Tales Of Berseria

Verdict:
Strongly recommend

Content Warnings:
Graphic depictions of murder, church oppression, depictions of manipulation and mental abuse, inappropriate comments made to a child (not about him), light sexual harassment.

Do you play as a girl?
Yes. Velvet Crowe, the protagonist and main character of the story is a young woman.

Do the women drive the story?
Yes. Velvet’s goal is the driving factor behind the entire plot.

How many men are there?
Three of the party members you get are men, balanced against three women. They share the spotlight equally, with the exception of Velvet who gets by far the most screen time.

What are the romance options?
There are no romance options in the game.

Is the game any good?

You begin the game thrust into the role of Velvet Crowe, living with her brother Laphicet and step brother Arthur. Velvet leads an idyllic life in the village of Aball, dreaming of the future with her friend and providing for her family. She seems happy, until one night when her entire world is destroyed right in front of her eyes.

From there, you follow Velvet on her quest for relentless, bloody vengeance. You will end up traveling alongside a whole group of misfits and bandits, all of whom have been deeply traumatized by their pasts and had the world cast them out for it. All of them end up working alongside Velvet for their own reasons, but she is the driving force that they all rally around.

Velvet is an incredible character. Her personality and force of will is built up so incredibly well that she can change entire scenes by just standing in the background. She is far and away the standout star of the cast, and is chiefly responsible for this game being as good as it is. Her character arc is heartbreaking to watch, but you end up feeling so proud of her by theend. The only detracting feature is that the game will often make jokes about how she is dressed, and talk about how men leer at her. it’s inappropriate and doesn’t serve the story in any way, and I really question its inclusion. Still, Velvet rarely reacts to that in any way other than angry rebuffing their attention, which is good.

The other women in the cast are similarly vibrant, colourful, and interesting. Both other female party members get to enjoy long narrative arcs and get to more or less solve their internal conflicts as key parts of the main story. They both get treated with narrative respect and given plenty of screen time, as well as plenty of agency.

What is perhaps most striking about the story is the theme. It’s not an uncommon one, the story chiefly examines what it means to be alive, to be a person, but it handles it in a very unique way.

Velvet and her allies are not good people. Over the course of the story you will hurt countless people and ruin so many innocent lives. Nor are Velvet’s intentions noble, she is solely focused on a personal vendetta and is willing to burn the entire world to get what she wants. The rest of the crew is broadly similar: selfish, angry, and vengeful people trying to get back at a world that hurt them.

Yet still they are all so incredibly human. They laugh, smile, and tell jokes (well, not Velvet). There are earnest discussions about their different life philosophies and how to understand each other better. By the end you will have seen all these characters at their lowest point, but also seen them come back to try again. I felt like I knew them as people, and that I could respect them, even genuinely like them, despite their genuinely terrible actions.

It’s a story of heart break and loss. Of cruel manipulation and desperate chances. Of total despair, but also of bright and shining hope for a better tomorrow, and is absolutely worth your time.

The gameplay itself is split into two parts. Most of the time you will be wandering around the overworld, talking to people, gathering items, exploring areas. Its fairly simple, and does the job well enough, and they get the message of tmit getting somewhat old and do eventually include mechanics to speed things up.

Combat is begun by running into enemies on the overworld, with positioning being a factor. Hit an enemy in the back and you start with an advantage, if they hit you in the back they start with one. if you run into two enemies who are close together you can fight both groups at once for a significant increase to the rewards you get, but the enemies are also much more numerous and much more aggressive.

Combat itself has a lot of potential depth, if you are inclined to explore it, but the difficulty options and system itself are flexible enough to allow even simple approaches to find success. It can be a lot of information to digest, but eventually it becomes manageable.

You can play as any of the 6 available characters in combat, and they all have different, unique playstyles. I spent most of my time playing as Velvet, so I know her best.

Watching Velvet in combat is intoxicating, her attacks are quick and brutal and feel amazing to use. At its best, it is one of the most fun and satisfying combat systems I have ever used. It shines brightest in large group fights against threatening, tough enemies. Getting a combo going feelis incredily, and is not very complicated to do. The voice work by Cristina Vee in particular is stunningly good, and fits Velvet perfectly.

Combat is not always at its best though, and against enemies with easy access to stuns and against single, powerful bosses it can start to feel like a drag. They are never bad fights, but they certainly are nowhere near as fun as the larger groups. This creates a weird scenario where the regular enemies are more interesting and fun to fight than the boss, which is a shame because a lotof the bosses are very cool and would be amazing if the combat system were different.

Outside of combat there is a, quite frankly, ming boggling list of things to do. Not only can you upgrade equipment with semi randomised stats, but there’s fishing, sending your ship on expeditions, and what feels like half a dozen different mini games. None of these feel forced, with the possible exception of the equipment customisation, but they definitely clutter up the game in a very obtrusive way.

The dissonance between the story Tales of Berseria is trying to tell and the side content is so often jarring is can be almost like whiplash. The game does a good job of setting a tone and atmosphere, and the “katz” who wear bright, pastel colours and speak in cutesy voices never, ever feel like they belong. The primary function they serve is to unlock outfits for your characters, but even that system, while fun, feels like it belongs somewhere else.

That aside, the side content is totally optional and easily skipped. Doing so keeps the incredible mood and excellent pacing of Tales of Berseria intact, providing the backdrop for an epic tale of vengeance and tragedy. Tales of berseria is a very, very good game and easily worth your time.