During this year's E3 Bandai Namco was rolling out info on their games, and one of those games was Tales of Berseria. They detailed the new battle system and some of the ways in which players would be able to unleash attacks on enemies in the upcoming JRPG.
Game Informer did a write-up on the battle system after meeting with producer Yasuhiro Fukaya, who explained what the differences were between the previous outings of the Tales Of games and this newest Tales of Berseria when it came to the battle system.
For one, it's mentioned that there's the option to assign up to four artes to each of the face buttons. They mention that this will enable gamers to utilize up to 16 different artes during the real-time battles that take place. The artes are moves that can help players out during their fights to unleash combos on enemies. These artes can then be used to help build up the battle gauge called the "Break Soul". Building up three of the gauges will then allow for a Break Soul attack, which can do even more damage to enemies than usual. You can see how some of these attacks work with a video below from YouTuber Japanator, which focuses on Tales of Berseria's battle system.
According to Fukaya, despite the new elements making up the core of the battle system and the new three-gauge combos composing of the Break Soul attacks, they're designing the game to be easily accessible for newcomers as well. Fukaya explained to Game Informer...
It's going to be accessible to anybody, [...] Even new users who never played the Tales Of series can play this one easily, and Tales Of series fans can enjoy this system. Tales Of series fans might feel like it's a little bit too easy to do the battles, but this system also has the Soul Gauge system. You can take soul from the enemy, but the enemy can also take soul from the main characters, so you try to avoid the enemy taking the soul from you as well. It's going to be a deep type of battle. It's not just easy, but it's kind of deep.
Fukaya also explains that this battle system ties into the actual character personalities. For instance, the lead protagonist Velvet has more violent, damage-heavy attacks, where-as some of the other character skills are centered around healing, support, buffs or debuffs. The reason for this is that they're telling a different kind of tale in this particular Tales Of game. Velvet is -- by Fukaya's own definition -- not a cheerful type of girl. A lot of this plays into her ties to being a demon and the fact that she's not the typical good girl that most people have become accustomed to playing in some JRPGs.
You'll be able to join Velvet and the rest of the group on their perilous adventure in early 2017 when Tales of Berseria launches for the PlayStation 4 and PC.
