#And his story atm does feel like it could be left off with an ambiguous note on if they're together or not

[raifuujin]

It's been more than 20 years and for some reason I feel that Gosho hasn't given Kaiao any development, how can more than 20 years pass and Aoko dynamics, relationship and feelings remain the same? At this point I feel like Gosho is just going to make them date because "they already liked each other" they remain in the same status quo

Hey, if we go by DC romance progress, they've been going too fast. We've already had suspicion of identity chapters, and that didn't happen until more than 400 chapters in DC. /j

Since heists have taken over any character development recently, I don't even know if Kaito and Aoko will even get any romantic progress. Maybe the actual identity confrontation will happen down the line, since that's thief drama, but atm, it really wouldn't surprise me if they only ask each other on a real date at the very end of the manga.

Like. I'm sure Gosho would love to make MK a love drama as well, but he writes MK so rarely, and usually as hype for something Kid related in other media. So the MK stories tend to be heavy on drama that can only take place at Kid heists. (To the point that the new chapters just. Use Kid as the plot device to show off a new character. Even Hakuba's never gotten so much 'look at this character being a detective' treatment in MK.)

-sighs- I just feel bad for MK as a series at this point. I like the characters, I like the general story idea, but. It's been going down a very steep hill with Gosho wanting things exciting, but not wanting any real progress in. Anything. But unlike old MK, the new stories aren't even nice standalone setpieces of story, they're... mundane. They could be high stakes, if you purely look at the scenarios on paper, but. We all know nothing's gonna happen to Kid. Nothing even happens to him when the actual bad guys show up, much less one-time antagonists.

We need actual character focus and development, not heist drama. Badly. Not even romance, though that'd be a nice change. Just any character expansion of our limited cast of characters. Gosho wants big, all the time, meaningless big stuff, when small would be so nice.

[seasaltmemories]

Tales of Berseria Review/Analysis

So Berseria is my first Tales game I’ve played, but despite all the praise I’ve heard for many of its titles, I knew I wanted to start here first and foremost.  Having not only having the first solo female protagonist and a darker story of revenge kept me glued to the story.

But to go more into the summary:

Many hundreds of years before the events of Zestiria, the continent of Midgand suffered under a terrible curse called "Daemonblight". Ordinary humans and animals became possessed by evil spirits and were transformed into bloodthirsty monsters that preyed upon the living. That was until the day a saviour named Artorius Colbrande appeared and united the world against the bestial hordes that threatened to destroy it. Wielding a holy sword and a philosophy of "reason over emotion", Artorius causes the Advent of angelic malakhim into the world, and leads the Exorcists of "The Abbey" in a crusade to eradicate Daemonblight once and for all.

Yet in a dark prison cell far from human contact lies a woman named Velvet Crowe, whose peaceful life was shattered three years ago in one of the "Scarlet Nights" that used to inspire terror the world over - the same night the rest of the world knows as the Advent. Velvet knows the terrible truth of how Artorius gained his divine strength during that Scarlet Night, an incident that twisted her left arm with daemonic power, left dark scars upon her former kindness... and left her bereaved of her little brother. One night, a mysterious woman, who Velvet suspects she knows, visits her cell. The woman has a proposal: if Velvet can escape from the prison, the woman will help her take revenge upon Artorius. With burning hatred in her heart, Velvet embarks on a quest that threatens to uproot and revolutionize the world order.

If you can’t tell, this game is a prequel to Tales of Zestiria, which I never played, but as I was more interested in this and had absorbed a lot of plot points from mutuals who loved Zestiria I thought I would be fine.

And starting off I was really endured by the cast.  As you can see, you kick off the main story breaking out of prison and most of the rest of your party are other outlaws, criminals, and morally ambiguous figures.  At first they mainly work together out of mutual self-interest, but after accidentally kidnapping a young Malek, corrupting/raising him begins to bring the party together

I gotta say Act 1 was my favorite part of the game, Velvet is a sharpened sword brought to life living nothing more for her revenge.  And her quest brings an actual moral dilemma, Artorius is bring peace to a world on the verge of chaos, yet what is that peace worth if it came at the price of an innocent life?  Is it worth burning down the rest of civilization to get vengeance for her little brother?

Aside from this, her growing her growing relationship with Laphicet, the young Malek is also interesting, in a fit of trauma she named him after her younger dead brother and the sibling-like bond they develop make it seem as if she is taking out a lot of her grief through projecting onto him, it’s all fascinating stuff

However I found things started to drag for me during Act 2, plot-wise we have to take some time from directly pursuing the revenge plot bc Artorius is too strong atm, and i understand that out of universe we need to give time to explore the rest of the cast, still this really hurts the momentum of Velvet’s arc

And while I enjoyed the rest of the cast, none of the stuff we got focused on them ever felt like it reached its full potential whether individually or game-wide, part of this might be my fault as it seems there might have been some side quests i missed (although I tried to stay on top of most of them and what I got never seemed to be very necessary for getting the main plot) still i feel like if you’re going to make me run all across the world it shouldn’t be that hard to weave more in, there’s just a lot of focus on past backstory rather than active story moments which is frustrating on top of what I previously mentioned

Going into Act 3 spoilers, things did pick up, until then I had tried to construct a consistent morality of the game and came up with the idea that, “sacrificing for the greater good isn’t inherently wrong, but often those who are asked to sacrifice had no choice in the matter” the plot twist of Laphi having been in on the sacrifice and now acting as Innomenant really was great, shaking both the narrative and Velvet, making almost all the pain and hurt she had inflicted on the world for nothing.

The moral ambiguity gets a little simplified when the stakes escalate to world-ending levels, while it fits in with the other themes of independence and free will, it does make our group that gleefully dragged small children with them on assassination attempts into undeniable good guys, not a bad choice but it does leave most of the rest of the narrative pretty straight-forward

I also feel like i never got a good grasp on the lore, like part of this is also me looking stuff up, but Melchior and Artorius seemed to be not human or very old and apparently followed that Claudin guy, but i don’t know if Innomenant was always their main goal or what

As for the actual ending, this is when I really felt like it would be more emotional if I had played Zestiria before bc a lot of stuff felt as if it should have been more meaningful

Ranking the Cast:

1) Phi: the beating heart of the narrative, bringing everyone together and growing into such a strong person, like i said the highlights of the narrative was both his slow “corruption” and then how he matured and began to stand up for himself, his speech to Velvet in the Earthpulse was 10/10

2) Velvet: what can I say, give me a morally ambiguous lead girl and I am hooked, i feel like they did a good job of balancing out her closed off new nature by giving the audience just enough information to know how she must really be feeling, which made her more than just “angry and revenge” focused, but I feel like bc of the break in the 2nd act a lot of the immediacy of her trauma and desperation was kinda lost

3) Magilou: a fun character that worked as comic relief a lot of the time, but the teases about her backstory/true nature were great, and I especially love her scene where she single-handedly holds back Melchior to save the rest of the party, still this is where some of the “only getting to hear backstory” stuff really began to drag on me

4) Eleanor: a good foil for Velvet and solid member of the party, adds good world-building, however I was less invested in her development bc a lot of it was centered around Kamoana who just irked me, after getting such a good kid character with Phi, she was just so baby-ish and ended up dragging Eleanor down

5) Eizen: Nothing wrong with his character, but i feel like he definitely would have meant more to me if i was more familiar with Zesteria, contributed to the themes and had a nice relationship with Phi, but I again a lot of his more personal character moments just weren’t delivered

6) Rokurou: As a character I like him, especially in Act 1 his relaxed personality is good for the party’s chemistry, I just could not get into his arc at all, there’s just a lot of generic ‘I need to get stronger vibes’ and what pathos surrounding it isn’t really utilized the most effectively, like in a game all about family and people going to insane means for them, the fact he just really wants to kill his brother should be a big deal, but while you can read between the lines about likely having a pretty shitty childhood but again I wish we had seen more of that on-screen stuff, for a guy defined by his anger, we don’t actually get a lot of it explicitly which makes it hard to connect,

Also with the ending, I knew Velvet had a tragic fate and I feel like her sacrificing herself was fitting, I guess just the way the last cut-scene was shot gave everything a happy and triumph tone which didn’t really fit, Velvet’s fate seems pretty shitty and so at least getting to mourn that/a more tragic but necessary tone would have made it slide down easier

Overall I may seem so critical was bc I really wanted to love this game, and while it didn’t deliver everything I want and fall into that adoration camp, the fact it left with so much to talk about is definitely worth something