Game Sneak Peek #1: Tales of Berseria

The first game in my line up to be reviewed is Tales of Berseria.

I have a hard time calling this a proper review, so for the sake of simplicity I will call it a sneak peek of the game and leave it at that. To supply you with a complete review of it would take considerable time and effort on my part, as this game is more than seventy hours long according to the Howlongtobeat website. This may very well be the normal for this blog series, as trying to delve into every game's entirety would have diminishing returns for a series of this design.

That being said, the signs of a good game should already be apparent right from the start. Like with stories, you can tell whether a game is worth experiencing its start to finish from the first twenty or so minutes of gameplay. Therefore, a sneak peek into what the game has to offer is apt.

And Tales of Berseria has a wonderful start indeed. I can tell it has a lot going for it that will be difficult to sum up succinctly and still give it justice, but I'll try my best.

The game's opening sequence features an anime stylization to match the gameplay. It specifically targets anime lovers. Though I suspect this is a matter of course for the Japanese RPG genre due to cultural appeal (a statement I cannot attest to since my experience with the genre is somewhat limited), I can say beyond a reasonable doubt that it succeeds in this quite well. Being an anime lover myself, the art style is quite appealing to me, and this is among one of the few games I do not skip the opening every time I run it.

A attention to detail with regards to the characterization is astounding. I found that even the minor characters who normally don't hold sway with me in roleplaying games are full of life. They provide so much impact on the world that a keeps it from being the stale epic quest I come across in some of the others within this genre. And when they die, I actually care about their deaths. Seriously, when I first started it out I ran across a minor character that I adored because the voice actor did such a good job with the dialogue given that I swore the character would be a side through the game, only for me to realize very soon after that I was dead wrong.

The dialogue on its own is enough to keep my interest. It paints this nigh on utopian society as grim. I am of the belief that there are two things that a roleplaying game live or die by: their battle system, and the game's dialogue. Now, by no account do I mean this is the law everyone abides by. This is simply what I look for from a good RPG. My reasoning is that a stinted dialogue creates a choppy flow in the plot's transitioning. Worse yet, you can receive a very bland experience in certain ones from something like obvious dialogue selections that require you to verbally respond to a situation in order to progress through the story. I am satisfied that this one does none of that.

The battle system, however, is a mixed bag for me that ranges from mostly good to a somewhat overwhelming for the casual player to fully take advantage of. This isn't a pitfall of the game so much as it is a design choice that doesn't entirely fit with my playstyle. That being said, it is only a touch too complex, and thankfully it doesn't force all players to master the system's nuances to derive an enjoyable experience.

There is a lot going for the battle system that will leave little to be desired for the hardcore gamers. It has a wide variety of customization of the 'artes', or battle skills, the special abilities, the equipment selection, and several other features that support a number of different playstyles. I won't go into detail about it, but I'm definitely not put off by what it has to offer.

I found the overworld- that is to say, anything that isn't within a battle or a cut-scene - to be somewhat lacking. The long winding passages to get from point A to point B serve little interest to me, and the fantastic scenery and plethora of retrievable objects do so little to mitigate this issue. While the retrievable objects do adhere to my hoarding sense with this genre, it feels deliberately placed in an attempt to cover up the long periods of inaction.

The creatures, too, do little to draw my attention away from this fact. They are quite easy to skirt around to avoid battles, which I tend to do in favor of picking up the fifth treasure chest in an obvious spot within a cave. Sometimes I will deliberately initiate combat if I am close to a level up, but I so far I haven't felt the need to grind out levels to overcome any obstacles, as the game has done little to provide a challenge for me. I suspect this will change as the hours of gameplay go on, so I think it is too early to judge this as a fault in game design. Avoiding the battles as easily as I am able to do, however, is a different story.

There's a lot more this game has to offer, most of which I haven't even begun to tap into. While I do see a few flaws with it already, the merits within Tales of Berseria far outweigh whatever detriments I have listed. The lack of variety in overworlds, I think, is a typical flaw within the genre, and I've seen other games do it far worse than this one. As for the others, well, I think it might just be a matter of taste.

If I had to score it based upon what I've seen so far, I'm happy to give this game a positive rating. It's definitely one worth checking out if you're into roleplaying games.

Score

Story: 9/10
Narration: 8.5/10
Characterization: 9/10
Gameplay: 6/10
Subjective: 7/10

Final Score: 7.9/10