Update Two Hundred and Eighty-Two: 25 February 2019

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Ha! HA! I did it! I said I’d clear Tales of Berseria before the end of February and I did! (Unfortunately, it was to the neglect of Yakuza 4, much to my girlfriend’s dismay. In my defense, we’re in Tanimura’s part and as much as Shax likes him, I’m finding myself pretty unmotivated to jump back into his shoes… though once we get through him, it’s Kiryu and “Machine Gun Kiss” time!)

Anyway!

Tales of Berseria is the answer to and rebound from Tales of Zestiria. Set a millennia before that game, you play the original Lord of Calamity - a very, very pissed of 19 year old girl - and her band of misfits and villains going up against the Fantasy Pope and God. Exactly my kind of game.

I found Zestiria to be okay, mostly because dear friends of mine really didn’t like it and I set my expectations to the floor in response. It’s kind of basic, straightforward, no big twists or not anything particularly new to say. A rather staid result. Berseria, on the other hand? Following an epic fantasy story from the perspective of “the bad guys” (who actually, you know, do bad shit, even with a sad backstory to back it up) is really interesting! Velvet, the protagonist, gets to have an arc just like any male protagonist would (though, because everything has to have a price, has one of the more eye-rollingly ridiculous outfits I’ve seen in a Tales game), and she gets to be really angry and mean and scary and infuriating and annoying and grow up through it. Her story has nothing to do with romance or being a mother, which puts it in a rare, refreshing category.

Every party member is unequivocally strong and likable—for the first time in a Tales game, I genuinely really liked EVERY party member. No throwaways here! Even better, the strongest foils to Velvet are the two other female party members! This game also features my new absolute all-time favorite Tales character—Magilou! My same pal who plays Tales games disliked her a lot, calling her annoying and aggravating and that she never shut up and plays too much. That makes me nervous—all those are things you could say about me!!

The story is long long LONG, with several twists and turns. I never found that it lost momentum, though of course some things here and there could have been improved upon. I just liked how uncompromising the narrative ended up being about Velvet’s vision—that at the end of the day, your choices are your own and if people don’t like it, oh well! That your pain matters and your determination counts… but also that if you hurt people along the way, those consequences matter, too. I liked the emotion v. rational argument where being emotional wins out, even strong, dark ugly emotions, even strong, dark ugly emotions shown by women.

Oh, one thing I’ll also say, and everyone hold on to your shortz because it’s out of left field—the combat system was really fun! They REALLY took note of Zestiria’s failures and attended to them, paring a combat system down to something so simple, intuitive, and fun that even I, Duchess I-Love-Video-Games-Fuck-Playing-Video-Games Extraordinaire, enjoyed engaging with it, to a greater extent than I ever engaged with Tales combat before. The combo system, the switch-in system, how fluid everything felt, it was sick!

Don’t be daunted by the playtime—it’s a great capstone for the series as a whole and a lovely journey to undertake.

Next up: Okay, I’m hand picking this one. Something short and light to cleanse the palate! Madison got me this game in August of 2017, and it’s about time I played it!

See you soon!