this is my first tales game ever!

i love velvet as anti-hero protagonist and iirc i dont really find anything bad about the writings. i love the premise of the plot, it got me want to play it more and more even though i found myself bored with the gameplay and a lot of running.

but i love how the writers kinda took us in velvet's side and i found myself justifying velvet's actions and hatred (literally "i support women's right and wrong" moment here) throughout the game.

i found someone said that tales series is a small game of big company so i guess it kinda explained the way bamco treated this series, yknow like lukewarm hype and halfassed aspects. but, one thing that i love from the game is the details in environment design! i remembered getting awed by the rugs and tapestry in that one harbour village!! the intricate details were amazing.

im kinda okay with berseria being my first tales game because it's good even with the battle mechanics that confused me.

I started Tales of Berseria last year after the dissappointment that Tales of Arise was, as i heard that this title was better, and with those expectations I played around the 50% of the game and ended up dropping it, as I felt dissappointed again.

Two weeks ago or so, I picked up this game again, with different expectations, trying to appreciate the beauty of Berseria, and somehow...it felt different.

Let's talk about the good things!:

First of all, I want to talk about Velvet, not only she has a cool as fuck design, and a very iconic main skill (her demonic hand), she's also quite a well written main character! she has some issues (as everyone in the game due to the writing), but aside from that i feel like her motivations are super valid, her breakdowns are great and make lots of sense, and she has a really good character development.

The story is fine in general, it's not really crazy, but i think it performs decently, its very JRPGish, it makes sense most of the time, i feel like it inspired endwalker (you'll know why), and it has many touching moments.
It has pretty good foreshadowing, and in general, the story keeps getting better and better (not too much though lol).
In general terms, I like the concept, how everyone in the party is partially evil/selfish, the message of rebellion is well done, and I think that the game succeeds in most of the things it tries, delivering a good message, and being able to touch our hearts, definetely not your typical story.
Everyone in the main party is a pretty good character, which is not something easy at all, they all feel really charistmatic and natural, I liked their skits and their development/motivations.
The main antagonist is also pretty cool and their ideas are not silly.

The combat is suprisingly pretty good and engaging, the exploration is not really bad, and the badtracking is not as bad as i thought it would be, it has some puzzles that arent really great but could definetely be worse.

Now, let's go with the bad things:

The writing is very questionable, and with this, I mean some of the choices in the story, and especially the dialogues, it's like some of them feel really off when they shouldn't. I feel like this damages the whole game, I also experienced something similar with Xenoblade 2, which has a great story but also features this problem, and what bothers me is that i can't exactly pinpoint what happens, but I hope you all guys get it.

The game also looks kinda outdated for its release, and many textures are pretty ugly, thanks goodness the cell shading and the artistic direction saves the game a little, but im glad they improved this part with Arise, despite fucking up many other things on the go.

Some animations are really really bad and they turn me really off in some important scenes.

The music is memorable at times, and i guess it works well generally, but its not really inspired at all, except for the main theme and a few themes more.

The pacing really really hurts, theres some filler especially in the beginning, and the backtracking also hurts a little.

And at last, some things in the story really feel like Deus Ex Machinas, they either happen because they have to, or some resolutions make no sense at all, some other things just straight up make 0 sense, and etc, I guess this is part of the writing problem, but I just felt like mentioning it.

Anyways, despite its many flaws, I doubt i'll ever forget Tales of Berseria!

Considering the Tales series was starting to get a little tired in the Xillia / Zesteria era, I appreciate that they tried to shake up some of the series tropes - you play as an anti-hero, the combat leans a little more towards a simplified fighting-game style than classic Tales, and the billion sidequests have mostly been stripped away, aside from some character quests near the end of the game. As such, it feels much more fresh, even though this also makes it feel less like a Tales game. I appreciate that they were willing to try something new, even in the places where it doesn't fully land.