Bersaria takes place several hundred years before last year's tales of game, Zesteria. While there are some tie ins to Zesteria you don't need to have played it to understand the story at all. Every single complaint lodged against Zesteria has been fixed or improved in Bersaria. Battle System The combo weakness system returns along with Blast Gague BG but instead of an SC/Stamina meter you have a soul gauge where each soul gauge holds a certain amount of points and any non defensive action costs SG. To perform certain special actions an SG is permanently consumed and given to the enemy you attacked. If you kill an enemy you get an SG. When you start a battle you can only perform 3 hit combos because you only have 3 SG. Pros: -Smooth action battle system, soul burst mechanic allows you to easily chain combos almost infinitely -Interesting characters in terms of personality and play style in battle -Good storyline -Significantly improved camera in battles -Party member AI (better than Zesteria) Cons: -Party member AI (Still worthless on Intense and higher) -Some of the quest markers and objective indicators hold your hand a bit too much -Nitpick: There feels like a sharp increase in difficulty between Hard and Intense. While hard is not a challenge for veterans of the Tales series. Intense is so grueling it's hard to choose between them. Summary: One of the best tales games in recent history. It even rivals Vesperia.