After being enamored with the aesthetics and writing of final fantasy games like 6 and 7R, but unfortunately kinda bored by the gameplay of older FF titles, I've been looking into exploring other classic JRPG series.

Unfortunately Tales of Berseria is just... a very mid shounen fantasy anime that's a video game instead.

I'm not sure how it never occurred to me that that would be a thing. Maybe this is my own fault for picking a game in part because I figured having the protagonist be a troubled edgy dark knight girl would be enough appeal factor to carry me through the opening bits and see if it hooked me.

I can't be assed to organize this into an essay that flows smoothly for a steam review 3 people besides me will read, so have some disconnected impressions instead. Disclaimer that i dropped it halfway(?) through.

-There's potential for a really compelling story in here but the writing could really do with an ounce or three of subtlety and maybe like 20% less Anime Bullsh♥t. This is a story about Emotion versus Reason. You know this because the characters keep saying those words out loud with their mouths. We use the most childishly simple strawman versions of those ideas lest our audience get confused. Our Heroes do a lot of evil things for selfish reasons, but all the mooks they kill on screen are cringe and stupid and also they're totally doing bad stuff too, so aren't Velvet & Co actually cool and badass?

-They DO kill people, right? it's weirdly ambiguous sometimes! The camera cuts away, the unexpressive models are just lying there which could mean anything, they set a place on fire and then we forget about it so like, probably people died, maybe, who knows!! It really makes the whole thing just feel like cheap flimsy edginess. No deconstruction of Velvet's morality (or lack thereof) or exploration of the cycle of violence here. I wish one of the people she'd carelessly offed had had a family member who decided to go on an insane revenge quest targeted at *her*. That might've been interesting. We could've explored a lot about velvet's character in how she reacted to that. (apparently something sort of like this happens later, very briefly, but it doesn't engage with any of the interesting angles)

-In fairness the prologue bits were solid and did a decent job of pulling me in and making me interested in how Velvet's character would develop. It felt like it did a pretty good job of-- suggesting the character flaws that would later dominate Velvet's life? Showing me a character of whom it was plausible that she would break in that direction? Am I crazy or was the writing quality here a lot better than the rest of the game's.

-According to the wiki later in the game it turns out to be that Arthur's goal is to Delete All Emotions from humanity and also the disaster he solved was his fault in the first place. I take it back, maybe there isn't a compelling story buried in here, actually.

-Velvet started to wear on me but I do like Eleanor. Mostly. Sort of. The events where she joined the party felt weird and contrived. And Magilou is kind of charming. Eizen is a pirate man or something and Rokurou just really wants to kill his brother for being better than him at sword fighting and is otherwise a Chill Dude devoid of normal human emotions, he's whatever. Plausibly they're all equally uninteresting from an objective viewpoint and I'm just biased in favor of the paladin and sharp-tongued jesterwitch girl.

-Laphicet 2 I'm confused by—he seems to be trying to develop into the innocent ray of sunshine slash moral center of the group? But I don't really follow how this development is happening, given the influences and experiences he's actually surrounded by, though. He seems to just kind of... believe that everyone in the party is a good person, and vaguely ignores all the bits where they do bad stuff, like he's the one vegetarian friend who doesn't get in everyone's face about it, except with murder?

-(Also, a weird number of interactions the rest of the party has with him are about sexuality and the Relationship of Men and Women? Even though he seems totally disinterested, at least for now?)

-As a newcomer to Tales the gameplay systems are—well I can't tell if they're actually that complex and hard to understand or if it's just that they feel that way because they're explained exclusively via confusing walls of text that take over your screen at the start or end of fights. I eventually figured out that if you can whittle an enemy down to low health Velvet can snowball by spamming her claw attack and racking up combo multipliers while retaining stamina, but I never really figured out how to play other characters the same way and the step of working through the bulk of the enemy health bars with basic attacks feels really, really slow.

-It often feels clunky that you have to target one specific enemy and if you press the attack button your character... walks toward that one, instead of attacking one of the other enemies that has gotten up in your face while that one ran away. You can retarget, but you have to do it by pausing and cycling through the all the enemies in order. It just feels awkward. This is a game with free movement! Your attacks will in fact hit other enemies if they happen to be in range of them! It's not something with a simple fix considering some other mechanics are built around it but it still feels awkward.

-A lot of things just feel kind of weird or poorly considered—why even bother putting overworld obstacles if there's just going to be a cutscene every time you encounter them explaining that you can press A to remove them? It's not that bothersome, it just feels pointless. What is this ship exploration minigame? What is it supposed to get me, is it just extra recipes for the cooking minigame which was explained by a confusing wall of text and I thereafter ignored? Why do you get those in this way?

-Velvet's outfit is ludicrous. Like, okay, sure, if I were going Chaotic Evil mode I'd totally dress in some ridiculously skimpy Edgy Evil Outfit because it looks hot & I don't care what people think, but Velvet isn't motivated by that? And it just winds up feeling cheap and silly. Like, when she was furiously eating demons in prison pit wearing nothing but the filthy rags that remained of her previous outfit and life, I was here for it. That made sense. You don't need to do extra work to make that situation fanservicey, murder girl with destroyed clothes killing people in the Pit is appealing all on its own. But then she """pieces together""" this completely absurd outfit out of """stuff she found in the prison storage room""" which broke my suspension of disbelief instantly, and then she declines to replace it for the rest of the game even though it is visibly falling apart and cannot reasonably have lasted more than five minutes without her tits popping out or the literal shoestrings it is held together by ripping out of the holes in her conveniently torn-open-down-the-front shirt. Like, why did she even bother?

-The cosmetic system is fun. Every game should have this. I kinda wish it had been easier to unlock more options other than Goofy Hats, but I did like the goofy hats. And I guess having cosmetic items mostly be unlocked by a meaningless collectible that every map is covered in is kind of annoying and makes the world feel more artificial and video game-y. They could've just been things you get from clothing stores or by talking to people or something. Whatever.

-I also like the VN-style 2d dialogue scenes, they're stylish and the artwork is clean even if the content isn't necessarily stellar.

Anyway. Mediocre game, maybe it's your comfort food, wouldn't particularly recommend it unless you already know you're gonna like it. I do not think I will play a Tales game again if this is supposed to be one of the best ones.

that's just my feelings though

i love velvet

This game is great! I'd say the side skits are the icing in this good game. They are very enjoyable and the characters blend very well. The story is great too. It runs great with no issues.