With the narrative of Tales of Berseria, Namco Bandai feels like they crafted a more poignant narrative for now than they did when it was originally released. Coming out of COVID-19, we saw multiple economies far weaker than they have been in recent memory. The solution that came out of that, as always, was blame your neighbor and trust us, the wealthy and the powerful, to bring order back into your life.
It’s a sad state of affairs; I feel like I have seen it in a cyclical nature since I was 10, only having developed the words to articulate it much later. This is why I fell in love with JRPGs, because the parallels are so clear, even if every so often the game doesn’t waste time trying to be subtle.
To create a perfect world, antagonist Artorius destroys the home he had, one in which he lived with the protagonist Velvet and her brother Laphecet. He sacrifices the sickly younger brother to his aim of destroying the demonblight, a disease that creates monsters out of humans, spread through negative emotions.
The goal here is to take one step forward to his ultimate goal, to eradicate emotion. The irony, Velvet spends the next three years steeped in anger and hatred, herself becoming a demon-blighted tool of vengeance with nothing and no one left to live for, save for revenge. It’s a dark premise, made even darker by the shift away from happy-go-lucky characters who are motivated by altruism.
This being said, the narrative can be heavy-handed at times to make clear that Velvet, despite her many threats to kill everybody, is the hero. Early on, we met a Malakin who will act as a surrogate for her brother throughout the game. She even names him Laphecet. Why does she need to name him? Because the previous person this Malakin served called him Number 2, which is obviously condescending. This is made more so when, despite Velvet gaining new Laphecet as an ally by threatening to eat him with her big demon claw, to escape, the supposed hero of the church later demands that he kill himself as penance.
Overt villainy is on display by the people you want to slay. Velvet can be lured into a trap by threatening her people, who have joined her party, undercutting the shift in focus to vengeance. This being said, it does seem like some of the questions you want from a good “dig two graves” story, like, can you ever go back? The exploration of how good people can be turned into monsters, in this case, represented by a very real affliction, is also well depicted.
All of this is helped because Velvet and her party are engaging to watch, even in dated cutscenes that are too modern to be classic and yet too classic to be modern. Similar to what I said in my Dragon Quest VII Remastered review, Berseria is not my favorite narrative. If I had to stack it against every other game in the series, especially in a world with its follow-up, Arise, it still has one of my favorite characters in the form of absurdity with Magilou. We get to experience the cast across hundreds of skits, which has always been a strength of the series, as you get a sense for these characters from the mundane to the important.
Tales of Berseria does continue the faux pas of the remasters, though, something almost every release has done. My favorite Tales, if people ask, is Tales of Xillia 2. We got the first remastered, but who is to say if the sequel ever will? Tales of Symphonia has had both it and its sequel remastered, but the most recent ports have dropped the second. Here, Tales of Berseria is a follow-up to the previous entry in the series, Tales of Zestiria.
Thankfully, this is a prequel set a hundred years prior, so it doesn’t bar new players from entering. The issue is that some elements are designed in such a way that they are bolstered by having played the previous game. One party member, Eizen, had major plot points in the previous game. This leads to interactions with another character from the previous game that doesn’t get fleshed out much here because he feels his inclusion is a means of something to tie the narratives together.
This leads to the bigger issue of the Malakhim as a whole. The big criticism of Zestiria, which Berseria fixed, was the combat, which flowed through two human characters, unlike every other game in the series. Malakim can’t be seen by normal humans, so the party involved tethering these party members to the lead character and his female ally. This is rectified early in this game by the villains making them visible.
The thing is, if you had not played the previous entry, a lot of this might be confusing. Artorius, during the flashback scenes, often speaks to thin air. This is later clarified somewhat when they introduce his Malakim companion in physical form, who frees Velvet from her prison confinement and sets everything in motion. There isn’t a large chunk of the main cast that are Malakim. The game glosses over a ton of the setup, much of which made up the entire introduction of the previous entry, to get right into the action.
It’s a weird situation because this shouldn’t bar a player from enjoying it, but it’s one of the most obvious examples of what you lose through selective remasters. Both games are main entries, as opposed to the sequels, which are debatable, so it feels like a loss. I understand the thought. Tales of Berseria was acclaimed at the time for, with a little abject distance, correcting the mistakes of its previous game. This is why it is more beloved and the obvious choice for a PS4 remaster if you are going that way.
Unfortunately, what I never liked about that era of Tales was the level design. Let’s be fair, much of it still looks good, but the stages were too large and far too vacant. Treasure chests are scattered around areas and often form the only reason to actually explore these locales, many of which feel like they can take 10 minutes to run across. I say this using the running speed increase added in the Remaster, making me realize how long they can take, even when they are fast.
It felt at the time like the focus on bigger stages was how a lot of JRPGs tried to feel like they made a bolder game, which is noticeable even now. The issue was that Tales of Berseria launched the same year in the west as Persona 5 and Ys VIII did, both of which highlighted more meaningful growth for their respective series than was seen with her. It becomes more noticeable when trying to create dangerous encounters, which becomes one of the only ways to meaningfully experience grind by dragging enemies together.
Enemies are spaced far apart and run such a short distance, forcing you into a frustrating tedium of trying to get them closer while keeping them from touching you. It’s a difference of around 100 exp to about 1000, so partaking in this frustration is important. The movement speed increase on the field also does not help. The worst thing that can happen is an enemy hits you outside this indicated encounter, which is only an annoyance. You grind for minimal reward and now need to seek another location to try, since often only a few enemies can be guided the full distance between each other.
Tales of Berseria did not change the gear system from its previous entry, which is also not a great thing, and again, with abject distance, it is more noticeable. It revolves around, and this isn’t a joke, getting bombarded with the same gear in fights or shops. Some have minor stat differences despite the same name; many others are identical. The key loop is committing to one and dismantling the others to get the things to upgrade the one you are working on. It is insanely confusing, with tutorials that feel almost pointless since they don’t give you a handle on this monstrosity.
The biggest issue is that you barely feel like you make progress using this system. You hold onto gear way longer than you might otherwise, not trading in for the new weapon as you reach the next stop on your journey, and even if you upgrade, you don’t seem to get major stat boosts. You can find yourself fighting with the same weapon or wearing the same armor for a significant amount of time. Hell, I forgot there even was a gear system at one point, putting my controller down and making an audible “Oh, right!” noise when I remembered.
The game also came out when it was popular to bake in the back-end idle mechanics, which are present in a ship you can send to areas and wait a specific time to get items. Nothing tied to it is crucial; you mostly get ingredients for cooking. It’s also not an egregious mechanic, certainly not the worst idle system in a game. Especially now, though, it is noticeably pointless.
The combat makes up for almost every shortcoming, being engaging even compared to other entries. Players have free motion on the battlefield and a ton, an absolute ton, of moves they can mix and match to create devastating combos to destroy their enemies. This goes across every party member since they are all playable. I tend to stick with Velvet since I also think she has some of the best moves of any protagonist in the series.
The key twist to combat here is that the demon characters get an added moveset in which they can sacrifice a node; these represent how many combos they can string in order to get a rapid-fire combo that has no limit. Characters still get finishing movies they can unleash, but these see a noticeable damage reduction compared to previous ones because you can so often unleash more power.
While this is presented as a risk-reward system, sacrificing your combo strength for a quick burst of power, it typically isn’t. You gain nodes by stunning enemies, and if you end up slamming two or three in one power-hungry combo, you very regularly end the combo with more nodes than you started with, let alone lost. This encourages spamming this ability on everything besides bosses, who withstand it far better. Doing so is fun as hell, though, so it’s difficult to see a problem.
Verdict
I understand to a degree why a port of Tales of Berseria was needed. I reviewed the game on the PlayStation 5, a place where I already had access to it. Now, this is the first time both the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Series will see a relatively good RPG make its way to their platforms. Replaying the game, though, I realized it occupies a weird place in gaming history. It’s not really a retro game at this point, despite being nearly a decade old. Tales of Arise fixed nearly every concern I had with Berseria, so mentally, it didn’t get the benefit of being an older title like I expected it to. Tales of Graces f feels dated too, but like it’s from another era of the series, whereas this just feels like it’s not quite as good as Arise.
It also becomes the issue that I think much of Berseria‘s strength comes from being an improvement over its previous entry. This landlocks it because, on the one hand, I think you need that one regardless because it fills in a lot of the blanks. This was the stronger game, so it makes sense that this would be the remaster. Removed from that context, though, I don’t know if it does. The strength of its narrative, cast, and action-oriented combat keeps the title inviting.
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Reviewed for PlayStation 5, Also Available on Xbox Series, Nintendo Switch, and PC
A review key for this title was provided by Namco Bandai for the purposes of this review.
Developer: Bandai Namco Studios, D.A.G. Inc (Remaster)
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Release Date: February 27, 2026
Pros:
+Great narrative
+Enjoyable cast of characters
+Enjoyable combat
Cons:
-Barebones remaster
-Some dated gameplay mechanics
-Some narrative points feel less explained without the games counterpart
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Tales of berseria Remastered
