LogFAQs > #895914426

5. Velvet Crowe (Tales of Berseria)

https://pa1.narvii.com/6333/90b76ea7e1be65bb4e9a4cbf544fe8abb9f5cbfc_hq.gif

"I really thought I could have my old life back, and I could forget everything else. I tried to act like I was doing it for him, but it was all for myself.
...But I can't forget. I shouldn't forget."

The 'Tales of' series is one that gets harder to appreciate the older you get. Symphonia will always have a special nostalgia-filled place in my heart but it definitely hasn't aged well in any way whatsoever. Vesperia's flaws are starting to stick out more; a big problem being that Yuri Lowell is the soul of that game and he just isn't as special of a character as he used to be. Graces constrained its amazing gameplay with some poor design decisions and its plot was a mess. Xillia came and Xillia went - that's about all I can say on the game! I haven't played Zestiria but considering the public reception it had, I feel safe in my decision not to. In general the Tales series feels like it has been on a slow downward spiral since Symphonia, and I was fairly content in not playing any more of them. Then Berseria went on sale and I figured...why not? Aside from blowing away my expectations and giving me renewed faith in the series (that I know is bound to be broken), Berseria's plot gripped me in ways the series hadn't been able to since I was 13 years old, and at the heart of that plot is its main character, Velvet Crowe.

I'll get the negatives out of the way. Velvet's outfit design is bad - it was in the first promotional material I ever saw for the game and immediately made me roll my eyes. It legitimately looks like something an edgy deviantart teen would make as an outfit for a female lead. Velvet is also prone to monolouging a bit too much at times, and every now and then (especially early on in the game) her voice actress Cristina Vee sounds like she's trying too hard to be dark and brooding. And Velvet makes you ignore all that because of how damn compelling her story arc is. While the rest of the cast of Tales of Berseria is largely stellar, you might as well not have the game without her. There is a more typical save-the-world JRPG plot in Tales of Berseria, but it wisely takes a backseat to Velvet's journey that's full of a lot of emotional highs and lows. This is the kind of bet you take only if you think you have a compelling main character on your hands, and fortunately for Berseria, it paid off.

The concept of a Revenge Story is not even close to being an original one, but Velvet's sheer unbridled pain over what she experienced in the prologue manages to keep tensions high even after dozens of hours into the game. Velvet is an extremely emotional person who is trying to be bottle up all of her pain for the sake of carrying out her glorious revenge. Yeah, because that always makes people feel better. While Velvet usually speaks calmly, preferring to talk in varying combinations of sarcastic, dismissive, or resigned, you always get the sense that there's something bubbling under the surface just waiting to burst out. This is continuously reinforced by the various emotional outbursts Velvet experiences throughout Berseria. Rage, grief, sadness, regret...there is no one-note emotion that defines Velvet, and you'll see all the ones she has before the game is over. Considering the context of each bit where Velvet loses some of her shit, they tend to make for the absolute best scenes in the game, especially since Cristina Vee really brings her A-game when it comes time to scream. They're also paced very well; any more would have veered into melodrama, while any fewer would have dulled the impact. Velvet is one of those rare protagonists that keeps you on your toes even when she isn't doing anything, which is important for sustaining emotional gravitas over 80 hours of JRPG gameplay.
---

Black Turtle did a pretty good job.