Board 8 > Should I get Tales of Berseria?

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's 75% off on Steam right now, 12.50 in europebucks. I loved Symphonia back in the day, but never really got into the rest of them. Would have tried Vesperia if I had a 360 and am definitely interested in the remaster of that. I remember some people on here hyping it, especially with regard to Velvet in this contest. So, some questions:

-How's the PC version?
-How's the story? How does it compare to other games in the series?
-Judging by reviews and general response, this seems to be one of the "good" Tales games. What makes this better than typical entries in the series?

The main thing stopping me is a combination of work and RDR2, I probably won't get to this game for a while if I get it. If it is the same amount off in the holiday sale I might wait for that.
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Lightning Strikes posted...

-How's the PC version?

Not sure. I played PS4.

-How's the story? How does it compare to other games in the series?

Way better than most of them, IMO.

-Judging by reviews and general response, this seems to be one of the "good" Tales games. What makes this better than typical entries in the series?

I think most of the praise comes from the cast. They're very good and have a great dynamic with each other. It's also not like the typical Tales cast/story in that it's largely centered on a story of personal revenge and not your stock "Let's save the world!". Battle system is also really good IMO and on the higher end of the series (though in this respect other games have cases to be made like Xillia 2 or Graces f)

I'd highly, highly recommend it at least.
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Storywise, it's okay. Not as good as Symphonia or Abyss, but better than Vesperia, Xillia, and Graces. (Graces had a terrible story, but fantastic (but not compelling) characters and gameplay). The story is a bit different from your average tales game. I think most people like the game so much because it features a protagaonist who isn't your typical neutral good idealist Tales Fare. If that's what you're looking for, you'd probably like it.

That's good to hear regarding the story. What I liked so much about Symphonia's story was that it turned the "let's save the world!" JRPG story on its head, and really fleshed out the characters (even the less likeable ones) a lot. The script and voice acting probably don't hold up very well but at the time that was near the top as RPG stories went. Thank you very much for the feedback so far.

Now if anybody's played the PC version and could weigh in that would be awesome!
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One of the best in the franchise. Also one of the very, very few good jRPGs over the last several years. I can't recommend it enough, one of my favorite games.

It takes a LOT to get me to replay a jRPG, much less twice in one year, but here we are.
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I have the PC version. It has some problems.

-You absolutely need a controller. Mouse sensitivity is all sorts of messed up-- wayyyyyy too high. Trying to change the sensitivity in the in game menus does nothing. I've heard you can go into some of the game's files and rewrite some stuff to fix this but I don't know how to do that.

-Steam controller is bad as well. Suddenly the sensitivity is way too low and menus again do nothing. I presume if I spend time looking through custom settings in big picture mode I could find something that works.

-Game occasionally bugs out and runs in super slow motion. It's pretty funny, the voices all run at normal speed but everything else is incredibly slow. This can be fixed by going into the menu and changing to full screen instead of windowed full screen or whatever. At least that works for me and a bunch of other people.

Have only played for like 30 minutes and was too frustrated to even bother trying to get my controller to work properly. Pretty sure if I go back I can find a custom setting for the controller and the game would be perfectly fine. I was just really, really jarred at some many things messed up upfront. Not Dark Souls PC bad but pretty bad.
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I haven't played PC but the only issue a I've heard is in regards to some minor slowdown in a battle here and there. Also the DLC skits show up as separate video files and not in game which is.... very wierd. You have to have a controller though, mouse and keyboard is a joke for this.

Combat is the best it's been except maybe Graces, but Graces dissapoints almost everywhere else so not super worth it. Very customizable while simultaneously being very streamlined and easy to grasp, though every character besides Velvet does have at least one fairly complex gimmick that makes learning them time consuming yet rewarding (if you haven't played since Symphonia, you never really experienced the time in this serieswhere other characters became totally fine to play as but usually were less fun or super bland compered to the lead). Characters are indeed the strongest point, both individually and as a group dynamic. Voice acting is on point other than one prominent mascot character and one not very prominent...nightmare for the ears, but nothing too extreme.
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Note, Berseria is the only Tales game I've played. I would highly recommend it.

I played on PC with an Xbox One Controller. I had no issues and it ran great.

I can't compare the story to the other games, but I very much enjoy the story, I was really invested. The characters are also fantastic. Eizen the man.

I can't answer the last one because I haven't played the others.
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Holy crap, 75% off.

Thanks for letting me know, TC. I'm buying it.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Holy crap, 75% off.

Thanks for letting me know, TC. I'm buying it.

Maaaaaan I bumped my topic 3 times.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77161286
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With regards to the PC issues I will be using a DS4 which Steam now supports natively so it should be fine. Thanks for the headsup on the slowdown. The specs are super low (which makes sense since it is essentially a PS3 game) so I'm assuming it will run fine otherwise.

LapisLazuli posted...

I haven't played PC but the only issue a I've heard is in regards to some minor slowdown in a battle here and there. Also the DLC skits show up as separate video files and not in game which is.... very wierd. You have to have a controller though, mouse and keyboard is a joke for this.

Combat is the best it's been except maybe Graces, but Graces dissapoints almost everywhere else so not super worth it. Very customizable while simultaneously being very streamlined and easy to grasp, though every character besides Velvet does have at least one fairly complex gimmick that makes learning them time consuming yet rewarding (if you haven't played since Symphonia, you never really experienced the time in this serieswhere other characters became totally fine to play as but usually were less fun or super bland compered to the lead). Characters are indeed the strongest point, both individually and as a group dynamic. Voice acting is on point other than one prominent mascot character and one not very prominent...nightmare for the ears, but nothing too extreme.

I did have a look at Abyss for a few hours but didn't get deep in, it seemed good except I hated all of the charactetrs. A lot of the whole missing that period is due to the time in the 2000s when Namco just did not publish its games that weren't Tekken or Soul Calibur in Europe. Symphonia only made it over because Nintendo published it here. Abyss took 7 years until the 3DS port, Vesperia also took over a year and was exclusive to a system I didn't own. By the time they started coming here regularly the word generally wasn't good until Berseria.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Holy crap, 75% off.

Thanks for letting me know, TC. I'm buying it.

Yup, big Namco Bandai sale with a lot of very recent games. 70% off on Dark Souls III, 75% on Xenoverse 2, 60% off on Dragon Ball FighterZ, etc. Only an hour left though!
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Lightning Strikes posted...

did have a look at Abyss for a few hours but didn't get deep in, it seemed good except I hated all of the charactetrs

Abyss gives a divisive first impression since one of the factors of it's story is all of these people suck and need to get better. I would say no other Tales game and few other RPGs have the levels of character development that Abyss has. Story wise I still consider it #1, even if it doesn't have the universal character appeal of Berseria.

It's a tough sell because you're asking people to weather 20+ hours of Luke being the shittiest dude around. I do think it's more than worth it, I actually greatly appreciate his character. I struggle between whether Luke or Velvet is the best Tales leads.
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Also I know you're buying this already, but if you have to dough I STRONGLY recommend picking up. Hack from this sale as well. That 3.25 games for 15 bucks, and they're great. HUGE steal.
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LapisLazuli posted...

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Holy crap, 75% off.

Thanks for letting me know, TC. I'm buying it.

Maaaaaan I bumped my topic 3 times.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/77161286

The first page works in mysterious ways.

I got it. Sale's over now. I will install it tonight most likely but who knows when I will play it for any significant amount of time, Red Dead is too good (and long...).
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