![]() In fact, she is trying kill the man who saved it.Īs with the previous Tales games, the best way to get to know these characters is through optional skits. What’s striking about Velvet, as opposed to past Tales protagonists, is that she’s driven by rage and vengeance. ![]() ![]() When we revisit Velvet years later, she’s no longer the innocent, wholesome girl from the prologue. The opening hours are slow, but after they come to a close, Tales of Berseria quickly spirals into a story of revenge. After her brother is sacrificed in order to quell the evil in the world, Velvet is transformed into a demon and locked away in prison. Velvet Crowe, the protagonist, is introduced as a wholesome young woman taking care of her younger brother in a world overrun by demons and an evil presence known as Malevolence. Where Tales of Berseria differentiates itself from its recent entries is its mature story and characters. The story is long and punctuated with both predictable and unexpected plot twists, the writing can swing from tender moments to cringe-worthy ones, and the real-time combat is engaging but becomes stale near the end. For the most part, Tales of Berseria sticks to the same formula. It may throw its audience into the fire, but that's only because it trusts they are mature enough to handle the heat.Just from the title, there are a few things you can expect from a Tales game: a lengthy story, melodramatic writing, dated visuals, and a real-time battle system. The game knows it's a dark, difficult and divisive fantasy, but Tales of Berseria is honest about that identity and doesn't quench its flames to placate more skittish players. It's an uncomfortable reminder that violence sometimes has been the answer to the world's problems, though its writing is wise enough to differentiate this from senseless brutality.īerseria also serves as a nuanced response to Hobbes' work that accepts his criticism of humanity as flawed and selfish, while rejecting his proposed solution of an enlightened tyrant as impossible to achieve in practice. Tales of Berseria is, in many ways, a cautionary tale, a warning that the world inevitably changes and trying to hold onto an idealized, orderly past is a fool's errand. However, that does not mean it's incapable of humanizing those who cling to the Abbey's traditions. The exorcists are depicted as wrong, but they are more misguided than explicitly evil. Even Artorius isn't a particularly malicious foe he's just a broken man consumed by despair at how his people are ever-poised on oblivion's edge. With such a confrontational message, it's clear where Berseria's ideological bias lies, and that's the point. The game has no interest in depicting freedom and totalitarianism as morally equivalent. RELATED: Kingdom Hearts III Skipping Final Fantasy Characters Helped the Game The Abbey's enforced homogeny frustrates minority cultures, and their belief that the few should sacrifice for the many unwittingly creates their greatest foes. However, while their methods do keep the peace, they also agitate the same people they ostensibly protect. To further underscore the comparisons, their patron god Innominat first appears as a ravenous leviathan. The Abbey argues that disparate cultures, practices and even feelings must be erased to save humanity from degenerating into daemons, creating a fantastical analogue to Hobbes' claim that the species must be kept in-check. The ease at which entire communities can turn leads some characters to suggest people may truly be daemons, and what reason they can muster is all that keeps them in human form. In truth, daemons are not created from a sickness but by humans being overwhelmed by negative emotions, collectively referred to as "malevolence." Since people are complex emotional creatures, this puts them at constant risk of transforming. Partway through the game, Daemonblight is revealed to be a lie perpetuated by the Abbey to control the masses.
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