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.
How are you finding the game so far?
I hope it's not as rushed or half-assed as Xillia and Zestiria.
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Tales of Berseria Import Thread
- Thread starter Rpgmonkey
- Start date
How are you finding the game so far?
I hope it's not as rushed or half-assed as Xillia and Zestiria.
Which director ?
You're probably talking about Hideo Baba but he never was a director to begin with, since he appeared as a producer not a single of the entries he was involved in had the same director(s). Also Tales of Hearts which was the first entry where he was really involved was great.
He did had an input on creative/story decision though, but we never really learned how much and he was definitely not involved directly on anything during development (he's not a developer, not a graphist, not a composer etc.). Putting all the blame on him is a bit too easy, even if he probably played an important part there.
LimitedTimeGamer
Member
everything i hear about this game sounds great~
ah yes, sorry I forgot about Trails series and Persona
(while I'm waiting for Cold Steel II release in less than a month)
maybe I just too caught up with "bad RPG nowadays" LOL
I didn't play Persona/SMT series though. it's too hard for me
Dragon Quest is also still around.
I use eBay or play asia
Both of these sites do fast emailed codes. I have bought over 100k yen between them. They accept paypal.
https://www.offgamers.com/browse/game-card/consoles
https://www.japan-codes.com/product-category/playstation-network-card/
Robobandit
Member
I bought the 10k yen PSN card for play-asia.. got the code immediately.
figured there might be a costume or something I wanted.. as much as I hate that they're doing that..
figured there might be a costume or something I wanted.. as much as I hate that they're doing that..
From what I've heard, there's a decent amount of ingame costumes this time. Velvet's prologue costume, winter coat for Eleanor, butler costumes, normin costumes, bath towels, swimsuits (different than the DLC ones) and some more alternate costume or each char. Recolor for Velvet, no book skirt for Magilou, exorcist costume for Elenoir, etc...
Weekend ended with 32 or so on the clock. Still enjoying the game, I even got a bit used to the fields. That said, I still think they are extremely boring to explore, even though some look nice. At least I finally unlocked the hoverboard from the demo.
I can't believe they make you attune to "Aetheryte current" in a zone (FFXIV expansion thing) before you can use the board there. At least it's only one per area and it's marked on the map.
Exploration aside, I really like the cast in ToB, skits and all. Velvet post-prologue might feel like another Cloud/Lighting, but pretty soon it shows that she has much more depth than those type of characters usually do. The rest of the characters didn't seem that interesting at first, but they grew on me quite quickly.
Interactions between party members are top notch and I actually laughed out loud multiple times. Sure, there might be less jokes than usually, but there's still a ton of them. Plus, I enjoy the more serious narrative where you have a clear goal and won't stop at anything to achieve it. It's quite refreshing to play a bunch of anti-heroes.
One complaint about the equipment - stores are really stingy with new items. I don't mind them having one "copy" of a weapon/character-specific item, but only one or two pair of boots or armor which can be used by 3 characters? Come on. On multiple occasions my characters still have 3-4 weapons etc. to master, while being stuck in an old armor, because new ones don't drop/are available for sale for a long while.
All in all, I'm still enjoying Berseria way more than Zestiria and I hope that the story doesn't go off the deep end later.
I can't believe they make you attune to "Aetheryte current" in a zone (FFXIV expansion thing) before you can use the board there. At least it's only one per area and it's marked on the map.
Exploration aside, I really like the cast in ToB, skits and all. Velvet post-prologue might feel like another Cloud/Lighting, but pretty soon it shows that she has much more depth than those type of characters usually do. The rest of the characters didn't seem that interesting at first, but they grew on me quite quickly.
Interactions between party members are top notch and I actually laughed out loud multiple times. Sure, there might be less jokes than usually, but there's still a ton of them. Plus, I enjoy the more serious narrative where you have a clear goal and won't stop at anything to achieve it. It's quite refreshing to play a bunch of anti-heroes.
One complaint about the equipment - stores are really stingy with new items. I don't mind them having one "copy" of a weapon/character-specific item, but only one or two pair of boots or armor which can be used by 3 characters? Come on. On multiple occasions my characters still have 3-4 weapons etc. to master, while being stuck in an old armor, because new ones don't drop/are available for sale for a long while.
All in all, I'm still enjoying Berseria way more than Zestiria and I hope that the story doesn't go off the deep end later.
MasterMenace
Member
So, what's the general consensus of this game. Does it at least feel like content complete as Vesperia or rushed liked Zesteria? Gameplay from videos looks amazing, but how does it play? How is cooking? How is the story? Any annoying characters? How are the environments? I heard they are bland like Zesteria
Hard to say about it being content xomplete or not, sibce the story seems to be ~60 hours long and it was released 4 days ago. As for your questions, read through the last few pages, since it's mostly impressions.So, what's the general consensus of this game. Does it at least feel like content complete as Vesperia or rushed liked Zesteria? Gameplay from videos looks amazing, but how does it play? How is cooking? How is the story? Any annoying characters? How are the environments? I heard they are bland like Zesteria
I like Graces' combat a lot, but in Zestiria's case I thought it was ok initially, but after trying to play it again and reevaluate some things I feel that game tried to take from Graces but ruined a lot of what made Graces fun.
Fusions were supposed to be equivalent to having another fighting style and you'd be filliping between the two often, but in the actual game basically anything useful you could do as an individual character was often better and less tedious when fused, which got boring because the fusions don't really change all that much throughout the entire game. They had that rock-paper-scissors system or whatever to try and weaken the fusions but most of the time it was easy to ignore and you were indeed better off ignoring it in a lot of instances. I also came away thinking the A/B-arte concept was severely gimped by that four arte limit they put in, and dodging wasn't nearly as satisfying to do because it's not like Graces where you can dodge some elaborate sequence of attacks to rack up various crazy bonuses and build the meter to get the super mode where your party can really go in for a few seconds, you just built the meter up for a healing move an eventual hi ougi or whatever.
With Berseria I like the Soul Break thing more because it reminds me of those unique character abilities you got in Graces f's epilogue, where you do a chain of attacks, use the character's ability to reset, and start another sequence of attacks, with the ability to mix in a hi ougi every now and then. To me the pace of combat feels more like the Destiny Remake and Hearts DS, where you can take your time so you could build up meter to do a long combo, then tone it down after it's all gone so you can build it up again and repeat the process (granted, going by public opinion they're two of the most spammy games in the series). At least in normal mode I haven't found the strength of normal attacks to be unsatisfactory, the weakness/chain bonuses have helped a lot. Dodging isn't satisfying in this game either though, it's still nice to have but I'll just accept that it's now less of a core feature with cool rewards and more of an obligatory maneuver every Tales game will have.
I don't know if it'll end up being as good as Graces in the end and I'm not sure how well it'll be able to develop and hold my interest as the game goes along, but I'm finding it more enjoyable and offering much more potential than Zestiria did.
Low budget and last gen tech.
But it's a closest to the classic golden age Tales we've love before
- story and lore are well done (plus, VAs, skit, and cut-scenes are above standard)
- a lot of side quest (but not insane as Eternia or Symphonia)
- a lot of mini games (fun!)
- decent amount of secrets
- a lot of non DLC swimsuits
anyway
55 hours, near the end, 70% of sub-events cleared.
LambdaTeos
Member
Spoilers:
This appears to be the full list of mystic artes in the game, it includes all mystic artes that have been rumored to this day
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W76mHkG8IQs&feature=youtu.be
Obvious spoilers
This appears to be the full list of mystic artes in the game, it includes all mystic artes that have been rumored to this day
dual mystic artes, and certain enemies have 2 mystic artes too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W76mHkG8IQs&feature=youtu.be
Obvious spoilers
MasterMenace
Member
Low budget and last gen tech.
But it's a closest to the classic golden age Tales we've love before
- story and lore are well done (plus, VAs, skit, and cut-scenes are above standard)
- a lot of side quest (but not insane as Eternia or Symphonia)
- a lot of mini games (fun!)
- decent amount of secrets
- a lot of non DLC swimsuits
anyway
55 hours, near the end, 70% of sub-events cleared.
Bit sad about the low budget/last gen graphics...but as long as it's packed with meaningful content, fun battle system, nice unlockables, and a fun cast then that's good.
I believe the opposite.
Graces had an overliance on CC that were heavily tied to weapons (meaning that you were heavily limited until the endgame even in basic attacks), had a total reliance on dodge that made the game a Y/N on 'can you dodge' and limited tactical choices, and had an extremely limited 'heaviness' of character, making it seems more like an arcade game than a simulation.
The latter point is something that is either hit and miss, but it's a dealbreaker if you dislike the style.
OTOH, Zestiria's skill system and title system was hugely superior in giving choices and specialisations to characters as well as giving flexibility, and given both were equally grindy that's a net positive for Zestiria there.
Moreover, Armatisation actually wasn't a "one shoe fit all", as not only was it much weaker against casters but it also serverly limited the speed and manoeuvrability of the characters in exchange for huge AOE and damage. Oh, and it also divided your team's presence in the field.
If you play on harder difficulty you have to be super careful about when to and when not to Armatize.
Oh, and obviously Zestiria was much superior when it comes to ressource management, because while "dodge and create a super break is fun", "dodge + sidestep management + free run > super mode" is much more interesting, as everything isn't tied up in the 'dodge' ressource.
(sidestep management is how sidestep are part of your count for combo, so it gives -20% cast speed, making casters much more flexible).
OTOH, I am one of those that think that Graces F had the worse combat since Legendia, so....
I'm trying really hard to like this game, because it's much better to have an enjoyable 60 hours than hate play a bad game for 60 hours.
Story/characters - So when I got the 4th playable character, this improved because even if Velvet doesn't really talk, now Samurai guy & Pirate guy talk to each other and having two characters that actually talk and have some rapport goes a long way. The skits are more enjoyable and there's even victory dialogues! I'm starting to warm up to the cast a little.
Still, the fact that you start out with two characters that have like no rapport with each other and hardly talk and then when you finally get a 3rd playable character it's a mute character is funny in a "this game hates fun" way. Even the 4th character shows up and is ULTRA-SERIOUS GRIM REAPER lol. This game is trying so hard to be edgy dark but it's still a PG Tales game with terrible writing.
Battle - I'm trying so hard to get some depth and strategy out of this system. I can't play battle systems that are shallow, I just get bored and every battle is the same. I pumped Berseria up to hard so things didn't die in 2 seconds on normal, or 5 seconds on second, but even then you really have to go out of your way to create some enjoyable depth.
Right now I'm setting a different attack string for each enemy type in the current dungeon. So if I'm fighting bats I'll use the triangle string, armored lizard dudes the square string and I tune each string to run attacks that hit the enemy weaknesses and hit constant red high damage like Zesteria.
At the same time I'm trying to shuffle between the characters, so like I'll start off as samurai dude and R2 soul counter an enemy group -> Velvet combo weakness chain -> Soul Break -> if I get a stun or dizzy switch to Ein and R2 soul break on the enemy group.
It's mildly fun, but everything still dies really quickly. Also it's one of those games where I'm doing all that stuff to try to add depth, but I could just as well just play Velvet, mash -> soul break -> mash -> soul break and the battles would end just as quickly even on hard. Unless I'm missing something, the battle system just seems fairly shallow for Tales.
In a lot of ways I feel like the battle system doesn't even feel like a Tales game. It's too different with only bits of Zesteria & Graces' system still laying underneath it all. In some ways I feel it should've been a non-Tales game.
Gameplay outside of battle - Again, unless I'm missing something the equipment system is still awful like Zesteria. I'm ~7 hours in and I'm basically still using the same equipment I started with except +1 on a couple of weapons. I haven't bought anything from stores yet because they haven't even been selling any equipment better than what I have on. I switch between different versions of the same weapons/armors to learn the skills on them, but otherwise it seems like it's another shopless/equipmentless Tales game, which is just stupid. There's nothing wrong with the standard formula of going to a new town which sells better equipment and you save up and buy those pieces to get your party stronger. Plus I miss Tales games where there'd be a point to finding and opening chests because you'd find a great weapon or piece of armor in it. Also the hundreds of little pick up items are mostly useless and just there to try to make the map look like it has more stuff on it, when it really doesn't. For the most part the game so far is very Xillia/FFXIII where you walk down a straight path from cutscene to cutscene with the occasional boss fight and some dungeon dead ends along the way.
It's growing on me a bit, but still seems like a weak game. Does the battle system or equipment system ever get deeper or more interesting? Does the game ever give you places to really explore? Are there any good towns in the game? Does the story ever get less serious? That kind of stuff will help motivate me to play it more. Since Star Ocean 5 is still sitting in my backlog, I'm kind of tempted to play the first 7 or so hours of SO5 and see which combat/characters I like better and play that one.
Story/characters - So when I got the 4th playable character, this improved because even if Velvet doesn't really talk, now Samurai guy & Pirate guy talk to each other and having two characters that actually talk and have some rapport goes a long way. The skits are more enjoyable and there's even victory dialogues! I'm starting to warm up to the cast a little.
Still, the fact that you start out with two characters that have like no rapport with each other and hardly talk and then when you finally get a 3rd playable character it's a mute character is funny in a "this game hates fun" way. Even the 4th character shows up and is ULTRA-SERIOUS GRIM REAPER lol. This game is trying so hard to be edgy dark but it's still a PG Tales game with terrible writing.
Battle - I'm trying so hard to get some depth and strategy out of this system. I can't play battle systems that are shallow, I just get bored and every battle is the same. I pumped Berseria up to hard so things didn't die in 2 seconds on normal, or 5 seconds on second, but even then you really have to go out of your way to create some enjoyable depth.
Right now I'm setting a different attack string for each enemy type in the current dungeon. So if I'm fighting bats I'll use the triangle string, armored lizard dudes the square string and I tune each string to run attacks that hit the enemy weaknesses and hit constant red high damage like Zesteria.
At the same time I'm trying to shuffle between the characters, so like I'll start off as samurai dude and R2 soul counter an enemy group -> Velvet combo weakness chain -> Soul Break -> if I get a stun or dizzy switch to Ein and R2 soul break on the enemy group.
It's mildly fun, but everything still dies really quickly. Also it's one of those games where I'm doing all that stuff to try to add depth, but I could just as well just play Velvet, mash -> soul break -> mash -> soul break and the battles would end just as quickly even on hard. Unless I'm missing something, the battle system just seems fairly shallow for Tales.
In a lot of ways I feel like the battle system doesn't even feel like a Tales game. It's too different with only bits of Zesteria & Graces' system still laying underneath it all. In some ways I feel it should've been a non-Tales game.
Gameplay outside of battle - Again, unless I'm missing something the equipment system is still awful like Zesteria. I'm ~7 hours in and I'm basically still using the same equipment I started with except +1 on a couple of weapons. I haven't bought anything from stores yet because they haven't even been selling any equipment better than what I have on. I switch between different versions of the same weapons/armors to learn the skills on them, but otherwise it seems like it's another shopless/equipmentless Tales game, which is just stupid. There's nothing wrong with the standard formula of going to a new town which sells better equipment and you save up and buy those pieces to get your party stronger. Plus I miss Tales games where there'd be a point to finding and opening chests because you'd find a great weapon or piece of armor in it. Also the hundreds of little pick up items are mostly useless and just there to try to make the map look like it has more stuff on it, when it really doesn't. For the most part the game so far is very Xillia/FFXIII where you walk down a straight path from cutscene to cutscene with the occasional boss fight and some dungeon dead ends along the way.
It's growing on me a bit, but still seems like a weak game. Does the battle system or equipment system ever get deeper or more interesting? Does the game ever give you places to really explore? Are there any good towns in the game? Does the story ever get less serious? That kind of stuff will help motivate me to play it more. Since Star Ocean 5 is still sitting in my backlog, I'm kind of tempted to play the first 7 or so hours of SO5 and see which combat/characters I like better and play that one.
Freyjadour
Member
I wouldn't suggest SO5.
InternHertz
Member
Damn it took me a bit less than 45 hours to get that damn hoverboard
I can finally get to all areas in fields now and use some shortcuts.
The turning on that thing is still very twitchy, which I'm not a fan of.
Looking at some wikis (only the main pages as to not spoil myself too much) and going according to the number of walkthrough parts, I should be somewhere around 70% done with the main story.
I can finally get to all areas in fields now and use some shortcuts.
The turning on that thing is still very twitchy, which I'm not a fan of.
Looking at some wikis (only the main pages as to not spoil myself too much) and going according to the number of walkthrough parts, I should be somewhere around 70% done with the main story.
45 hours? Wow, you must be doing some serious grinding, since I'm checking every nook and cranny and doing all the side stuff I can and yet I got it after 30 hours. Maybe it's because I'm playing on normal though, battlers are really over really fast.Damn it took me a bit less than 45 hours to get that damn hoverboard
I can finally get to all areas in fields now and use some shortcuts.
The turning on that thing is still very twitchy, which I'm not a fan of.
Looking at some wikis (only the main pages as to not spoil myself too much) and going according to the number of walkthrough parts, I should be somewhere around 70% done with the main story.
Speaking of side stuff, I really like how they mark this stuff with ! bubbles on the map, makes it easier to follow everything. That said, it would be nice to have some consequence, since there's no way of knowing if something interesting is in a building without entering it - I wish bubbles were on the building icon or something, because it's a bit of a pain to visit all of them when revisiting towns for the Xth time.
As for the story, it keeps getting better, really enjoying the game and I'm very curious to see where it all goes. I hope the answer is not "to hell", like in some previous Tales games.
Open the map and press L1 or R2 to switch between different sections of the town. You don't need to visit every inn or bar. ;-)
Shouta
Member
I'm 10 hours in now and this is definitely faaaaar better than Zestiria was at the start.
They're actually taking time to build the characters both in personality and motivation while still progressing the story logically. The character rapport is really good without being overbearing as well. The areas feel like they've been significantly upgraded visually and the dungeons are better overall.
I like this version of the combat system way more than I did with Zestiria. I've only focused on Velvet but comboing enemies all while trying to hit weaknesses, maintain your SG gauge to use her Claw mode and avoid damage is really fun. I definitely need to give the other chars a shot but they all look like they have fun R2 modes as well. The equipment system is much simpler overall and works way better than the junk we got in Zestiria.
If they can keep this momentum up, it definitely has a chance of being the best Tales game in a LONG time.
They're actually taking time to build the characters both in personality and motivation while still progressing the story logically. The character rapport is really good without being overbearing as well. The areas feel like they've been significantly upgraded visually and the dungeons are better overall.
I like this version of the combat system way more than I did with Zestiria. I've only focused on Velvet but comboing enemies all while trying to hit weaknesses, maintain your SG gauge to use her Claw mode and avoid damage is really fun. I definitely need to give the other chars a shot but they all look like they have fun R2 modes as well. The equipment system is much simpler overall and works way better than the junk we got in Zestiria.
If they can keep this momentum up, it definitely has a chance of being the best Tales game in a LONG time.
theofficefan99
Junior Member
I promise you Star Ocean 5 will only make you appreciate this game more lol. I seriously promise you.
DR2K
Banned
I wouldn't suggest it on my worst enemy. Most disappointing turd I've ever played.
Thank you! For some reason I didn't notice that in towns, despite using those buttons to switch between maps in dungeons/fields and on the world map. Now I feel stupid.
Doesn't really mean much - looking at the trophy % on PSN, the number of people who cleared half of the game is still under 10% (maybe even 5%) iirc.
Robobandit
Member
All it means in this case is that no one has organized a 1 star review hate campaign like they did for Zestiria.
LambdaTeos
Member
great, crybabys alisha fanboys finally stopped (not saying all of them but most of them)
I guess they didn't find anything to be outraged about. Quite surprising, really, since most bigger releases get that treatment.
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.
It's not terrible, but it's basically a game that suffered from budget. Think of it like a current gen Tales game budget, only they focused the graphics more and culled out on the content and locations.
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.
Low budget and last gen tech.
But it's a closest to the classic golden age Tales we've love before
- story and lore are well done (plus, VAs, skit, and cut-scenes are above standard)
- a lot of side quest (but not insane as Eternia or Symphonia)
- a lot of mini games (fun!)
- decent amount of secrets
- a lot of non DLC swimsuits
anyway
55 hours, near the end, 70% of sub-events cleared.
How varied are the locations?
AlphaDragoon
Member
Good lord.
A bunch of those MAs feel toothless. I get that the game has a bit of a faster pace being based off Graces, but I think most of them go too fast to really drive home the "oomph" behind the hits. There were a few good ones though, hilariously enough the Jude and Milla/ Jude+Milla combo ones were some of the best.
Robobandit
Member
really? that's pretty disheartening...I don't really keep up with released Japanese games in particular.. I'm just impulsive and have a soft spot for the Tales of series.
I like them being faster than usual. There's the lengthy ones for the Lv.3s and the shorter ones for the Level 1s with 2 being a middle ground. Reminds me of fighting game supers, Marvel 3 for example. Plus having super long Mystic Arts like Vesperia would just get annoying the 15th time you've seen in battle (Estelle's 2nd mystic art was really bad at this being like 20 seconds long).
AlphaDragoon
Member
They didn't have to be super long. Just sell the hits, man. Right now I feel like most of those don't sell it. It looks like they just hit them with a pool noodle and they went "okay". Graces had quick ones too but a good amount of them felt painful, like Hubert's.
Typical; field, cave, big town, small town, beach, ruin, mountain, snow, etc.
But "polished" as hell. They're beautiful, easy to navigate, and fun to travel or finding secrets/chests.
That's already more than Zestiria had to offer.
OMG that's huge for me. Vesperia is my favorite in the series. I hope I feel the same as you come Western release.
Probably not week 1, but if the word of mouth is good enough, it might keep selling well past that. Mostly positive reviews on Amazon are definitely a good start.
So I got my copy yesterday and played about six hours. I'll just disclaimer here is that my Japanese is not at the level where I understand a lot of the dialogue. That being said. I do like the story from what I do understand. The combat is pretty easy to pick up and conducive to comboing. Cancelling to Break Soul is pretty fun and chaining has you trying to optimize your artes tree.
The loot system from Zestiria is back and I don't like it here either. I might be missing things with the skill system, but it seems like nothing carries over from equipment to equipment. Only the skills on the equipment and unlocked bonuses from upgrading. Although it shows mastered skills in another part of menu. Maybe someone can clear that up for me.
Overall, I really like the game so far. It's definitely better than Zestiria.
The loot system from Zestiria is back and I don't like it here either. I might be missing things with the skill system, but it seems like nothing carries over from equipment to equipment. Only the skills on the equipment and unlocked bonuses from upgrading. Although it shows mastered skills in another part of menu. Maybe someone can clear that up for me.
Overall, I really like the game so far. It's definitely better than Zestiria.
Don't forget Lost Fon Drive