| Tales of Berseria Remastered | |||
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| Release Date | Gameplay & Story | Pre-Order & DLC | Review |
Overview
What is Tales of Berseria Remastered?
Tales of Berseria Remastered is an enhanced version of the 2016 action JRPG, which serves as a compelling prequel to Tales of Zestiria. The game is set in the Holy Midgand Kingdom and follows the dark journey of Velvet Crowe, a powerful heroine driven by a singular path of vengeance as she confronts those responsible for her brother's murder.
Tales of Berseria Remastered features:
⚫︎ Freely customizable combo system
⚫︎ Multiple playable characters
⚫︎ Story-driven gameplay
⚫︎ Long post-game content
⚫︎ Quality of life improvements
⚫︎ Included cosmetic and equipment DLCs
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Tales of Berseria Remastered’s gameplay and story.
| Digital Storefronts | |||||||
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| $39.99 | |||||||
Tales of Berseria Remastered Review: Still Violently Strong
The Greatest Tale of Tales, Remastered
Tales of Berseria is my favorite Tales game, just above Tales of Xilia. It absolved the atrocities committed by its distant chronological sequel, Tales of Zestiria, and I still wonder why ufotable decided on adapting the latter when it had some of the most boring characters and story in the series.
It’s the first Tales game I truly made an effort to obtain every achievement on, despite its rather lame post-game and menu-heavy progression systems. And, it’s all thanks to its incredible story, as well as its excellent cast of characters that to this day I look fondly back on whenever I encounter an anti-hero or morally grey character.
That said, it’s now the latest in the series that received a remaster thanks to Bandai Namco’s recent efforts to make the previous games available on modern platforms. It even beat out Tales of Zestiria; a welcome surprise given how much I disliked that game.
So, what does the remaster include? Is it just a better-looking version of the PS3/PS4 port? Kinda. While for the most part it is just an aesthetic touch-up, it also contains several DLCs and a number of quality of life upgrades; all for a price that’s much cheaper than its PC port. That gives Tales of Berseria Remastered an insane value proposition for those looking to own it for the first time—and the opposite, for those who already own it.
Story of the Berserker
To understand why Tales of Berseria receiving a remaster is such a big deal, one must first understand its greatest asset: the story.
If you’ve played Tales of Zestiria, you may recognize the title “Lord of Calamity,” a recurring figure throughout history who must inevitably be defeated. Tales of Berseria tells the story of Velvet Crowe, a daemon who retained her free will despite her corruption; a vengeful woman driven by the desire to kill the man who murdered her brother—and the first Lord of Calamity.
I would normally avoid major spoilers for newcomers, but this premise is essential for setting expectations: Tales of Berseria is not a traditional hero’s story.
Velvet and her crew are far from a conventional gathering of heroes. Comprised instead of traitors, rogue spirits, pirates, and daemons, they are selfish, impulsive, and emotionally driven individuals drawn together largely through the sheer force of Velvet’s personality. Many of them act outside conventional morality, using others as stepping stones toward their goals, and Velvet herself is more than willing to sacrifice temporary allies if it brings her closer to vengeance.
But although the opposition’s evil runs deeper, at the end of the day, she still takes more than she gives for the sake of her goals; an issue that the game masterfully obfuscates until a certain point to create insanely high points in the story that’ll glue you into your seat.
Also, whether intentional or not, this formula produced one of the strongest casts in the entire series. Velvet’s companions are wonderfully colorful, driven, diverse, and well-written characters, and their uniquely volatile dynamic leads to some of the series’ most memorable character arcs, developments, and interactions.
Fortunately, the remaster barely touched this part. Though it does have the minor pacing issues from the original, I would rather not risk any possible detrimental changes in pursuit of perfection.
More Convenient, Still Satisfying
Tales of Berseria mostly inherits the gameplay from its predecessor, Tales of Zestiria. Though there are a number of differences, such as Berseria actually having great combat unlike the latter, much of their systems can be mirrored without much distinction.
The exploration part, which was your typical free-roam system on linear maps that’s standard on most JRPGs during the era, received particular attention for Tales of Berseria’s remastered version. Now, instead of only having to rely on a one-liner hint at the upper-right corner of your screen to guide you on your journey, you now also have map markers to give you direction.
You can now also disable enemy encounters, letting you skip some of the more tedious parts of the gameplay as long as you keep your levels up to date with the story-driven battles.
Unfortunately, the remaster doesn’t at all address the menu-heavy progression of the original. The combat is also still rather imbalanced, as Velvet can still steamroll everything that isn’t expressly resistant to her attacks. Other than that, you can still freely customize your combo strings, adjust your allies’ AI behavior, etc.
Honestly, though, I don’t think they needed to fix anything on the combat system besides maybe the awkward hitstun animation that looks less like the characters are getting dazed and more like someone’s pressing the pause button on them mid-flinch. It still feels insanely good to finish combos and do break arts and Mystic Artes on enemies.
Overall, this is essentially the same Berseria of old in terms of gameplay. So if you’re looking for a justification to purchase this, turn your eyes elsewhere.
The Visuals Remain Dated
One of the biggest issues with the original game was that it looked like it belonged to the previous generation of consoles when it was released. That’s completely understandable, though, because despite releasing worldwide on the PS4, the original JP launch was on the PS3. And, of course, the later PC port looked no better, almost as if the developers simply copy-pasted their homework onto a different piece of paper.
The remaster fixes this for the most part. Now the game looks good even on very high resolutions and frame rates. But… they didn’t actually enhance the models or textures themselves. So, what you get now is something that’s marketed for the PS5, but looks like it was made for the PS4.
On the bright side, at least you don’t need a two thousand dollar PC to run it!
It’s Cheaper Than the Port
As for more practical talking points, Tales of Berseria Remastered is significantly cheaper than the original port. Not only does the base game cost ten entire dollars less than the latter, it also contains several cosmetic and equipment DLCs as part of the package.
It also features some quality of life improvements such as objective markers on the map. Though only visible on the overworld when you’re in the exact area where the objective is, it nonetheless makes progression much easier now that new players won’t have to basically grope in the dark on where they need to go.
Admittedly, none of these quality of life improvements are anything major. Old issues still persist, such as the controls still feeling heavy, and the general repetitiveness of the combat is still there. Combined with the minor visual upgrade, it feels more like Bandai Namco is peddling us a version that should have been the one being sold since the start.
Is Tales of Berseria Remastered Worth It?
The Definitive Way to Play It Now
Similar to many other remasters and enhanced releases, if you haven’t played the game yet in any way, shape, or form, or if you already have and just want to play it again, this is the best version to buy. But, if you already have the port and its DLCs, there’s not much use buying this as the differences between them are minimal at best.
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