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    Tales of Berseria is the latest game in Bandai-Namco's Tales Of RPG franchise. Like its predecessor Tales of Zestiria, it's available on Steam and PS4. It is available for both platforms on January 26th. A demo is now out for both platforms. What's it about? Berseria is set 1000 years before Tales of Zestiria in the Kingdom of Midgand, which covers the continent Zestiria was on as well as several surrounding islands. The kingdom is plagued by a disease called Daemonblight which turns creatures and even people into bloodthirsty daemons. The blight is only held in check by Artorius Collbrande and his army of Exorcists, called the Abbey, who control magical spirits called malakhim to fight the daemons directly as well as keep the kingdom's lands in an iron grip of control and surveillance for the populace's own safety. For enabling and creating the Abbey, Artorius is regarded as a hero, and the people trust him implicitly to protect them from the constant terror of the daemons. You are Velvet Crowe, Artorius' sister-in-law and a daemon with a monstrous arm that eats anything. Velvet blames Artorius for killing her brother, and she'll do anything to make him pay with his life. What's the gameplay like? Berseria's Liberation-LMBS builds on the foundation of Graces and Zestiria's, with these key new mechanics:
Everything is in a combo now? What if I don't want to have to go through the chain to use an arte? It's not in the demo, which seriously sucks, but around 40% of the way through the game you will unlock the first "arena". Beat it to gain the ability to set artes to shortcuts you can use freely any time (L1+one of the four arte buttons, so you can set up to four). This is a prequel to Zestiria? Yes, but you don't need to be at all familiar with Zestiria to enjoy it. Certain names - stories, locations, objects, and some of the malak characters - appear so that Berseria can give them some more information or background. These items are generally contextualized fine on their own, though some people may find it interesting to know where they are in 1000 years and how they got there. With very few exceptions, Tales of Berseria stands up just fine on its own as a game. There's also an anime retelling Zestiria's story, which it's generally recommended you watch instead if you feel the need to. I hated Zestiria! Why would I play this? Because Berseria is an at times seemingly deliberate attempt to address complaints with Zestiria. The complaints with combat (suicidal AI, boneheaded camera, fusion mechanics) are all gone, replaced with a simpler but more dynamic system that also builds on its innovations. The equipment and leveling systems are massively simplified. The PCs are all different and individually fun to play. The story is deeper, the characters are well-drawn (and plentiful! Berseria has a sprawling gallery of great friendly and minor NPCs), and the direction and tone of the plot is completely different. The story even addresses some of Zestiria's issues itself. Almost everyone I've seen who didn't like Zestiria has been satisfied with Berseria. ...but I loved Zestiria! Why would I play this? Cards on the table: if you loved the item crafting, I can't help you. Berseria doesn't depend on Zestiria, but if you're looking for it, it's a great expansion and exploration of Zestiria's lore. The story is an alternate perspective on Zestiria's central themes, all those references show you the hidden history behind many of Zestiria's unanswered questions, and there's a lot of material that shows you how Zestiria's world came about and what was going on in the background between them. Gameplay is still a little like Zestiria, but with some things fixed or updated usually to make things either more varied (Soul capacity) or flexible (arte settings, character switching). It's fast, fluid, and dynamic. You'd probably also be into it if you liked Tales of Graces. It's more Tales, and good Tales, if that's a thing you want.  I'm playing on Steam and my allies are barely attacking! This has been fixed. Update your game. I don't like Velvet's outfit! How soon can I change it? You get a regular set of villager clothes for her after the tutorial dungeon. I heard the game was censored! A single scene involving the graphic murder of a child with a sword was altered to show the graphic murder of a child with magic, for ratings reasons. I heard the game has DRM! The Steam release is protected by Denuvo. Does it have Japanese voices? Yes. Best girl?  Costumes?     Post your own! Caphi fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Feb 4, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 19:33
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this is going to be the best tales game since tales of the tempest also the pc port is ridiculously good so no worries there
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Jan 10, 2017 19:37
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Official trailers (I might use this space for more stuff later): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EKKW2g1gP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KByskbL9bsU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9swy2ngIvk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taHrD8qb75E
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Jan 10, 2017 19:38
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Velvet's VA seems off.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:39
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http://www.pcgamer.com/tales-of-berseria-system-requirements-announced-demo-coming-tomorrow/ Zesteria had a good PC port, but this one looks to have more options: quote:The studio promised "a good number of settings to set up your experience comfortably," including fully remappable keys, 60 fps gameplay, and support for resolutions ranging from 800x600 all the way to upscaled 4K.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:39
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I've played a little bit of some previous Tales games but this is gonna be my first real proper attempt at one. Ganbatte, Velvet.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:41
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Pureauthor posted:Velvet's VA seems off.
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Jan 10, 2017 19:41
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Played some Zestiria while on drugs and thought it was boring as hell, empty world and the story lacked substance. Long live Tales of games
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Jan 10, 2017 19:44
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anyway here's proof that it actually is berserk
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Jan 10, 2017 19:48
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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:http://www.pcgamer.com/tales-of-berseria-system-requirements-announced-demo-coming-tomorrow/ yeah it runs better too Fun Times! posted:Played some Zestiria while on drugs and thought it was boring as hell, empty world and the story lacked substance. Long live Tales of games berseria is more fun for ten minutes than zestiria is for 20 hours
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Jan 10, 2017 19:49
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if I like Berserk, and I liked Tales of Symphonia when i was a kid, will I like this game?
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Jan 10, 2017 20:00
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mabels big day posted:if I like Berserk, and I liked Tales of Symphonia when i was a kid, will I like this game? yeah, probably. don't expect it to be half as grimdark as berserk or anything tho, it's got a T rating.
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Jan 10, 2017 20:04
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Anyway I'm also excited for this demo because I've never played a Tales with a mouse and keyboard before. How was Zestiria control-wise?
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Jan 10, 2017 20:57
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Caphi posted:Anyway I'm also excited for this demo because I've never played a Tales with a mouse and keyboard before. How was Zestiria control-wise?
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Jan 10, 2017 21:31
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Not really sure how I feel about the arte system. Honestly kind of dislike it since it seems like I can't use specific spells whenever I want to, and instead have to use them in order. Tutorials seem to be as confusing as Zesty, at least for me. The first tutorial they give is about collecting souls on the field, and then the battle tutorial says you consume souls (not SG) to use Break Souls. It took me a bit to realize I was using up what my combo length for these, so that's going to take some getting used to. Velvet didn't seem to have much problem with that at least. Also, I gave to unlearn a bit of Zesty's ui, since I spent a while trying to figure out what the gauge underneath the souls was doing, before I realised it was just HP.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:32
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Momomo posted:Not really sure how I feel about the arte system. Honestly kind of dislike it since it seems like I can't use specific spells whenever I want to, and instead have to use them in order. English PR has been confused about the difference between Souls and SG since the very beginning so I wouldn't be surprised if the tutorials had hosed that up as well. I haven't seen the tutorials myself but it might be worth adding a bit to the OP for it? Caphi fucked around with this message at 21:37 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 21:33
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i'm having fun with battles again it's a start
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Jan 10, 2017 21:41
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Caphi posted:English PR has been confused about the difference between Souls and SG since the very beginning so I wouldn't be surprised if the tutorials had hosed that up as well. Potentially, yeah. Also I'm pretty sure it said you use the finisher for Velvet's after using an arte, and not at the end of your combo, which makes it sound a lot less useful. My game crashed at the same time my internet dropped. I'm not sure if it's because of the game or just my computer being dumb, but I can start the demo up with no internet, so hopefully that was a fluke. Edit: the first tutorial calls what you pick up spirits, and the battle system says Souls. While that's my mistake, they probably should have used SG. Momomo fucked around with this message at 21:52 on Jan 10, 2017 |
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Jan 10, 2017 21:47
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Momomo posted:Potentially, yeah. Also I'm pretty sure it said you use the finisher for Velvet's after using an arte, and not at the end of your combo, which makes it sound a lot less useful. It's not wrong about that, it's just clear as mud. If you're (ugh) Therionized and you have four Souls, you can do as many four or less combos as you want as long as you still have HP. But if you ever do four chains and then press the input to do another arte, it goes into the finisher. This didn't seem too unclear in the Japanese but, you know, modern Tales help text, I guess.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:52
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Edited the last post, but I misread the tutorial. It correctly states what you have there, that using an arte at the end of your chain is what did it.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:55
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I miss them actually showing how much SC I have. I can't really eyeball when to use the low SC move over the high one.
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Jan 10, 2017 21:57
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Momomo posted:Edit: the first tutorial calls what you pick up spirits, and the battle system says Souls. While that's my mistake, they probably should have used SG. Jesus. That shouldn't even be a translation thing, they're called ソウル (literally Soul in English). The terminology is (like the distinction between Combo and Chain) not necessarily the best thought out but to my memory perfectly consistent in the way they actually use it (e.g. gain Soul, lose Soul, steal Soul, spend SG, recover SG). You could get confused if you're really not paying attention, but a translator should, uh, be paying attention. I should stop complaining until I see the text for myself though. Tae posted:I miss them actually showing how much SC I have. I can't really eyeball when to use the low SC move over the high one. I don't think Zestiria showed you SC? The meter was just always capped at 100 and scored in quarters (meaning 25 SC), which is essentially what SG is (each Soul is 30 SG).
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Jan 10, 2017 22:04
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The arte ball (spoilers: this game has an arte ball) makes using specific spells pretty easy if you're playing a caster-type, since you can just assign your various spells to the four buttons on that.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:11
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There's also that thing from Zestiria where you can start a spell and then uplevel it during the cast to make it easier to set and select spells. Personally, my caster strategy was actually two buttons for artes and two buttons for spells. Eizen, Magilou, and Laphicet all have roughly two separate main spell tracks - wind/earth, fire/water, and void/element. Eizen's not really a caster as such but his martial artes are so heavy and purpose-built that it was easier to act like he was after a point. (And, uh, Flash Step -> Ditch -> Draconic Drive is good enough a lot of the time. I don't think Ditch is in the demo which is sad because Eizen plays very differently with and without it, in my experience.) The shortcut slots I used for utility and such. With Eleanor, I just played full Pascal. It was amazing. I love Eleanor.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:16
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Me, I'll just play Velvet with Rok and Eizen on standby. When I can, I mean.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:18
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Endorph posted:The arte ball (spoilers: this game has an arte ball) makes using specific spells pretty easy if you're playing a caster-type, since you can just assign your various spells to the four buttons on that. That sounds alright, assuming it's like Zesty where you only got a few lines of spells at least. How long does it take to get the arte ball?
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Jan 10, 2017 22:21
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You get it from the arena, iirc? So maybe something like 1/3rd-halfway through the game, depending on if you feel like going through the arena kind of underleveled.
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Jan 10, 2017 22:28
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I played the demo and I ran into the same problem I run into in every Tales game when I first start one in that I run out of battle action point orb diamond things and end up having to stand around while it refills. It's also hard to see during combat because it's so small on the screen. And having 4 attack buttons is throwing me for a loop. The tutorial was bad as usual so I'm not sure if I have to hold a direction when attacking and if that changes attacks. In the arte menu it looks like I can just press a button and not worry about what direction but sometimes Velvet would bust out an earth attack when I mashed A and sometimes she would not so I wasn't sure. Combat seems kinda messy and chaotic but maybe that will change when I play it more and get used to it. It never changed in Zestiria though. Post battle skits pretty bad so far.
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Jan 11, 2017 00:22
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blame the post-battle skits on the translation, they were great in japanese edit: also, did you have the ai choosing for the a-string? because if you don't assign a specific arte the ai will choose basically at random. directional inputs only affect your facing, not the attack.
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Jan 11, 2017 00:41
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So this part is Rangetsu style, right?
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Jan 11, 2017 00:50
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This is my first tales since Graces F I can't wait to see if I like it 
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Jan 11, 2017 00:55
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I guess I can't really understand the combat until I get the full game, because sometimes the enemy gets hit by weakness and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes I get bar off hitting weakness and sometimes I don't.
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Jan 11, 2017 00:59
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Tae posted:I guess I can't really understand the combat until I get the full game, because sometimes the enemy gets hit by weakness and sometimes it doesn't. And sometimes I get bar off hitting weakness and sometimes I don't. To be honest this has happened with me in every Tales game since Graces and I have always just rolled with it.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:04
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I never had this trouble at all in Zestiria, which is why it's annoying me. And it seems much harder to hit stuff for whatever reason, like every little thing that touches me interrupts my stuff which ruins flow.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:06
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Gonna play the demo after work and if I like it I guess I'll watch the Zesty anime at some point then buy Berseria. I haven't liked a Tales game since Vesperia and I hope this is the one that breaks the pattern for me.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:10
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Endorph posted:blame the post-battle skits on the translation, they were great in japanese Oh thats probably what it was. In the story part I assigned skills myself but then i swapped to the battle demo and thought that the skills would be the way I had them set up in the story part for some reason.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:11
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No, the demo doesn't save anything. It's frankly a serious problem considering you have to set your entire grid back up every time you start a new session to gently caress around. It's not a huge deal in the game itself but it adds up if you have to do it repeatedly.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:13
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This will be the second Tales game I've ever played after Vesperia so I'm pretty excited Don't really care about Zestiria, but it's nice to know no knowledge of that game will be required for Berseria
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Jan 11, 2017 01:19
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Just finished the story demo, I think that one helped me get used to the battle system more since I could dodge the boss' attacks a lot easier. I imagine it'll be aggravating early on when you don't have much SG but I can see gaining and losing it during a fight being a pretty fun game once you have a decent amount as a backup. It helps a lot that the display clearly shows space for more slots of SG, as opposed to Zestiria where I didn't even know combo length was a stat until very late game (it was from a title, you know how that game was with them). I'm going to assume the player as a typical progression of SG as the game goes on.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:50
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Alfalfa The Roach posted:This will be the second Tales game I've ever played after Vesperia so I'm pretty excited Yeah, the most you'll miss is a few references. Also, wow, Magilou is fun as heck to control. Rita 2.0 with much more decent melee.
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Jan 11, 2017 01:55
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