Johnny Novgorod said:
I've only played Tales of the Abyss.
Are Zestiria/Berseria better than that?
Zestiria is pretty much disliked (I think is a decent enough entry with the exception of it's terrible DLC side-story, but we had worse) while Berseria is pretty much considered to be best in quite a while. If it's better than Abyss gameplay-wise I couldn't say, if you didn't like (or at least tolerated) it's gameplay then Zestiria\Berseria won't sell on the franchise. In fact I think Berseria it's one of the most annoying when it comes to it's combat system thanks to introduction of it's stamina bar that dimish every time you get dizzy or get status effects in battle, so the worse you do, the more dificult it becames. And while they introduced a new way to do combat, it only means that every so often you have to spam O instead of X to win... I found no real reason to mix and match diferent attacks, I set up one combo in each face button and spammed my way to victory. (Played in Normal mode, Hard Mode might not be as simple)
Zestiria is more akin to Abyss combat-wise, however Sorey and Alisha (And later in the game Rose) are always in the party with two of other 4 characters to take the remaining slots. That's because Sorey and Rose can do fusions with the remaining two characters and this makes the game an cakewalk, since not only you get stronger, but whenever Sorey or Rose falls they can use fusion as a ressurection, bringing them back to fight and this can be done multiple times in battle (Rose will use it a lot... AI is stupid).
Story wise I'd rate Berseria above Abyss while Zesteria below that. Zestiria it's a far more Goody-Good versus Child-Eating-Evil... It can be best summarized by "King Jesus Arthur versus Satan", it tries to throw some shade at it a few times but it always end up flat. Some people would say Berseria it's a story of revenge and a fall of grace, I disagree on the latter, Berseria story is about revenge and I think it let's pretty clear it's a pretty grey one where no one (save for a few of characters who fall into good and evil) are truly good or truly evil, they are all fighting for something be either themselfs, their version of a better world or each other. So it's a far more relatable plot and character than Zestiria.
I'd recommend it, I think both are good games, although Berseria is the better one.
Yes, I know I am into the minority in liking Zestiria, but I think is worth a shot at least, at the very least if will complement Berseria a bit... Or just watch the Zestiria anime, it's on it's second season so someone must think it's good enough to watch it.
