Tales Of Berseria is the first Tales Of game to feature a female character as its singular main protagonist.

In Tales Of Berseria players embark on a journey as they assume the role of Velvet, a young woman whose once gentle nature has been replaced and overcome with a festering anger and hatred after a traumatic experience three years prior to the events within Tales Of Berseriaimbued her left hand with a special ability. Velvet will visit a wide range of breathtaking environments as she travels the world in an all-new adventure developed by the celebrated team behind the Tales Of series. Along her journey, Velvet will meet a whole cast of characters, including a young boy named Laphicet. If Velvet is the embodiment of “darkness,” then Laphicet is created in the image of “light” and will be an important ally to Velvet.

Veteran Tales Of character designers; Mutsumi Inomata, Kosuke Fujishima, Minoru Iwamoto, and Daigo Okumura will be returning to help create the game’s many characters, while famous Japanese animation studio, ufotable, returns to animate the game’s breathtaking cutscenes, delivering truly epic and emotional storytelling in their unique style. The two announced characters, Velvet and Laphicet, are designed by Ms. Inomata and Mr. Iwamoto, respectively.

The world of Berseria is a carefully crafted one.

In this world, exorcists fight against daemons. Exorcists belonging to Abbey and are sent to various towns and ports to protect the common people there from the threat of daemons, in order to maintain order in the country. They are welcomed as heroes and Abbey’s ideology is slowly spreading among the people.

Velvet is driven by an urge for revenge against the savior and she deepens the conflict with Abbey which gets in her way. Exorcists exploit Malaks and utilize their power to fight against Daemons. Some Malaks look different from humans but regardless of their appearance, exorcists think no Malak has ego.

Most of people who experience Daemonblight go berserk and begin to attack people however some can stay rational. Some have a completely different appearance but some of them apparently look like humans, like Velvet and Rokurou. The pattern of onset varies by the individual.

Updated glossary

• Daemonblight: The disease changing people to monsters.  Most of people affected by this disease go berserk and attack people but some of them can stay rational.
• Daemon: A monster that a person transformed into. It has been confirmed that even animals can be affected with Daemonblight. Daemons appear in different forms and each has different power suited for its unnatural appearance.
• Malak: Tribe who can use the power of nature. They don’t have ego and most of them are exploited by exorcists as familiar spirits. Some of them look different from human’s form. It is said that there are some exceptional Malaks who are free from orders from exorcists and act independently.
• Scarlet Night: Night when Scarlet Moon rises. Some say Scarlet Night has something to do with Daemonblight…
• Exorcists: Holy warriors who have the power to fight against daemons. They keep fighting to protect humans by utilizing the power of Malaks to execute artes. They are like heroes for the common people who suffer from damage of Damonblight.
• Abbey: The organization of exorcists that Midagand established to protect people from the threat of daemons. They lead the politics and the military of the kingdom based on the thought “sticking reason brings order and peace”. Exorcists are ranked based on their ability. There are three ranks for exorcists under the head of the Abbey: Legate, Praetor and Orderly.

Exorcists, Malaks, Daemons…Berseria’s world is full of conflict and tensions! Nothing is ever just black and white, as is common with Tales games. What do you think about Abbey’s ideology?

It’s time to reveal two more characters joining the cast of the upcoming Tales of Berseria: Rokurou and Eleanor!

Rokurou

• Gender：Male
• Age: 22 years old
• Height: 180cm
• Weapon: Dual blades
• Battle style: Dual wielder
• Tribe: Daemon
• Japanese Character Voice played by：Daisuke Kishio. Designed by Daigo Okumura

Rokurou is a young swordsman with a cheerful, pleasant and freewheeling personality. He adopts a natural attitude towards Velvet who moves forward with her intense emotion. He experienced an onset of Damonblight a few years ago and became a daemon. However he keeps moving his way to take advantage of that power to master his family’s swordplay style without giving up his hope. He seems to stay rational even though he is a daemon. He takes good care of people and supports Velvet who charges ahead and takes care of Laphicet who has no his own idea.

He attaches his mind to the huge sword on his back and call it “his life” but he consistently refuses to draw that sword. Thus he usually fight with dual short blades.

A certain event leads Rokurou to accompany Velvet to return the favour. He says he is a man of duty, but on the other hand, he always refuses to draw the huge sword on his back for some reason. It seems he takes good care of people and he often supports Velvet who charges ahead.

Rokurou also cares about Laphicet before he gets his own idea. He tells Velvet to improve her attitude towards Laphicet, which shows his nurturing side.

Eleanor

• Gender: Female
• Age: 18 years old
• Height: 165cm
• Weapon: Spear
• Fighting style: Praetor
• Tribe: Human
• Japanese character Voice played by Ami Koshimizu. Designed by Kosuke Fujishima.

Eleanor belongs to “Abbey”, the organization of exorcists. She always scrambles as a praetor to release the world from the threat of daemons. She is so sober that she does not forget to have compassion for the others and she also has a stubborn aspect to always do right things in the right way. She is honest and easily exposes her emotion but she recognizes her inexperience and tries hard to stick to ruthless “reason”.

As an exorcist protecting the world from daemons, she fights against Velvet for her attacks on Abbey.

She is usually kind and doesn’t forget to have compassion for the others. As an exorcist, she makes efforts not only to fight against daemons but also to listen to people and to help them.

Tales Of Berseria's Battle System

Whether you’re a longtime fan or a recent newcomer, you know the Tales of series’ battle system is a trademark of the long running JRPG franchise. Based upon the series’ “Linear Motion Battle System”, the battle system in Tales of Berseria has evolved in the following ways.

Basics of Battles

• Arte: Arte is attack or magic that can be performed by setting it to a button. Players fight against enemies by executing artes. Different characters have different artes and when characters level up, they can acquire new arte. The artes have a special effect like stunning or causing status ailment. It becomes easier to steal Soul from enemies by hitting a weakness, changing the order of artes in the combo.
• Soul: Iconized mental power/mana. The number of Soul the character own means the maximum of artes the character can link together in the combo. Players can steal it from enemies and vice versa.
• Guard: Players can defend from the enemy’s attack by pushing L1 button to decrease the damage.
• Quickstep: Players can quickstep by flicking the left stick while pushing L1 button. Quickstep is good to evade attacks or to move quickly.  Player can get bonus when the player succeeds in evading the enemy’s attack with quickstep.

Big new feature: you can now fully control the camera in battle with the right stick, giving you more control than ever before. Additionally, you can set up multiple artes to the four face buttons on the controller based on your favored battle style to better execute combos. The concept of “stealing souls” is implemented in the new “Soul Gauge” system that lets you increase/decrease the number of attack combos. This new system brings strategic elements allowing you to change the tempo of attack and defense. The battle system has never been this flexible and strategic.

Soul Gauge

Briefly mentioned before, the Soul Gauge is a brand new gameplay feature in the Tales series. It introduces the concept of “stealing” and is new compared to previous systems like TP (Technical Point) or CC (Chain Capacity).

Every arte consumes specific SG points and the gauge is decreased depending on the artes character performs. Even when SG is zero, the player can perform an arte, but the player has various disadvantages, like the attack can be easily repelled. SG can be automatically restored as the certain period of the time goes by. It is recommended to fight considering the balance between attack and defense, like by guarding and waiting for the gauge to be restored.

This gauge shows the number of souls with icons and players fight a battle based on SG under the following rules:

1. Each character participating in a battle owns his/her own “Soul”
2. Characters can perform the artes in one combo up to the number of “Soul” he/she has.
3. Players can steal “Soul” from an enemy but the enemy can steal the player’s soul too

“Soul” represents a character’s mental power/mana, and all characters participating in battle have “Soul”. The number of souls is three at the beginning of a battle but players can increase the number by meeting a special requirement during a battle.

Each party character and enemy owns his/her own “Soul” and players can steal it from enemies. On the other hand, the enemies can steal the party character’s Soul. Thus the number of “Soul” the character owns changes during a battle. It is one of the key points of the battles to keep attention to the number of “Soul” and change the fighting style depending on the situation.

The number of “Soul” can increase or decrease in battle:

• By knocking out an enemy
• By stunning enemies or causing status ailments to them
• By using the specific item or picking up “Soul” on the battle field
• And more ways to be revealed later

”Soul” also sometimes pops up when a party character is knocked out or when you manage to evade the enemy’s attack with a side or back step.

The main conditions that decreases “Soul” are:

• By being stunned or getting status ailments by enemies
• And more ways to be revealed in the future

We’re not done telling you about Berseria’s deep battle system but that’s where we’re stopping for today.