Master Combat Basics in Tales of Berseria Remastered

AntMag.NET

The majority of Tales of Berseria's gameplay revolves around combat against field enemies and bosses throughout the entire story. The following will cover the basics of combat, focusing on changes between the previous Tales games.

Character Movement

In previous Tales games the player-controlled character was locked to a 2D plane of movement within a 3D environment, requiring holding an additional button would allow free-run to evade for a short period at the cost of CC. In Berseria, the 2D plane of movement has been removed in favor of constant free-run ability, which allows you to evade attacks easily and line-up up character's attacks with more efficiency. This means that you'll need to master moving in combat while rotating the camera to spot enemies that may attack from behind.

Health & KO

Every playable character has a set pool of Health Points (HP) that is slowly diminished in combat by damage from enemies. If a character is reduced to zero HP they will be KO'd and be unusable in battle until revived or until the end of combat, at which point all KO'd characters are restored to 1 HP. HP can be restores by eating consumable gels, in or out of battle, while healing artes can be used in battle to keep a healthy pool of HP for characters on the field.

Attacking & Artes

There are three types of attacks: Martial, Hidden, and Malak artes with all characters using 2 of the 3 available arte styles.

Martial Artes: These attacks are melee attacks, with damage based on the character's Attack and the enemy's Defense.
Hidden Artes: More powerful melee artes that consume more SG, with damage based on the character's Attack and Arte Attack and the enemy's Defense and Arte Defense.
Malak Artes: Spells that can be offensive or defensive and require time to cast, with damage based on the character's Arte Attack and the enemy's Arte Defense.

Every character has their own unique set of artes, which you can program to the controller buttons via the arte tree. Non-controlled characters will use any artes turned On in their artes table, accessed via the Artes tab in the main menu or during combat. Using artes that chain well together to exploit an enemy's weakness, or hitting all weak points, will help you defeat enemies quickly with a power hits combo.

Guarding & Quicksteps

The most important part of combat is damage mitigation through guarding and quickstepping to avoid attacks. While not attacking, hold L1 to guard against attacks and take less damage or use the Left Analog to quickstep in any direction. Properly evaded attacks will result in a soul appearing on the field, which can be collected if the character is carrying less than 5 souls, and will also allow you to quickly get in counterattacks.

As you progress through the game you'll unlock charge abilities when you guard for an extended period of time:

Sharpshooter's Ventite - Guard for 1 second to double the chance of inflicting a status ailment on the next attack
Paladin's Ventite - Guard for 1.5 seconds to regain 30 SG
Guardbreaker's Ventite - Guard for 2 seconds to increase the chance of inflicting a status ailment on the next attack, which can't be blocked

Soul Gauge & Break Souls

The Soul Gauge (SG) represents a character's attacking ability, with a set amount of the SG consumed for each arte performed in combat. At the beginning of combat you'll have access to 3 Souls, with each soul containing 30 SG energy, though additional souls can be obtained during combat, with a maximum of 5 souls being available at one time.

Soul management rules:

Gain an additional soul when an enemy receives a status ailment
Gain an additional soul when an enemy is defeated
Gain an additional soul when a Mystic Arte is performed
Lose a soul when a status ailment is received

In addition, souls are dropped on the field when you evade an enemy attack just before it hits by quickstepping or upon a character's death.

Unlike previous games, which used a similar system to determine the number of attacks available, Berseria allows a character to attack even when the SG bar is diminished. Attacking with empty SG results in attacks being blocked or counterattacked more frequently, meaning your attacks are less effective.

When the character gains 3 or more souls they can perform a Break Soul ability, which consumes one soul in order to ignore chain limits and heal HP and status ailments. Note that using a Break Soul will result in the enemy gaining an additional soul and each character has a different type of Break Soul ability.

Blast Gauge & Mystic Artes

The Blast Gauge (BG) is a feature from Tales of Zestiria, but rather than determining the use of armatization it allows the characters to unleash hidden abilities and perform Mystic Artes. At the start of battle each character regains a small amount of the BG based on the overall usage of their martial/hidden/malak artes, an incentive to use all artes regularly, and can earned in combat by performing Break Souls.

When the Blast Gauge is reaches 3, any character with a Mystic Arte can perform an ultimate attack by holding L2 during a combo. Note that the combo's attacks must not be blocked by the enemy and the use of a Mystic Arte will consume 3 BG.

Dire Foes

After obtaining the Daredevil's Ventite there is a chance of encountering Dire Foes after an initial battle, based on the amount of grade obtained and the number of consecutive battles on a single map. These powerful enemies always spawn after an initial fight and are accompanied by two invincible standard-type enemies, with future encounters with the same Dire Foe becoming harder each time you defeat it.

Why engage these enemies? They offer a large amount of grade that will quickly allow you Master gear and each has a trophy attached to it.