Tales of Berseria Import Thread

Is the music as good as Goshiina's work in Zesteria? I remember getting hyped whenever this song 試されし焔の絆 started to play in scenes. Sakuraba's stuff is too samey across games, everything sounds like field music.
 
Kysen said:
Is the music as good as Goshiina's work in Zesteria? I remember getting hyped whenever this song 試されし焔の絆 started to play in scenes. Sakuraba's stuff is too samey across games, everything sounds like field music.
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sadly not, but GoShiinas Songs from Zestiria are in and also some things are really good and different this time like Magilous Theme
 
Hasemo said:
Finally finished the game today.

It took me 48 hours on normal and I did all sidequests (which I could find, but I tried looking everywhere) aside from the batch which opened before the final dungeon.
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I'm at 59 hours and not even finished yet lol (I need to get to
the Volcano
now)
 
Valkyri von Thanatos said:
The lack of combat depth is somewhat disappointing, and the lack of "linear motion" really did not jive with me in the demo, but admittedly, my favorite Tales of game (Symphonia, though Vesperia and Abyss are close) probably has combat that has much less depth than Berseria if I'm being honest.When I was young, Symphonia seemed to have a lot of combat depth, but nowadays I'm aware that it's somewhat basic, and only Xillia and Hearts R have really scratched my combo itch (I know I should check out Graces f).
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Combat depth you say?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p94BbR2frbc
 
Valkyri von Thanatos said:
Wasn't there a rumor that he's been actively told not to diverge from "the Tales of sound" by executives? It certainly sounds that way from the soundtracks of late, but is there a source on that?
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Not a rumor, he said it himself in this interview: http://www.vgmonline.net/motoisakurabainterview/
With Xillia, I was requested to not make the sound too thick, so I kept that in mind as I composed. There is a specific color to the Tales sound, and I am careful to not lose sight of it. Personally I would have preferred to do something that differs more from previous games, but it’s quite difficult.

As the other Tales scores were collaborative, I would compose with balance in mind, but if I do any others by myself in the future, maybe I will be able to do something a bit different. As for whether I prefer working together or alone, I’m sorry, but no comment.
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The second part also explain why in Zestiria Sakuraba's style changed with Shiina composing along him, even though Sakuraba by far didn't get access to the same music budget.
 
Valkyri von Thanatos said:
The lack of combat depth is somewhat disappointing, and the lack of "linear motion" really did not jive with me in the demo, but admittedly, my favorite Tales of game (Symphonia, though Vesperia and Abyss are close) probably has combat that has much less depth than Berseria if I'm being honest.When I was young, Symphonia seemed to have a lot of combat depth, but nowadays I'm aware that it's somewhat basic, and only Xillia and Hearts R have really scratched my combo itch (I know I should check out Graces f).

Berseria in comparison, even if I currently don't understand it's combat system, probably has a lot more going on. (Obviously, being unable to read all of the Japanese instructions in the demo didn't help to ease my lack of understanding :p)
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Tales games usually have quite a bit of combat depth as long as you put in the effort to master a character, with the 'main' character the most straightforward to use.

Still, apart from Xillia1, most Tales games have fully fleshed out secondary characters combat styles (Xillia1 is a bit of an exception due to relative lack of linking between secondary chars, as well as some awkwardness in controls).

Berseria seems, from the streams, pretty good depth wise with not only completely differnet playstyles depending on the character but also them seeming fully functional. Hell, I even saw some impressive Laciphet comboing.

But, yes, you aren't going to see much depth in normal or second in recent Tales games. You pretty much need Hard/Evil/Chaos for the weaknesses/etc to matter, and for the full decks you possess to be needed.
 
Arkeus said:
you can do some really good stuff with Zestiria once you know your stuff, you know
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Yeah you could, but I feel that in order to do a lot of that stuff, you need to have the equipment to handle the fast casting speeds and stun, and getting that stuff was the biggest barrier. I would have been fine with Zestiria's combat if not for the reliance on the equipment system in the harder difficulties and the camera indoors.
 
kewlmyc said:
Yeah you could, but I feel that in order to do a lot of that stuff, you need to have the equipment to handle the fast casting speeds and stun, and getting that stuff was the biggest barrier. I would have been fine with Zestiria's combat if not for the reliance on the equipment system in the harder difficulties and the camera indoors.
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Very true- Zestiria had a high grind barrier if you truly wanted to get top tier mechanics enabled, while that was very much easier on the Xillias (Graces was a mix bag, as its own system was ridiculously grind demanding).

It was 'fairly easy' to get something decent and that's all that was needed for Chaos, but if you wanted to get the top tier skills... ouch.
 
Okay, just finished the story. Clear save file at 76h46, characters at level 79.

Now...a bit of a break (want to play Nioh Beta and earn the DLC for that) then I'm exploring the post game content, playing the minigames and grind in order to prepare for New Game+
 
Finished. Played most of the game on Hard and finished at about 55 hours. I did turn down the difficulty at points though because they just pumped too much damage and the healing is reduced on Hard, lol.

I'm gonna say that the game is easily the best 3D Tales game and the second best overall Tales game there is to me. The only game I'd say is a better game is Tales of Destiny R.

Graphics -

Pretty solid improvement over Zestiria. Solid FPS all the way through, the environments got big upgrades as well as the map layouts. They choreographed some great cutscene fights in this as well which was great. It's still technically PS3 game levels but it's much more pleasant and smooth. I'm pretty fine with this level of graphics as long as they continue to refine it.

They also made huge improvements to the talking heads/long chat mode in the game. They used bigger art just like in Tales of Zestiria but now they're more expressive and there's a lot of movement. It actually has movement on screen showing where folks are moving or popping in. It's much more engaging as a result. A good example is during a skit where one of the characters is monologuing while the rest of the cast walks past her in the background. Simple but it really makes the skit.

It's a good thing they added that because it's used for non-important scenes/info dumps within the story. This probably took less time to make so they could spend more time on making the important scenes that use the models look better and it's a huge difference compared to Zestiria.

Sound -

Voice acting feels like it's a huge step up from Zestiria. It might be because of the story as well but it felt a lot more meaningful. Tunes sounded good.

Gameplay -

Big jump over Zestiria. The combat system is way better in this and really enjoyable. All the characters are unique and the weakness system changes are great. You can mash the shit out of it if you want but you can also aim to exploit the weakness system to kill things even faster, rewarding skillful play.

The two big complaints I have is that manual mode movement got a little wonky at times and Hard was tuned a bit blah. On Manual mode, there were times when an attack would go the direction you didn't want to unless you were really specific about pointing the thumbstick so I failed to follow up on combos a few times. It's not a huge deal but definitely annoying in some situations. As for Hard, I felt like they didn't need to reduce the healing effects of your character's spells at all. You don't get a lot of AOE spells until the second half of the game and by then most enemies are doing even damage that even unnerfed healing wouldn't be a huge deal to have.

There are a ton of sidequests and minigames as well which was really nice. I could have done without some of the grindy things like the Nekonin boxes but oh well. Gear system is way simpler but a little annoying that learning is tied to Grade.

Story/Characters -

Easily where the game shines the most.

The characters are fantastic and I feel like this is the best iteration of the 6-person band that has been a thing with Tales games recently. The personalities mesh well and the interactions are enjoyable without getting into the ruts that Tales games can get in. Velvet, Laiphiset (sp?), and Eleanor really provide the story with its core while Eizen, Rokuro, and Magilou help to round it out and give it a lot of flavor, especially Magilou!. The supporting cast is fantastic too.

First and foremost with Berseria's story is that I feel like they managed to make a complete and satisfying adventure in the game. It's something I don't think Tales has really ever done well save for one or two titles. You get to see the complete arc the characters go on and they provide ample development throughout to support it. It also manages to portray things as grey much better than a lot of other JP games do.

I could go on but it'd get really long. All I'll say is that the game does such a good job with its story and characters that it makes Zestiria look even worse. I sort of want a 3rd game in this storyline to tie it all up.
 
Cant wait to get my hands on the Steam version of the game after all these good import impressions.

I had a feeling that it turns out to be good after the promising previews and trailer.
 
Shouta said:
Finished.
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thanks for the write up. I was a huge Tales fan but I have to say the last one I REALLY enjoyed was the PS3 release of Graces F. Xillia was a huge turn off and so was everything afterward. Just blant and dull AF, at least to me.

This gives me a lot of hope. Gonna have to check this out. The trailers looked good to me as well.
 
These impressions are exciting me. Graces F almost made me give up on JRPGs with its godawful story and characters so it's good to hear that they're taking bigger risks this time around.
 
Man, I really want to play but still waiting for DLCs... Talking about DLCs, there are total 6 batches. Only 3 are announced.
 
CrazyDude said:
Are the side quests worth doing?
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Yeah, they're pretty good and are usually relevant to the characters.

My favorite sidequest is for Magilou which
is largely you going around and watching Magilou do Manzai routines with the various characters. It's really funny and really unique as far as quests go.
 
Shouta said:
Finished. Played most of the game on Hard and finished at about 55 hours. I did turn down the difficulty at points though because they just pumped too much damage and the healing is reduced on Hard, lol.

I'm gonna say that the game is easily the best 3D Tales game and the second best overall Tales game there is to me. The only game I'd say is a better game is Tales of Destiny R.
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Great impressions. How would you rank this game compared to the other Tales games you've played?
 
Yeah, 2nd best overall for me. I like and enjoy the other ones but they usually have some sort of major flaw that really keeps me from rating it high. This is the first game since Destiny R that I've felt legitimately manages to do almost everything well. It has a few problems, obviously, but my complaints with it are pretty small.
 
Shouta said:
Yeah, 2nd best overall for me. I like and enjoy the other ones but they usually have some sort of major flaw that really keeps me from rating it high. This is the first game since Destiny R that I've felt legitimately manages to do almost everything well. It has a few problems, obviously, but my complaints with it are pretty small.
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Surprised it even beat Vesperia and Symphonia, since those 2 games are held pretty high in the JRPG community and are probably the closest to a "near flawless" Tales game.
 
Good review. It bumped up the game from an "eventually" to a "day one" for me. It seems to be getting good import reviews from a lot of people. It all depends how closely the western release is the the western P5 release.
 
ULTROS! said:
Surprised it even beat Vesperia and Symphonia, since those 2 games are held pretty high in the JRPG community and are probably the closest to a "near flawless" Tales game.
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Neither Vesperia nor Symphonia rank high for me, more towards the middle if anything.
 
Each person's top Tales games are different anyway.

I put Abyss and Destiny R up top, followed by Vesperia & Rebirth. The rest I honestly don't know how I'd rank them properly.
 
kayos90 said:
If the 3rd act of Vesperia didn't exist I bet you would rate it higher =P
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Maybe. That third act is a hot mess but I wasn't exactly all that warm on the rest of the game. I do like parts of it but it was largely boring to me. The cast didn't really do anything for me either other than Repede and Raven.
 
ULTROS! said:
Surprised it even beat Vesperia and Symphonia, since those 2 games are held pretty high in the JRPG community and are probably the closest to a "near flawless" Tales game.
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You're probably talking to the English JRPG community then because most Japanese players would put Destiny R above those if not at the top of the list.
 
Shouta said:
I'm gonna say that the game is easily the best 3D Tales game and the second best overall Tales game there is to me. The only game I'd say is a better game is Tales of Destiny R.
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That's quite the praise.

I'm really looking forward to playing this.
 
Sold by all the impressions.

I wasn't sure before, but now i'll try this next year the moment i have some free time by much more anticipated titles (probably in summer).

This will be the first Tales i jump into, can't wait!

Edit: do we know if this is going to be Multi-5 in EU like Zestiria?
 
Haven't played a Tales game since Vesperia. Really looking forward to this.

Hope it doesn't come out to close to Persona 5 and Mass Effect Andromeda though. First half of 2017 is crazy.
 
Philippo said:
Sold by all the impressions.

I wasn't sure before, but now i'll try this next year the moment i have some free time by much more anticipated titles (probably in summer).

This will be the first Tales i jump into, can't wait!

Edit: do we know if this is going to be Multi-5 in EU like Zestiria?
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Dual Audio + Multi 5 + Russian for the first time.
 
For those who have already beaten the game, please tell me. Do you have to know the story in Zestiria to understand this game, or is it a stand alone experience?
 
Inuhanyou said:
For those who have already beaten the game, please tell me. Do you have to know the story in Zestiria to understand this game, or is it a stand alone experience?
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To understand this game, absolutely not.

But by having played Zestiria, you'll see things from that game explained here, so it's very nice if you like this. (I did)
 
Based on the demo, the only bad thing I can say about the game is that the battles are way too easy. It sounds like that's still the case in the full game, which is really unfortunate if so. Still, I can see myself picking this game up eventually.
 
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