麦 · @moogy0
15th Sep 2016 from TwitLonger
Some quick thoughts on Berseria now that I've finished the main game
●Story-wise I'm satisfied. All of the characters got adequate focus throughout and it was a treat to watch the group dynamic evolve over the course of the game. I can see opinions being split on the ending (personally I actually liked it more in context of Zestiria's setting, but if you take that into account it's a pretty dark ending in some ways), but as a whole the writing is consistent and follows through on what it sets out to do, so I don't really have any complaints other than "I want more" lol
●As a game... I have to say that despite complaining about a lack of difficulty earlier on I eventually warmed up to the system. The main issue, for me at least, is that it takes too long to reach a sweet spot in terms of both enemy difficulty and options available to the player, so for a good while there you're pretty much mashing buttons. The endgame is quite fun though, since Chaos mode makes enemies actually pose a threat and at that point you actually have the movesets to cope with it. Outside of the battle system I don't have any major complaints; some more complex dungeons would have been nice to see, but I'm past the point of expecting elaborate dungeon design from modern JRPGs, I guess. The Nekonin Spirits system is actually nice in this regard, though, since it basically adds Mario coins to the maps and allows the designers to both encourage more exploration and provide a sort of guide for the player. I found them pretty helpful for keeping track of where I was in the gigantic final dungeon, at least. I liked the equipment system, too, since it gives Grade an actual purpose outside of new game+ bonuses (you learn skills from equipment ala FF9 and Grade functions as the AP equivalent here). From what I'm told, Zestiria apparently had a very elaborate equipment system, but they dialed it back to simple upgrades (requires materials + gald) here.
●It's worth noting that Berseria is very streamlined compared to the Tales games of yesteryear that I'm familiar with. *There are no missable sidequests* (the only semi-important thing that's permanently missable is a trophy for seeing every Hiougi in the game, and you can just ignore that if you don't care - even skits you missed can be bought for Nekonin Spirits later) and the game displays quests on the map screen so you can easily keep track of what's available at any given point. There are a few side events near the end where you kind of need to go back and forth between various towns to activate, but overall it's a huge improvement compared to Abyss, the last Tales game I played. Being able to miss tons of backstory and characterization because you didn't explore every single room in the game at some arbitrary point in the story is not good design, and I'm glad there's nothing like that in Berseria.
●They did, however, put a huge amount of work into the writing and game world in this. Hadler compared it to a Kiseki game and he's not wrong in that regard - not only are there a massive number of skits (457 total, not counting the free DLC ones), but the towns are filled with constantly evolving NPC dialogue and voiced events. The script in Berseria is brimming with personality (not to mention great humor) and all of this content really serves to enrich the world and enliven the characters, so this is a game where you're going to want to slow down and take the time to talk to everyone and view every skit. I guarantee that it will enhance the experience. In fact, I'd say the skits are the best part of the game overall - not only are they frequently hilarious, but the attention paid to the visual presentation during them affords them a presence of their own and a meaningful position in the story being told even when things get serious. Berseria was written entirely by just two people, and one of them (平松正樹, an industry veteran who worked on the famous sound novel Machi and wrote Symphonia 2 in the Tales series) handled the scripting/directing for all of the skits himself - you can feel his passion for his work and it's kind of convinced me that the writers themselves should have a part in the scripting for any sort of "visual novel"-esque presentation like this, since the skits in Berseria just have that little extra bit of "oomph" that really matters thanks to the attention paid to little details like pauses in conversation and shifting expressions/poses.
●The voice acting is good across the board, but Satou Satomi's performance as Magilou in particular is absolutely incredible and pretty much every single line that comes out of her mouth is pure gold. Make sure you watch the DLC skits (they're free if you download the catalogs) after the game so you can experience even more of Magilou being amazing. Never did I imagine a K-ON seiyuu would come this far...
●lol Sakuraba. The final dungeon theme is actually pretty cool, I will admit, but don't expect much from the soundtrack otherwise; there are only two tracks reused from Zestiria, those being Zaveid's theme and the Nekonin Village theme.