The Tales series has been around for over 20 years now and is still going strong. Tales of Berseria, the latest installment of the franchise, will release Jan. 24 and introduce the world to Velvet, a new protagonist with a dark past. Velvet’s past and her journey towards vengeance will play a big role in Tales of Berseria , but there’s a lot that fans won’t expect from the upcoming title.
We sat down with Tales of Berseria ’s producer, Yasuhiro Fukaya, to talk about the upcoming game and what fans in North America should expect from Berseria, including how the battle system has changed and what makes Velvet tick.
Note: The following was lightly edited for clarity.
iDigitalTimes: The ‘Tales’ series is a long-running franchise, how do you expect to keep the same quality as the previous games?
Fukaya: “We understand we need to introduce brand new battle systems, characters, stories in every title. And because it’s a long-running franchise we bring in new members of the development team.
“The big three elements that make the Tales series the Tales series is the story, the characters and the action-packed battle system. By keeping these features, the players can accept almost anything we introduce.
“By keeping these three features, the dev team can introduce new features like history of Tales games before. Like in Berseria, our main character is totally different from the other main characters before, like the boy characters in the older titles. I think many Tales series fans like the action-packed battle system, but maybe it’s a little bit difficult for new players so we innovated the battle system in Berseria. I believe these big changes with the previous three features keeps the Tales series fresh everytime.”
It’s it difficult to balance keeping older fans happy and bringing in new players?
“On that point, the battle system was one of the most difficult features in Berseria.
“We innovated the battle system in Berseria so that players can easily keep the beautiful combos going. But maybe these changes will make fans of the older system think Berseria is too easy. But at the same time, we introduce the Soul Gauge system. The Soul Gauge needs to be filled up so players can execute the Break Soul. Souls can be gathered by defeating enemies, but enemies can take your soul in battle. So this will deepen your strategy in battle and I think it will balance out the difficulty of battle and appeal to both the casual and core players of the series.”
What else is new in the gameplay of Berseria?
“Besides the new battle system, longtime series fans will love Velvet and how she fits in the storyline.
“In Berseria, there are six playable characters, but only four can be played at once. In Berseria you can switch one of your party members with a backup character. Players can enjoy this system because all six members can take part in battle.”
The main character, Velvet, is very different from past protagonists. How did you portray her as a strong female character who can appeal to both boys and girls?
“We actually didn’t take into account how many boy or girl players there are or their ages. We just wanted to introduce the more attractive drama in the story.
“But for the viewpoint from me, as a male player, Velvet has strong emotions and uses any means to achieve her goal. She actually has a strong power in her left-hand but she’s very kind and she takes care of Laphicet and she begins her story with kindness and love. Add in some aspects of horror and she becomes very attractive to everyone and maybe guys [laughs].”
What is the reception towards Velvet in Japan since it’s been released out there already?
“I’m very glad that many users love the combination of these two aspects [horror, kindness].
In the previous Tales titles, there are plenty of young boy protagonists in the story, and most party characters are normally the same age and face the same difficulties or have quarrels within the party but they find the solution to their problems.
But Velvet takes a different path to solving problems and I believe the fans who enjoy the series for a long time think how they are thinking or how to solve a problem and they think it’s very interesting.”
The story of Berseria takes place in the same world as Zesteria but in a different time how was it connecting the two?
“First I want to say, that even though the world of Berseria is the same as Zestiria the player can understand everything in Berseria without ever playing Zestiria.
“Actually it wasn’t so difficult to connect these two worlds. Characters, organizations, territories or tribes, these elements are described in different ways in Berseria. So we had to decide how to describe these aspects in Berseria in a different way. So it’s not so difficult, and I hope players enjoy finding the connections between the two worlds.
“After Zestiria was out in Japan [Jan 22, 2015], around when the Master was approved in 2014 we dipped a little bit into Berseria.
“So we didn’t develop the two titles in tandem but maybe some scenarios Mr. Miyata [the director of Zestiria], maybe he started thinking and implementing the connection between the two worlds. But we didn’t start development of Berseria until after Zestiria.
Now that Berseria is out, is this sort of storytelling going to continue in the future where it’s through time instead of worlds?
“Actually we basically we are going to introduce brand new characters with every new game. There’s some exceptions in the past, like Symphonia, but we don’t change the basic introduction with new features in every new game.
“Not only one director makes all the titles. There are many directors in each title. So maybe the next director of the next game will introduce a brand new character in the future title. And if I can have a part in it, I would create a completely new one.”
