Now with Berseria out on steam, itās time for this thread to come back.
First, Iām really new to the whole tales of franchise. The first tales game I played was Zestiria and that was only a month ago. Iām not exactly sure why I never tried to play a game myself. I did watch a Symphonia lets play some time ago, but it didnāt seem interesting enough for me to try it and I canāt even remember If I watched the lets play until the end.
But since Zestiria was on sale, I thought I might as well give it a try. Took me 5 days and ~50 hours gameplay to complete the whole thing and it was absolutely amazing. While the story is nothing special, youāre some dude who got chosen to beat up the evil guy, the characters are what really made the game for me. I love everyone of them and their interactions are awesome. Also, I like how the tales series does their storytelling. Watching and trying to get every skit was the best part of the whole game for me. Even though I wasnāt even close to completition. I might need to do another playthrough sometime.
The battle system is okay, I guess. Iām not experienced with jrpgs at all. I always think āWhy donāt you cut out the battles and just let me enjoy the story and charactersā. The battle system in tales games looks really confusing if youāre not playing yourself. But when I tried it, it wasnāt that hard to understand und I got through the game without problems.
The battle system in Berseria is the same as Zestiria with some changes, but nothing major. I had no problems so far.
But what is different in Berseria is the story. Itās way less predictable than Zestiria and it is really interesting to follow. Iām just before the last encounter, so Iām doing every sidequest I can find at the moment. The characters are, for me at least, not quite at the same level as zestiria. There are some annoying ones and some of the english voices are really really annoying and hard to listen to. (Looking at you, kamoana). I might have to say, I played both games with the english voices and they are good, as far as I can tell.
When Iām finished with Berseria, next up is Tales of the Abyss. I only have a 3ds and PC available, so sadly, there is not much to choose from. Iām probably going to play Symphonia sometime in the future, but since I already watched a Lets play of it, Iām not that eager to play it, at the moment.