Tales of Zestiria

Tales of Zestiria
77
Metacritic
81
Steam
83.578
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$7.49
Release date
19 October 2015
Steam reviews score
Total
81 (6 718 votes)
Recent
70 (41 votes)

In a world torn by war and political skirmishes, accept the burden of the Shepherd and fight human darkness to protect your world from Malevolence and reunite humans and Seraphim.

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Tales of Zestiria system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10
  • Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz / AMD Athlon 64 X2 5200+, 2.6GHz
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: Nvidia GeForce 8800GT / ATI Radeon HD 4830 or equivalent
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 12 GB available space
  • Additional Notes: Gamepad support
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Diovaynes
Diovaynes

Thank goodness this was 90% off because what a shame would it be to pay full price.
Take everything I say here with a grain of salt as I'm not even going to try and finish this game to review it. Not even actually understand it to be honest.

First of all, no jump button. Excuse me? How am I supposed to play this without being able to hop around like the mad lad I am? That's the only real complain I have when exploring and walking around. Everything else about it is fine: You find items with different effects and they don't become obsolete that quickly, since you can fuse them.
Edit: I forgot to say I also enjoy being able to skip encounters while exploring, so I can focus on the exploring aspect of the game instead of dealing with enemies constantly, although some enemies can outrun you.

I couldn't talk much about the story, the characters are the only reason I really kept playing the game. I can say that the story is pretty mediocre for what I've seen: A random person becomes the hero of legend to save the world. That's literally what happens. Which is fine. Or, would be fine. The characters are fine as well, and I can see them developing nicely throughout the game.

All of this could lead to a fine game if not for the horribly paced, boring and complicated combat. Don't even ask me to explain how the fuck to play this game.
The biggest problem is how complex the combat is because of the ridiculous amount of mechanics the game keeps constantly introducing to you. You don't have enough time to practice a single mechanic to be able to understand how the fuck to play this game because the game keeps throwing more and more shit towards you. I could barely understand the controls, I didn't even get used to playing the game because it has just so much shit going on that I couldn't keep track of.

Not that it matters because most combat encounters are so easy you can just spam basic attacks and dodge sometimes to refill the resource bar to keep spamming basic attacks. Unless you're fighting a "boss" encounter, which then you'll proceed to not understand what the fuck is going on because why are people dead? Is the AI that bad that they just die? Apparently. You better off playing alone. All of the bullshit mechanics with other characters? Fuck that, just play with the main character, and use that one mechanic to become anime protagonist and fight the thing off. Leave them dead, much better. Unless you used the wrong transformation because apparently the enemy is strong against that element you choose. Oh well, what a bummer.

The combat is also so fast paced, I barely understand what the fuck happens in it. I had a random encounter last 4.20 seconds and I didn't even know what happened. That's a big problem because combat becomes so boring you better off just avoid EVERYTHING possible. Ironically, the game even gives you the option to turn on a thing to halve the damage you deal. And that does not solve any problems, the combat stays boring.

I feel like I need to PRACTICE to play this game. I can't just play it, I need to actually practice, and understand how the fuck to play this game, before being able to actually PLAY the game. And even if that's the case, the combat's already boring, I'm not doing that. Characters and story will NOT be enough to keep me playing this game. Thank Gebus for 90% discount.

Mode
Mode

So, I'm sure many have seen this already, but the combat is just.. the worst.. the character interaction can also just be, terrible. It's a fine game, especially on sale, but don't buy it at full price.

Smugdear
Smugdear

Zestiria might not be one of the title that came to fan's mind when someone said "the best tales game". It has numerous flaws such as poor camera-in-battle system (which makes it impossible to play with more than one people), so-so story development, and repetitive dungeon/enemies design. The best unique feature of the game is probably only the armatization system, it's a unique system that other Tales game don't have (which also makes the game 5x easier even in Hard). Even with all those flaws, I love the idea of seraph and humans in the game's world, i like the characters interactions (and I love Zaveid).

Overall, Tales of Zaveid is an okay "just right" game. It's not the best but if you're a fan of Tales, you know what you will get.

AudioRemedy
AudioRemedy

Really tried to get into it, but couldn't stand it after about a dozen hours. It's over-saturated with dreary cutscenes, and the characters aren't as interesting compared to other entries in the "Tales of" franchise. The worst part though, is that in a clearly desperate attempt to breathe some fresh air into the combat system, the devs made it so unnecessarily over-complicated and bloated with "features" that it crosses well past the line of laughable and just ends up a chaotic, unsatisfying, tedious mess. Really glad they went back to the drawing board for the subsequent games.

Noobferlife
Noobferlife

not for me. didnt like the barrage of info for the entire 2hrs i played telling me non stop fighting/gear/ai program/specials etc. the dialog is awful. controls are meh.
its bright and looks good for a tales game. 5/10

Princess Tiffany
Princess Tiffany

-Tales games tend to be a bit old, but this is a good step towards modernizing, especially with how they changed the way they do scenes.
-You can see whether or not you’ve spoken to an npc, which is a nice touch
-The story premise is… kinda dumb. Don’t wanna spoil it but there’s no getting around the fact it’s lame
-I like the MC’s passion for archaeology and that it plays well into the story
-The first several hours of the game are pretty exciting
-The characters and their interactions are quite good. I love the cast
-With regards to the events that occur in acquiring all party members… they took a risk and I respect it. Many people are upset with this particular plot point; I agree it wasn’t pulled off the best but I give them credit for trying.
-Combat/equipment is needlessly complicated given that as the game goes on the more you basically just mash the same button until you win, even on max difficulty.

Overall: it’s alright. I played it a long time ago and then again just now. The second time through, with the context of having also played Berseria makes it a much better game. But the first time I played it, I remember getting particularly bored towards the end. If you like Tales, you’ll endure and eventually enjoy this game. If you haven’t played tales, I wouldn’t play this game just yet. The story and combat are among the worst of the series, but it's still a decent game, with an amazing cast among the best of the series.

CoolswagOfficial1
CoolswagOfficial1

If you have played Berseria this game is to a very (same enemie types,npc models etc) similar vein and if you enjoyed Berseria Youll probably enjoy this one as it expands on the lore of berseria (being like an indirect prequel) and has a good cast. Combat is boring tho

云闲
云闲

I hate this game!!! How could it be named as Tales of Zestiria? The ridiculously stupid plotline successfully made my passion for Tales of draining from me. If you played TOZ before TOB, you would unfortunately get dazed before those unwell-explained complicated terminologies; vice versa, you would naturally get angry for some of the characters` views, and also, you would have to have inappropriate meetings with your former dear teammates. TOZ - the worst game of the series I have ever known.

Kukushi3
Kukushi3

If you've ever played a Tales of game and liked it. You'll probably like this one too.

brazen100
brazen100

feel like this tales gets too much hate i dont mind its quirks so much plus there is some decent ideas in here

BBQBaconWhopper
BBQBaconWhopper

got this game at discounted price. playing on steam deck, not deck verified but so far haven't seen any problem. great past time, great game nothing to complain.

SkylerXT
SkylerXT

Although I recommend Tales of Zestiria for others to try, as a long time fan I have to say Tales of Zestiria, in terms of plot, narrative and pacing has to be one of the worst Tales titles. Or to be accurate I should one of the most "disappointing". With the graphics, gameplay, the world and characters, this should have been a truly great title. You can even feel the energy and anticipation during the beginning of the basic plot. But somehow despite having such huge potential it simply failed to capitalize on it. One of the characters who was featured very prominently in trailers and in various promotional posters and events doesn't even stick around for very long. For most of the game said character who was thought to be a major star of the title simply ends up nearly forgotten for most of the title. Fortunately most of the problems with the plot is taken care of by the anime adaptation: Tales of Zestiria - the X. Like the makers were trying to repair everything that was wrong with the game. That being said one aspect of the equipments, namely gear attributes and skill sheet, while very confusing, for the most doesn't serve as much use as the game makes it out to be. Skill Unions in this system barely make any sense as far as overall benefit versus the trouble you go through to align them. Not much difference whether you painstakingly try to maintain it or just forget it and just get new gear. As a certain NPC was telling other supposedly talentless NPCs, just fuse the gear without even thinking...which is not what the game wants you to do, but actually make sense practically speaking.

Melloalli
Melloalli

Personally, I'm a big fan of the Tales series. My older brother gave me a copy of Tales of Symphonia and that's where the obsession began. I think that Tales of Zestiria still lives up to that greatness. While there is a fair bit of flaws to the story, mostly in the worldbuilding, the characters in the story more than make up for it. Most importantly, the ending to the story is very satisfactory, just be sure to prepare yourself for the final boss lol

Luslec
Luslec

This is the worst tales game so far. The world feels empty and the story is all over the place. The seraphim is just a shallow gimmick without its own lore and identity. They act, dress-up, and banter no differently from humans. The game was developed with the human-seraph fusion mechanic in mind and threw in there a shallow story, lore and world-building and then called it a game. There is no tale told coherently here. Skip.

LifeWulf
LifeWulf

Tales games always know how to make me cry at the end. Love this series.

Supremacy
Supremacy

Amazing game with a fairly bad port/ awful camera

i-p-yellow
i-p-yellow

Only played an hour and it locks up in the menu past a certain cutscene. It changes and knows the keyboard and controller are there it just refuses to work...

Harbinger
Harbinger

I didn't get very far but it's a fairly straightforward chosen hero game. It does make for a great prequel to Berseria and a good Tales of game.

MarSan
MarSan

My first Tales game and I'm enjoying it.

xXMoonlightXx
xXMoonlightXx

I became intrigued with the tales series after playing Tales of Symphonia and so when the opportunity, that is a sale came up on Tales of Zestiria, I purchased it.

I don't have an indepth review to give this Tales because to be honest, it was lackluster compared to Symhonia.

Gamplay
I liked the quick combat system BUT it was filled with a lot of gimmicks; some times I can trigger a mystic art order times I am pressing the buttons and NOTHING happening; ended up getting my ass kicked instead.

Additionally, lack of direction in what to do during some major story points; I am like what the heck; is something lost in translation...I had to look up two things to pass the game and it was because of lack of explicit explanation of what the goal was during the scene.

Plot
Lackluster; I finished the game and had to do Google reviews to ascertain what the ending meant because I had so many questions that answers.

Overall 6/10
It is by no means a terrible game; I have heard of the complaints but yeah could be better executed.
Characters
I fell in love with the characters; even cried at times. I especially loved their rambling and digs at each other at the end of battles/ cutscenes.

Ignotus
Ignotus

overall pretty decent... or good...? I can't describe which. so far the only bothers me is the frame rates causing the animation to assert dominance and become t-posing and it looked ridiculous when fighting against bosses... heck even the boss could do t-pose.

my conclusion:
having rough on frame but my time is well spent.

Comtess of Grumpington
Comtess of Gru…

The story might not get you pumped, but at least mildly inflated. It's more engaging if you play Berseria first, as some themes and characters make a comeback here.
GOOD:
+ Fun characters, OK story, humour. One or two epic battles, best intro music in the series.
BAD:
- skill and fusing system, dungeons and ruins - boring, vast, repetitive.

If you like the typical Tales stuff like skits, action-style battles and lots of dialogue where characters ask each other not push themselves so hard every five minutes, this game is for you. It's not as bad as many make it out to be.

Dasty Dan
Dasty Dan

This is my first Tales game played to completion. The story is kinda cliche and predictable but what makes up for that is the characters. The main cast is likeable and the game focuses on their interpersonal interactions quite a fair bit. Sorey is a bit of a bland main character but he's not overwhelmingly annoying or anything like that either so it's fine. He has a little bit of growth over the course of the story but he's mostly there to be the naive audience surrogate and overall good guy. The combat is a lot of fun although way too overly complex with all the mechanics it vomits at you. The basics are rather simple but there's so many other things that go on top of it such as assigning martial artes, equipment skills, equipment fusion, farming gear with stats if you so desire, battle actions, mystic artes, lord of the land systems... it's rather overwhelming with a lot of it seeming easy enough to ignore I suppose, while providing something for people to sink their teeth in to for the more challenging content. I personally just found it to be bloat however, with tutorials for the different systems being part of the monuments found throughout the world which I found to be a bit of a disappointing aspect of the world. Overall though, the game is fun, charming, and enjoyable. I'll probably look back fondly on the main characters of this adventure, but maybe not the adventure itself...
6.5/10

dias cinzas
dias cinzas

good rpg, not as good as the others of the franchise, but still good

DjLuis82
DjLuis82

This is the worst jprg ive ever play!(history,movement,loots,boss,hack and slash,30fps=mediocre)

Mr.Johnson
Mr.Johnson

8/10

Interesting story, well written dialog, memorable characters. Protagonist is a bit boring, but all the other characters giving him shit about being boring shows that it's a character design decision, not lazy writing. Fun to play.

raveperett
raveperett

If you've played Tales of Berseria (a later game of the same series but also acts as a prequel to Zestiria's world), then I suggest you play this game. However, for those who stumbled upon here, don't play it. Berseria takes the flaws that's of this generic, tropey game and changes it into something that can't even be compared.

Halabec
Halabec

Controller support is terrible. Never remembers controller setting, requiring you to set it every time you launch the game. If your controller disconnects while you have the game launched, you have to exit the game entirely before it'll work again.

The camera is absolutely terrible. I'm frequently staring at a wall or the ground unable to see any of the battle. Of course you can't control it directly.

Ridiculously inconsistent difficulty with insanely random difficulty spikes.

These games are such a contradiction. They have good ideas and style but they're all hampered by basic user experience issues that plague the worst of JRPGs and have for decades. There's a difference between challenging users and not doing the most basic of user experience and gameplay improvements that have been around for 20 years.

uchihax0
uchihax0

I've played every flagship Tales game since Abyss and this is a pile of garbage.

the.great.imbiber
the.great.imbiber

Virgin earring man and his sullen gay elf lover purge wolves and the occasional Zoroark cosplayer from the lands of Ravnica

Dagde2
Dagde2

Let me preface this review by stating that I am a fan of the Tales Of series of games. I grew up playing Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube and Abyss was a part of my childhood as well. Now let me get into this game...

It feels hollow. Like there's something there but not quite. The beginning was very boring and it wasn't until half way through the game that I finally found myself enjoying the journey. I played this as soon as I was done playing Berseria as I read that the two were connected (with Berseria being a distant sequel) and it most certainly takes longer than that game to get attached to the characters than with Berseria.

I wont rant too much more about the characters, lets move on to actual gameplay. This game controls weirdly, the camera during battle will be wonky and until you can turn on free move always on in the "rules for battle" section, you're going to find yourself zooming in to a large part of a corner. The world space is HUGE, but this is a double edge sword or a blessing in disguise. You have no way of enhancing your travel around the map unless you use two story unlocks: Wind Seraph's wind rush or lord of the land fast travel. For the most part you'll be running around place to place on foot and the only ways to recharge that wind rush ability is to win a battle or wait for a gauge to fill up. The next thing on my mind is actually figuring out where to go, which seems like a silly thing to worry about but for some parts of the game I got lost and the "Hint" you can pull up was no help.

So why did I give this game a "Recommended" when I pretty much talked bad all the way through it? It's because this game massively improves and manages to hook you in much later into the adventure. There are some really great moments in this game that make up for all these quirks and if you can get past a slog of a beginning with some corny writing in the early game you'll be rewarded for your diligence. Is this game the same as titans like Symphonia, Abyss, or Vespiria? No, it's flawed. Can it be a fun and at times heart warming story that the Tales Of series is known for? Absolutely. It's definitely worth the time you put into playing it.

GrimNumair
GrimNumair

Everything about Zestiria feels disjointed. It was enjoyable enough to trudge through before Berseria but plays out more like an overly drawn out DLC than a full fledged game. Like others have stated the combat is not difficult, just overly complicated for the sake of it, and the tutorials amount to walls of text.

If it's on sale and you haven't played Berseria, its still worth a play through.

trainerlyra
trainerlyra

i was wary going into this game at first because i know opinions on it are very polarized. this is my fourth tales of game, and i really, thoroughly enjoyed it. the characters are always the highlight of tales imo, and they really, really shined here. i found myself going out of my way to try and get extra skits because i was having fun just watching them interact! go into this game with an open mind, and if you like anime-styled jrpgs, you'll probably have fun with it. i sure did!

adxasassin
adxasassin

oooh the good nostalgia of playing this game highly reccomend

Heickel
Heickel

The plot generally same with Anime Adaptation, But the Event reaching the ending totally different,

recommeded even if u already watch the anime

Seth
Seth

Only played for about 2 hours (5 hours did other things and left the game on). It's a basic JRPG, with good graphics and animations, cute and cool characters, and beautiful environments. I'm relatively new to the Tales of series but the artstyle pulled me in, and every single game has not disappointed so far.

Got it for ~$5 on sale, very much worth it. The gameplay is decent action though a bit clunky as I'm starting (wish the targeting and auto-lock was more controllable), and has an equipment bonus system and little side abilities which you can grind up on the side, all of which add to a nice RPG experience.

Ugh~
Ugh~

Nice game !, enjoyed the adventure, gameplay, and story, interesting battle mechanism with many combos and strategies

HazeyDays
HazeyDays

In any genre you're going to have masterpieces that spark waves of knock offs and copy cats.

Tales of Zestiria isn't that kind of game.

In typical JRPG fashion the dialogue is awkward, character depth and development is non-existent, and the story may have been written by a middle schooler. Most games in this genre are a bit sad like that, but the good ones usually have innovative mechanics and gameplay that can engage a player, in spite of poor writing or rough graphics. Between the lackluster combat, slow starting pace, and vapid, potato-brained protagonist there was nothing to latch on to or look forward to. Very forgettable, 6/10.

The Original Silent Protagonist
The Original S…

-Update (1st Review below if you want to read it)-
I've played more, completed the trials, and still can't recommend this game, it's just the blandest RPG I've played. It's not bad per say, everything is done competently on a technical level, but there's little to no substance and it's not really fun, just time consuming. The plot is bare bones at best with multiple new plot things regularly thrown in and then completely forgotten when the new plot thing is introduced, and on the rare occasion when things are touched upon again it's usually out of nowhere and quickly resolved so it's pretty "wait is that how this resolves?".
And even with that there's so much padding with nothingness, just running down long corridors between plain rooms full of monsters for no real reason, and in the late game there's so much running from one side of the world map to the other just for a quick cut scene that triggers the next cut scene at the other side of the world map. Oh and the world map is just awful! There's no cursor, you have to go through locations in a list, but they're divided into categories of dungeon, city, etc, which makes navigating it pretty hard, and it doesn't help that you can buy maps that add ???? items to the world map, but you have no idea what they are and I didn't even learn that's what I was getting when I bought those maps, I had to look it up! It's not explained in any way in the game, just "hey want this cool map?" And the fact that the world map doesn't have little icons that signal "you want to go here" that only show up when you're in that particular area can make you really lost with no idea where you're suppose to go, if it's somewhere new that you now have access to after being blocked before, or maybe you've got to go revisit some place you've been that were able to go through earlier as a side thing and it's just, so not good.
And locations are just so bland! Generic city (the first one was memorable but probably cause they were first and got more time), generic cave (with oddly square rooms and tunnels), generic dungeons (so far the most memorable dungeon was the wind trial, but that was more because of the constant backtracking and the complete failure of it's multi-floor gate mechanic).
I feel really sorry for the people who worked on this, they really tried their best with what they were given (it's obvious the voice actors really tried their best with the cringey terrible lines they're given). I really want to know if the director/writers dropped the ball, or if there was executive meddling that derailed things. There was clearly a vision in mind at the start of the game, but this does not last long.
So I can't recommend this game, not unless you're looking for something incredibly generic to make fun of, that might be a good time for some people.

--1st Review--
Haven't finished the game yet, I'm 20 hours in, but I think I can give an informative review of the game based on what I've seen so far (I've just met the Lord of Calamity for the first if you want to know where I am).
TL;DR: Straight up, unless you're a big fan of RPGs and don't mind painfully bad writing, don't get this game.
The writing isn't just chock full of the typical tropes, but it plays them absolutely straight and with gusto. The main character's main characteristic is "pure hearted idiot" and that's it, which is bad when the entire plot revolves around him and the fact that he's the chosen one. The fact that he's an outsider to the people he's trying to help is never used to any effect, at most being used for some exposition and a few "ha ha he doesn't understand" skits.
He is however constantly told that the power he gets for being the chosen one shouldn't be used in front of regular people because "they'll grow to hate you if they see it", which is probably the biggest nonsense I've ever heard, cause the chosen one name already has a reputation with it, and everyone already knows he's the chosen one, so regardless of seeing his power people are going to form opinions about him, which will include negative ones cause that's just how things go, you can't please everyone. They do seem to change that later to be more "you have to pick your battles cause if you try to do everything for everyone you'll take everyone's job, no wait, let's change that to you'll burn yourself out", which makes more sense but was still very poorly delivered. I think they're trying to go for a "with great power" lesson, but it's not coming across, especially when there are several scripted fights you can't win and are suppose to run from, with the other characters shouting that you can't win pretty much as soon as you start one of those, which is super annoying. If I'm not suppose to run from a fight, don't even make it a fight, it just kills player agency.
I will say the Seraphim System this game has for the characters is interesting, but it's poorly implemented, since the majority of your party is Seraphim at any one time but you need a human party member for each seaphim, otherwise they're just benched, which is extremely frustrating when the second human character you get spending the majority of her time yo-yoing in and out of your party, so you go from 4 fighters to 2 frequently. They should have had the Seraphim be more assist characters than full party members, maybe closer to how Ni no Kuni did it, and they could have given them more interesting designs that don't look like human in generic cosplay.
That's another thing, the visual design of this game is painfully generic. The locations are dull, boring, colorless, and devoid of landmarks with rare exception, which is a real shame considering how some of the past games of this series had great designs, like Tales of Symphonia was brilliant looking with vibrant and colorful designs that are miles above this. The starting town has some interesting designs for the buildings but is super barren for a place people live, the the second town is "generic castle town that's actually floating on a lake(!) but we don't do anything interesting with that, not even when we have you explore their sewers!" Like would it have killed them to put some water level puzzles in there or something? It's not until the THIRD town that we start to get something that's at least memorable AND fully fleshed out with "small forest town that's an important spot on the trade route but is suffering terribly from plague". I swear this game just got a graphics pack of generic fantasy locations and said "yeah that's good enough". It's also not above stealing designs from other games. The big bad Lord of Calamity's design is literally just Demise from LoZ:SS with a cat nose. That's it, that's the only change worth noting. If this hadn't come out years before Breath of the Wild I'd have accused them of stealing the Lord of Calamity name from Zelda too. I honestly wonder if Nintendo didn't name him Calamity Ganon in BotW as a direct dig at this game for stealing the design.
Have I mentioned how generic and predictable the story is so far? The Chapter 1 twist of "oh everybody you've ever known are Seraphim" was interesting, but could have been better implemented. If they'd played up the "oh that guy is talking to himself, he must be crazy" angle and not tried to rush to "oh he's the chosen one and everybody knows" I think it would have made for a better story, and it would have made the whole "you can't let people see" angle work a heck of a lot better. But after that first twist every other story beat they try to set up is telegraphed a mile away, like "the chancellors are evil" and "war is bad for everyone".
So I can't recommend this game for anybody who doesn't mind all that, which while I imagine is the majority of people, given how old this game is, I doubt there are many sitting on the fence about it these days, but I just had to get my opinion off my chest.

Gamehollow
Gamehollow

Pro
Good game to play like other tales series

Story is ok and just ok and feel like some holes can be fill but other then that it is ok as long as you don't think about too much

Really big map to explore so alot of walking to see every plain and look beautiful or dark as hell depending on how much you clear the world

Con

Too much walking to geting point A to B

Alot of grind to meet certain stuff but still can be cheese if you play some card right

Trash control mapping for keyboard and mouse for a game port to PC just like it tale of bersia which is the sequel and "improve" ver of its game by fixing like 20% out of 100% of issue in both game

Camera angle sucks sometime I cant tell where i am looking at and again control mapping sucks as this game was literally built to be play with controller despite being a PC port.

Would not recommend to anyone who play a game without controller cause despite the setting having mouse and keyboard control it doesn't work and all key bind are way to far apart to be use and even trying to rebind them means you not able to attack or use abilities so you literally have to redo all bind in order to play game or even pausing game to look at bind menu for moves to do special moves or power up moves

TheMostManlyMan
TheMostManlyMan

This game is only good as a pre-game to it's prequel (confusing, I know). The story and writing are painful at best, the only thing it does well is provide some interesting context for callbacks made in Berseria. Other than that there's really not much going for this as a Tales title. The combat is passable and the story is rather pathetic, which is bad news for a game that's mostly those two things.

kirbiyi
kirbiyi

this game is the worst in the tales of series, I am going to finish it out of spite- save your money and time and stay far away from this trash

this is the worst game i've ever played in my life.

Gravity(Null)
Gravity(Null)

I put this one off for a long time. Wishing I didn't and played it closer to when I first added to my library. I'm enjoying the story, and the characters are quirky, lol I'm really enjoying the game so far! It doesn't really stand out from other JRPGs. At least for me. But still a fun play through! Graphics holding up still today with standard Anime JRPGs!

1 2 Blinkx
1 2 Blinkx

its like a movie but not probably.

MonsterDroid
MonsterDroid

Avoid this Tales of game if you like the gameplay style of Symphonia, and Vesperia. Also I don't like the camera.

Download the 60 fps patch from a steam guide for a better experience.

tyre
tyre

ngl i'm only playing this for mikleo

Samesame tbhtbh dogdog
Samesame tbhtb…

Man I loved Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Berseria, I wonder what Zestiria has in store for me...

+Among the 3 Tales of games I've played, this has my personal favorite soundtrack among all of them. The earth trial soundtrack orchestra was too godlike and the wind trial was an absolute banger.

+Armatize is a cool mechanic. It was fun to switch around and armatize to adapt to different weaknesses.

+Rose and Edna are baddies.

-The battle system is too complex and clunky and feels unnecessary. Using mystic artes is such a pain I wish it was much much simpler. Free run didn't feel so good in this game like in Vesperia. Thankfully this was changed in Berseria.

-Your stats depend on what you lucked out with equipment-wise. I think this is poorly-designed and just annoying to deal with. It does not help that we only find this out late into the game after we have gone out of our way to grind.

-The battle AI was unbearable. I found myself chain-stunned into dying in many stupid fights that weren't supposed to be difficult and I only played on moderate difficulty. This was very rage-inducing and maybe you can argue it was a skill issue but god the AI was just bad.

-You would think Armitization is the best cause how cool it is and how good it is but actually the truth of the game is Dream Slasher. That move is just unbalanced and it felt like there was no reason not to just use it.

-Exploring felt downright awful. Sorey is way too slow and the overworld is way too big. On top of that the Seraphim skills take too long and fast travelling costs so much money. It was such a pain to explore in this game when compared to flying in Vesperia or surfing in Berseria.

-On the note of Seraphim skills taking long in the overworld, this is especially apparent in dungeons. Why do the dungeon cutscenes take too damn long on top of the Seraphim skills. When the walls needed to be broken with Seraphim skills and you missed it would take another 10 years before you could try again, then you would have to wait another 10 years for the wall to break. Some dungeons also had doors that would not only take so long to open, but also close behind you.

-On the note of dungeons, the water trial was horrible. I want to just specifically call this one out. Why god did they make this.

-The story was straight up bad, laughable even. There was a lack of big moral dilemmas that Sorey faced when compared to Vesperia and Berseria. The story direction was so obvious and predictable, there are actually no big plot twists that are not obvious. The story was just so boring and when they bring in the history and lore of the world on top of the boring plot, I have to snooze out.

-The characters had no depth. This one bothered me a lot. Sorey was good because.... He was a nice and cool guy. There was no tragic backstory or anything. There was no obvious motive for any of the characters. The character development felt so lacking that the moment a character is introduced, you already know everything about them.

-On the note of characters, I was disappointed with how Alisha was handled.

Unless you really want to play every Tales of game, I would recommend just playing the other ones over this one.

kiba
kiba

this one is a bit weird & divisive, admittedly I liked it but some people won't & it's also getting a bit dated... imo only pick this up if you're a huge fan of "tales of" if you want a sure thing go with berseria or arise.

Anonymous
Anonymous

a pc game frame cap to only 30fps, lousy devs and a lousy game

skogach
skogach

Oh boy, this game looks bad for 2015 and feels cheap. But it wasn't cheap.

Tangle Ravine
Tangle Ravine

Its a fun game with a great story! I've enjoyed it immensely!

BlazingGodstar
BlazingGodstar

Fantastic game.

This is apparently the most hated game in all of the Tales series. This is my second game I've played from the series after Vesperia. I personally enjoyed this way more than Vesperia. Combat felt much better and fluid.

The one thing I really disliked is the level up system, as you don't gain much stats like a traditional rpg from leveling up. This game involves finding objects like special orbs that increase your HP, and then also having to use the disgusting and confusing item system. The item system is really bizarre... I still don't understand it much but that's because I could care less.

However, this game has one of the BEST soundtracks I've ever heard. Truly fantastic.

Sucks that this game is locked to 30fps. I had to use the Special K patch to force it to 60, however there were drawbacks with it too.

Nonetheless, please do pick up this game, and please play it with a controller for the best experience. A recommend!

Mochila de Criança
Mochila de Criança

Worst entry in the Tales serie...

Daddy David
Daddy David

This game is absolutely unbaked.
The camera is the WORST, It does what ever it pleases and this ranges from:
- removing party members from view.
- Staring at the floor
- Staring at the roof
- Clipping inside enemies so you cant see shit
- Zooming in so far you cant see ANYTHING

The game has 2 player option, but the camera zooms in so much on player 1 that it makes it impossible.

The AI control is TERRIBLE.
There is:
-Only Atk
- Only run away and do nothing
- Only heal
Nothing in between and no mix.
You cant give the characters individual commands.

This game was a HUGE let down and is unplayable.
I like the series and would love to be able to play this but i just cant deal with staring at the floor, sky, inside of character or it freaking out and stuttering back and forth between the above.
Tight spaces are the worst.

The publishers should be ashamed for how this game operates.
If i hadnt hit the 2 hour of the return window i would have done so.

get a life
get a life

bruh its boring and repetitive, the music is annoying holy shit, but if u like JRPG maybe u might like it idfk

-Cosmic-
-Cosmic-

Some may not like this entry in the Tales of series, but it still has some great characters and animation, needless to say i enjoyed it quite a bit myself!

Tin
Tin

As a long time fan of the Tales of franchise I was honestly surprised that I legit never played this game and for good reason. Tales of Zestiria is the literal average 5/10. When the majority of the series is about a 7/10, this game really stands out Booting it up to continue felt like a goddamn chore. Though I can see some people really enjoying Sorey's journey, I am not one of them. I think Zestiria as a game shifted the series for worse in terms of gameplay. Not only is it simpler than before it's less technical and not as fulfilling to make your own combos and experiment since the system is so thin. If you like good combat systems this is a Tales game you want to skip. This is the first Tales of game I will not beat because I can't stand hours of the shallow combat.
I'll just make a list to keep my thoughts nice and brief for a quick Steam review.


TL:DR

Positives

    • The Cast, has like two characters I like.
    • Runs well through Proton
    • Solid OST
    • Co-op

Negatives

    • The most uneventful and underwhelming story in the entire series
    • Combat in this game is quite shallow for a Tales of game
    • God the combat sucks, like no seriously. Just play Destiny DC or Vesperia

I personally do not recommend unless you want a starting point to get into Tales of but even then games like Vesperia exist and are quite honestly a better package.

< blank >
< blank >

Decent JRPG. Crafting system is horrible though. 6/10

QuinnGTL
QuinnGTL

This game is hard to write a review about. No, it doesn't live up to the hype of a Tales game. It is a bit bland,
But a bland Tales game is still better than a lot of the RPG garbage out there..

But like so many other things, you get what you put into it.

I'll make a Mass Effect comparison here;
There is so much back story and dialog to Mass Effect that if you just did a speed-run of the game, didn't interact with your crew and focused on only combat and missions, you could finish the game and not understand the hype or what was so great about Mass Effect.

Tales games have squad based combat and they really try to get you to connect with your squad mates. Learn about them and their story or you just straight up don't care and have a worse experience for it.

That being said, for ANYONE who finished this game please for the love of god watch the anime. The game kind of cliff hangers the end, (no spoilies!) but the anime does a great job wrapping it up.

If you enjoy RPGs and have run out of games to play, give this game a try! You might not be as disappointed as others who have reviewed it. 7/10

NobakeGaming
NobakeGaming

Speaking charitably, this feels like the story and characters were written by a bad fanfiction author with consultation from an 8 year old child. Trite, boring, and preachy.

Combat is fine. It's not as good as the fluid combat found in Arise, but it is far better than the awkward garbage from the likes of Symphonia or Vesperia.

Presentation is also fine. The graphics look good to me. I'm sure some will complain about 30 fps cap, but it doesn't bother me. Soundtrack is typically solid Sakuraba Motoi.

With better writing, this would be a pretty decent game. Unfortunately, it's not.

The Greek Hammer
The Greek Hammer

Its a decent game but probably the worst Tales of game I've played. Its not bad, but doesn't hold up to the others. I am a big fan of these games though and it didn't do the series a disservice. It tried new things that imo didnt quite work out. I still recommend it though. The gameplay isn't that bad and the story is good. I give it a 5.5/10

Frost Vanilla
Frost Vanilla

Gameplay : Tales !
Music : Fantastic !
Controls : Clunky but manageable
Difficulty Spike : Somewhat veryhard if you dont know what you are doing
Grind : SO MUCH GRIND NEEDED
Trials of water = you'll throw your keyboard

I wish there is a indicator of mobs like when it is high leveled I fought high leveled opponents all the time so use your quicksave often but all in all the game is great the fps too you need to download the fix to get better framerate ! All in All it has its up's and down but Great story nonetheless the let down was controls monster clarity and FPS !

PS. JUST FINISHED IT DONT MIND THE NEGATIVE REVIEWS PLAY IT AT YOUR LEISURE
ENDING WAS GREAT ! It will show you how time flies and progress !

Adamvs Maximvs
Adamvs Maximvs

Probably the weakest 'Tales' game I've played. It's really bland, the characters are completely forgettable, the plot is uninteresting and the battle system is somewhat 'button mashy' even on difficulties above normal.

It's not a disaster, but it's definitely not a particularly good game.

Krow Dotman
Krow Dotman

Recommended.

Tales of the GACHA: The Prequel was a rather decent experience compared to Berseria. At least the game flow system, while being complex and varied as heck, rewards you for actually learning how it works. Unlike the sequel where you just grind, grind, grind and, well, grind more.

Seems the Quality of the games are going backwards, could it be....

Story - 3
Gameplay - 3
Scenario - 3
Sync - 3
Sense - 3

Final - 3/5

TeaRex
TeaRex

boring tales of make me think of tales of arise ,,, 2/10

Sugimoto
Sugimoto

It's a fun enough game to sink your teeth into. If you're on a JRPG kick then this is a decent choice if you grab it on sale.

I had my fun, but the game over stayed it's welcome despite being on the shorter side when it comes to JRPGs. (30-40 hours) This is a game that does not respect your time and has you backtracking and running across empty fields right until the very end. Fast travel is purposely annoying to use and movement is limited to further bloat your playtime. Exploration is very rarely rewarded with anything the player actually wants and is largely a waste of time.

The story feels unfinished. The main party saves it from being a complete waste of time though.

Gameplay is fun, but random battles are pretty spammy so by the end you're running away to avoid them all.

The music and graphics are both quite good but keep in mind this is basically a PS3 game so environments in the open world are pretty sparse. This game also has an arbitrary 30 fps lock on PC, if you care about that, dig up the 60 fps fan patch somewhere online.

Leaving a recommendation because it's worth what I paid for it ($7.49 US). However, if you're deciding between this and any other Tales game, go with the other one. I haven't played them all yet but the community is unanimous that this is the worst out of the ones on Steam.

6/10, very mid, but not bad.

DW Magus
DW Magus

Game crashes damn near non-stop near the end. I have 70 hours in the game according to steam. In-game time is barely over 42 because of all the lost progress from crashing.

Pump
Pump

I'll start off with good points: The soundtrack is beautiful as is the environment. The Spiritual Trials music is top tier. The characters interact well and play off each other very well. You can tell the localization team really put in effort with some of the character lines that reference memes or pop culture that make you go "I get that reference." "Praise the sun" is one of my favorites. There is a lot of personality in the menus with more funny quips like "We get it. You're obsessed." It's charming. The battle system is great.

However, that's about it. The game demands at least a second playthrough to get the REAL Zestiria experience which is sad. I am 50% of the way through and unfortunately I don't think I can do it. I turn down the difficulty from chaos to simple just to get past story bosses because they're really just spongy at that point. One of the major bosses barely takes any damage and extends what should be a shortened story trigger event...for the sake of difficulty? Spongy enemies does not make it the rewarding kind of hard. And then there's the grinding. Grind for a specific enemy to get a specific drop to get specific skills in a specific slot. Repeat ad nauseam. See a pattern? If you want a god build, you WILL put in days to get it. The game is decent not fantastic like, say, Vesperia where it's worth the time. The story...it falls flat. The fact it needs a second game and a movie says that they had to have skipped out on content that was supposed to be in the game. The story could have been so much more. So, so, so much more. The lore is there, the characters, and the environment is there but the stupid grinding and skill system kills the game. The ONLY reason I picked up this game after 4 years of putting it down was Berseria. I loved that game and that love carried me through Zestiria. I gobbled up all the changes in 1000 years and any tidbits of lore. But s second playthrough is...a chore and one I don't think I can muster the mental energy after 300 hours. I'm only on my second run and it was a mistake putting so many hours on a first run. The lore is what kept me going. Give it a second go. WITHOUT playing Berseria first, I give it a 4/10. With it, I give it a 7.5/10. Decent game. Pretty visuals all around. Cool characters. Great music. Horrible execution of core mechanics. Bad camera angles at times. Silly difficulty spikes and surprise! boss fight! Clearly unfinished story.
Oh yeah. The dungeons are just wide open spaces with copy and paste spaces except the Water Trial. Sad.
Berseria should be the only reason you play this, to be honest.

ricemilk413
ricemilk413

It's been 6 years since I first found this game, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since.

vPyra
vPyra

30fps and ugly asf yuck. ps4 version better.

chainsawdogman
chainsawdogman

@wilytw this anime game hasnt crashed :)

Cons
Cons

Does not work on some PCs. Attempted all trouble shooting and recommended mods to fix.

Sonoda
Sonoda

I find this game beautiful.

The story, art, and soundtracks are a close to 10/10.
You might feel the main plot kinda basic at first, but as the game progressing, you'll get the deeper meaning of all the conflicts.

The major drawback I felt once was the battle mechanism that pretty complicated for a complete beginner (especially one that never played any Tales games before).

But once you get a grasp on it, you'll be grinding all day. At least that was what happened to me, lmao.

CAPZ087
CAPZ087

If you're a fan of action JRPGs, you'll find a lot to love here. An addictive battle system, strong cast, and gorgeous soundtrack make this Tales entry a must-play.

Tales of Zestiria takes the "Tales" series back to its roots, starring a country-bumpkin-turned-hero on a quest to purge a Medieval fantasy world of malevolence. You'll meet colorful characters along the way, collect and fuse dozens of pieces of equipment, and fight hundreds of satisfying battles. The battle system revolves around an elemental rock-paper-scissors mechanic, with the ability to combine your human characters with magical "seraphim" to power up your stats and artes pool. It's a rewarding system for players who take the time to learn its ins and outs and challenge the hardest difficulty level, although casual players can still get away with button mashing on easier difficulties.

The story is standard fare for a JRPG, but the execution is excellent, with solid voice acting, wise-cracking characters, and beautiful music. There are side quests and bonus dungeons galore, and a lot of the fun lies in exploring the game's open world off the beaten path. You'll likely get lost more than once, but I found the wandering to be fun, since there's always a new dungeon or optional boss to discover.

The game is not without its flaws. The story sags in the middle, and the equipment fusion system is incredibly complex and likely to turn off everyone but the hardest of the hardcore players who're willing to sink dozens of hours into farming and crafting the perfect gear. Some may also find the protagonist's dorky, goody-two-shoes persona uninteresting (although I found it refreshing in a genre replete with anti-heroes). To me, none of this detracted from the overall experience.

If you don't like JRPGs or the tropes associated with them, then Zestiria isn't going to change your mind. But if you like the genre, and if in particular you like sinking your teeth into complex systems, then you could do much worse than this gem.

NewbRyan
NewbRyan

Story is underwhelming and the storytelling is a complete mess as well. While the start was decent, the way the story panned out soon fell off. The arcs in the story feel so disjointed. When you finish an arc in the story (supposedly finished), the story moves on as to just forget about the previous events for a long while. It's as if the "end" of the arcs set up quick repercussions which do not get addressed at all. The game moves on and makes it seem like everything is fine when in actuality, the game never offered any closure. Combat system sucks. I played on moderate difficulty and found that the combat system is just a huge stall for the game. If you deal enough damage and manage to whiff your combo, you have to wait until after your enemy makes an attack in order for you to continue doing damage, which is a giant pain when you face and underleveled enemy and have to wait it out until you can damage it. The only solace in this game would be characters I'd say, not all of them though. The characters are quirky enough to set them apart from normal anime-like characters. Extra dialogue between the character does not evoke the stereotypical anime tropes. MC is an absolute naive fool and the story does no better in clearing that naivete. It paints things in black and white most of the time and very heavily tries to push an agenda the hero must be pure of heart and do no evil such as killing. A game has a story and a story must convey a moral meaning. But when the meaning is just idealistic garbage that would never work with how normal people and reactions would go, it ends up falling very flat. Story does no good job at explaining things as well. There are too many plot holes, leaps in logic, and missing links in the story which do not get answered. I went out of my way to clear all the side quests I saw and still could not get a complete story. If the story cannot be satisfactory with just the main parts, it's not a good story at all.

Gameplay functions such as a map suck too. It's hardly user-friendly and requires you to remember every TP location by name. There's no guide for the main story as well, you'll just have to stumble upon the area where the story is.

tldr; just don't buy this

Andy Lyviu
Andy Lyviu

I'm really disappointed...
The awkward neverending explenation mixed with the complexity of sub skill, main skill hidden arts and whatsoever made this game lose any desire to play Plus the capped FPS 30 players need to download a 3rd party app to unable 60FPS plus
Unless you are a very patient person and have the will to searh that 3rd party application to play the game like it should've run at 60FPS and if the game's also on sale i recommend it to you...
i uninstalled it and asked a refund ASAP!

ASA
ASA

I really enjoyed the story, the characters and the scenery! The combat system is kinda wonky and some ruins are a pain to do, but that is pretty much all the problem i have with the game.

dinges720
dinges720

That was an intersting journey. 160 well-spent hours to do pretty much everything there is to do, including obtaining all achievements.

The good:
Story and worldbuilding
Music

The neutral
Combat
Overworld map design

The bad:
Dungeon design

Story
The story is great, sucking you in like any good JRPG. It is driven almost completely by the amazing cast of characters and their feelings, which suffices to make the story -on surface level just a heroes journey- very worthwhile. The controversy surrounding Allisha is really only a problem if you make it one, and if you never heard of it don't bother.
As in other games in the series, you can frequently watch skits where the characters talk about something that is more often than not related to the story, but mainly works as more character building. They help break up the gameplay, often in amusing ways.

Music
The music is simply amazing. Nothing much to say here.

Combat
The real-time combat has ups and downs. The concept of temporarily fusing with your Seraphim (armatization) to get stronger is cool and satisfying, but the game relies so much on you using it that not being armatized is generally recipe for disaster due to enemies dealing a lot more damage if you don't double your defense stats. That however is not that big of a problem, since there are still four different Serpahim with different movesets upon armatization to keep things fun and regular enemies usually still die without too big of an issue even if not armatized.
My main problem is the periodic unfairness. Hitting an enemy charging a serpahic arte (magic) with a hidden arte (fancy melee) will reduce the remaining charging time for that enemy. The AI doesn't seem to care (it is generally VERY stupid). Furthermore, remember what I said about having to be armatized? Your main attacks are hidden artes while armatized, making it very hard to deal with groups of enemies that all have magic unless you are spamming seraphic artes too. Which is basically impossible on higher difficulties because enemies charge faster on higher difficulties.
Boss fights though are generally fun and most of them are fair enough if you're not bad at the game. And most of the regular enemies don't just spam magic and are also fine, it's just the few that do that are infuriating.
And then we have the postgame. The 8th boss can literally cast a full party insta-kill mystic arte (on hard difficulty) unless you have grinded an absurd amount. It is totally manageable once you know how to deal with it, after having died a couple times.

Overworld
The overworld map design is nothing special, but definitely not bad either. The areas are varied and look pretty.

Dungeons
Some dungeons are totally fine. Anything that is not a ruin or cave is distinct enough and has enough personality to make it fun to explore except for the water trial, but that's due to the annoying gimmick. Caves and ruins are devoid of all personality. All are build up of the same rooms and hallways with a pallet swap between them. That's it. Good thing you are not required to go into most of them unless you go completionist.
The 8 postgame dungeons are by far the worst offenders of this, and they do not have safepoints right before the bosses so guess what you will be doing if you inevitably die to a few of them.

Completionist
Dieticians nightmare is just RNG, prepare. Most of everything else is fairly doable in your NG+ playthrough on chaos difficulty if you take the time to grind the lords of the land sufficiently in the first playthrough (which is a pain, please look up the best way to do this!) and grind proper gear towards the end to get bested the worst, which you have to do anyway for other achievements.

In conclusion, even though this game has several flaws, I do very much recommend it to anyone who likes a JRPG. The story more than makes up for the occasionally lazy dungeon design and at times unfair combat sytstem (which really only becomes a problem once you're towards the end of the game anyways).

Yurika
Yurika

This game is such a piece of 💩💩💩

The characters are boring and have no personality except Edna and Zaveid.
The story makes no sense, they keep changing plots around, and resolving things and then introducing new plots for no explicable reason.

They constantly make you run back & forth between maps, the teleport system costs an insane amount of money unless you "grind out" every area's "lord" which is a waste of time and boring as 💩

And finally the AI, as in all tales games, is dumb as 💩 and what finally made me quit was when I got to the stupid green elephant in the desert that just kept 1 shotting my party over and over even on "Simple" mode. Even if I controlled my character, the others would just die over and over and all the game told me was to change the difficulty, which of course was impossible as I was on the easiest mode.

Seeing how the story sucks and there's nothing compelling or interesting to keep going, I decided to save my sanity and uninstall. I wish I had known ahead how 💩💩💩 this game is and saved myself 28 hours of time I could have spent playing Berseria instead.

P.S. The patch for fixing crashes/unlocking framerate no longer works so good luck with that one.

Powered By Decaf
Powered By Decaf

I couldn't play this. I tried, I really did. I like anime, but this is over the top. The goody goody over the top anime-ness and the constant yelling out of moves really did me in. It's hard to enjoy a game when you're cringing for half of it.

Jarazz
Jarazz

The Soundtrack "Rising" is definitely worth it, game has a great OST even if many people werent fond of the story.

2ndOrigin
2ndOrigin

as Tales Series fan its really sadden me to give this bad review but i had to do it
this game had too many issues, not with the gameplay but with the game itself. it crashes so bad till the community literally makes a fix for it... devs come on!

kskelts
kskelts

played it for the anime. really vivid animation in game, worth exploring the world for the feels. Wish more developers could emulate.

Aubeary
Aubeary

This is a weird one. Because honestly, I enjoyed it quite a bit more than I would've thought going in reading the mixed reviews and being disappointed by Symphonia. The characters were charming and the combat was fairly engaging especially when more artes opened up. It does take a bit to get into since the systems in this game are pretty overwhelming when you first start, but once it clicks things are pretty good. I do have to mention the slow walking speed which makes it annoying to traverse the map before you get the Windstepping Talent and the Nimble Feet blessing. However, my main issue with this is it has a massive grinding problem which started to suck the fun out of the experience. Trying to grind out gear with decent skills for every character is an absolute chore filled with RNG, and I can't even imagine how much more painful it is when trying to get x3 skills during an optimized NG+ run since even with boosted odds its only ~6%. So basically: don't grind unless you have nothing better to do with your time.

Also the story is kind of mid tbh. Honestly it's just JRPG junk food with potential for lots of grinding if you're into that. If I could post a mixed review I'd give it that instead.

goForBroke
goForBroke

Armatization was a mistake. Removing the ability to use arts with the right analogue stick was a mistake. Other than that it is an alright tales series game.

sobenna_kahill
sobenna_kahill

I LOVE this game. From online, YouTube, Steam and other reviews I've read, I think this game just doesn't get enough love. It has a stunning visuals, a great story, fun characters, lots of quests and things to do. I enjoy the Tales series battle mechanics in general, although I find this one unnecessarily complicated with the whole equipment/skills stacking system. Post-game content is not worth getting into, but by then the game is done anyway, right? Not really any other complaints. It's not an especially difficult game on normal settings, I probably only used walkthroughs for 2 of the boss battles, the rest weren't so bad. It's a generally easy-going, beautiful game, at times gripping and other times relaxing. Great combo in my opinion. Love the story so much, I went ahead and bought the Zestiria the X TV series!

GingerNinja826
GingerNinja826

At first, I was just gonna skip this entry in the series because of all the mixed reviews. Then it went on sale for a hefty discount and I enjoyed Tales of Berseria & Vesperia so much I decided to give it a try.

I genuinely enjoyed this game quite a bit to be honest. It is still a Tales game that does have some good things going for it. I liked the story and characters, they aren't incredibly innovative or unique compared to other jrpgs but I still enjoyed them. The "stop evil guy who is a reincarnation of an evil guy from a long time ago by getting 4 elemental powers" plot is overused but I felt that there is enough depth in the characters to carry the story.

The issues with this game are mainly just a handful of questionable decisions made by the creators that really detract from the overall experience.

The skill system is overly convoluted and difficult to manage. It's a cool system in theory, but it's too difficult to get the skills you want on the weapons that you want them on. There are too many times that you find a cool new piece of equipment but it's basically useless because it has a useless skill attached to it. Or switching to it will make you lose your good bonus skill that you have with your current weapon.

Getting around the world was a bit rough. You "run" at a pretty slow pace, and while you do get an ability that helps you run faster, you have to charge said ability by winning battles. Which completely negates any time you are trying to save. On top of that, fast travel not only costs in-game currency, but it is way too expensive.

Also, the AI in this game is pretty frustrating. Your ally characters have no idea how to block or dodge attacks, and when you're fighting bosses that usually results in them dying quickly. It wouldn't be a major issue, but you are penalized GREATLY because of it. If they die ONCE and you're forced to use items to bring them back, then your grade (the system that rewards you for how well you fought) is basically shot through no fault of your own. Your allies will repeatedly use the wrong type of art against enemies, allowing the enemies to charge their attacks faster and not take damage.

There are other issues in the game as well that are disappointing oversights for a pc port, like the camera angles getting wonky during battles, or battles taking place in a narrow hallway that make it impossible to move around. Not to mention the 30 fps cap.

That said, there is a lot of potential with this game. I don't think I'd play this version again but if they do a proper "remaster" someday and fix a lot of these issues then I'd probably play it a second time. If you're still on the fence about this one, I'd say either wait for a major discount or a proper remastered version somewhere down the line.

旅人
旅人

Story and music POGG!!! Sasuga Tales of Series🙏

Taiyo Shin
Taiyo Shin

My very first Tales of Game. I love it.

Smalldogvibes
Smalldogvibes

When you've played one Tales game, you've played them all and somehow even after all of that Tales of Zestiria happens to be the most stale of all of them. To top it off, the plot can't even decide what it is half of the time. One day Sorey is some special chosen one like guy, next actually he's not that special theres also a girl called Rose who can do anything. I was not attached to any of these characters.

That said, again it's like any other Tales game so if you want to play them all then sure, it's good enough.

animefan232
animefan232

I have beaten this gem who knows how many times now. it is a blast.

DigitalPhantasm
DigitalPhantasm

This is not by any means a BAD game, despite what the Tales community says online, however it is definitely a flawed one.
The story, while enjoyable and cool, does have a good bit of plot points that never get explained. Some characters motivations and backstories never really get explained, especially the last guy who joins your party who just seems to..exist. Also, a character is introduced in the beginning, you think shes important, and she is a great party member. Then about 9 or 10 hours into this 40+ hour game, they pretty much write her out of the plot and replace her with someone else lmao, and you don't get to see her story properly end unless you buy her DLC chapter...scummy but okay. Overall the plot was good and I enjoyed it, but it was weak in areas.
The gameplay is also pretty good, classic fluid action combat the Tales series is known for. But the biggest annoyance is the new equipment fusion mechanic this game introduces. It is tedious, requires a lot of grinding, and I 100% ignored it because it's a terrible system that I'm glad future games got rid of. Also a side note, this is capped at 30FPS, which was lazy.
Overall I went into this game with low expectations, and while there were flaws, I was surprised that I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would despite some of the flaws. It was still a solid experience throughout and worth buying on a sale..but it is nowhere near the best the franchise has to offer for sure.