Tales of Berseria Remastered review for PS5, Xbox Series X, Switch, PC

Remasters have become popular. The first couple of Suikoden games, and three Dragon Quest games that were remastered or given the HD-2D treatment in the last year alone. Bandai Namco has kicked off a remaster program, bringing many of the Tales titles to modern consoles. Vesperia, Symphonia, Graces F, and Xillia have all received the remaster treatment. Most of these games are PS3 or PS4 era. Tales of Xillia 2 is being worked on now, and Bandai Namco has made mention that they are looking further back into their library for Tales titles to remaster.  Maybe the Super Nintendo and PS1 games will finally get released on modern consoles?

Tales of Berseria was originally released by Bandai Namco way back in January 2017 for the PS3, PS4 and PC. The critics liked it when it came out, and with it being a much newer game (only one generation back for the PS4 version) and still playable on modern consoles, is this Remaster one worth picking up?

Berseria’s story follows a young woman named Velvet Crowe, and her quest for vengeance. Ten years ago, during a Scarlet Night, a night where the moon is full and becomes crimson. Velvet’s village was attacked by daemons and her sister Celica was killed. Legend says that the crimson moon is a “gate to the beyond and proof of humanity’s sins”. Fast forward seven years and a betrayal has turned her into a half deamon. Trapped in a dungeon for three more years, as she gathers her strength by consuming other deamons, she finally makes her escape.

The Tales games are action RPGs. A little bit different than most action RPGs, as the enemies can be seen on the overworld map, but when Velvet comes in contact with them, the game loads in a battlefield with your characters and the enemies on the screen. Once a battle starts, characters are free roaming around the battlefield, with thumbstick movement based on the targeted monster. If you want to hit a particular enemy, make sure that one is targeted, and you can hit multiple monsters as long as they are grouped together.

Characters in Tales of Berseria attack using “Artes”. Each button can be assigned a chain of Artes moves and each Arte causes the characters Soul Gauge (SG) to be depleted based on the Arte cost. The battle starts characters with 3 soul points, each soul point is worth 30 SG. Characters can spend soul points on special attacks, gain soul points by dodging special attacks from enemies, or lose them from enemy attacks.

The customization on the Artes for each button and some Artes, depending on the button used to activate it will do different things is pretty awesome. It makes it easy to create specific combos for specific enemy types. What is even better is the fact that you can change the Artes assigned during battle, so you can adjust your strategy on the fly.

The game still looks like it came out on PS4, though with textures and resolution cleaned up a bit.  The anime cutscenes are very well done, along with a very good voice cast. The soundtrack is pretty good too, while pretty standard Tales style soundtrack with a high energy opening anime cutscene with music to match. All the released DLC has been included with this version of the game too.  Bandai Namco also added fast travel in the remaster, which makes for a nice quality of life improvement over the old.

The cast of characters are colorful, in both style and personality. Except Velvet. Post-betrayal Velvet has a one track mind, everything/person is a tool to be used in her plans for vengeance — which gets old pretty quick. Her base outfit is very anime trope, and the camera, during some cutscenes doesn’t let you forget it. Maybe I’m getting a little more modest in my old age, but when I see a woman warrior, I don’t think chainmail bikini, I think at least leather armor that covers something more. At least there are cosmetics in the game that does allow you to change Velvet’s look.

Overall Tales of Berseria Remastered is one of the better Tales games in recent memory. If you have it on PS4, and have a PS5 that can play it, I would probably hold off, unless you really need the buttery smooth 60fps. If you don’t have the original, this is a great game to get started on.

Note: Bandai Namco provided us with a Tales of Berseria Remastered code for review purposes.

Click Here to buy Tales of Berseria Remastered on Amazon.