Game Review: Tales of Berseria (PS4)

Tales of Berseria is both the bleakest and most uplifting game in the Tales series. The game hews to many traditional JRPG elements, including ridiculous outfits, random treasure chests, comic relief character, surprise villain, and thematic devices delivered with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. But Berseria is also unrelentingly dark, with a protagonist who teeters constantly on the brink of true villainy. Overall, Velvet's sheer drive and charisma overpower the weaker gameplay elements, and elevates Tales of Berseria as a giant among other Tales games.

Berseria takes place in a world beset by monsters that were once human. Only spirit creatures called malaks can vanquish them, and exorcists are the trained elite who use malaks as mindless weapons to fight against the scourge. Our main character is Velvet Crowe, a young woman traumatized by betrayal and loss, and sporting a demonic left arm that can consume anything. Imprisoned in solitary and fed monsters for three years, Velvet is released by a malak who serves the man she has sworn revenge against: the Abbey's Shepherd, Artorius, leader of the exorcists and Velvet's brother-in-law. Velvet gathers allies in her all-consuming quest, and together they travel across the oceans--in comically low-tech animation sequences--to achieve their terrible goal.

Story-wise, Tales of Berseria is compelling because it's firmly in the gray area. All the NPCs think Velvet and her group are the bad guys, because they specifically want to destroy humanity's best defense against monsters, for their own selfish reasons. And all the playable characters know it; they just don't care how they're labeled, because a major theme of the game is being true to yourself. Here is a helpful diagram detailing the characters and their motivations:

Velvet is on a roaring rampage of revenge; the demon swordsman Rokurou just wants to kill his older brother, a high-ranking officer in the Abbey; Eizen the pirate malak is looking for his ship's captain, abducted by the Abbey; Laphicet the malak wants to be a person, not a tool; and Eleanor the exorcist is obeying orders to infiltrate the group. And Magilou, dear Magilou, easily the best among the bunch: a powerful, older-than-she-looks witch who frequently points out the group's darkest truths and then immediately ducks behind a facade of laughing indifference. Together, this team leaves a trail of destruction in their wake, led by the implacable Velvet. They're so the bad guys.

The story, with its multiple twists, the deeply sympathetic characters, and the strong voice acting and soundtrack helped me overlook the unimpressive combat system and sad dungeon designs. In terms of combat, fighting with Velvet and co. basically consists of button-mashing. Characters learn Artes, or special moves, that can be assigned to specific buttons, so a keener player would probably excel at executing combos and blocking and whatnot, but impatient players who skip right past densely-worded tutorials must button-mash and hope for the best. Hey, worked for me! On normal mode, victory earns players all sorts of stuff, such as armor and bonus-granting items. I never had to buy anything from stores, and always had materials on hand to enhance my weapons and equipment, so that's a plus.

Meanwhile, the way the story progresses is laughable. Let's just say that the road to revenge has many detours, during which, of course, the characters learn some important background about something or someone that helps them move forward. But perhaps the worst part about all the gallivanting are the dungeons, which are so badly designed that rooms are almost indistinguishable from each other, and cannot be traversed successfully without the mini-map.

Another meh feature in Tales of Berseria are the side quests, which can easily be missed by the inattentive. I ended up doing most of them during the end game, because that's when I noticed that they existed. Yeeks. Players can also send out their ship on brief expeditions to uncover treasures and rare items. And then, naturally, there's cooking and finding recipes. All these little asides are worth it for completionists, of course, but they're...meh.

In conclusion, Berseria's unrelenting grimness is regularly broken by the highly entertaining skits that are a hallmark of the Tales series, so it's not all a howling wilderness of agony and vengeance. As she comes closer to her goal, it becomes clear that Velvet's desire for revenge is so deep because it came from her love, which was endless, especially for her family. And Tales of Berseria ends in a way that honors the pain she endured, the sacrifices she made, the horrors she inflicted, and most of all, the love that was her true strength all along.

TL;DR: Great protagonist, fun characters, and moving story make up for the okay gameplay. Highly recommended!

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Game Review: Shadow of the Tomb Raider (PS4)

Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the darkest, most mature entry in the Tomb Raider trilogy. It's a brisk adventure with familiar gameplay elements, the usual world-ending stakes, and a heroine on the verge of completing the grim journey she started all those years ago. Overall, it's a thrilling action/adventure game that adds more depth to the iconic Tomb Raider.

The game begins in media res: Lara and Jonah are on a damaged helicopter about to plummet into the Peruvian jungle. Cut to: a flashback-slash-game controls tutorial retracing Lara's steps prior to the crash. Then the action starts up properly, and it's tomb raiding we shall go!

Shadow of the Tomb Raider does many things exceptionally well, including gameplay, controls, combat, and sound. In this adventure, Lara is closing in on Trinity, the ancient secret organization responsible for her personal tragedies. The group's leader and second-in-command are now known entities, as is their goal: the knife-and-box combo of Chak Chel and Ix Chel, the two faces of a Mayan goddess, representing life and death. Something something eclipse apocalypse, and only Lara can do a thing on time to save the world!

Early on, Shadow of the Tomb Raider does something unexpected: it has Lara screw up, big time. Now her mission is to fix her mistake, in ways that will be predictable to those who played the previous two Tomb Raider games: raid tombs and kick butt! Sidequests are also introduced, adding a different dimension to Lara's progress.

The most frequent activity here is exploring, which involves gravity-defying leaps and goddesslike upper body strength. (In the recent movie version, Alicia Vikander absolutely nailed how buff Lara would have to be to perform all her feats.) While the visuals in Uncharted: The Lost Legacy are prettier to look at, it's a joy to bound across chasms and scale sheer cliffs in Lara's pursuit of relics, and by the same token, absolutely nerve-wracking to venture into the darkness of vast underground structures littered with bones and corpses and haunted by unseen skittering creatures.

Game controls are easy and intuitive. Movement is effortless: Lara automatically balances when she's on a narrow ledge or ramp, and she never falls off edges. Switching between weapons, and even subcategories within one weapon, is a breeze. Lara can also use different herbs to enhance her abilities, again with simple button combinations. The only issue I encountered, which Hubby commented on, is the difficult camera angle during aiming--Lara tracks targets relatively slowly, so it takes a while to center on an enemy for a shot.

That aside, combat mechanics are terrific. Outnumbered at every turn, our intrepid heroine must use the environment to conceal herself, stealthily removing isolated guards one by one. But if direct confrontation is the only way, she can just as easily take out multiple bad guys with a single strategic shot (at a conveniently-placed barrel of oil, etc.) However, fighting is definitely a challenge; I especially remember the first time I had to face the Ixaal, zombie-like creatures living in fetid subterranean caves. It was like a horror movie, except I had a shotgun and, wouldn't you know it, cases of unused shotgun shells lying around!

Having ammunition always on hand is just one of the many laughable (but fun!) gameplay elements in Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Another are the historical/classified documents scattered everywhere, which is fine with me because they reward observant players and add to the overall story. But the winner of the Unintentionally Humorous category goes to Lara's comically gruesome death sequences. While they're less over-the-top than in the previous installments, they also beg the question: Lara trips and gets impaled on a spike, but doesn't die from inhaling mold or from some viral illness during all her gallivanting? I mean, she literally gets mauled by a jaguar at one point, and is like, "Ow, my back hurts." Plot Armor at its best, folks.

Moving on: costumes! Accessories! Merchants! All of the above make advancing the plot easier, hurray! The costumes are especially satisfying, as they are rewards from completing challenge tombs.

Human connection is a new theme in the game. To that end, the new sidequests feature in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, which are optional, serve to strengthen Lara's ties to the people in the towns she visits, making her more sympathetic. For the main storyline, her most important relationship, apart from with Jonah, is with Unuratu, whose unyielding strength of conviction makes an impression on the adventurer. Like Lara, Unuratu fights against Trinity, against the idea of using power to unilaterally "save" others. "We make our own destiny, together," she declares. Lara would later echo her, after finally realizing that she can't do it all alone.

As with the previous games in the series, Lara's growth is a main focus. In this third and final game, Lara confronts her reasons for hunting Trinity ("I could have had a family."), and her frequently dangerous (to herself and others) obsessiveness. She's come so far from the innocent young woman who washed ashore on a cursed island and had to traumatically kill someone for the first time, in mud and dirt. Shadow of the Tomb Raider gives players that scene again, but this time with a harder Lara, who is *clap* not *clap* having *clap* it. There's also a shot of her wrathfully rising out of water that made Hubby go, "That's badass!"

Yes, she is! And she has learned lessons and she has grown and she has changed. The developers, cast, and crew did a terrific job with Lara, using the trilogy to tell the story of how she eventually became the unflinching, unflappable, sexy af tomb raider of my childhood. It's been a hell of a ride. Thank you all.

Finally, some standout moments from Shadow of the Tomb Raider:

• Players can meet little Lara and understand that surviving serious injury is actually one of her childhood traits!
• Jonah, on Lara's plot-advancing powers: "If it were you, it would've worked." 
• Lara, to a  hidden survival cache: "Come to Lara." Me: @_@

TL;DR: A perfect end to the trilogy. Now waiting for the Uncharted crossover with Zoe and Nadine. It shall be called...Uncharted Raider.

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Game Review: Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (PS4)

Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is absolutely bonkers, in a good way. This particular treasure hunting/murder spree adventure stars Chloe Frazer and Nadine Ross, two popular characters from Nate Drake’s previous runs. It continues the successful Uncharted formula of dazzlingly gorgeous visuals, light banter, running, jumping, shooting, and puzzle-solving. My only beef is that it’s over too quickly, but hey, what a fun ride!

The game is set in India, where Chloe and Nadine are hunting for the legendary Tusk of Ganesh, said to be hidden in the capital of the Hoysala empire (10th-14th AD). As the duo head to their destination, the views are so beautiful that one almost forgets how absurd it is that premodern peoples went through all the trouble of building massive hidden cities with gigantic, elaborate puzzles to protect their artifacts.

Perfectly reasonable-sized gates to a city! Image from Gaming Central.

The story is impressively efficient, offering both an entertaining yarn and parallels to the character’s inner conflicts. Chloe’s daddy issues are at the forefront early on, as she pursues the same treasure that consumed so much of her archaeologist father’s time. Meanwhile, Nadine has issues in the same vein. Shoreline, the mercenary army she led in the previous Uncharted game, was inherited from her father—and her loss of command is a primary motivator for her teaming up with Chloe. At the same time, the game’s antagonist Asav twists the theme of legacy by using his bloodline—which he claims can be traced back to the kings of Hoysala—as justification for his bloody insurgency. Finally, the Tusk of Ganesh that everyone is after is based on the story of the elephant god losing his tusk while defending his father Shiva’s temple. So just…dads.

The gameplay is spectacular, with appropriate times devoted to the separate activities of exploring/jumping/climbing, taking out bad guys, and solving puzzles. Along the way, Chloe in particular absorbs an almost comical amount of damage, none of which slow her down. All the major gameplay elements will be familiar to Uncharted veterans: obvious ledges and handholds, freely available guns and ammo, and impossibly intricate setups that need to be resolved to continue forward. As fun as the puzzles were, driving the jeep, sneaking around for stealth attacks, and narrowly escaping certain death were equally enjoyable. Chloe can pick locks, too!

I also appreciated the minimalist approach to side quests, as in there is only one: collecting tokens scattered around the region to uncover an item that alerts players to nearby treasures. I was pumped about this new feature at first, because I’m a completionist, but it became very distracting after a while. Fortunately, my little spawn cuddled with me through some of my playtime, and I enlisted his help to find “the shinies.” (Real talk: he was not very helpful, but it did divert him from demanding that I find more cranks to operate.)

Also real talk: Fragrant Husband was appalled by my sheer incompetence when it came to gunfights. At the end, the game reported that I had 28% accuracy. Hubby had guessed much lower. :P

Moving on—the dialogue is frequently hilarious. Chloe dishes snappy banter, and has a lighthearted line for even the most stressful situation. In one instance, while being strafed by a helicopter and frantically looking for an RPG, she pops open a weapons container with a hopeful, "Do you go boom?" (Nope.) Nadine straight up reads everyone, friend and foe alike. Chloe gets the worst of it. At one point, Nadine asks her if she and Nate took turns, or just talked over each other. (Good question! Probably the latter.) She also drags Chloe for "wearing red in a jungle combat situation." The later addition of another Uncharted character keeps the humor going even as the tension mounts and the stakes get even higher.

Overall, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is a compact, delightful game with an engaging lead. In one of the later chapters, Chloe exclaims, “That’s crazy! I’ll do it!” and it perfectly sums up the entire ethos of the game. Everything about it is ridiculous in the best way: the vistas, the structures, the tête-à-tête, the mayhem, the grievous bodily injuries, the invincible jeep...Like I said, bonkers. In a good way. I will be there with bells on if Chloe ever sets out on another adventure.

BONUS! Here's a great article from IGN about why it's so nice that Chloe and Nadine partnered up.

TL;DR: A breezy action-adventure for those with 8-10 hours to spare! 

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