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Tales of Berseria |OT| The Band of the Crowe

I just finished the quests for the Shadow Guild.

There's been some nice callbacks to Zestiria.

I like the new cast. Zestiria's party was high tier so I hope up this cast ends up being close.

I hope there's more varied after battle skits. The ones in Zestiria were fucking hilarious.

Am I close to getting Magilou in my party? It's taking forever.

She should be joining at the next major boss battle.
 
Disappointments in this game:

The dungeons and fields are garbage tier. They traded big open emptiness for Final Fantasy 13 tunnels where you walk 5 steps and the characters yammer at you for 5 minutes.
The after battle skits are the worst of any Tales game I've played. None of them are any good, and there aren't many different ones.
I like the female characters and Phi, but the two boys were dull to me.
The battles had a way better camera than Zestiria, but I never got into the combat this time.

The story was great, but I'm shocked that I'm actually holding certain elements of Zestiria higher than this. I hated Zestiria. But It had more interesting dungeons and after battle skits, and a better battle system aside from the godawful camera.
 
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but I'm starting to play the Tales series for the first time now. I started Zesteria on Sunday and I'm just a few hours in and I'm enjoying it so far. I'm familiar with a few entries of the series due to watching the animes of them (Symphonia, Abyss,Zesteria). Over the last month I've bought new copies of some of the modern games:

Symphonia Chronicles
Abyss 3DS
Graces f
Hearts R
Xillia
Xillia 2
Zesteria
Berseria

I was wondering what the best play order of them would be (besides the obvious sequels). I do plan on playing Berseria after Zesteria. Is the combat in Berseria close to the combat in Zesteria. I'm not really use to it and been practicing not to just spam Martial Artes so when I get to tougher battles I have some clue of how to win lol.
 

Datschge

Member
I was wondering what the best play order of them would be (besides the obvious sequels).
The order you listed them is already fine, maybe swap Hearts and Graces. Be sure to take long enough breaks between games (especially between Xillia 1 and 2) so you don't burn out on the similarities.
 

FSLink

Banned
The order you listed them is already fine, maybe swap Hearts and Graces. Be sure to take long enough breaks between games (especially between Xillia 1 and 2) so you don't burn out on the similarities.

Yeah I'd move Hearts or Graces to between Xillia 1 and 2. 2 is great but has a lot of asset reuse...a lot easier to tolerate if you don't play it right after X1.
 
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but I'm starting to play the Tales series for the first time now. I started Zesteria on Sunday and I'm just a few hours in and I'm enjoying it so far. I'm familiar with a few entries of the series due to watching the animes of them (Symphonia, Abyss,Zesteria). Over the last month I've bought new copies of some of the modern games:

Symphonia Chronicles
Abyss 3DS
Graces f
Hearts R
Xillia
Xillia 2
Zesteria
Berseria

I was wondering what the best play order of them would be (besides the obvious sequels). I do plan on playing Berseria after Zesteria. Is the combat in Berseria close to the combat in Zesteria. I'm not really use to it and been practicing not to just spam Martial Artes so when I get to tougher battles I have some clue of how to win lol.
Berseria and Zesteria's combat are pretty different
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
I'm not sure if this is the right place to put this but I'm starting to play the Tales series for the first time now. I started Zesteria on Sunday and I'm just a few hours in and I'm enjoying it so far. I'm familiar with a few entries of the series due to watching the animes of them (Symphonia, Abyss,Zesteria). Over the last month I've bought new copies of some of the modern games:

Symphonia Chronicles
Abyss 3DS
Graces f
Hearts R
Xillia
Xillia 2
Zesteria
Berseria

I was wondering what the best play order of them would be (besides the obvious sequels). I do plan on playing Berseria after Zesteria. Is the combat in Berseria close to the combat in Zesteria. I'm not really use to it and been practicing not to just spam Martial Artes so when I get to tougher battles I have some clue of how to win lol.

Berseria and Zestiria combat share a few foundational/mechanical similarities, but they are wildly different in approach. The freeform 4-hit chain attack that tasks you to take advantage of enemy elements/affinities depending on your chosen skill for attack in the chain is about where the similarities begin and end. Graces f also kind of functions similarly(as these two games tend to act as an evolution to that older title), but they all vary wildly in approach.

You'll likely burn out long before playing both Berseria and Zestiria(both are massive in themselves), but Abyss 3DS gets my recommendation among your list. It has a rough start with a protagonist that can be grating, but his journey and maturity is part of its appeal. The dungeon puzzles are an added bonus, the combat is a major shift from the more technical-heavy affairs of the games you are currently playing, just a nice pleasant classic Tales experience.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
I feel like the Tales games of late have strayed from a working progress system that they had before, progression though titles. They had the potential to be an analogue to the class systems of other RPG's. Now they are an afterthought that might slightly boost or give you an "okay" effect. I've unlocked a lot of titles even with the little I've played, and the only one I've seen that is useful to me and noticeable is the equipment drop+ titles. Not sure if the other titles might be more attractive once ranked up or not.

While the equipment system is much better in Berseria compared to Zestiria's awful skill system, it still leaves much to be desired when compared to getting immediately useful skills like in FF9.

It would be great in the next game if they could smooth up the combat a little bit. Dashing and sidestepping still feel a little bit too tight.

This is oddly the first Tales game I've had in awhile where I have no idea which artes I want to assign.
 
After beating Berseria, I wonder if there would be a 3rd game. Or maybe a continuation of the games with the anime. Though I doubt it would happen, I'm just curious if
Velvet is just going to be sealed with her brother for eternity.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
This is oddly the first Tales game I've had in awhile where I have no idea which artes I want to assign.

Yea, the arte selection is so situationally dependent on enemy makeup and affinities, that you can either just go with a basic load-out that groups skills based on elements/type on button chains(fire on square, winged on circle); or not even bother which has been my choice for most of my playtime.

I literally just spam the "do whatever" x-chain outside of bosses(where I do spend a moment setting up X-button skills to match weaknesses, but only for them). This has the added benefit of evenly distributing experience to most all skills, which in turn gives passive bonuses anyway. It literally has gotten to the point where I never touch a face-button outside of x anymore. I mean why would I need to?

Plus, because this game changes the Zestiria system of making the 'first hit' in a combo the most vital(which ensures ANY attack following a weakness bonus will provide a similar effect, one of the better aspects of that system), you are really forced to have such a wide range of skills in Berseria ready to swap if you wish to always take advantage of getting the full 4-hit weakness bonus, which is tedious af!

The farther I play, the less I really like the combat in this game. Again, either you expend needless time fiddling with skill matching, or just ignore it, which is an equally tedious affair. It's kind of a lose-lose situation.
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
Yea, the arte selection is so situationally dependent on enemy makeup and affinities, that you can either just go with a basic load-out that groups skills based on elements/type on button chains(fire on square, winged on circle); or not even bother which has been my choice for most of my playtime.

I literally just spam the "do whatever" x-chain outside of bosses(where I do spend a moment setting up X-button skills to match weaknesses, but only for them). This has the added benefit of evenly distributing experience to most all skills, which in turn gives passive bonuses anyway. It literally has gotten to the point where I never touch a face-button outside of x anymore. I mean why would I need to?

Plus, because this game changes the Zestiria system of making the 'first hit' in a combo the most vital(which ensures ANY attack following a weakness bonus will provide a similar effect, one of the better aspects of that system), you are really forced to have such a wide range of skills in Berseria ready to swap if you wish to always take advantage of getting the full 4-hit weakness bonus, which is tedious af!

The farther I play, the less I really like the combat in this game. Again, either you expend needless time fiddling with skill matching, or just ignore it, which is an equally tedious affair. It's kind of a lose-lose situation.

Some of Velvet's skills just look too similar and I've started doing the same thing you did except memorizing which ones do power hits on the current enemies and spam those. I'm worried about getting some of the less used skills leveled up or not using my hidden artes enough.
 
Thanks everyone for the tips. It's going to take me a while to get through all those games but I went ahead and purchased them because finding new copies is hard as hell to find. And it seems like everytime I want to play a "retro" game it's out of print and I can't find a copy for a good price. Tales of Hearts R was a headache to find since its a retail exclusive. I ended up getting a used gamestop copy with the case (I just need to get a pstv now since I don't have a vita). I hope the next Tales game finishes this worlds story
(I spoiled myself due to the anime 2 weeks ago). It'll be interesting to see Velvet and Sorey interact and maybe see descendents of the characters since most of the human characters should be dead(?).
 
After beating Berseria, I wonder if there would be a 3rd game. Or maybe a continuation of the games with the anime. Though I doubt it would happen, I'm just curious if
Velvet is just going to be sealed with her brother for eternity.

I wonder this also.

I just beat the game and
wow, that ending, and those credits. So sad that they showed how "life would have been" essentially for Velvet and the crew if Celica never died. It was really sad that Velvet sealed herself away too, poor Phi telling her he loved her was too much. :( I want a third game where I get a happy ending for once, I didn't like Zestiria's ending at all, and disliked (well, more it was bittersweet, not that I outright didn't like it at all) Berseria's but I enjoyed it a lot more than Zestiria's by far.
 

Rainy

Banned
I'm pretty close to the end of the game and I think this might be my favorite Tales game. Guess I'll see how I feel after I beat the game in the next day or two.
 
After beating Berseria, I wonder if there would be a 3rd game. Or maybe a continuation of the games with the anime. Though I doubt it would happen, I'm just curious if
Velvet is just going to be sealed with her brother for eternity.

Late Berseria spoilers/next game speculation;

There seems to be quite a few 'hint's' that the next game could be a prequel?

- Siegfried is mentioned to have been the first Oracle, chosen by a Malak named Brunhild, back in an Age when Malak's chose humans.
- In the Ex-Dungeon it's said that some Seraphim descended from the Heavenly Realm in order to save humanity from malevolence. Those who descended became known as Malak's and their rulers were the Four Empyrean. They swore an oath that they couldn't return to the Heavenly Realm until they had saved humanity.
- Both appear to have some sort of connection to the unseen Northern Continent where Siegfried's gun was found and where Rokorou and the Rangetsu are from (?)
- Both seem to have some sort of connection to the old Hyland Kingdom and the Lady of the Lake (I think? I was expecting Lailah to appear in Berseria to be honest).

There's probably a few more hints that I've forgotten, but if they decide to stay in this world it seems like we'll be going back even further into the past.
 

Saphirax

Member
I wonder this also.

I just beat the game and
wow, that ending, and those credits. So sad that they showed how "life would have been" essentially for Velvet and the crew if Celica never died. It was really sad that Velvet sealed herself away too, poor Phi telling her he loved her was too much. :( I want a third game where I get a happy ending for once, I didn't like Zestiria's ending at all, and disliked (well, more it was bittersweet, not that I outright didn't like it at all) Berseria's but I enjoyed it a lot more than Zestiria's by far.

I don't think it was showing what could have been. Even with Celica alive Laphicet would still die from his 12 year old sickness. Since Velvet and her brother were stuck eternally devouring each other they both got to experience their dream scenario - a world or, more accurately, a dream/an illusion where nothing had gone wrong and they were both free to do what they wanted.
 
I don't think it was showing what could have been. Even with Celica alive Laphicet would still die from his 12 year old sickness. Since Velvet and her brother were stuck eternally devouring each other they both got to experience their dream scenario - a world or, more accurately, a dream/an illusion where nothing had gone wrong and they were both free to do what they wanted.

Yeah, you're right. I guess I misinterpreted it.
 

Ydelnae

Member
The final dungeon never ends, I'm going to end up skipping enemy encounters because this could take some good 2 hours if I keep this pace.

I completed Laphicet's sidequest, but I didn't get his costume recolor, is there anything I need to do?
 
The final dungeon never ends, I'm going to end up skipping enemy encounters because this could take some good 2 hours if I keep this pace.

I completed Laphicet's sidequest, but I didn't get his costume recolor, is there anything I need to do?
You need to
unlock Hexen Isle and do the boss there
. To do that you have to do all the
Zaveid stuff
.
 

jrcbandit

Member
The final dungeon never ends, I'm going to end up skipping enemy encounters because this could take some good 2 hours if I keep this pace.

I completed Laphicet's sidequest, but I didn't get his costume recolor, is there anything I need to do?

I think you may be doing the wrong sidequest, Laphicet recolor I believe is from a Hexen isle side quest, not the potion quest.


Also, is there any point to the bonus EX dungeon other than getting level 21 gear in the later parts? None of that will carry over in NG+, right, so it seems kind of a waste of time unless there is a cool ending to the dungeon or something.
 

Giolon

Member
Finally beat the game last night at 96 hours. I had to take the difficulty down from Hard to Normal (I didn't try moderate, but I probably should have. I just wanted to see the end). The 2nd to last boss just spammed bullshit AOE spells repeatedly on Hard.

Anyway, the ending was ok, not spectacular. It'll be interesting to see how it ties in to Zestiria.

Final score? 8.5 or so. Status as favorite Tales game cemented. It's:

1) Berseria - Beyond great cast, good character development, good antagonist fun combat, good emotional story, good supporting characters. Marred slightly by some pacing problems.
2) Abyss - Great cast, great character development, fantastic antagonist crew, good story, interesting but flawed combat as they tried to experiment more with their 3-dimensional freedom of movement
3) Symphonia - Good cast, good character development, good emotional story
4) Vesperia - Great primary cast, supporting party members are kind of weak (I never liked Karol), final antagonist felt like an ass pull out of nowhere, some great story twists,
Raven twist felt like it came out of nowhere
, good combat system that's obviously evolved from Abyss
 
The person who chooses the DLC legacy costume songs has some really terrible taste. Graces and Abyss both have some wonderful bgms, but instead the costume is tied to the few dull battle music...
 

Trojita

Rapid Response Threadmaker
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I found out I didn't have save screenshots as uncompressed selected till afterwards :(
 

kewlmyc

Member
The person who chooses the DLC legacy costume songs has some really terrible taste. Graces and Abyss both have some wonderful bgms, but instead the costume is tied to the few dull battle music...

I'm more confused why anyone though someone other than Hubert would look cool in his costume. Eizen looks like a clown in it.
 

Rainy

Banned
Shigure end-game:
I expected the fight with him to be a bit more difficult, was on Moderate. Anyway I really liked the scene with him and Rokurou before the fight and fight scene after was pretty cool.

Also in that anime scene with Velvet and Laphicet at the spring, it was touching, but why were the lips so desynced?

Edit: Have there been any figure announcements for anyone from Berseria?
 

Squire

Banned
Huh, Eleanor just did her second Mystic Arte. I guess I must've picked it up recently, but didn't notice. Anyone know how to trigger it? I'm playing as Velvet right now, so it was the AI that did it.
 

IceIpor

Member
Huh, Eleanor just did her second Mystic Arte. I guess I must've picked it up recently, but didn't notice. Anyone know how to trigger it? I'm playing as Velvet right now, so it was the AI that did it.

Same as all MAs. At least 8 input combo that connects with an enemy (e.g. 4(A), Burst, 3(A), Mystic Arte).
 

Giolon

Member
Huh, Eleanor just did her second Mystic Arte. I guess I must've picked it up recently, but didn't notice. Anyone know how to trigger it? I'm playing as Velvet right now, so it was the AI that did it.

Go to her Artes menu and look at the 3rd tab. Generally speaking, the 2nd Mystic Arte of characters require a combo of 8 and 4 BG.
 
I can never pull off the second Mystic Artes.

I do 4 artes -> trigger -> 3 artes -> MA button. Never comes out, and I've tried multiple times with the required BG. This is as Magilou.
 

demidar

Member
I've never really had trouble doing a second MA, just that some characters is a bit hard to get the required BG.

I guess the tripping point would be your input after you use a Break Souls. If you retain your fast casting speed as Magilou then you know you've chained it. For spellcasters in particular, it can be difficult chaining into a MA because the recovery frames after casting a high-tier Arte can be so long that you either get hit, or the final hit of the spell (I'm thinking stuff like Crown Fire and Insubstantiability) ends too late and you've already recovered from your casting animation.

I've had a weird thing where I hit an enemy with Final Embrace, dodged out of my recovery animation, swing with a Martial Arte and hit nothing but still triggered MA because the final hit of Final Embrace only just happened as I finished my whiff (and I was holding L2).
 

kewlmyc

Member
Shigure end-game:
I expected the fight with him to be a bit more difficult, was on Moderate. Anyway I really liked the scene with him and Rokurou before the fight and fight scene after was pretty cool.

Also in that anime scene with Velvet and Laphicet at the spring, it was touching, but why were the lips so desynced?

Edit: Have there been any figure announcements for anyone from Berseria?

Just Velvet from Kotobukiya coming out in March.

And holy hell, Eleanor is fun to play.
 

ULTROS!

People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Escaping Hellawes in the beginning is awesome. Velvet just kicking people. Got them shook.

Not really a spoiler but
I wish there were more events like that.
 
Just beat the game. Played on the highest difficulty possible for 95% of the game till the last dungeon where I put it on normal because of high mind-numbingly BS that dungeon consisted of with all the backtracking to get everyone's 3rd mystic artes. Horrible. Terrible. Last dungeon really showed me how much Tales needs to STILL evolve.

Have major gripes with many game systems and mechanics in this game. Too lazy to elaborate.

Combat is OK. Too bloated with mechanics. Arte tree design is bloated. I thought the combat was good (I played for 100 hours lol). I mained Velvet + Eizen. Rest of the cast are way too situational. Magilou is only good in caster lineups and those are rare encounters. Laphicet is a joke to play. Roko is only good vs 1v1 fights. Elenor is a gimped Velvet. Eizen is a goddam beast when you use him a reserve character and switch blast him into stunned enemies and then you just chain-bang the enemies with his break souls into 2nd mystic arte. I can go on and on about combat in this.

Dungeons are god awful. That last dungeon? OMG. Don't get me started. Gah...(I skipped EVERY ENCOUNTER..that's how bad it was)

Graphics are still terrible (don't say PS3 held this graphics back...why does Tales of Vesperia have cell shaded graphics and look 100x better than this crap?)

Loot/Enhancing/Dismantling system is dog shit cumbersome. Don't come to me and say it's "at least better than Zestiria's". Doesn't excuse this system. I hate RNG skills. I hate that enhancing past +3 gear is impossible unless you grind. This game actually should be called Tales of Grindia. Everything is designed to be grinded for.

Katz Spheres/Chests are horrible gameplay element. Not fun.

Lots of backtracking...ugh...

Dumb mechanics like Geotrees needed to unlock Geoboards for areas...ONLY GETTING THE GEOBARD like Half way through the game? WTF is that design.

3rd Mystic artes/3rd break souls/dual mystic artes locked till very end of the game...DUMB.

That said...

The carrying grace for Tales of Berseria is its CAST OF CHARACTERS. The story itself is meh.

What makes this a good game overall is that the character interactions are solid and you really grow and feel for each of the 6 (7... love you Bienfu) characters. But a lot of the other sub-systems in this game have slowly pissed me off over my 100 hour playthrough of this game.

My overall score: Good
 
Just beat
Melchior, after getting out of velvet's brother

how far am i from the end? I have the impression i advance reaaaaaaally slowly, playing on intense, 60 hours of gameplay
 

jrcbandit

Member
For some reason in Tales games I typically find myself only playing as one character. I played over powered Velvet on Moderate and Hard, at least they added in Switch blast mechanism so I also did a little bit of Eizen too. But I didn't touch any other character other than the required one on one battle with a specific character. I guess I felt too lazy to set up other character's Artes (especially annoying if you want to set up proper weakness chains for various mobs) and Velvet was easy to master. I also really liked IdolM@ster and Pirate Velvet outfits so I didn't want to play as anyone else :).
 

demidar

Member
For some reason in Tales games I typically find myself only playing as one character. I played over powered Velvet on Moderate and Hard, at least they added in Switch blast mechanism so I also did a little bit of Eizen too. But I didn't touch any other character other than the required one on one battle with a specific character. I guess I felt too lazy to set up other character's Artes (especially annoying if you want to set up proper weakness chains for various mobs) and Velvet was easy to master. I also really liked IdolM@ster and Pirate Velvet outfits so I didn't want to play as anyone else :).

I actually play everyone BUT Velvet. Don't really like her that much. I think some of her attacks have weird hitboxes and move her around too much.
 
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