Tales of Berseria is a JRPG following the female protagonist, Velvet. The story starts out with Velvet getting betrayed by her friend and mentor, the Shepherd Artorius, and the game begins. The objective of the game is to level up and progress the story.

Gameplay-wise, TOB was meant for a controller but I played it on a keyboard. WASD for movement, no jump, Spacebar for defence, LMB for light hit, RMB for heavy hit, R for a power combo attack (Break Soul), C for a cut-scene super combo attack. To escape a fight, run to the edge of the ring until the run bar fills out. During combat, press Tab to switch targetting between enemies. You can switch between the 4 heroes in combat but it's extremely tedious. Press E to pause, then left or right arrow. This will allow you to switch between the active heroes. Alternatively, you can press T/V to switch out with a resting hero if there are 5 heroes or more. Switching out requires at least 1 point of BG.

Conclusion, you can play TOB but it doesn't feel amazing. TOB feels like a dumbed-down RPG with an inelegant hero system. The complex skills are for form, not function. You see swings, slashes, lots of grunting and movement but they only serve 1 purpose, damage. Every hero feels the same because there isn't something unique that each hero can do. It feels like a bare-boned game with the systems badly integrated with one another. You can see that you can switch between heroes while exploring but you can't do it while in combat. It's just a cosmetic effect.

Note: The review isn't complete. I will add more later. TOB is part of the Tales of series done by Bandai Namco. TOB is the 16th edition in the main series. As of December 2013, the series has shipped 16 million units worldwide.

PROS
1. Seeing the Monsters
This is so much better than a random encounter.

2. Simple to Play
Technically, you can complete the game by just attacking and defending.

3. Wall Monsters
The way it fell over to attack was funny.

4. Kat Bubbles
Easy to do and simple to understand. Collect X bubbles to unlock 1 Kat Box. X can vary depending on the zone. It can even be used to guide paths.

5. Treasure Box Icon
Always useful to know there's treasure to search for. I would prefer if they included Plants and Katz Boxes. That way I would know what to search for.

6. Attack Effects
Quite a few effects but not presented well. It's not fully utilized.

CONS
1. Glowing Light Pick ups
A shiny light to represent some kind of item. It's really boring to pick up.

2. Combat Is Unrewarding
Smash, smash, smash. No status effects. Just move to avoid attacks.

3. Bosses Follow the Same Pattern
2 Underlings, 1 Boss. Kill the underlings, then kill the boss.

4. Feels Similar to One Piece
Simplistic. Smash and smash with fancy stunts.

5. No Illusion Of Choice
Does it matter which bruiser I use? Maybe I want to play a support character like Laphicet?

6. Tutorials Are Spaced Out Badly
You have to go through at least 1 hour of the game before they teach you about the C key which is supposedly your ultimate. This is slow and modular. It's not integrated well.

7. Exploration is Not Rewarding
Nothing much to explore. The zones are dull.

8. Bland Creatures
Monkey, snake, wolf, dog, squirrel. Is this a fantasy game or some kid's animal dictionary?

9. No Jump
It's quite annoying to not be able to jump.

10. No Swimming
This is kind of mediocre considering that simulated swimming in games has existed for at least 20 years now.

11. Inelegant Hero Choosing
Extremely inelegant design with issues such as choosing a leader to run the formation but not in combat. Cosmetic leaders. Having to change the formation to use the hero. Switching out requires 1 BG.

12. Map Abilities Are Non-Existent
Breaking rocks, lighting fires, entering small holes can be done with any hero.

13. World has Form But No Function
There is little or nothing to interact with despite the looks. E.g. Cable cars in the Port town can't be ridden. Windmills just spin with nothing to do. Lighthouses just exist. People only provide verbal replies and never move from their spot. The only movement exists in an occassional delivery man.

14. Difficult Setup Conditions for Eizen
3 BG + Knock Down/Stun before you can execute the R is quite tricky for Eizen.

15. No Jumping/Air Combos
When you fight aerial monsters, you can't jump to reach them. This means that your character is somehow hitting air instead of the monster.

16. Cooking is Kind of "Meh"
In the game, you choose a picture of the food and one of the characters as a cook. The cook gives the team a buff and recovers X% of team health based on the cook's skills. What type of food you cook only affects the amount of XP the cook gains and the X% of team health recovered. There are a few variations like minor buffs but it's mostly meh.

17. Little or No Strategy
Slash, slash, slash, R. Most normal battles involve this pattern. Sometimes, I don't even know how the monsters die.

18. Mystic Artes (C Ultimate) are Just Damage
There's nothing special about the Mystic Artes. It's just 1 action with high damage directed on 1 creature you are targeting. Try using support MA's that buff the whole team.

19. No Trading/Smuggling with Ships
You have a ship company but it can't be maximised for gameplay. Let it trade.

20. Hero Collection/Base Building
There's nothing there. It's still empty with only the basic functions. Red Shop, Blue Inn, Save Point. If you take over the Prison Island, you could unlock functions.

21. Worldbuilding is Horrendous
Scale is wrong. Each town/city has less than 50 people. Use a false background to make it appear as if a million people live in the cities. There is no need to generate 1 million NPCs.

NEUTRAL
1. Item Mastery
A little bit confusing. Just wearing certain items for sufficient battles with award you with an item skill which is a passive buff. This incentivises you to switch between items to master as many item skills as possible. This forces you to switch out to weaker equipment just to gain a permanent buff. It's just weird.

2. NPCs with the Smiley Face
What is this for?

1. Specific Pathways, Specific Hero
Open a specific pathway with a specific character. E.g. You want to burn something, you need Eizen. You want to reach a high alcove, you need Velvet's demon hand to reach it. Light a flame, Rokurou. Enter small holes, Laphicet.

2. Tab to Switch Between Heroes instead of Targeting
This would be far more interesting than changing targets. You have 6 heroes but most of the time you are stuck playing with Velvet. This is a sheer waste of effort for coding the other heroes actions.

3. Quest Reminder
Please leave it in the top right hand corner. No need to press G.
Posted 22 January. Last edited 31 January.

4. Plants + Garden = Herbology + Cooking + Potion Making
So many plants collected for 1 time buffs? Collect the plants, plant them in a base garden, return and collect to make elixirs.

5. Cooking
Use the Inn as a Kitchen. Collect Recipes, Ingredients and Level Up Cooking Skills. Play a Mini Game for Novice, Intermediate and Advanced Recipes. The better you perform, the greater the XP gained and the longer the buff will last.

6. Recipe Quests
Go do quests for recipes, not skins. E.g. Serving mini-games for Laphicet.

7. Remove the Geotrees and Just Give the Surfboard
Why do you even need the Geotrees? The Surfboard is so sci-fi it breaks the story. Just give the surfboard.

8. Remove Shift as Walk
This is the default option. Why do you need to walk for? This is not a stealth game. Use Shift for another option like Switch Target or Switch Hero.

9. Elemental Doors with Switches
Get the Heroes to break through them. That way you will teach the player what each Hero's element is. E.g. Eizen to break down Wind Barriers.

10. Sea Monsters
For the future water maps. Leviathan rising out of the sea or lakes.

11. Character Favourite Foods
There is an extensive list of foods which you can assign to each character. E.g. Rokurou may want to eat Prickleboard Sausages. Laphicet may want Mapo Curry. If you cook what they want, the characters will get an additional bonus on top of the normal buff. E.g. +XP, +X% dmg, +X% def. This will also expose more of the character's story.

12. Cooking Mini Game and Quest
Cooking Mama style Mini Games are some examples. My idea is a lot simpler. Hit-Timing bar. Cook the sausage, bar moves slow into these zones, Undercooked, Good, Perfect, Good, Burnt. Try to hit the Spacebar when the marker slide across Perfect. If you get all "Perfect" for all the components, additional bonus for you. If you get "Burnt" or "Undercooked" for all the components, failed attempt.

You need a cooking sidequest.

13. Fishing needs a Mini-Game
A timing mini-game would be easy to do. An encyclopedia with pictures of every fish would make it even better. Link the fishing to cooking.

14. Remove the Ultra Hard Mini-games
Face Jackpot, Pose Nomin come to mind.

15. Stop with the Exact Copying
Katz Corner is exactly the same from Tales of Zestiria to Tales of Berseria. At the very least, expand it to twice the size with more functions in version.

16. Static Design to Dynamic Design
Evolve the world as you progress. The world doesn't change no matter how long I stand in one area.
a. Add in night and day.
b. Add in specific day-time events
c. Add in specific night-time events

17. No Repeats Please
Pixie, Fairy,
Troll, Ogre, Giant
Squirrel, Marmot

No repeats please.