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Current mood: THE LIGHT! IT'S BLINDING ME!!!!!!
Hoooboy everyone ready for an emotional roller coaster? Never underestimate a JRPG's capacity to make you feel, even if you know the spoilers! Never!
This most recent title of Tales has a playable party full of misfits, so don't expect to find decent concept art of all them in the same shot. This one is from a in-game cutscene. The characteristic genre of the game is RPG of Discovering Your Own Reasons to Live. This theme will be shoved in yo face every few hours, get ready.
So, our favourite game of 'Guess That Character'! As the first Tales mothership title female protagonist, Velvet's head and center, the one with the chronic underboob and impossible outfit. Our 'heroine' is Laphicet (Phi, formerly Malak Number Two), possibly one of the youngest playable characters in Tales history. Then we have the resident Japanese representation, Rokurou, with his robes and right-swept bangs. He's my big boi. We have Eizen the malak pirate, handsome, reliable... he's the beautiful man. Magilou is introduced way earlier but didn't become useful until after Bienfu joins the party, but she's the annoying witch character who dresses like a court jester. The last to join is Eleanor, the cleanest character amongst a bunch of weirdly dressed people.
Prologue and context! This is a prequel to Zestiria so we have a lot of the same things. Malaks are seraphs, daemonblight is malevolence, daemons are hellions, exorcists are shepherds. Kind of. We're good? Ok! Velvet is a sweet girl with a sickly brother Laphicet. Her brother-in-law Arthur is always out doing mysterious stuff she doesn't always understand. He's an exorcist who can fight against daemonblight, a disease that has been plaguing the world since an event called 'The Opening' which happened during a Scarlet Night seven years ago. Her sister Celica died on that day. The Scarlet Night came and the village just had to catch daemonblight on the very same day. Velvet rushes to find her missing brother and is treated with the sight of Arthur sacrificing the boy into a pit. Arthur cuts off her left arm, thus effectively turning her into a daemon. Velvet loses consciousness as she curses the man in his true name - Artorius. (Hey, don't we know that name?)
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| He's so pretty. |
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| She's so yandere. |
Apparently Artorius' dinner plans are due north, in the newly built Empyrean's Throne! (Hey, don't we know this place???) Velvet and co. launch an ambush in the middle of the night, but Artorius is not stupid and Velvet knows this. They get ambushed themselves by exorcists Eleanor, Teresa, Oscar and Melchior! I don't remember if Shigure is there or not. Artorius is awakening the fifth Empyrean Innominat, and sends them flying into the earthpulse. Eleanor gives chase and gets sucked inside too.
Rokurou and Magilou wake up somewhere in a ruin, but Velvet, Laphicet and Eizen are still in the earthpulse. Laphicet is at risk of getting turned into a dragon but Eleanor sweeps in and offers to become his vessel. To save the young malak, they agree. The four of them airdrop at Rokurou and Magilou's location. Once they get out of the ruins, Eleanor challenges Velvet to a duel. Velvet wins and Eleanor keeps her oath and obeys her every command. However, Melchior sent his communication artes after Eleanor and Artorius orders the young exorcist to bring Laphicet to Abbey HQ in Loegres as soon as chance permits. The conversation is overheard by Velvet and Eizen.
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| He THICC |
There they find Magilou's old normin friend Grim. She deciphers the text in a small village called Haria while the party goes exorcist investigating. They fight a tree which is also a child? Eleanor has PTSD, they take the child with them, Haria succumbs to daemonblight. Eizen sheds some exposition, Eleanor gets another round of PTSD, it's wild. By now everybody is calling Velvet the Lord of Calamity, and she's digging the name. They deal business with the Bloodwings again, this time for some info on the therions, which feed Innominat his daily dose of malevolence. They're back in Loegres, but Eleanor's hesitance and doubt of the Abbey stops her from turning Laphicet in. They're to escort a hooded figure somewhere authorities can't find, and what better place to hide than Titania? So Titania the island prison becomes their hideout. The hooded figure is the crown prince and his companion hawk - the bird therion under the villa! Laphicet uses Velvet's old prison cell to sense the other earthpulses and therions. Eleanor comes clean and declares her willingness to help Velvet in order to find the truth. Character development ensues, Zaveid shows up, they catch a snake lady therion, Velvet is delusional because of Melchior playing tricks again, finally they catch Niko's two pet dog therions. They're down to one therion left.
Remember Teresa and Oscar? How she's yandere and he's less innocence and more squick? Well if you're following their interactions closely... these two look more than that. All in the name of love (more like incest), Teresa fuses with the last therion and was devoured by Velvet on accident, Oscar uses incomplete armatization and was killed by Velvet. Our Lord of Calamity became the thing that hurt her in the first place - a sibling killer. She goes into a short PTSD. When she wakes up, there's news of Titania being attacked by the Abbey's ships, so they hurry back to save the therions. Everyone escapes aboard the Van Eltia except for the crown prince who stayed with the party to help them secure a ship. Lo and behold, out comes Shigure - with Artorius! And... Innominat's with him! And he looks exactly like deceased Laphicet!
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| A little family resemblance... |
This cutscene legit made me cry ok. Rokurou saving Eleanor? CUTE. The way Eizen grabs Phi's ankle and anchors himself to the ground? COOL. Innominat's ugly ass mouth? TERRIFYING. Phi's inspiring speech?! GOOD CONTENT!
So the party punch their way out of the earthpulse just in time for Magilou to rest her tired self. Melchior is there with Teresa's Malak Number One. They get kicked into the portal and then... Zaveid! Hey buddy whatchu doing down here? Apparently he busted his way in there! The crazy man... so the party escapes with Number One in tow, Innominat turns him into a dragon, the adults fight the dragon while Phi distracts Innominat with his compass and PUNCHES THAT BITCH IN THE CHEEK OOOOHHHH GET HIM BOI!!!!! It buys enough time for everyone to get outta the place onto Zaveid's ship and bail. As they rest in port Cadnix (I think), Eizen gets word that the Van Eltia has gone to meet Aifread or something, but they don't have a ship because Zaveid left before them. So they steal one! When they reach the place the crew is wounded and the party rushes to mercy kill Aifread. A moment of silence for Aifread. Press F to pay respects.
Innominat's domain spreads and the party returns to Loegres to check up on everyone. Anyone influenced by his domain is now an emotionless shell but luckily Bloodwings boss and the crown prince are not easily influenced. Their best bet at beating Innominat will be to stop his expanding domain, and to do so they need to wake the four elemental empyreans. To wake an empyrean a sacrifice pure of heart must be made. Velvet has Teresa and Oscar in her ready to be sacrificed, but they need two more. Rokurou and Magilou suggest to make Shigure and Melchior as sacrifices. They make for Mt. Killaraus, where the lifespring pools. Velvet threatens a whole town to flee and challenges the two legates to a fight. Rokurou and Shigure fight like honorable men, but the party barely won with Melchior proving himself to be too much of a cunning tactician. The four empyrean's awaken, their expanding domain crushes Innominat's, and it's time to face the Empyrean of Suppression.
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| Innominat still salty about Phi's punch. |
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| Now he just looks like Yggdrasil. |
In the credits we are treated to what it seems to be Innominat and Velvet's dream of what could have been, with Phi watching over them in the last scene.
It's not always that I cry while playing a Tales game. It's an emotional journey. Being a prequel this game is also filled with butt-loads of references from Zestiria. It makes you feel clever when you find one. The Empyrean's Throne is later renamed as Artorius' Throne in the future, after the antagonist. Weird, and the game never explains why. The sophisticated cat malak of Shigure will become the Lord of the Land of Pendrago. She's still as cool as I remember... Phi, as Maotelus will be corrupted in the future and requires purification by Sorey. The church in Loegres is in fact the shrinechurch of Pendrago! So that means Loegres will eventually become gloomy Pendrago... Lothringen will crumble and become Lohgrin in the future. These are the few locales I can recognize anyway. The north, south and east are not featured in Zestiria though.
Gameplay: It's a solid 8 or so. They rehashed the battle system, I won't say it's bad but it definitely caught me off guard. Took me some time to relearn everything, and I mean everything. I failed some of the early battles because of this. The guard button is now L1 instead of the traditional square button, you attack with every face button, the menu is now the D-pad, and the map options are a lil' bit inconvenient haha... With the new settings playing an offensive/melee character is definitely easier than a mage. There are new combo mechanics that can be used to chain higher combos and counter attacks from enemies (even though it doesn't always work) but the most useful of the bunch has to be Rokurou's Vengeful Punishment. VENGEFUL PUNISHMENT SAVES LIVES GODAMMIT. The Katz are back with more collectibles, there are expeditions with plenty of Tales references, which is also the only way to get ingredients for cooking. Jude and Milla cameo battle and we can't forget the Dark Turtlez fight...
Story: 6. It's a first for the series to tackle greyvsgray morality. Character motivations are clear (unlike a certain someone from a certain game), everyone has some level of character development and the antagonists are interesting (except for Oscar and Teresa. They're there to make Velvet feel bad about herself). But as I said in Zestiria, the game which was supposed to explain some things ended up opening another can of worms. It just raises more questions than answer them. Now who's this King of Asgard and what did he do? What about the Mayvin clan? The four elemental empyreans??? If you're not ready to explain things don't put that much shit into your story bro.
Soundtrack: Look. Velvet's Theme is damn fine and all and Melchior's battle theme fucking slaps but everything else is just bleh. The only exceptions being the Rangetsu brothers theme and Magilou's quirky tune; one has elements of traditional Japanese instruments while the other is a totally different genre. Maybe I just need more time to appreciate the music, but now Graces f and Xillia sounds great in comparison! Tales soundtracks have not been able to impress me as of late. Abyss has the help of other composers (and I'm biased), Legendia has a masterpiece, even Innocence has something different, but if the soundtrack only involves Sakuraba it is bound to be boring. Even Final Fantasy has the sense to collaborate or use someone different for each numbered title! I could only give a 4, and that's only because Velvet's Theme is awesome.
Overall rating: Sigh... A 7 I guess? I enjoyed the story, the battle mechanics were great, but the music... just a little disappointed. I thought after Zestiria Bamco would actually diversify their workforce and music tastes but nope, didn't happen. And now Go Shiina has left Bamco so we won't be hearing any of his stuff in Tales anymore. The high rating is also thanks to Velvet's status as the game's Launcher of A Thousand Ships, even though not as successful as Jude Mathis from Xillia.
I take back what I said about Berseria's characteristic genre. It's not as nuanced as the previous games, but it's not meaningless either. The genre is mostly about Phi while the title is about Velvet. From what I read 'Berseria' comes from the word 'berserk', which describes Velvet perfectly.
berserkVelvet's so hell bent on revenge against Artorius she doesn't care for anything. Her anger is her character motivation. Her fighting style is wild and she sacrifices HP for attack power, if that isn't the classic trope of a berserker, idk what is. Translations are always wonky because apparently the characteristic genre can be Discovering Your Own Reasons to Live or For You to Live as Yourself. I mean yeah suuuuurrrreeeee these two could mean the same thing, but it's also not???? If we're going by the original Japanese "君が君らしく生きるため", with my little knowledge on what means what: you, you, live, sake. So to sum it up, take my word with a grain of salt, I am not well versed in Japanese. For more translation weirdness refer to the Chinese translation, "坚持自我原则而活", which means 'to live by your own creed', which is what the game is fucking about omg translations are WEIRD! Let's just move on... Phi didn't know how to live before getting kidnapped, but with everyone's help he learns to live for himself and develops his own creed in life. Eizen is a strong believer of making self-informed choices in life; Rokurou is all fight and honor; Eleanor still fights for good even though she is working with the supposed 'villains'; and Velvet crumbles and breaks but she build herself up again and finds a new creed to live by. Artorius and Melchior follow their principles to the end, Shigure and Rokurou are the same - honorable swordsmen and all of Aifread's pirates... they live by their own principles and beliefs.
/bəˈzəːk,bəˈsəːk/
adjective
out of control with anger or excitement; wild or frenzied.
Character analysis:
We're now in this dreaded section where I try to analyze things even though I couldn't do a good job...
Gross outfit aside, Velvet is a brooding piece of work. She's not incompetent as much as she is chaotic neutral in her quest for revenge. It's a first for a Tales game to feature a villain as the protagonist but hey, she's not all bad. At least she doesn't hurt kids, which is why we have grey vs gray morality instead of outright black. Considering her love for deceased Laphicet it's plausible that she wouldn't hurt a child, but she's trying too hard to mask her emotions under the daemon facade, it's not fooling anyone honey. She keeps reminding her companions that she is using them to further her revenge plot, but I feel like she's saying that to keep herself in check more than anything. She just can't admit that she likes their company, especially when you consider that she's been locked up for three years with nothing but daemons to feed on and hatred to keep her alive. This is probably why the Oscar/Teresa case shook her so hard; she thought she was a real daemon and would do anything to get revenge, but she still couldn't let go of her past self as a sister who loved her brother dearly. Added to the fact that she's had all these bottled up feelings, and boom! Instant PTSD! Shit's hitting the fan if a character has a one-track-mind because as soon as the goal is void or becomes irrelevant, they lose all motivation to keep going, which is what happens! But god all the shipping... you can ship her with Arthur, Niko, any of the party members and maybe even some weird NPCs if you like, it just doesn't stop! While most of it is subtext except in Rokurou and Eleanor's case, it doesn't stop me from shipping her with everyone else. The series hasn't had such a blatant fanservice-y female character since QQ Selezneva from Innocence, and that's saying something... A scantily clad female protagonist? Eh. The underboob? Tasteless. Who thought it was a good idea...
Inomata. Your gay is showing.
Designed by Okumura of Ludger Will 'silent protagonist' Kresnik fame, hooooooo!!!!! Rokurou MAH BOI! I love this man to bits!!!! He's so fucking cool and handsome and has such a good personality like what would it take for me to meet a man like that irl? Fangirling aside Rokurou is a peculiar character in a party of supposed misfits. Sure, he likes a good fight more than usual, but that's because he's a bloodknight. His other characteristics? Honorable, friendly, and somewhat kind? He would fit right into a traditional good JRPG party if he hasn't killed, like, countless people. His ultimate goal in life is to defeat his brother Shigure (which I will mention later because he's a hot piece of-) and find more worthy opponents to fight. He's really all about honor because all Velvet did was told him where to find his great sword and he immediately claims to be indebted to her and helps her in her quest for revenge like whaaaa anyhow in the end everyone's like 'you're just tagging along because there's strong enemies to fight against' and he doesn't deny it. He doesn't hate his brother, more like it's how they're raised. They live to battle. Rokurou is very transparent with his goals and really there's nothing much to say about him other than I love him and his Vengeful Punishment skill and ship him with Velvet and Eleanor and I so desperately want to be grabbed by him on the waist because why not my thirst is showing help me pls
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| Fanservice for the female fans asdfghjkl |
...I have no words for this character. Also designed by Okumura... just why? Why would you design a bard this way? With books as a skirt? Magilou is implied to be the oldest character of the bunch (sans Eizen) and a christmas cake! Hopefully she is because now we'll have a second playable female character over 25 since Symphonia's Presea (who is 28). She had a legate career spanning 10 years, was adopted by Melchior who is from the Mayvin clan so who knows what age-extending pact they have, and she's very knowledgeable about some of the lore. Magilou has a narcissistic nature to her. It was suuuuuuper cringey to hear her go ham on the situation... until one day I realized that we all need to be Magilou sometimes. People are mean and we have to appreciate ourselves more than anyone. Be a Magilou! Praise yourself! Be ham! But don't care less about the world because that's one thing you don't wanna learn from her! She doesn't care. She's had her heart broken so bad she pretends she doesn't care. She never learns to depend on other people and doesn't expect anyone to defend her. But when Rokurou and Eizen came to her aid against Melchior... it was moving. Like Velvet she masks her real feelings with the witch facade, but unlike Velvet she never truly opens up, not even in the end.
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| Eizen also has a weird way of doing things. |
I just love the Rangetsu bros. It's a new obsession.
The game is great. The overall rating might not be good but I enjoyed my time playing it. I knew about the prologue and the ending but otherwise I went in blind. I had no expectations for the game. It made me cry like an idiot even though it's a game with dark and depressing themes. I applaud Bamco for really mixing up the formula this time. The reception might be mixed but keep it up Bamco. The localization could use some work though. Some of the sidequest cutscenes have weird pacing, the subtitles are misspelled (or outright wrong), plus the dialogue cutoff is really bad. The localization was shorter than most other titles, so some speculated it might have something to do with time constraints. And the music... they really should try hiring new composers to mix things up. I could only listen to Sakuraba's pieces for so long Bamco, use someone else or collaborate! To answer the previous review's question: I understand a little more, but not fully. Now things are complicated.
This game is close to 3 years old! Last year Bamco announced during TalesFes2018 that they're developing a new title and I sincerely hope it's not rushed for Tales 25th anniversary in 2020 because they really have a tendency to do that. It would be even better if it was a stand alone title and not tied to the anniversary because it would just make fans have certain expectations. I look forward to a new and exciting title.
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Because they have to.
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