Zestiria felt like the Tales of series was finally making some changes after a long series of riffs on Symphonia's formula. Jumping from that, Berseria is a new high for the series.

The story follows Velvet, turned into a therion against her will and given the power to consume demons with her hand. There's a definite edge-dark feeling to the early game that immediately feels unlike any other Tales game (that we've played, at least). Velvet is obsessed with revenge, and this vengeance is what spurs the plot forward, even as other details get discovered. The themes build on this with a continued look at sin and free will, and those who would suppress those feelings that make us human. The game acts as a prequel to Zestiria, but it's not required that you play that game. Berseria takes places long before Zestiria, to the point where continental drift has happened between the games. There's easter eggs for players who played that first, but it also feels like you could go from here to Zestiria and still have a great time. Love a duology built so that starting at either side creates an equal experience.

Like with Zestiria, the party is tight, as you're joined by 5 memorable characters. The writing throughout is great, funny skits balanced by the way it pulls at the heartstrings. Each character has their own individual goals, tying in with the feeling of free will, but these goals all come together against a common foe. In combat, they each fill one of three roles: melee-focused, magic-focused, and a mix of both. You're allowed to switch in party members on the fly and even given combat bonuses for doing so, encouraging you to use your whole team to create big combos. Outside of the party, the cast in general is great. It all feels very tight, keeping the supporting cast from spiraling out of control, but at the same time the continuing stories of random NPCs are always a delight to learn.

The combat in general builds on Zestiria's improvements and it's very fun and interesting. The TP system that game created is put here by souls. Each soul you have (starting out of 5) determines how many attacks you can do and thus how big your combo can get. Dodging enemies with precise timing gives you souls back. This creates a nice risk/reward system: if you're low on souls, it's actually better to let the enemies attack you to get more. In addition, each character has a Break Soul ability, which costs one of your souls and gives an enemy one more. Playing on Normal, some of the intricacies of this system were lost on us, but it's clear there's a lot there. If you like a challenge, the game has a whole pile of difficulty settings, and the difficulty you play on affects things like the kind of equipment you find. Play on a harder difficulty, get better equipment, another great use of risk/reward.

The flaws are minimal. The biggest one is that, like Zestiria, the environs can often feel too big and too empty. Getting the Geoboard fixes part of that by letting you zoom through areas and run down low-level encounters, but it can't entirely take away some of the backtracking boredom that happens. There are also the Katz boxes, which you have to open by finding Katz souls. Even picking up each one you come across, it often feels like there aren't enough and that getting all of them requires farming for them which...just isn't fun and we didn't do it. It seems like an attempt to balance out the empty environs by filling them with shiny objects, but it instead feels like an extra chore and can make things feel a little visually ugly at times.

We've been a Tales fan for a long time, but this is maybe the first time in a while where one of its entries hooked us like nothing else. For series fans, Berseria is a must-play, and for newbies, it's a great place to get on board. Just a fantastic work.