History YMMV / TalesOfBerseria

* KarmicOverkill: Velvet's ultimate fate at the end of the game is part of the reason why ''Berseria'' has such a BittersweetEnding, as what happens to her is cited by fans as a little harsh. [[spoiler:Yes, Velvet was an AntiHero of the first order, and she did a lot of terrible things. But, she was still a hero who saved the world, and her fate of being trapped forever in what is essentially a LotusEaterMachine with her brother seems excessively cruel for a final fate. On top of that, her deeds of valor are not remembered but by a scant few, and she goes down in history as the first Lord of Calamity, with the majorty of the world knowing her only as a monster. Velvet might have been DoomedByCanon because of the status of ''Berseria'' as a prequel, but it's still seen as over the line.]]

* WTHCastingAgency: Bonnie Gordon as Kamoana. Bonnie Gordon is a fine voice actress, but she has a rather grough and deep voice that fits for an older character, or someone who acts mature for their age, but when put into the role of the young Kamoana, her performance is the most notably poor example in a game filled with SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing, to the point that Kamoana has a decent amount of haters in the West, specifically because her voice isn't suited to the character.

** ''Berseria'''s producer also said that skits will be at regular intervals during the game instead of at save points or inns like in ''Zestiria''. Indeed there are several supports in the game compared to the previous game.

** While this [[OlderThanTheyThink wasn't the first game to do this]], many praised the fact that the main character is female, as opposed to a "heroine" or a dual-protagonist. Even those who ''do'' acknowledge that ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia'' and some of the spinoffs did it first praise this game for the fact that Velvet is the main character without a doubt.
** While again also [[OlderThanTheyThink not the first game to do this]], its NoHuggingNoKissing was also praised by some.

* SurprisinglyImprovedSequel: ''Tales of Zestiria'' is a divisive game in the ''Tales'' series; some fans thought it was too much of a ClicheStorm without the DeconstructorFleet elements the series is known for, while others say it's still a good game with a few great characters and mechanics, like the ability to swap party members mid-battle. ''Berseria'', by contrast, is praised much more evenly across the board. It deconstructs more than ''Zestiria'' did, the characters are praised as more complex and memorable, and the battle system is seen as a marked improvement.

* WTHCastingAgency: Bonnie Gordon as Kamoana. Bonnie Gordon is a fine voice actress, but she has a rather grough and deep voice that fits for an older character, or someone who acts mature for their age, but when put into the role of the young Kamoana, her performance is the most notably poor example in a game filled with SugarWiki/SuperlativeDubbing, to the point that Kamoana has a decent amount of haters in the west, specifically because her voice isn't suited to the character.

* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The skit where Magilou flashes Laphicet. It qualifies as unlike most skits, it has no relation to the plot or what the party is doing at the current time. It's completely out of character for Magilou, even taking in her status as TheGadfly. And it has no relation to the plot whatsoever, and it's never brought up ever again, even in another skit.

* {{Adorkable}}

** Artorius Colbrande. [[spoiler:He felt deeply responsible for his master's death who broke his oath to not take another life exchange for a long life to save him. He tries to continue on his master's will but had little success as years of peace and not many people had high resonance to see malakhim and daemons made people not listen to him, driving him further in despair and abandoned his misison. He had found hope and a new life in Celica but he eventually lost Celica and his unborn child on the same day and was told by Melchior that it was because the villagers of Aball sold his family out. He suppresses his emotions for years and rationalizes that nobody can turn into Daemons if they don't have emotions. So he awakens Innominat with the intention of suppressing the entire world's wills and preaches that one's sacrifice is for the greater good (which in his case, the sacrifice was his entire family for the world's purification). At the final battle, it's revealed that his despair was always on the brink of turning him into a Daemon. And when Velvet finally kills him, he confesses as he's dying that he secretly wished it had been Velvet and Laphicet who died that day. But both Artorius and Velvet acknowledge that he would have gone down the same path because deep down, Artorius wanted to save everybody.]]

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: After the group removes some of the Therions, they find out some of the villages are being attacked by daemons due to the out of control malevolence. Velvet says if the people didn't have darkness in their hearts, they wouldn't be attacked. Except that Velvet's village was attacked by daemons and people she cared about did transform. It's really easy for the terror of daemon attacks to cause chain transformations which quickly overwhelm otherwise innocent people, so what Velvet says just comes off as a callous denying of her responsibility in ruining lives.

** [[spoiler:Aifread]]. The entire game is spent hyping this up as someone who should legitimately be really challenging, but if you are playing on anything below hard, it's pretty easy to push him into a corner with a party of attackers (very easily since the game has ''four'' melees and two casters, opposite of Zestiria) since he's weak to void. [[spoiler: Justified though - This isn't Aifread at full strength, and it's essentially a MercyKill.]]

** Fans were happy to see Zaveid again in this game, this time as a reoccurring character with more screentime to flesh out his character and backstory, as many considered him one of the best aspects of Tales of Zestiria. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking Also, he finally puts on a shirt.]]

* JerkassWoobie

** "So who's the heroine of ''this'' game? Velvet? Laphicet?"[[labelnote:Explanation]] Tales of Zestiria's "heroine" controversy was poked fun at with the fact that Velvet, the game's main character, is female.[[/labelnote]]

** Right before the FinalBoss, Velvet gives an answer to Artorius' SecretTestOfCharacter("Why Do Birds Fly?"); [[spoiler:Because they want to]]. The line itself is really funny at face-value and seems unintentionally funny, but Velvet's follow up explanation makes it endearing and ties well into games theme as well.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: After the group removes some of the Therions, they find out some of the villages are being attacked by daemons due to the out of control malevolence. Velvet says if the people didn't have darkness in their hearts, they wouldn't be attacked. Except that Velvet's village was attacked by daemons and people she cared about did transform. Its really easy for the terror of daemon attacks to cause chain transformations which quickly overwhelm otherwise innocent people, so what Velvet says just comes off as a callous denying of her responsibility in ruining lives.
* WinBackTheCrowd: After [[BrokenBase Zestiria's]] mixed reception, this game has been met with praise from both critics and the Tales fandom. Many fans are even calling it the best Tales game since ''VideoGame/TalesOfVesperia''.
** The game runs at 60 FPS after Zestiria's 30 FPS cap, and they finally got rid of the "linking" system that was prevalent since ''Tales of Xillia''. Instead, characters are unique and fight on their own.
** Berseria's producer also said that skits will be at regular intervals during the game instead of at save points or inns like in Zestiria. Indeed there are several supports in the game compared to the previous game.
** Cooking has returned back to the way it was in Tales games prior to Xillia. The party can freely cook without issue, and the game also allows you to automatically que it up for when the required conditions are available. Furthermore, each character can cook without issue, but provide unique bonuses, meaning its a overlal good mechanic.

** The combat system brings back [[VideoGame/TalesOfXillia Xillia's]] feature that allowed any party member to jump in and out of fights. This was well-received by fans since the mechanic was a well liked one but was removed from its sequel for no reason and was changed in [[VideoGame/TalesOfZestiria Zestiria]] since Sorey and Alisha/Rose were always required in battle.
** Eleanor, perhaps in response to the controversy surrounding Alisha and Rose in the previous game, combines aspects from both characters by being a permanent party member who uses Alisha's weapon and visually resembles Rose. She outright shows trouble with the order she follows but develops into a better person through the game, which was one of the biggest things people felt Rose lacked as a character, especially in regards to Eleanor's world views being directly challenged compared to Rose.

!![[center: [- [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/TalesSeries Alternative Character Interpretation]] | [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/TalesSeries And The Fandom Rejoiced]] | [[AwesomeBosses/TalesSeries Awesome Bosses]] | [[BrokenBase/TalesSeries Broken Base]] | [[Monster/TalesSeries Complete Monster]] | [[DieForOurShip/TalesSeries Die For Our Ship]] | [[GameBreaker/TalesSeries Game Breaker]] | [[Narm/TalesSeries Narm]] | [[PlayerPunch/TalesSeries Player Punch]] | [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap/TalesSeries Rescued From The Scrappy Heap]] | [[ScrappyMechanic/TalesSeries Scrappy Mechanic]] | [[ThatOneAchievement/TalesSeries That One Achievement]] | [[ThatOneAttack/TalesSeries That One Attack]] | [[ThatOneBoss/TalesSeries That One Boss]] | [[ThatOneLevel/TalesSeries That One Level]] | [[ThatOneSidequest/TalesSeries That One Sidequest]] | [[TheScrappy/TalesSeries The Scrappy]] | [[Woobie/TalesSeries The Woobie]]]]-]

* MoralEventHorizon: InUniverse. Velvet believes that Artorius crossed that line after he betrayed her and sacrificed her brother. [[spoiler:Seres, the malak reincarnation of her sister, also agrees. Out of universe, this instance ends up being double subverted because while Laphicet consented to the sacrifice, Artorius betrays his wishes by sending Velvet into the pit to become a therion, dooming her to a harsh existence that her little brother would never want her to go through]].
** [[spoiler: Dungeon EX reveals that the problems caused by malevolence are due to a curse by evil malak who didn't want humans and malakin to coexist. Why? [[EvilIsPetty To win a meaningless bet.]] It's equal parts cruel and selfish.]]

* AbandonShipping: Velvet and Laphicet were shipped by a few people before the games release. However, once it was shown that Laphicet [[spoiler:bared a striking resemblance to Velvet's dead little brother, along with him being her reincarnated nephew]], most jumped ship at the implications of it.

* GoddamnedBoss: The Code Red Daemon in the Gaiburk Ice Field called the Spectral Crystal, while not overly hard, is a real pain to fight because of its absurdly-high defense stats and being resistant to all damage types, making it totally NighInvulnerable. The real challenge comes from ''how'' to even damage it in the first place, since any attack on it will be stopped dead and reflected back at the user. Figuring out its "weakness" that doesn't involve the EasyLevelTrick will require [[GuideDangIt looking up a guide]].

** Zaveid's interactions with the cast in ''Zestiria'' fall into this after we see his situation in this game. Namely, his creed of not killing anyone in the hopes that they can be saved in ''Berseria'' is eerily similar to Sorey's goal of purifying everyone in ''Zestiria'', and both of them are challenged by someone who believes that sometimes death is the only form of salvation for some people (Eizen for Zaveid, Zaveid himself for Sorey). One could say his early antagonism towards Sorey is to prevent him from making the same mistakes he did.

!![[center: [- [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/TalesSeries Alternative Character Interpretation]] | [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/TalesSeries And The Fandom Rejoiced]] | [[AwesomeBosses/TalesSeries Awesome Bosses]] | [[BrokenBase/TalesSeries Broken Base]] | [[Monster/TalesSeries Complete Monster]] | [[DieForOurShip/TalesSeries Die For Our Ship]] | [[FanPreferredCouple/TalesSeries Fan Preferred Couple]] | [[GameBreaker/TalesSeries Game Breaker]] | [[Narm/TalesSeries Narm]] | [[PlayerPunch/TalesSeries Player Punch]] | [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap/TalesSeries Rescued From The Scrappy Heap]] | [[ScrappyMechanic/TalesSeries Scrappy Mechanic]] | [[ThatOneAchievement/TalesSeries That One Achievement]] | [[ThatOneAttack/TalesSeries That One Attack]] | [[ThatOneBoss/TalesSeries That One Boss]] | [[ThatOneLevel/TalesSeries That One Level]] | [[ThatOneSidequest/TalesSeries That One Sidequest]] | [[TheScrappy/TalesSeries The Scrappy]] | [[Woobie/TalesSeries The Woobie]]]]-]

** The main antagonist, Artorius, is much more involved in the story then previous BigBad Heldalf, who was criticized for being inactive in the story. Similarly Artorius is a VillainWithGoodPublicity, meaning that he's an AntiVillain like the more famous main villains over Heldalf's GenericDoomsdayVillain that made him so disliked. The game also provides a group of recurring villains that the heroes encounter, rather than only one or two minor villains like the previous game.

* PreemptiveShipping: Velvet Crowe, being the franchise's first solo female viewpoint character, was immediately shipped with Laphicet, the story's male {{Deuteragonist}}. The ship to a hit when it was revealed that Laphicet is a ReplacementGoldfish for Velvet's younger brother, but what really killed the pairing [[spoiler: was the reveal that Laphicet is Velvet's nephew via her older sister.]]

* FoeYay: Prior to Eleanor's HeelFaceTurn, there seemed to be a bit of this between her and Velvet, especially since Velvet seemed to enjoy teasing her as the "Crybaby Exorcist" and preferring to knocking Eleanor out after defeating her rather than trying to kill or maim her like other Exorcists like she did to Oscar and Teresa early in the game.

* LauncherOfAThousandShips: Velvet, who has been paired with all the members of her party, [[LesYay Seres]], [[FoeYay Oscar, Teresa]], and even Artorius.

* DemonicSpiders: Fittingly, most of the mobs in TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon seem to fit this, but the "Bearer of Salvation" insect enemies are the worst of the lot. They fly and are hard to hit; they gang up on you, never seeming to come in anything less than squadrons of six; they do tons of CherryTapping even if you're blocking, meaning that three of them can chip off half of your HP ''without actually landing a hit'', technically speaking; they have something like ''twice'' your movespeed, making it incredibly difficult to land a massive Consuming Claw for crowd control; and of course they have Hit Points for days. Basically every enemy in the final dungeon has a combination of these things, but Bearers of Salvation have all of them.

!![[center: [- [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/TalesSeries Alternative Character Interpretation]] | [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/TalesSeries And The Fandom Rejoiced]] | [[AwesomeBosses/TalesSeries Awesome Bosses]] | [[BrokenBase/TalesSeries Broken Base]] | [[Monster/TalesSeries Complete Monster]] | [[DieForOurShip/TalesSeries Die For Our Ship]] | [[FanPreferredCouple/TalesSeries Fan Preferred Couple]] | [[GameBreaker/TalesSeries Game Breaker]] | [[Narm/TalesSeries Narm]] | [[PlayerPunch/TalesSeries Player Punch]] | [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap/TalesSeries Rescued From The Scrappy Heap]] | [[ScrappyMechanic/TalesSeries Scrappy Mechanic]] | [[ThatOneAchievement/TalesSeries That One Achievement]] | [[ThatOneAttack/TalesSeries That One Attack]] | [[ThatOneBoss/TalesSeries That One Boss]] | [[ThatOneLevel/TalesSeries That One Level]] | [[ThatOneSidequest/TalesSeries That One Sidequest]] | [[TheScrappy/TalesSeries The Scrappy]] | [[WhatAnIdiot/TalesSeries What An Idiot]] | [[Woobie/TalesSeries The Woobie]]]]-]