Tales of Zestiria

I was a big fan of Berseria and wanted to like this. About 10hrs in I was struggling to find a reason to start the game again. A few complaints: - Locked chests in dungeons with the key located in a different dungeon. Just...why? Backtracking for 1-2 chests is extremely anti-fun. - Camera can be wonky and get stuck in odd spots during combat. - Forced to complete side quests to advance main story. Just a lazy attempt to make the game longer. - Combat doesn't feel satisfying. Different combos and artes really don't make an impact. Pretty much comes down to spamming the same 3-4 attack combos, - Tuned heavily with focus around armatization. Characters later on die to bosses with 1-2 hits if you're not armatized. No ability to be tactical later just armatize and go. Go play Berseria instead. It's the best Tales experience.

Tales of Zestiria is one of those JRPGs that feels frustrating more often than it feels rewarding. The combat system is stiff and awkward, lacking the fluidity you would expect, and the battle camera frequently gets in the way, making fights harder to read and enjoy. Encounters happen too often, turning exploration into a repetitive and exhausting loop. The level design does not help either, as areas feel similar and uninspired, which only amplifies the sense of repetition. On top of that, the world itself feels empty, with large spaces that offer very little meaningful interaction. The issues extend into progression and storytelling as well. The story comes across as flat and fails to build strong emotional engagement, making it difficult to stay invested. Quest objectives are often unclear, leaving players confused about what to do next. At times, the game forces players to explore or complete side activities just to progress the main story, including collecting specific items without clear guidance. This design choice feels less like meaningful exploration and more like artificial padding, making the overall experience feel unnecessarily tedious rather than engaging.

[h2] Дайте игре шанс. По достижениям в стиме игру прошли только 14%. [/h2] [b] Насколько в этой игре слабый геймплей, настолько и шедевральные персонажи, их взаимодеиствие, а также душераздирающий сюжет. [/b] Я прошел очень много разных японских рпг, но эта часть удивила меня. Я просто вaхye, насколько в этой игре идеальное вербальное и невербальное взаимодеиствие персонажей. Они проработали каждую мимику лица, каждое движение тела. Впитали буквально в любое деиствие свой смысл и логику. Игра состоит из миллиарда мелочей движения тела. И это я еще не говорю об озвучке: о том, что говорит персонаж и о чем думает. Я просто в шоке, насколько в игре реалистичное взаимодеиствие персонажей. Они создали не просто болванчиков, которые стоят на месте в карикатурных позах и каменной мимикой, а воссоздали реальные взаимодеиствия людей. Я еще и по другим частям понял, что они могут во взаимодеиствие и характеры, но тут у меня просто отвисла челюсть. Вау. Просто вaxуе. И мне больно видеть ее оценки в стиме. История - шикарная; персонажи - идеальные; взаимодеиствие - лучшее, что я видел во множестве других японских рпг. Но оценки низкие. Я могу понять людей, почему оценки низкие, но я все равно не согласен. Игра очень глубокая. Каждый персонаж - не просто личность, а eбaный кремень, просто нефритовый стержень. Игра хоть и подается очень по-детски, с инфантильными нотами, но события и происходящее вокруг - вообще не детские. Рост персонажей, их чувства, деиствия и выборы - вау. Игра просто кайф. Утомительной беготни дoпiзды, но боевка и сюжет раскрываются через 30% игры (как обычно в теилсах), так что норм. Я очень доволен игрой. Персонажи серии Tales всегда выделялись самобытными личностями, которые не являются "подпевалами главного героя". Каждый персонаж в игре - личность, со своими убеждениями и волей, чего нет в большинстве японских рпг, будь то ff (не все), trails, ys, персоны и других менее известных серий игр. Ты чувствуешь это сразу - и за это я и люблю эту серию игр. Персонажи и сюжет целиком перекрыли устарелый (даже на момент выхода игры) геймплей. Я считаю взаимодеиствие персонажей в игре эталоном, на кой должны ровняться все другие.

Don't remaster this one

Its really good. You'll see a lot of people say berseria is better, and it is, but this has the charm of an old school fantasy rpg thats missing from that game. The cast is pretty dull, with little interesting interplay between them, but all of their generic "goodness" in combination with the setting and generic good vs evil plot reminds me of playing lesser known jrpg's from the psone days, which gives me warm fuzzies. Also, the combat, when playing on higher difficulties, strangely is more to my taste than berseria. In berseria, on normal and lower, you can equip any skills you want, and mash your way through the game. In this game, you HAVE to target weaknesses, and since you cant customize combos, the move that targets the weakness might be later in the combo, which means you need filler actions to get to that point. This creates a synergy with enemy design, where you have to learn their attack patterns and weaknesses, and use evades or animation cancels to dodge their attack, before countering with the move that strikes their weakness. It makes it feel more strategic than berserias "equip all the moves that hit an enemies weakness and mash the button" combat system. Its less fluid as a result, but much more engaging imo. The equipment system is overly complex, but also allows for good build diversity. The music is awesome, the environment feels pretty samey in most places, and the dungeon design is very simplistic. For some reason, i tried the game at 60 fps, and actually preferred playing at 30. So yeah, a lot of the quirks that most people view as negatives, i view as positives or just what i expect from an old school mid budget jrpg. Its just a nice comfort jrpg. All the tropes you expect, deep combat and equipment customization, good music and vibes. But you will likely prefer berseria. As its combat is smoother, environments more varied, and party is way way way better.

It hurts to play. I don't mind the large, boring areas. I don't mind the repetitive gameplay and the grinding. I don't mind the cliche characters and story. Most people will not like these things, but I don't really mind. The first thing that bothered me was the overcomplexity. There's all these terms and stats, and they're not explained. You find monoliths with (what should be) hints, but are actually instructions about how to actually play or are definitions for gameplay systems. I've still have no idea what some of the terms are. What is focus? Is it magic damage, or cast speed, or chance to hit? Why is it from boots? The game requires grinding to account for multiple levels of RNG. Your characters get stronger mostly from equipment skills - not from leveling. So you'll need to farm random drops, then hope they have the skills you want. But now bosses are stronger than your equipment can account for, so you'll need to fuse equipment together to make it stronger... But this gives you random skills. So farm random drops, get random skills, then fuse and hope to get skills that you want. It's RNG to the third power. It's not a bad game, I just can't take it anymore.

My first game in the Tales series. It has a beautiful story and a sad ending. I hope that the other games in the series will be as this one.

Overwritten goody-two-shoes hero saga with overwritten characters and some cringe dialogues... Jrpg for teenagers, but.... well there is but... story is quite nice, slowly developing, abit boring but somehow pushes forward this game. Combat is quite fun but difficulty curve is sometimes broken. Why positive then? Its my opinion due to my age, its jrpg for teenagers, which is not making this game bad. I just got abit bored with teenie-weenie morals and problems in story :) Still recommended to buy, fun to play for sure on Steamdeck as it is console port.