I'm well aware of that (and to be fair he toned down his negativity a lot imo). Berseria playing it safe compared to the last couple Tales games has been mentioned at other places as well, so hearing from Bebpo how to him it compares to Vesperia (arguably the last big playing-it-safe Tales game and a success for it) may make it easier for others to relate with his impressions (which are definitely informative).
Tales of Berseria Import Thread
- Thread starter Rpgmonkey
- Start date
What is playing safe? Can't see how any of the previous games took many risks. Just because it's more of the same but better? Story and characters are something the series hasn't done, combat went to full 3D.
I feel the game is a lot like Vesperia except with a far less interesting cast, without the traditional world map, worse dungeons/towns & much lower budget so art/environments/music all take a hit but we've already seen that in Zest.
I'm not a big Vesperia fan, I felt the battle system was boring and the 2nd half of the game going around collecting summons was boring compared to the anti-hero vigilante story of the first half which I really liked. But with Vesperia the story & cast kept me playing in the first half and the cast kept me playing in the second half. If Berseria had a stronger cast or more compelling story I'd definitely stick through the fields/dungeons and get to the end. The battle system is better than Vesperia here.
Unsure how Vesperia is playing-it-safe, given that it completely changed the formula of the game in many ways,Yuri having the movesets of the rival character and Flynn of the moveset of the protagonists being just one of the many significant departures.
Berseria is the same way with having the first character whose role in the setting is that of a murderer (though Xillia 2 arguably could be said to have Ludger having such a role, it's not quite done that way), and obviously it's the first Tales games to have a true woman protagonist (Milla was not only a co-protagonist, but her route was done in such a way that it was a second playthrough one).
Gameplay wise, yes, it has a lot of derpature/big changes, what with the hoverboard/3D/etc.
Safe can be fine, Tales usually has played a lot safe. In fact I wish Berseria played it safe when it came to shops/equipment/loot.
I think a lot of Tales series problems in the last decade has been trying to innovate, but for a lot of the gameplay systems, their designers just aren't all that good at it. I mean this goes back even further to the main Tales staff. Look at Legendia, that grappling based battle system was innovating, but it wasn't very good. I feel Tales staff basically throws a bunch of ideas at the wall each game and hope more work than don't. I think what they're bad at is sticking with what did work and iterating. Berseria's battle system probably should've been an iterative version of Zest to bring it back to Graces or above quality since it fell short of the Graces style it was attempting.
It was the third evolutionary "Team Symphonia" game in a row with little gameplay tweaking (where the most daring part, Field of Fonons from Abyss was taken out again and the inconsistent mess between free run and RMBS was still not fixed, only balanced to be less broken), padded overlong story and classic overworld, but now in beautiful HD and having the nostalgic qualities of a polished JRPG while most other JRPGs (as well as Tales in the subsequent entries) moved on.
Legendia was a one off staff that didn't before and never again worked on a Tales game. As for iterating what did work, this is where I always felt Tales Studio (which didn't work on Legendia, Tempest and Innocence *hint hint*) excelled at and the main feature of the series that is missing since Tales Studio's dissolution during Xillia's development.
Yeah but I just don't see how Berseria played it safe next to the previous entries (post Vesperia). Hearts removed the world map for field maps, Graces was more of the same, Xillia was more of the same with worse level-design, and I guess Zestiria tried to innovate by making larger fields and seamless battles. Battle-wise, they're all different. Only Senel could use grappling in Legendia, it's certainly not more innovative than Velvet's devouring mode. While Berseria doesn't have a (bad) gimmick preventing multiplayer like Link Mode/kamui, they made the combat full 3D, entirely based on Artes trees and changed all the controls. Story-wise, only the Xillia games tried something with dual protagonist and silent protagonist gimmicks, and while Berseria doesn't have those, it has the first real female lead who is also the first anti-hero of the series.
I suppose Graces was the last game to play it safe to me, it only improved the 3D battle system which as I said, doesn't really matter since all the following entries have different combat too.
Kind of funny discussion, Graces for me is the first (and in many way still only) 3D Tales game done right due to its battle system and that would be last thing I'd call safe. All a matter of preferences and taste apparently.
(One could argue it played it safe to Destiny R and I'd even tend to agree as that was indeed something I was disappointed about at the time, but it so massively upped the stagnating 3D entries before and after it that it still stands on its own. This is something where I guess Berseria could excel, instead taking out free run it consequentially took out linear motion, though the enemies often seem to be rather static for my liking like in many free run focused games and reminding me of Musou. Still have to play it though so I'll reserve my judgement.)
The side step is good but I'm not fond of the A-style/Artes tree it introduced because 1/ it feels like "press A to awesome", 2/ it gets annoying in Berseria when you want to hit a weakness which doesn't correspond to the attribute of the artes you set first, so you're wasting tons of SG before using the appropriate arte. Though it wasn't a problem in Zestiria because of the Seraphim, I sure miss using any arte at any moment. I also miss jumping and doing aerial combos. In fact I would really love a conversion of Destiny R battle system in 3D.
As for enemies in Berseria, they're extremely aggressive (at least on Hard mode). I don't know how Bebpo can think the difficulty on Evil is too easy. It's true that you can destroy waves of enemies, but the reverse is also true. There are times 5-6 monsters are ganging at once on a single character, leaving no hope of surviving. You also get stunned a lot in this game, which also often means death. There was a time I managed to remain alive after being stunned, but my SG went from 4 to 1, making my character utterly useless. Running doesn't help when some enemies have huge range or can instant cast an AOE. I really think it's the hardest Tales game I played on Hard.
I have currently 20 hours clocked into the game. Surprise + Link encounter can wreck the party early in my case. You begin the fight with only 2 SG, surrounded by a lot of higher level monsters. I think it's interesting that you have to be more careful about running in the fields/dungeons this time since you can't outrun some monsters. Keeping a mob train behind you can badly end (it's the only moment the framerate took a nosedive so far in my playthrough). That's why I try to go for advantage encounters now if possible, beginning with 4 SG is the best way to end the fight quickly.
Btw early on, when I was nearly done with a normal fight, a bigass ape with its pals (the one from the OP movie) came in and smashed everyone. I don't think it was a giganto/wandering enemy. Any ideas of what happened?
When I start a battle against a new enemy type in an area, first thing I do is pause and see what weaknesses they have, then go through all my characters and figure out who hits those weaknesses the best, then I select that character and create a combo string specific to that enemy (usually just assign it to O x 4) and just play as that character and do that combo -> break soul -> repeat. Sometimes if there's two characters with good combos against the enemy weakness I'll do combo->break soul->mid-combo character change->combo. I honestly can't imagine as just playing as Velvet as her moveset is so limited and one-note. I haven't used her in about 5-6 hours and mainly play as Aizen and Eleanor with some Rokuerou. Not a fan of playing as the casters but do so occasionally and Velvet when needed. Aizen with the right weaknesses hitting combos that dizzy or down the enemy into break soul over and over just destroys the entire enemy party in seconds even on Evil.
Seems like a lot of effort, but it's not too bad because there's only maybe 3-4 enemy types per area, so once you have the chains set for the area it's cruise-control.
Then again I do prefer Graces because you don't have to mess with your Arte assignments at all. You just know if it's weak to an element you look at your move chart and figure out which directions to press for a combo that hits that element. Was a little faster. But I like Graces combat the best for other reasons such as being an intense 1 on 1 game of dodge timing and countering like a character action game. Tales imo at its best should be Devil May Cry, and at its worst be musou. Berseria is like Kingdom Hearts which is closer to the musou side than DMC or NG.
I also liked how the Seraphim in Zest worked since if you wanted an earth combo you'd just merge with the earth one to fight an enemy with earth weakness, or fire, or wind. Made it quick, fast and less menu planning. Me and Shouta were always going to be on opposite sides from the start regarding Berseria since he thinks Zesteria was a "awful game" whereas I thought it was a fairly good Tales game in story, cast, music and battle until about 25 hours in where the story loses focus and it feels like the game was half-done when they shipped it. The fields & loot were a problem in Zest, but those are just as bad or worse here outside the skill system being slightly better.
Sounds like a wandering enemy to me.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
RyougaSaotome
Member
31 hours in and some majorly depressing/uplifting shit just went down, and it feels like I'm pretty close to the end.
Loving the game so far. Been a while since I really devoured a Tales game like this. I liked Zesteria despite its flaws, but this is actually scratching the itch WAY more than I ever could have expected considering how cold I was on it up to the day of release. Great cast, surprisingly solid yarn, fun combat.
Loving the game so far. Been a while since I really devoured a Tales game like this. I liked Zesteria despite its flaws, but this is actually scratching the itch WAY more than I ever could have expected considering how cold I was on it up to the day of release. Great cast, surprisingly solid yarn, fun combat.
InternHertz
Member
It was a wandering enemy, you must've been doing great in the zone for a while and/or playing on higher difficulty and he appeared.
Yesterday I beat the
hidden true
For a bit I had nothing to do except glaring at the screen for him to stop doing that.Begun some of the minigames for attachments, some are fun but some not so much, and I expect it won't be easy getting all prizes :/
Shouta
Member
The second half of Zestiria kinda soured me on the first half but it was still a 4.5-5/10 for me. Berseria then dropped Zestiria to a 2/10. It takes everything that Zestiria set for its universe and made it into a title that has engaging characters and an engaging story that's actually executed well. Berseria makes it really apparent how sloppy Zestiria was.
Which is a shame because there was a lot of potential in Zestiria.
Which is a shame because there was a lot of potential in Zestiria.
Finished it yesterday. It took me 61 hours to finish the story, the party was at level 67/68.
Loved it and can confirm the positive impressions.
Some brief thoughts:
- Cast and character interactions is great, especially loved the relationship between Velvet, Laphicet and Elenoar.
- Like how the story was handled. No collect all spirits or earthen historia quest. Plot twist was tragic, intense and depressing. Liked it.
- Fields are better designed and visually more appealing. They are more compact and not as big as Zestirias fields.
- There are a lot of towns. Found them nice. As always, you can only enter a few buildings, like inns, warehouses, churches or bars.
- Most dungeons have some minor puzzles, but nothing too dificult. Except the generic cave dungeons.
- Equipment/skills are easier to manage than in Zestiria.
- A lot of skits. A lot of LONG skits. This game has so much voice work.
- Game was very easy early on, even on hard. Difficulty went up during mid-game. Had to switch from hard to second. lol
- Barely touched the side content. Did some side quest but thats it.
- Battle system is fun, as always. Loved using Velvets Soul Break to extent my combo chain.
Loved it and can confirm the positive impressions.
Some brief thoughts:
- Cast and character interactions is great, especially loved the relationship between Velvet, Laphicet and Elenoar.
- Like how the story was handled. No collect all spirits or earthen historia quest. Plot twist was tragic, intense and depressing. Liked it.
- Fields are better designed and visually more appealing. They are more compact and not as big as Zestirias fields.
- There are a lot of towns. Found them nice. As always, you can only enter a few buildings, like inns, warehouses, churches or bars.
- Most dungeons have some minor puzzles, but nothing too dificult. Except the generic cave dungeons.
- Equipment/skills are easier to manage than in Zestiria.
- A lot of skits. A lot of LONG skits. This game has so much voice work.
- Game was very easy early on, even on hard. Difficulty went up during mid-game. Had to switch from hard to second. lol
- Barely touched the side content. Did some side quest but thats it.
- Battle system is fun, as always. Loved using Velvets Soul Break to extent my combo chain.
Even though not intentional, Zestiria really feels like the twilight of that world. History is lost, things are blander and uneventful. The more interesting times had already passed. I didn't hate the game, but Berseria just does everything so much better. That makes it hard not to compare them.
What? Are you completley ignoring that Vesperia had the first full-aerial gameplay possible, had the first fully character-specific skill system, had the first utterly different storyline compared to early ones, had the first 'mentor' MC, etc?
Also, every tales has a 'special gimmick' like FoF/etc, but Vesperia definitely didn't play it safe, especially compared to either Symphonia or Abyss.
I mean, you can say a lot of things about Vesperia, but it wasn't safe.
That sounds amazing, I platinum-ed Zestiria anyway and really hyped about Berseria's western release. Currently plat-ing Star Ocean 5 in the meantimen not much left but after that I will really want a good JRPG x)
Tales of Destiny 2 or Destiny DC were much more competente at aerial comboing.
I can't think of a game that is much more safe/conservative than ToV. Not just in the series. In gaming as a whole.
It's utterly uncreative.
Interesting. He doesn't seem to be in the hunting list for now, and he's not marked on the map (the gorilla in the north is another one), so I guess it was a random wandering enemy? Is there an unique one in each zone or is it always the same one appearing?
InternHertz
Member
Oh I see what you mean, the ones you mention are dire foes and constitute the hunt list.
A wandering enemy appears when you've been amassing grade in the same zone for a while, and the higher the difficulty the higher chance of one appearing.
When your battle is over, music fades out and you stay on the battleground then the wandering enemy appears with generally 2 adds, which are invincible but die when the main one dies.
There are
5 different
Oh okay, so gigantos (used to that name) and wandering enemies are really different thing. Thanks for the details!
Not totally the same but it does really feel like
Not totally the same but it does really feel like
So it seems everyone has at least one Mystic Arte that refers to another Tales character. The only one I haven't figured out is Eizen's.
Everyone else:
Everyone else:
Velvet's Zeppa Messhougeki - Kyle from Destiny 2
Laphicet's INDIGNAYSHON - Almost every Tales mage ever
Rokurou's Rangetsuryuu: Shirasagi - Rose's Rangetsuryuu: Kawasemi/Jade Luminesence from Zestiria
Eleanor's Lost Fon Drive - Luke from Abyss
Magilou's Kouyoku Tenshoukun - A parody of Yuri's Tenshou Kouyokuken from Vesperia PS3
Laphicet's INDIGNAYSHON - Almost every Tales mage ever
Rokurou's Rangetsuryuu: Shirasagi - Rose's Rangetsuryuu: Kawasemi/Jade Luminesence from Zestiria
Eleanor's Lost Fon Drive - Luke from Abyss
Magilou's Kouyoku Tenshoukun - A parody of Yuri's Tenshou Kouyokuken from Vesperia PS3
About 50 hours in and I think I'm basically at the endgame. I'll reserve my thoughts until I beat it, but overall it has been a lot better than Zestiria. It's a big improvement over it from the very map design to the main story content.
I don't think it plays it safe, though. It still feels like the recent games where they try to experiment with how they handle the systems, storytelling and the side-content.
I don't think it plays it safe, though. It still feels like the recent games where they try to experiment with how they handle the systems, storytelling and the side-content.
Yeah you didn't play any JPN only titles did ya? Destiny remake was way better with aerial combat and every character can do it.
RyougaSaotome
Member
Edit: Never mind.
Cleared it at 38 hours (ignored side quests).
Might be my favorite 3D Tales game. Vespy was my fav up until now, but the combat didn't exactly thrill me in that game.
Cleared it at 38 hours (ignored side quests).
Might be my favorite 3D Tales game. Vespy was my fav up until now, but the combat didn't exactly thrill me in that game.
Valkyri von Thanatos
Member
So many positive impressions. I understand that Bebpo doesn't like it as much and I respect that (hey, some people don't like Symphonia or Abyss, it's fine), but the amount of people saying that this may legitimately be their favorite 3D Tales Of game is extremely promising! I was basically just hoping for something on Xillia's level, engaging but flawed in a number of not insignificant ways, but it sounds like this game is awesome by most people's accounts. I hope FFXV similarly will surprise me, but I'd totally be fine with the 2016/early 2017 JRPG ranking to be something like this:
1) Persona 5
2) Tales of Berseria (interchangeable with NA)
3) Nier Automata (interchangeable with ToB)
4) FFXV
InternHertz
Member
I have passed 100 hours of playtime.
I'm currently trying to get all drops from all monsters and right now only the enemies from the hidden dungeon are left.
After that I'm returning to the minigames farming but to be honest I don't find those fun to farm
I'm really trying to get that Item Collector trophy and man do they require a high number of them...I think I still need more or less 80 unique items still.
But I think I'll first try to farm a lot of TL coins, buy everything with them and then if I still need some I'll do the minigames I haven't gotten the rewards for yet.
If by the time I have bought everything I get the trophy though, I'll leave the minigames for playthrough 2 to be honest
I'm currently trying to get all drops from all monsters and right now only the enemies from the hidden dungeon are left.
After that I'm returning to the minigames farming but to be honest I don't find those fun to farm
I'm really trying to get that Item Collector trophy and man do they require a high number of them...I think I still need more or less 80 unique items still.
But I think I'll first try to farm a lot of TL coins, buy everything with them and then if I still need some I'll do the minigames I haven't gotten the rewards for yet.
If by the time I have bought everything I get the trophy though, I'll leave the minigames for playthrough 2 to be honest
InternHertz
Member
12hrs in and the first decent song plays.
Starting to like the combat less, I miss being able to spam dodges when low on resources. The soul system is confusing, each star is worth 30 when skills can use any value under that. It just doesn't convey your active resources well. Showing the exact TP amount was better in the other games.
Zaveid from Zesteria shows up. This scene was awesome.
Starting to like the combat less, I miss being able to spam dodges when low on resources. The soul system is confusing, each star is worth 30 when skills can use any value under that. It just doesn't convey your active resources well. Showing the exact TP amount was better in the other games.
Shouta
Member
Break Souls as Intern points out for in battle gain. You'll get a key item later that increases your max BG when you have a certain number of Enhancements to your gear as I recall.
R2 only gives BG, it seems. I'm also honestly confused on how to get soul points. Like sometimes I just get more, other times I can't get more than 2 regardless. Probably just the language barrier at work.
You can gain souls by dodging, killing enemies or stunning them. You lose soul by using break soul skills or getting stunned
Eh, not really. Button smashing will deplete your soul gage pretty quickly and the enemies will counter your attacks. It's not that important early on the game, but you will get massacred a bit more than halfway through. The battle system sometimes really felt more like chaining several weaknesses like crazy to power through on higher difficulties. Speaking of which, this has to be the most combo-ing battle system since Destiny remake. By the end of the game a lot of times you were doing near 80-hit comboes lol.
InternHertz
Member
Did the math and I indeed need to buy all the items with TL coins in addition to complete most of the minigames to have the item collector trophy. I'm at 802 items, so 53 left...InternHertz said:If by the time I have bought everything I get the trophy though, I'll leave the minigames for playthrough 2 to be honest
I have a question about the equipment upgrade system, it seems like the equipments can only be upgrade 3 times? But in the beginning tutorial I think they mention the equipments can be upgraded 10 times. Did I get that wrong earlier or is there something I need to do to unlock further upgrades? Thanks.
InternHertz
Member
There are glacites which unlock levels 6, 9 and 10 further in the game.
Keep beating bosses and other special enemies.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
I think I got all the side quests, but I still want to grind titles before beating the boss...
it's been a long time since i've felt this way lol
it's been a long time since i've felt this way lol
Ok, thanks for the info.
InternHertz
Member
Very nice, got the Item Collector trophy.
Now I'm aiming for triggering every Break Soul, Rokurou and Magilou's
hiougi and then all
dual-hiougis.
Then I'm mastering all the equipment I have and it'll finally be time to go into new game+ with all options enabled.
Rest of the farming will be done at the end of new game +.
edit 6 hours later : phew, I'm finally happy with my progress, achieved everything I wanted so I will now go into NG+ and the clock just turned 110h00m.
Now I'm aiming for triggering every Break Soul, Rokurou and Magilou's
3rd
3
Then I'm mastering all the equipment I have and it'll finally be time to go into new game+ with all options enabled.
Rest of the farming will be done at the end of new game +.
edit 6 hours later : phew, I'm finally happy with my progress, achieved everything I wanted so I will now go into NG+ and the clock just turned 110h00m.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tvCNEL1Mlk
Berseria English dub
Berseria English dub
InternHertz
Member
Well... 2 more trophies left before the Platinum.
Got the LV200 one earlier today, I'm left with mindless farming now : 200.000 TL Coins and all titles at LV2.
Which means spamming up to 1000-2000 attacks for those characters that didn't use them during my ~140h of play and a few other things >_>
Oh well, easy but boring and it takes a while. I'll be sure to be ready in time for Persona 5 to come out though.
Got the LV200 one earlier today, I'm left with mindless farming now : 200.000 TL Coins and all titles at LV2.
Which means spamming up to 1000-2000 attacks for those characters that didn't use them during my ~140h of play and a few other things >_>
Oh well, easy but boring and it takes a while. I'll be sure to be ready in time for Persona 5 to come out though.