7) Tales of Berseria
Best Tales of Games
Berseria sets a very different tone for the Tales series, making its story and main cast of characters much darker than we usually see. The series continues to up the ante with its presentation, and experiments quite a bit with its battle system.
The story of Berseria focuses on a young girl named Velvet Crowe, living a quiet life in a peaceful village.
Her world gets turned upside down when someone she trusts does something unthinkable, resulting in the loss of the entire village and everything she loves.
Velvet herself is turned into a daemon, an unholy being with special powers, and becomes consumed with vengeance. Three years later Velvet is broken out of prison, and finds the world very different from what she knew.
Along her journey, Velvet meets a colorful ensemble cast, who each have an incredibly troubled past.
The party of Berseria really is a ragtag group from different walks of life, whether it’s the dameon samurai Rokurou, or the pirate Eizen who’s stuck with a curse making him unlucky.
The story has much darker themes from the previous title Zestiria, and the main cast, especially Velvet, aren’t exactly the virtuous heroes. They cheat, steal, kill, and do more to achieve their goals.
Of course, the enemies they’re up against aren’t exactly holy either, resulting in a story filled with more moral grays, rather than black and white.
Combat has been drastically changed for Berseria, no longer splitting up normal attacks and artes as different commands.
Instead, you have four-step combos attached to each of the four face buttons, and a “soul gauge” measure how many moves in a combo you can use.
Each of the four-step combos for each character can be customized, resulting in a lot of combat variation. It’s a deep combat system, that only expands the further you get into the game, unlocking things like Break Artes and Mystic Artes.
Tales of Berseria is a welcome change in tone for the series, and even though its ensemble cast is a bit haphazard, they manage to be incredibly memorable.
Combat is fast and exciting, while also deep and rewarding. It’s another worthy entry in the long-running RPG franchise.
