Tales of Berseria crossed two million in shipments and digital sales. It launched in August 2016 for PS4 and PS3 before coming to PS4 and PC worldwide in January 2017. Thus far, total franchise sales have topped 25 million units with Tales of Arise being its fastest selling title till date.

It’s currently available for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5 and PC. For more details, you can check out our official review here. Along with selling well, it also set a record for peak concurrent players for a Japanese RPG on Steam, hitting 60,274 players just a few days after release.

https://twitter.com/tales_ch/status/1438374900817797120

In a recent Q&A (translated by DualShockers), series producer Yusuke Tomizawa said that Tales of Arise will be roughly about as long as Tales of Berseria, and that it will also have plenty of side content and replay value to encourage repeat playthroughs.

“Needless to say it’ll depend on your playstyle,” Tomizawa said. “But overall, I can say it’ll be around the same length as Tales of Berseria. Of course, the game will have a lot of side content and replayability for second runs as well.”

Tales of Bersera was quite a beefy game, at over 40-50 hours in length, and that number could easily be stretched to 60-70 hours, if not more, if players engaged with the optional content more thoroughly. If Tales of Arise does indeed offer a similar experience in terms of content, we’re looking at quite a packed game.

In the same Q&A, Tomizawa also said that the game is going to tell a self-contained story, with no plans for story expansions, prequels, or direct sequels. Read more on that through here.

Tales of Arise launches on September 10 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, and PC.

The Tales of Festival 2020 is coming up and will take place on March 6th 7th. Originally set to take place last year, the festival was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Abyssal Chronicles, the event will be held in Yokohama Arena with tickets going on sale today.

Fans can expect the cast – which consists of voice actors from the various Tales games – to be split between the two days. Masaya Onosaka and Rina Satou, who played Zelos from Tales of Symphonia and Velvet from Tales of Berseria respectively, will be the MC’s for both days. Along with theme song covers, there will also be All-Star Skits with Day 1 focusing on the heroes and Day 2 on the heroines.

As for the paid online viewing option, it will offer multiple viewing angles and a light stick function with changing colors. It’s currently not confirmed whether more details will be provided on Tales of Arise, the next big title in the series which is reportedly in the final stages of development. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks regardless.

Bandai Namco’s Tales of series – consisting of classics like Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Vesperia, and the more contemporary Tales of Berseria – has hit a new milestone. The series overall has hit 20 million units sold worldwide. To celebrate this milestone, digital versions for a number of different Tales of titles are currently on sale (check Steam for more details).

The Tales of series has been around for quite a while. Tales of Phantasia first released in 1995 for the Super Famicom, arriving in the West for PlayStation One. Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition is the most recent title, serving as a remaster of the Xbox 360 and PS3 classic. It’s currently available for PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

Another Tales of game is currently in development. It will likely be revealed at the upcoming Tales of Festival 2019, which takes place from June 15th to 16th. Stay tuned for more information, and check out GamingBolt’s review for Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition in the meantime.

In the midst of all the E3 news comes an update that JRPG fans will probably appreciate- Bandai Namco’s Tales of Berseria, the newest entry in their long running fan favorite JRPG franchise, has apparently sold over 1 million copies worldwide.

If that seems like a low number, it is- for example, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 outsold it within three months, and it was only on one system- but Berseria had several things stacked against it. It launched in a very crowded launch window, and was drowned out, while it was also coming on the heels of some games that are widely considered by series fans to be the low points of the franchise. As a result, that it reached a million over time is an achievement, and indicative of strong word of mouth for the game.

Tales of Berseria is available now. You can get it on PS3, PS4, and also on PC via Steam.

[via Famitsu]

Ultimately, the setup and many of the story beats of Berseria can be seen a mile away. Velvet Crowe, initially a caring young woman doing her best to care for her brother in a world overrun by daemons, has her life forever altered three years prior to the events of the story by a trusted mentor, as she loses everything, becomes a daemon and gets locked up as the world is changed drastically.

The newly hatred driven Velvet gets her opportunity to go after her target after a bloody prison break, to find that her ultimate tragedy, might have led to the salvation of the world. The event that lost her everything has brought humanity back from the brink of daemon destruction, though they’re still around, and the population seems largely thankful for the newly minted Abbey of Exorcists, a group of augmented warriors, Velvet’s target sitting atop it all.

"The party characters Velvet meets along the way have their own stories of revenge and redemption, and their interactions with Velvet will help her drop the facade of the “rage-filled badass heroine” from time to time."

We’ve all seen this revenge plot setup before, and Berseria doesn’t really go out of its way to deviate from the path you expect the tale to travel. The questions of morality I posed within the intro paragraph are where the interesting grey area comes in, making you question who’s really in the right, without making Velvet’s party and their individual plights seem unsympathetic. The conflict between what is logical, but perhaps cold and what emotion dictates as right is at the core of the game, and is used to great effect.

The party characters Velvet meets along the way have their own stories of revenge and redemption, and their interactions with Velvet will help her drop the facade of the “rage-filled badass heroine” from time to time. Berseria takes the time to develop each party member into a three-dimensional individual, and you’ll get familiar with their personal goals, backstories and failings as you travel.

The laid back swordsman Rokurou, witch of endless sass Magilou, and the rest of the cast are all written believably. Their distinct and fun personalities all help round out Velvet’s otherwise one note characterization, who usually gets stuck as the straight woman to the antics or growth of the other party members. As a moral beacon from the Abbey who gets thrust into working with Velvet and her crew of villains by circumstance, Elenor is a standout within the playable cast. Her rock solid views of the ways of the world become more and more shaken as she continues traveling with Velvet’s crew, tying into the fantastic moral ambiguity that drives the conflict of the game.

The world explored by Velvet and her crew is as laser focused on the forward path as its anti-heroine herself, partially betraying the game’s roots as a PS3 title. Largely segmented and linear areas make up the entire game world, though thankfully there are no obtrusive loading times in my experience on the PS4 Pro. Things you might usually expect within the genre like side quests are largely absent, aside from one overarching one where you collect Katz souls for cosmetic items. It was a smart decision to keep the pace of the story moving, when it could have been so easy to get bogged down in distractions.

"Combat itself revolves almost completely around stamina management and positioning, invoking some of the spirit of a fighting game."

Enemies appear on the field as is typical for the Tales series, allowing you a moment to prepare your equipment, arrange your battle party or sneak up on them for an advantage. Combat itself revolves almost completely around stamina management and positioning, invoking some of the spirit of a fighting game. Each character can set physical, ranged and magical arts in sets of four to each face button, and combo them into each other for the situation. The Soul Gauge determines how many attacks you can link together, and soul can be gained from defeating or staggering enemies and lost from being staggered or spent on combo lengthening Break Soul attacks.

As the game progresses, additional layers are introduced such as tagging in and out inactive party members to further lengthen combos or alter your approach to the situation, and Mystic Arts, which function somewhat like ultimate attacks. Though each of the six party members fight somewhat differently from each other, the battles were largely more in your face and direct as opposed to the hit-and-run style Final Fantasy 15 encouraged. Combo chains are king in Berseria, making status effects more likely to take hold or shortening the needed wind up for a magical attack. Finding new combos becomes part of its own fun, as you try to get in close with martial arts to build up a bit of a combo, before pushing away the foe and firing off the magic attack.

If I had to give the combat one knock, it’s that it’s far too easy. Thanks to the pacing I’ve never really dwelled in an area to grind. In spite of this, I have never come across anything more than a little threatening to my party, that could not then be handled a few items later. Once you’ve filled out your party, the arena can become hectic with flying effects and attacks, so you’ll always have some backup. If you want a real bite to the combat though, crank up the difficulty.

"An old tale, but a tale well told and inviting to anyone who dives into Tales of Berseria."

Though the world, characters and combat of Tales of Berseria are all nothing short of commendable, there are some clear technical limitations at work to bring it down. The limited nature of the world maps and the transitions into battle scenes that simply remove some of the extra fluff from around the immediate area are clear hallmarks of the PS3 origins of the game, and the sometimes stiff animations and muddy textures upon close up take away from the fantastic art style. At the end of it, I can really only consider these nitpicks, but in a world post Final Fantasy 15, I was hoping for a bit more ambition.

Greater than the sum of its parts is a great way to describe Tales of Berseria. The revenge plot is a tale as old as time, yet the characters who inhabit this one bring it to life in an enjoyable, if unsurprising way. A deeply involved combat system makes each battle a fun, frantic dance between maintaining your combo and managing stamina, and the world is just gorgeous enough that you want to see what comes over the next rise. An old tale, but a tale well told and inviting to anyone who dives into Tales of Berseria.

This game was reviewed on the Playstation 4.

Bandai Namco have released the newest instalment in their long running Tales series of JRPGs, Tales of Berseria, in the west at last. Berseria continues the improvement in form that the series began accruing with Tales of Zestiria, delivering a meaty, compelling, charming, and fun JRPG adventure along the way.

But as is the case with all JRPGs, Tales of Berseria is a long game- it is long enough that you as the player can often find yourself at a loss of what to do next. Assuming you are one of those players, or just someone who is interested in following the game’s story without actually playing through the massive, labyrinthine 80 hour adventure for yourself, we’re here to help- this fill video walkthrough for Tales of Berseria, which you can see for yourself below, will address your needs and problems.

You can check out the full walkthrough below- just remember, however, that it does have spoilers. You watch it at your own risk.

Bandai Namco’s next big Tales game is out later this month but you can try the demo for yourself to see how it fares. Tales of Berseria’s demo is currently available on PC via Steam and PS4.

The demo offers two different modes – Scenario and Battle, with the former offering the same Skits, character interaction and story-telling you’d expect. Tutorials are on hand to teach you about the combat system and it’s possible to customize the Artes of party members for some serious combos.

Tales of Berseria focuses on Velvet, a sweet girl who seeks vengeance after a particularly traumatizing event that cursed her with a demonic arm. Player will be traveling through Midgand with pirates to help Velvet and combined with sleek visuals and even sleeker cutscenes, the latest Tales title isn’t looking half bad.

Tales of Berseria releases on January 24th for North America and January 27th for Europe for PS4. The PC worldwide release will be on January 27th.

Western fans of the Tales series will not have to wait too long to get their hands on Tales of Berseria, the next entry in the long running JRPG series. It has been confirmed that Tales of Berseria will be launching on January 24 in North America. Europe, meanwhile, gets it on January 27.

The western release of the game will be foregoing its PS3 roots, as the last generation version of the game will not see a release here. Instead, western gamers can enjoy the game on PS4, or on PC via Steam. That said, there is something to ease any pain you may be feeling from this- a Collector’s Edition, which will include figurines, a hardcover novel, a strategy guide, and various other perks and bonuses. As Collector’s Editions go, this one is actually one of the better ones out there.

The Collector’s Edition will cost $150, and so far is confirmed only for North America. You can check out a brand new trailer for Tales of Berseria below. It’s in English, too, this time!

Tales of Berseria, the next installment in the Tales of RPG franchise, is due out on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 early next year in North America and Europe, after its release in Japan earlier this year. And if you were curious to see what the game sounds like in English, well then, you’re in luck.

This new gameplay footage for Tales of Berseria shows off the Palamides Temple dungeon in English, also showing us a fair few battles as well. The footage comes from PlayStation Access’ EGX 2016 livestream, and was captured by DualShockers. DualShockers are also reporting that Bandai Namco Entertainment Product Manager Karla Pett apparently promised a ‘super early 2017’ release date for the game.

You can check out the gameplay footage for the game for yourself below. Tales of Berseria will be launching on PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PC. Let us know what you think of the English gameplay in the comments section.