After six months of radio silence on the Tales Of series, things are looking bleak in the franchise's newest game, Tales of Berseria. In, not for, I promise. Officially announced last June at the Tales Of Festival in Tokyo with a few images of stone-faced pirate protagonist Velvet (who looks like a pirate-vampire hybrid freshly emerged from a Hot Topic), Berseria has now gotten its second trailer, showing just what she'll be up against in the franchise's newest, darkest action RPG yet. Even better, a second version of the trailer comes with English subtitles, letting non-Japanese speakers keep up on what's going on.
Turns out, Velvet hasn't led a life of smooth-sailing: beset by people who've transformed into werewolf-like monsters after a mysterious and cataclysmic event (referred to only as "that day" in the trailer), she deals with them through some monstrous powers of her own, transforming one arm into a giant beast claw and wreaking havoc on anything that gets in her way. That carries over into the bit of gameplay footage the trailer offers, showing Velvet in a frenzied state, clawing enemies to death at breakneck pace. Werewolves, beast claws, a bright red moon - is anyone else getting a Bloodborne vibe here?
In addition to expanding on Velvet's role, the trailer also reveals a second major character, a child magic user who apparently needs instruction on how to feel emotions. Based on dialogue within the trailer, he apparently isn't alone - Velvet seems uniquely able to use her emotions to fuel her powers, while her enemies rely on 'reason' to make them stronger. We already have a few clues about how this will work in gameplay - Velvet moves much faster in a frenzied state, and it's possible that magic casting relies on concentration - but the extent of how emotion and reason play into the game will likely be the subject of another, future trailer.
There's currently no release date planned for Tales of Bersaria, though chances are it will launch in Japan sometime in 2016. To tide fans over, Tales of Symphonia is finally seeing a PC release in the west on February 2nd, 2016, so hopefully that can keep everyone's feelings in check for a while.
