Tales of Berseria was widely considered a return to form for the Tales series after Zestiria, which while passable, suffered from some issues in storytelling and combat mechanics. Tales of Berseria Remastered keeps all of what made the original from 2017 a great experience and allows players on a Switch or Xbox console to play this tale of revenge for the first time. The thing is, though, while 2017 is almost 10 years ago already, the original Tales of Berseria is still playable on PC and even on PS5 systems- so is there really a need to buy a new version? Let’s find out.
The opening moments of Tales of Berseria is a common one among JRPGs: Velvet Crowe, a simple village girl, cares for her sick brother and her brother-in-law, who happens to be what’s called an exorcist. The first hours of the game are spent acclimatizing players to combat since the narrative requires Velvet to venture into the woods and collect boar pelts to sell for her sickly brother’s medicine. Soon after, the situation greatly changes as tragedy strikes causing Velvet to lose quite literally everything- including her own humanity.
Turned into a demon with an unquenchable thirst for the blood of the man who ruined her life and killed her little brother, Velvet’s journey for revenge fuels a significant portion of Tales of Berseria’s story. This is a considerably darker story for a Tales game, and while there are still hilarious moments and character interactions, Berseria will have a lot of moments that will make you empathize with the main cast. While many Tales titles will solve problems through the power of friendship, Berseria’s cast of characters are a lot more unique in their goals and approaches compared to what you’d normally expect from this series.
Velvet is an emotionally broken protagonist who simply cannot let go nor forgive the man who killed her little brother. Her brother-in-law, Arthur, enacted some strange magic to keep demons at bay at the cost of her sickly little brother’s life, an action that ultimately made him the highest-ranking exorcist in the land. Throughout Velvet’s quest, she meets the aloof Rokurou, who won the “most likely to commit fratricide” award in high school, and the outrageously unlucky Eizen. There’s also the enigmatic Magilou from whom much of this game’s comedy stems, and then there is exorcist Eleanor and the spirit Laphicet, who both form the conscience of a group that typically has no qualms with stabbing first and asking questions later.
Tales games are known for their combat mechanics, and Berseria has a varied cast who all fight in different ways. Each character can equip up to four attacks for each face button, allowing you 16 total artes you can freely use in battle. You can intermix your attacks however you like effectively, depending on what enemies you’re fighting, whether or not you want to inflict status ailments, need to stun, etc., planning your artes is just as important as pressing the right attacking buttons while in combat.
The Soul Gauge (SG) system, Berseria’s combat resource mechanic, is what you’ll need to manage while fighting enemies. Each arte takes a specific amount of SG, and if you run out of SG you can still attack, but your attack speed will be significantly reduced and your attacks may be deflected, forcing you to eat counterattacks you otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to. By fighting, you can increase your SG by killing enemies, inflicting status ailments or stuns, performing perfect dodges, and more. Be cautious, though: Enemies can cause you to lose SG if you get stunned or killed too.
Each character also has their own unique Break Soul abilities, highly powerful techniques that allow players to continue the beatdown at the expense of a segment of their Soul Gauge. These techniques can be as simple as counterattacks that also reset your combo, to complete transformations that make your character immune to stagger and inflict guard breaks like crazy. To add on to this, using a character’s Break Soul quickly boosts the Blast Gauge, which allows players to swap in reserve party members not currently in combat, or that can be spent to use powerful Mystic Artes that can turn the tides of battle on their own.
Each portion of Berseria’s combat system feeds into another part of it: Proper management of your Soul Gauge will allow you to perform longer combos, use your character’s Break Soul, as well as charge the Blast Gauge, which can allow you to use Switch Blasts that refill SG. You even have devastating Mystic Arts at your disposal. On top of this, new mechanics get slowly introduced over the course of the game, making Berseria one of the finest battle systems the Tales series has done- it’s cohesive and it rewards planning, execution, and strategy.
The only real weakness I could find with the core content of Tales of Berseria is that its dungeon design is on the rudimentary side. Most dungeons in the Tales series since Legendia are overly simplistic, requiring players to just run from one end to the other, grabbing any treasures or fighting any enemies seen. There are some dungeons with more elaborate puzzles, but only one of them was really all that interesting. It was an underwater temple that you would encounter roughly halfway through the adventure… though it still had an epitaph that straight up gives the player the puzzle solution. If your favorite dungeon in a Tales title was the Temple of Shadow from Symphonia, Berseria Remastered will leave you a little wanting in the dungeon department.
Now, to address the elephant in the room: The term remaster sets a specific kind of expectation from the buyer, which is why games like Suikoden I+II HD Remaster, Lunar: Remastered Collection, and Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition were well-received. Out of the three mentioned, however, Xenoblade Chronicles X introduced a whole new chapter to the end of the game despite primarily being a way for Nintendo to expose eager Xeno fans to a title that was previously locked on the Wii U. In much the same way, earlier Tales remasters, such as Symphonia, Graces f, and Xillia, were ways for Bandai Namco to expose players to these great games who didn’t have PS3 consoles- speaking of, did you know the PlayStation 3 is officially considered a retro console now? It’s 20 years old (my back hurts). So, it makes complete sense to port these other Tales games while touching up the visuals a bit.
Tales of Berseria Remastered has the least amount of visual touchups in a remaster that I’ve personally ever seen, though it isn’t like it needed it as the 2017 version that I still have in my Steam account looks beautiful even in this current year. However, this remaster gave a good excuse to get one of the best Tales entries out in front of gamers who only have an Xbox or Switch system, so they can experience this wonderful adventure of self-discovery and revenge for themselves. While Tales of Berseria Remastered doesn’t do a whole lot of remastering of the game, this is still a great running port for one of the best entries in the Tales series.
That isn’t to say that Tales of Berseria doesn’t improve the visuals at all- it is very clearly running in a higher resolution. Even in early cutscenes, comparing screenshots of the 2017 version with the remaster show that character models and environmental objects are a bit more crisp, though this does seem to come at the expense of the ethereal depth of field effect that blurs the backgrounds during cutscenes to make the characters stand out. If I directly compare the shots side-by-side, I can see a difference, but when the game is running in motion it becomes much more challenging to tell. Beyond the visuals, though, a number of quality of life improvements have been made, such as faster movement speed in the field, quicker item pickups, and the GRADE Shop unlocked right from the beginning, allowing players to freely customize their experience. An update released after launch allows 120fps for gameplay as well.
One of the neater things Tales titles have is a shop where you can buy special perks from after you beat the game, called the GRADE Shop. These bonuses range from allowing you to carry more items, increased money and experience rates, increased arte learning speeds, and more. In the latest couple remasters including Berseria’s, the GRADE Shop has been unlocked right from the beginning with enough GRADE to purchase everything in the store. While I didn’t utilize this for my own playthrough of the remaster (I figured reviewing a game with 6x experience and double gold would be a bit much, even if I unlocked everything in the 2017 release when going for 100%), this feature can be valuable for children or those unfamiliar with action RPGs, so while it wasn’t for me, I can definitely see the value here.
The thing with Berseria Remastered is that not a lot has changed in it visually but I find that the quality of life improvements do a lot to make it more enjoyable, especially if you just wanted to chill on the couch and play Tales of Berseria at a higher frame rate with the DLC of the original version included. While I do think it’s strange that Berseria got remastered before much older games like Phantasia, Destiny, or even Japanese exclusive titles like Destiny 2 and Rebirth, but if Bandai-Namco’s goal was to focus on the easiest to remaster titles first, that makes me hopeful that if they do show off something for Phantasia, it will be more of a full bore remake, since the GBA version we received when I was but a lad left a lot to be desired!
Overall, Tales of Berseria Remastered is just an okay remaster, but the core gameplay is still absolutely top notch in nearly every respect. The game still looks great, sounds great, and plays great, and if you’ve never played Berseria before, this is the version for you. For those who just want to replay Tales of Berseria, the only reason I can think of for you to double dip would be to get the DLC and GRADE Shop unlocked from the start, but if you’ve never tried this title before, Berseria Remastered is still just as great now as it was in 2017, even if it doesn’t look as advanced as some feel it should.
Developers: D.A.G
Platforms: Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Steam, Xbox Series X