Tales of Berseria Remastered

Genre: Action-RPG / JRPG

Players: 1

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Review:

Tales of Berseria, the sixteenth main installment in Namco’s Tales series and prequel to the fifteenth, Tales of Zestiria, is an Action-RPG and JRPG originally released only in Japan on PlayStation 3 in 2016, with a Western release on PC and PlayStation 4 in 2017, and with this modern remaster releasing in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch, bringing with it new quality-of-life improvements, and all previously-released DLC content.

The presentation here is good, though the limitations of the Nintendo Switch hardware show through here, with noticeable aliasing, low framerates for characters in the distance, and shadows (especially the shadows of trees) that do a lot of shimmering and can be somewhat distracting to look at. Still, these issues aside, this game overall looks quite good, and the subtly cel-shaded 3D character designs in particular are fantastic. This is joined by a good anime-style soundtrack, and some really outstanding voicework.

Where I tend to find the story of most Tales series games to be somewhere in the range of “decent” to “boring and formulaic”, Berseria is an exception to that, with a story that I feel does an exceptional job grabbing you early on. The game follows a young woman named Velvet, who some years ago lived through a horrifying incident that claimed her parents and big sister when the world started to see the appearance of “daemons” (which in this world seem to be much like werewolves). While the world continues to live on in fear of this threat, Velvet lives on with her sickly brother and her brother-in-law, until what remains of her village is struck by a massive appearance of daemons and a deadly ritual that results in Velvet transformed, bearing a daemon-like claw that can feed on daemons. Imprisoned for years afterward, Velvet is resolved to get revenge on the man responsible for destroying her life.

The revenge quest at the heart of this game, and the dark events that led to it, are a pretty drastic tonal shift for the Tales series, which is no stranger to death and dark moments but generally has plucky optimistic protagonists trying to save the world or something like that. Here, the story of revenge puts Velvet squarely in the realm of antihero, and it’s a true delight to follow her quest.

Now here in a Tales review is where I would normally go on to complaining about the clunky, restrictive combat system, but… actually, no. Tales of Berseria’s combat is actually quite good, and while it still suffers a bit due to what seems like vestiges of past games, overall it gives players relative freedom to move around, a multi-button attack system that makes for much more variety, and some really satisfying, visceral attacks.

Overall, I think there are some issues with the visuals and performance on Nintendo Switch, and there’s still room for improvement in the combat, but on the whole Tales of Berseria is not only easily my favorite game so far in the Tales series, but a truly great Action-RPG overall, and one that’s well worth playing even if you’re not a Tales series fan. Don’t miss it!

tl;dr – Tales of Berseria Remastered is a remastered port of a 2016 PlayStation 3 Action-RPG and JRPG. This is easily the best game yet in the Tales series in my opinion, with a gripping story of a woman dead-set on revenge in a world ravaged by werewolf-like “daemons”, and with a combat system that’s actually really enjoyable, a first in the series in my opinion. The Nintendo Switch version of the game seems to suffer due to hardware limitations, but overall this is an outstanding Action-RPG that’s well worth playing even if you’re not a big fan of the Tales series.

Grade: A-

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