTheeMan-wj2nk RX550 isn't crappy. My Windows 10 is on the last update before the ones that fuck it up. Guess it's just horrible luck, because I know people that don't even have a GPU and run this game.
@@ilucasz it could be your amd drivers. AMD drivers are extremely unstable.
One driver version could cause a game to crash while in order one doesn't.
If it runs fine for other people, even people who use that card then that tells you you have a driver somewhere doing something it shouldn't
Tales of Bersaria: here a really cool start to the thing you where actually curious about in Zesteria but have some loli’s and a sob story that goes basically nowhere without risk as well as a child “demon” wearing nothing hope that fit the bill for a “tales” game which you have heard are so good. Btw the Edna plot line doesn’t actually go anywhere except a shit ending scene hope you’re happy.
This is my experience with tales as a gamer that grew up in the mid 2000’s that never played until Zest really. Utter disappointment with more cheap archetypes and a shit grinding system only alleviated with microtransactions.
Don’t waste my time with battle animations that only amount to numbers when the easiest way to achieve them is through mindless monotony.
Abyss was cool but as an adult I’m sorry I can only say the main character was absolutely unenthralling with situations that are entirely unrelatable. Both Zest and Bers started out cool but they quickly fell into typical archetype feeding and highscool drama, which only works when your fanbase is actual children who don’t have money.
RPG’s especially turn based are basic math at this point, any undefendable without a proper story to back them and that’s where modern tales games have failed. Give me a basic system to play exploit that’ll carry me through 80% of the game outside a few boss fights and I would have rather sat down with a book.
Voice of cards fails at this, and even the esteemed FFVII fails this. You can’t expect me to stay invested if your state of play is static but your story side of things only caters to the bare minimum of thought but hey: I’m only put up with it because I expect everything to tie together in a way that will truly justify the dollars per hour I spent on it.
WHY do people insist on putting weird costumes on the characters? At this point I think it would be bette4 if this feature didn‘t exist. Hey, our characters have a discussion about the fate of the world, the importance of free will and other important topics, but oh no, the player put them all in swimsuits, ruining the serious cutszene. I HATE IT!
better, weird typo aside, my point still stands. Just get rid of the feature or disable it for cutszenes and put everyone into their default outfits, those are the standard for a reason.
The default costumes are ridiculous and fan-servicey to begin with.
There's no scenario in which they are meant to be taken seriously, they just better reflect the intended personalities of the characters but the script is too stuffed with amateurish comedy routines and needlessly convoluted world building for it to matter what they're wearing.
@@christopherfu2169 why not allow other people to have fun their own way and just not make use of the feature when playing your own game?
I absolutely hate it tales of bazaria, it just felt like there was something wrong with it, It took me a very long to realize it was the stiff animation
Oh but tales of arise was even worse and soured me on jrpg for so long
Id love to see you play Star Ocean 3
Great game, and the best tales game by far. I say that having never played any of the other ones, and probably never will because dear god do the characters and stories seem so insanely bland.
Tales of the Abyss has some really complex and morally flawed characters like Jade, Luke, Van and the God Generals. Tales of Xilia also has some really complex and interesting characters like Alvin, Rowen, Ludger and Muzet.
must. contain. deranged. magiveleanor. thoughts.