Tales of Berseria |OT| The Band of the Crowe

I just got to the part where you
open the sea gate and reach some sort of port town.

Will the game still open up more or is this about it? This is my first Tales game and I like the story but I'm kinda ehhh towards the combat and equipment system.

Some examples. I noticed you can master equipment skills. Does that mean these skills become permanent even if you don't wear said equipment part or if you sell it? I am asking since I had a skill mastered that gave me +30HP but if it's permanent why would it still be equipment bound when compared to other equipment? As in: I'd lose 30HP when wearing a different piece.

Regarding combat. I'm a bit confused about arts and the use of L2. I'm not sure how to tell what's a good arts setup. And why does only Velvet have a control option? Also, the ultimate move you activate with L2... does it have to be triggered in break mode? Some things are just a bit confusing and it makes the entire experience feel a bit buttonmashy to me.

I love the characters and story but equipment/combat feels a bit more janky to me.
 
I just got to the part where you
open the sea gate and reach some sort of port town.

Will the game still open up more or is this about it? This is my first Tales game and I like the story but I'm kinda ehhh towards the combat and equipment system.

Some examples. I noticed you can master equipment skills. Does that mean these skills become permanent even if you don't wear said equipment part or if you sell it? I am asking since I had a skill mastered that gave me +30HP but if it's permanent why would it still be equipment bound when compared to other equipment? As in: I'd lose 30HP when wearing a different piece.

Regarding combat. I'm a bit confused about arts and the use of L2. I'm not sure how to tell what's a good arts setup. And why does only Velvet have a control option? Also, the ultimate move you activate with L2... does it have to be triggered in break mode? Some things are just a bit confusing and it makes the entire experience feel a bit buttonmashy to me.

I love the characters and story but equipment/combat feels a bit more janky to me.

I'm at the same spot as you and if it's like other Tales it'll open up more but they always start off pretty guided. Mastery stuff is permanent, though the additional skills equipment have are different.

Artes are basically very varying in power based off what you're fighting. Exploiting weaknesses you find out via targeting mainly, though you can generally just use whatever unless you're on a super hard difficulty. Mystic Artes don't need to be in break mode, just within a combo (so you can do one hit and then L2, you just can't initiate with it).

It only shows a control option for the character you're actively using. She defaults to semi-auto, you can make her manual which means she won't auto-move into position to attack. But you can change control and pick anyone in the group if you want.
 
Man the skits are some of the best content in this game. Only about 12 hours in playing on Hard. But I'm really enjoying the characters so far. Especially
Laphaciet

I got different costumes but I don't think there is anyway to change battle music like in Zestiria.
 
Getting this game later. It was a tough choice between this and Yakuza for me. Ended up getting this one since I loved Vesperia and a lot of people saying that this might be better is exciting for me.
 
Getting this game latter. It was a tough choice between this and Yakuza for me. Ended up getting this one since I loved Vesperia and a lot of people saying that this might be better is exciting for me.

For me I think it's the most I've enjoyed a Tales game since Vesperia.
 
This game has an old school Tales feel to it. Reminds me more of Phantasia or Destiny than anything else.
 
Some things are just a bit confusing and it makes the entire experience feel a bit buttonmashy to me.

I love the characters and story but equipment/combat feels a bit more janky to me.

To be completely honest, the game uses auto combo and you can just program each character to have the optimal combo macroed to X. A lot of the execution comes from meter management, which isn't hard since the game makes a ping sound every time you get another diamond that allows you to continue R2 spam with your character of choice.

But I wouldn't call the actual combat janky because, unlike FF XV or whatever, you actually are in control of what you're doing at all times (for the most part... it's possible that inputs get dropped here and there because of the amount of stuff going on, but it's a rare occasion). Sure, I wish that dashing from block was based on the direction I pushed, but I could stop being lazy and use the double tap to dash in the direction of my choice.

I've been playing on Intense difficulty and the encounters are so autopilot (like, my average grade in a regular encounter is 3-5... it seems like the strongest grade modifier comes from Mystic Arts, which can you spam like 2-3 times in an encounter) that I now have to lure two enemies into an encounter to make things vaguely more difficult.

Yeah, you can get by with just spamming Velvet's R2, but the question then become how hard you can bully various encounters.

I did a boss fight solo with Magilou by just using the meteor drop, magic counter and mystic arts. It was pretty amazing.

The game is a lot of fun and, while not as mechanically dense as Graces (at least from what I remember about Graces, which is the only other Tales I enjoyed playing from a gameplay perspective), there is still stuff to learn that's interesting to do.

As for equipment, all I do is equip stuff that hasn't been mastered yet. Even though I get sub optimal characters, it doesn't seem to really matter because the only actual interesting thing I've gotten from equipment is the enhancement concerning the increase in BG (which went up to seven and was awesome). I tried messing around with the equipment once to get the best skills and whatever, but it was kinda lame and I just wanted to go back to fighting things.
 
You need to use grade to carry over various stuff.

oh i know, i got all the items in the grade shop. i just didn't see one that carries over equipment but on ng+ it started me with some high end gear for some reason. they're not the same ones i had before ng+ either
 
Healing efficacy gets reduced on higher difficulty levels. The game wants you to use passive effects as your main method of recovery. It kind of reminds me of Rebirth in that regard.
 
So...healing artes are kinda useless? Healing Circle healed my dudes for like...50 life total

It took a while to realize this, but healing also seems to scale based on the difficulty of the encounter. Me and my friends were playing multiplayer and we decided to only do dangerous encounters, but we realized that healing artes were made pretty useless during these specific encounters.

It seems like the game is structured in a way where it's really on the player to get life back, which you can do by pushing R2, as opposed to relying on the AI to heal you... which I do like since it means I have to be more active in my play by getting those diamonds back whenever I go below 3.

But yeah, healing is pretty useless in this game and you might as well use a gel instead of relying on a character to heal you.
 
It took a while to realize this, but healing also seems to scale based on the difficulty of the encounter. Me and my friends were playing multiplayer and we decided to only do dangerous encounters, but we realized that healing artes were made pretty useless during these specific encounters.

It seems like the game is structured in a way where it's really on the player to get life back, which you can do by pushing R2, as opposed to relying on the AI to heal you... which I do like since it means I have to be more active in my play by getting those diamonds back whenever I go below 3.

But yeah, healing is pretty useless in this game and you might as well use a gel instead of relying on a character to heal you.
But R2 drains velvet's health
 
oh i know, i got all the items in the grade shop. i just didn't see one that carries over equipment but on ng+ it started me with some high end gear for some reason. they're not the same ones i had before ng+ either

I just checked and yeah you can't carry over equipment, just equipment skills.
 
I just checked and yeah you can't carry over equipment, just equipment skills.
It's really dumb tbh given how much effort it takes to upgrade equipment. Good luck ever actually being able to use the best armory acetate ability which requires an average of +9 on all 5 pieces of equipment on a single character
 
Regarding the battle system, I got to a point where either I am overrun with enemies or I abuse Velvet R2 to create infinite combos. It's somewhat fun in the sense that the battle system feels open, but this strategy also gets too efficient and repetitive.

I haven't played or abused that much with the other characters.
 
This kid in one of the towns asked me to play a card game and I denied him the first time. When I went back he was gone :(
 
If you like Tales games, you'll almost certainly like this one. The connections to Zestiria may even help you enjoy this one more.

However, if edginess is something that bothers you, hooooooooo boy you're in for a ride with Velvet.

Personally, I think she's pretty awesome.
I've read people comparing her to Lightning from FF13. Is she more on the lines of that edgy, or something different?
 
I've read people comparing her to Lightning from FF13. Is she more on the lines of that edgy, or something different?

Velvet actually has more reasons to be the way she is for most of the part and later on the game she shows some progression unlike Lighting
 
I've read people comparing her to Lightning from FF13. Is she more on the lines of that edgy, or something different?

Different.

Lighting had less personality than a door. Velvet is focused on her revenge so she tends to act in any way that will benefit her, consequences be damned. It helps that they build up her reasons quite well.

I am not that far into the story either, I think.
 
Oscar and Teresa remind me of Cless and Mint. I wonder if that's intentional.

Oscar definitely has the stereotypical Tales hero thing going on, right down to his moveset.
 
Oscar and Teresa remind me of Cless and Mint. I wonder if that's intentional.

Oscar definitely has the stereotypical Tales hero thing going on, right down to his moveset.

Thats maybe why I found him so bland
invoker-laugh.gif
 
I've just realized it after playing for around 20 hours.. there's no side quest in sight, which is actually a good thing. Well, yes there are 'hunts', but I don't have to take it first then report it after I'm done with it. Everything is streamlined with the main story as the focus. It's been all about story, story, and story thus far, and that's what make it a fantastic game.
 
For those of you who spent like 60 - 80 hours to finish the game, what level were you when you finished, 90 - 100? lol
 
Well that's some bad luck. Finally buy the game, sit down to play it after getting out of classes early and it seems a patch went out on PC which completely broke the audio for me. Certain attacks and effects cause an incredibly loud audio loop to occur, had to pull my headphones off the first time it happened. Guess I need to wait for a fix before I dig in.
 
Yeah, thanks guys, I figured they wanted people to focus on faster paced combat and use the breaks to heal. Seems odd to still have the healing tho. May as well turn them off.

"Physically Escalating With Cuties" fucking lol
 
For those of you who spent like 60 - 80 hours to finish the game, what level were you when you finished, 90 - 100? lol

I think I was around 65-70, my first run of the import was about 90 hours but at least 20 of that was messing around with minigames. I also don't usually fight everything in my path, just whatever groups of enemies I could get for dangerous encounters, and played on whatever the highest difficulty was available to me at the time, so less base exp than playing on normal/moderate/etc
 
The game isn't very fun on hard so far. If you don't grind you get in trouble it seems. I was hitting the last boss for 1 hp most of the time. They all seem to have 1 hit KO move like Zestiria on hard too. Eh.
 
Velvet actually has more reasons to be the way she is for most of the part and later on the game she shows some progression unlike Lighting

Different.

Lighting had less personality than a door. Velvet is focused on her revenge so she tends to act in any way that will benefit her, consequences be damned. It helps that they build up her reasons quite well.

I am not that far into the story either, I think.
Gotcha, thanks to both of you! I didn't mind Lightning all that much (just felt she was a little bland), but it sounds like I'll enjoy Velvet.
 
Gotcha, thanks to both of you! I didn't mind Lightning all that much (just felt she was a little bland), but it sounds like I'll enjoy Velvet.

Velvet's definitely not bland. She's just burning with rage (justifiably) to a degree that's like "yo, could you lighten up for like 2 minutes?"
 
Velvet's definitely not bland. She's just burning with rage (justifiably) to a degree that's like "yo, could you lighten up for like 2 minutes?"

She would probably say
she lightened up when Artorius was burning her legs and arms while he sacrificed her brother
 
I dunno, it's pretty refreshing to have an MC who when you encounter some like, person from another party member's past or a monster they want to fight is all "I don't care"
 
I really love the game, but what's going on with the loot (Weapons, Armor)?
20 hours in, and it still looks like 99% of the new stuff is the same or even worse than my current equipment. Very unsatisfying.

And how can i upgrade my weapons and armor further than level 3?
 
Alright I gotta talk about some shit about the localization job. I've been doing sidequests before the final dungeon and have noticed more and more mistakes in the writing not matching what's being sad. I'm doing Eleanor's sidequest and during a skit I just saw, literally every line was botched beyond belief and completely wrong from what the characters were actually saying. This is the worst I've seen but it's not an isolated incident. That combined with some inconsistencies like Magilou having a weapon named Lulu Doll that looks like Rollo. Lulu is his JP name, but in another shoutout they actually called him Rollo.

It's sad that this seems to be the worst translation/localization/whatever in forever when it's the strongest title in a while. Don't know if they ran out of time or stopped giving a fuck, but it's sad to see.

On a positive note, I got Magilou's recolor and it's amazing because it makes her look like Harley Quinn.
 
Alright I gotta talk about some shit about the localization job. I've been doing sidequests before the final dungeon and have noticed more and more mistakes in the writing not matching what's being sad. I'm doing Eleanor's sidequest and during a skit I just saw, literally every line was botched beyond belief and completely wrong from what the characters were actually saying. This is the worst I've seen but it's not an isolated incident. That combined with some inconsistencies like Magilou having a weapon named Lulu Doll that looks like Rollo. Lulu is his JP name, but in another shoutout they actually called him Rollo.

It's sad that this seems to be the worst translation/localization/whatever in forever when it's the strongest title in a while. Don't know if they ran out of time or stopped giving a fuck, but it's sad to see.

On a positive note, I got Magilou's recolor and it's amazing because it makes her look like Harley Quinn.

Bummer, I have definitely noticed some inconsistencies myself in the 10 hour range(mostly tooltip related), but hoped it was just a fluke.
 
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