Whether you’re a longtime fan or a recent newcomer, you know the Tales of series’ battle system is a trademark of the long running JRPG franchise. Based upon the series’ “Linear Motion Battle System”, the battle system in Tales of Berseria has evolved in the following ways.

Arte
Arte is attack or magic that can be performed by setting it to a button. Players fight against enemies by executing artes. Different characters have different artes and when characters level up, they can acquire new arte. The artes have a special effect like stunning or causing status ailment. It becomes easier to steal Soul from enemies by hitting a weakness, changing the order of artes in the combo.

Soul
Iconized mental power/mana. The number of Soul the character own means the maximum of artes the character can link together in the combo. Players can steal it from enemies and vice versa.

Guard
Players can defend from the enemy’s attack by pushing L1 button to decrease the damage.

Quickstep
Players can quickstep by flicking the left stick while pushing L1 button. Quickstep is good to evade attacks or to move quickly.  A player can get a bonus when they succeed in evading the enemy’s attack with quickstep.
 

An evolution

Big new feature: you can now fully control the camera in battle with the right stick, giving you more control than ever before. Additionally, you can set up multiple artes to the four face buttons on the controller based on your preferred battle style to better execute combos. The concept of “stealing souls” is implemented in the new “Soul Gauge” system that lets you increase/decrease the number of attack combos. This new system brings strategic elements allowing you to change the tempo of attack and defense. The battle system has never been this flexible and strategic.

Soul Gauge

The Soul Gauge is a brand new gameplay feature in the Tales series. It introduces the concept of “stealing” and is new compared to previous systems like TP (Technical Point) or CC (Chain Capacity).

Every arte consumes specific SG points and the gauge is decreased depending on the artes character performs. Even when SG is zero, the player can perform an arte, but the player has various disadvantages, like the attack can be easily repelled. SG can be automatically restored as the certain period of the time goes by. It is recommended to fight considering the balance between attack and defense, like by guarding and waiting for the gauge to be restored.

This gauge shows the number of souls with icons and players fight a battle based on SG under the following rules:

I. Each character participating in a battle owns his/her own “Soul”

II. Characters can perform the artes in one combo up to the number of “Soul”
he/she has.

III. Players can steal “Soul” from an enemy but the enemy can steal the player’s soul too

“Soul” represents a character’s mental power/mana, and all characters participating in battle have “Soul”. The number of souls is three at the beginning of a battle but players can increase the number by meeting a special requirement during a battle.
 

Each party character and enemy owns his/her own “Soul” and players can steal it from enemies. On the other hand, the enemies can steal the party character’s Soul. Thus the number of “Soul” the character owns changes during a battle. It is one of the key points of the battles to keep attention to the number of “Soul” and change the fighting style depending on the situation.

The number of “Soul” can increase or decrease in battle:

•    By knocking out an enemy
•    By stunning enemies or causing status ailments to them
•    By using the specific item or picking up “Soul” on the battle field
•    And more ways to be revealed later

”Soul” also sometimes pops up when a party character is knocked out or when you manage to evade the enemy’s attack with a side or back step.
 

The main conditions that decreases “Soul” are:

•    By being stunned or getting status ailments by enemies
•    And more ways to be revealed in the future

That’s it for now. We hope you’re excited for a brand new battle system to discover and master!