This game is my little pogchamp.

dead game but still as fun as before

~DISCLAIMER~
I review this game as a seperate IP for it's franchise. I will not be comparing game on it's battle system, soundtracks or character comparison.
I have played a lot of Tales games, from Symphonia to Abyss to Grace to Vesperia to Xillia.
My favourite of them all is Abyss for it's introduction to TP system and good character development and best story.

The latest installment JRPG in the Tales of series. Tales of Zestiria is the first Tales of game to be released on PC. You play as a character called Sorey, a human raised by Seraphim. With his best friend and seraph Mikleo, he starts his adventure when he met a girl named Alisha. He soon becomes a Shepard to free malevolence with a goal to reunite humans and seraphim.

Pros :
+ First Tales of game to be released to PC
+ Combat is fluid.
+ Menu is really clean and understandable.
+ Fusion for a duplicate weapon to create the stronger equipment with attributes that helps during battles.
+ Skits and character interaction are hilarious and makes character believable.
+ Open world and on the fly type of battle encounters.
+ Soundtrack fits the environment and the locations.
+ English voice acting are actually great and believable, stays true to each characters personality.
+ No more TP for artes, the game uses SC and BG for artes, combos and armatization to limits combo and removes endless combos.
+ Elements, weakness and status ailment matters during battle.
+ AP system is a good progressive battle assistant. Gives you more flexibility during battle as you go further.
+ Scenery in ruins, field and forest are beautiful and great to look at.
+ The option for dual language audio, Japanese and English.
+ 1080p.

Cons :
- 30 fps locked.
- Graphical problems can occur during battle and cutscene. Textures can stretch and cause artifacts problem. Lens distortion can be visible during cutscene.
- Story development is really slow. Interesting, but really slow.
- Character development can be shown a lot only at skits. Sorey, Rose and Edna's development focus on the story. While the others development are on skits.
- Skits are shown only at save points and point of interest.
- Targeting system is horrid during gameplay, button Tab to switch targets while the game pauses. It doesn't allow players to switch targets nearest easily or freely without pausing.
- Enemies have predictable moveset, causing sidestepping easy to master.
- Pulled an Abyss, removes vocal from opening.
- Not much graphical settings for PC.
- Party member's damage are shown on the UI, making it hard to know your attack dealt how much, causing less pleasure during combat.
- Quest pointers are sometimes confusing.
- Armatization are not balanced even with the element and weakness system.
- Main character is boring and easily predictable whereas the other characters are interesting.

Although this game is the latest installment of it's series, it failed to do justice to the series no matter how graphically improved it is to its game. It does not mean it is bad. It brings potential to a new Tales of games as it has introduced an open world system to the game. With the new battle system for the series, artes are less flashy than previous games. Sorey's character could have portrayed better with more meaning to it, but it falls flat due to the cliché 'friendship = power' plot that you can see from Kingdom Hearts, except much worst. He has the potential to be more interesting, but the others overshadow the protagonist in a more interesting character development on a standpoint.

This game may not be the best in it's series but it is still fun to play no matter how flawed it is. This game is still a good game, no matter how many cons. This game has it's charms to bring newcomers to the series. It is in my opinion a good game, the games price is worthy of it's gameplay. I recommend that it is a great game to start out in the series. Although I wouldn't recommend it as the previous release are console release, the graphical downgrade and different playstyle would hinder players. If you do own a console and don't mind graphical downgrade, you can get this as a start of a series and play previous games.

In the end, I am glad they finally start to reach out to PC gamers. For veterans, Symphonia has already been released and hope for the best for Berseria.
PC gaming are lacking of JRPG as of late and this is a great addition.
Also, I would love if Edna would stop being an ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ to me every battle I am in. JK. Edna is the best character in the game.
I rate it 7.5/10.