Tales of Zestiria, the 15th game in the Tales series by Bandai Namco, was recently released for English speakers just 9 months after the Japanese release. Containing Dual Audio, this game follows another Protagonist in a world full of Humans and spirits, focusing on the relationships between the two and a calamity that is steadily approaching both species who live on the world. A simple plot that the Tales series has employed time and time again, but always feeling authentic and unique with each instalment.
Story
On the continent of Glenwood we find our main character Sorey, a young archaeologist on the hunt for relics and clues to the past. Though he is human he is one of the last few who can still see, talk and interact with the Seraphim (Seraph) race, a species of spirit like beings who come in all shapes and sizes. Along with his Seraph friend Mikleo they make their way through an old ruin on their part of the land, Elysia, finding some answers to their burning questions about the land below along with finding an unconscious female warrior in the ruins.
Making their way out, getting supplies together and letting Alisha, the woman who we saved, rest at our home full of Invisible Seraph the group finally say farewell to the Human from below. Soon after the Village is under threat by a monster known as a Hellion, another invisible creature that only Sorey and Seraph can see. Driving it off they realise it is after Alisha and so Sorey and Mikleo make their way out of the village with the inhabitants wishing them luck on their journey.
Meeting new Seraph, talking to humans and fighting creatures puts a new spin on Sorey’s life as he was most content living with just Seraph. Joining a world where people lack Resonance, the ability to talk and see Seraph, kind of separates Sorey from everyone else as he sometimes looks rather crazy talking to the wind. Fitting in wasn’t exactly the easiest, but it got a lot harder when Sorey was the one to pull the Sword out of the Stone and become King Arthu- The Shepard. A hero who bridges the gap between Humans and Seraph as well as bringing peace to the world through ridding it of Malevolence.
From this point on Sorey must travel the world, gaining new Seraph allies as well as Human squires to work with him to defeat Hellions, creating new blessings in cities to protect them and with the end goal of defeating the Lord of Calamity. Travelling across Glenwood, the two warring nations of Hyland and Rolance, Sorey will go through several ruins, defeat bosses and corrupted Seraph alike, all the while conversing with his friends and mending the bonds between Human and Seraph.
The main game will last you between 30 and 40 hours, but with all the Skits, item completions, side quests, collectables, ability hunting, replays for additional endings, the entire game can easily last up to 200+ hours long. While Speed runs of the game are already popping up from the Japanese release of 7 hour long runs of the game, if you take your time the first playthrough can last you around 60hours.
Gameplay
Following on from Xillia’s combat system, you are again thrown into an action based RPG game, with full range of movement for your character, though mostly done while holding L2, you direct your character away or towards the currently select enemy, pressing Circle for Martial Artes and X for Hidden Artes. This is different for Seraphs’ however, with Circle for Hidden and X for Seraphic Artes, going in a rock-paper-scissors fashion or weakness/strengths. Seraphic Artes are basically the magic of the world and require charging up, whereas the other 2 are fast attacks with status effects or elements attached to them. All attacks use your stamina, when it hits 0 you can’t attack and must wait for it to recharge, block or dodge attacks.
You choose a “buddy” seraph for battles, or switch during battle, who you can stick with and give commands too, but the most useful thing you can do is Armatize with them. Armitization is where you combine with a select Seraph, gaining their element as well as combining your health gauge. This can be used to revive yourself, attack enemies with their weak element or pull of battle wide attacks to keep all opposition stunned as you rain arrows or fiery sword slashes on them. Each time you use this ability it uses a Blast Gauge, which everyone can have a max of 3, or more depending on titles and equipment, which are also used for Mystic Artes, continuing a combo and more.
Skills as well as abilities change yet again for this release, in a similar fashion to how Vesperia handled Skills. You gain the use of Skills through equipment pieces that align themselves on a Skill Chart, with stacks of the same skill improving that skill further or doing a sort of bingo where you line up horizontal and vertical lines to gain unison skills. This is either the best system or the worst in the game, as people have been very vocal about it from both sides. I think it is one of the best systems as well as the most fun for skills as it gives you a new way to min/max your character, feeling both challenging and unique.
Abilities unlock through levelling up and completing challenges like “Win 50 battles in moderate Difficulty or higher”. Auto-blocks or improving your character’s stats and increasing the range of attacks they can pull off all come down the abilities. Ability points are awarded on levelling up, finding collectables or winning hard battles. There doesn’t seem to be as many abilities to unlock as in other releases, however characters used to have specific abilities so this could be the reason why as all party members share the abilities that are turned on.
Overall thoughts and feelings
The music is yet again spot on for the game, as with the previous Xillia and Vesperia releases, though mostly action infused the tracks contain several ambient tunes and slow tracks for the other parts of the game. Battle and boss themes are amazing and pump you up for the battles whereas orchestral tracks set up the characters and evil people within the world perfectly. The intro song is yet again another song to get stuck into your head for how catchy it is and oddly fitting to the game. The overall soundtrack is loud and in your face, hardly fading into the background for any length of time.
Tales of Zestiria seems like it hit a peak in the formula, the annoying characters don’t seem to rear their heads in this game, which some of the earlier games suffered from. Interaction between the party have improved yet again with more skits and easier to view skits at save points or inn visits. You don’t exactly miss much in this game, everything is pretty easy to find or repeatable in case you did miss it. Battle and skills are better, with some changes that are either highly welcomed or condemned. The game overall has seen a massive change, from the story setting and gameplay, revitalising a series that is always on the move it hasn’t slowed down one bit.
Tales of Zestiria gets a 5/5, improving on Xillia this game ticked almost all my boxes with little to no bugs or annoyances to be found. Gameplay is faster, the story is easy to follow, the world is beautiful and engaging, characters have backgrounds as well as personalities that perfectly fit them. If you are a fan of Tales or JRPGS this is a great game to buy, or if you’re new to the genre this is also quite a unique game to pick up as it doesn’t need much previous knowledge, the difficulty is also quite accommodating. The only flaw I found was the camera, normally freaking out near walls but you can normally survive and rectify this pretty quickly.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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