Oh yeah, I beat Tales of Zestiria. It's... eh. It's not the worst out there but definitely a far cry from the best. Although it had things going for it, the negatives weighed it down significantly.

Let's start with the battle system, which Namco dubbed "Fusionic Chain Linear Motion Battle System," whatever the fuck that means. Instead of teleporting to another screen the fight happens right there on the map, à la Chrono Trigger. Good idea in theory. Unfortunately the team never worked out all the bugs. Anyone who's seen me play this game realizes the camera has a will of its own and at one point I spent a whole fight looking up a fairy's vagina. I have no idea why anyone thought this was OK. It's not Assassin's Creed: Unity levels, but it's still completely unacceptable. How many times do you enter a battle in an RPG? Surely just one playthrough would've sent up signals that there needed to be more time spent on the code.

Admittedly with Tales games characters can be a hit or a miss. Luke fon Fabre from Abyss displayed some of the greatest development I've ever seen in a video game. Jude from Xillia has a really complex personality: He's quiet and thoughtful but not submissive, he's soft but can fight if he needs to, he seems innocent but can produce dirty jokes... There's many aspects to him, and that's how human beings are. Then on the other side you have people like Colette from Symphonia or Rita from Vesperia whom you can tell from day one how they're going to act for the rest of the game. And Zestiria falls into that latter category. Although Zaveid is hilarious and there are flashes of progression, overall the characters felt flat and the conversation between them forced at times. This was not the best party I've worked with.

Graphics are a definite improvement. It's not Final Fantasy XV, but the best I've seen so far in the series. I still prefer a fixed camera instead of this 3D stuff because I feel they haven't developed the same level of detail, although the gap is narrowing. Personally I liked Vesperia's the best because that type of cell shading appeals to me aesthetically, but that's just a personal opinion.

Dungeons ranged. I lamented back in my Hearts review that games are dropping puzzles, and Zestiria did incorporate pretty interesting ones... for some of the dungeons. There were a lot that reverted back to none at all. Yeah, OK, they had doors that could only be opened with a certain elemental move or gaps that had to be traversed with wind or boulders broken with earth, that became monotonous after the third dungeon that featured only that. It's a shame because for those that did feature puzzles were interesting, so you'd hope all of them would have that. At least most of them weren't linear as I've complained. They usually had at least two or three different paths to take before you reached the end, so it gave some excitement of exploration.

So what is good? Well, the premise and plot is interesting. Tales games get me thinking; usually you can appreciate the antagonist's viewpoint even if you think it's crazy or you disagree. You can understand the steps that were taken to get to that conclusion. Zestiria's backstory puts everyone in a bad light. Although that antagonist behaved horribly, the "good guys" reacted poorly as well. It's this gray zone that I enjoy. However the main party is completely correct and any attempts to say otherwise is laughable; a henchwoman Symonne justifies her actions by saying malevolence is better because everyone is freer or... something. I don't know, it didn't make any sense. In a way I wish we could've been that previous generation and personally experienced that gray zone, but the protagonist is so pure-hearted it would've been impossible.

Music! Legendia's Go Shiina did some tracks here and they are fucking amazing. This was a far cry from Sakuraba's heyday, but he's improved from the shit he produced in Graces. I would say it's even better than Xillia's.

So yeah, Namco was experimenting with this one. But they fucked up. It's not terrible and if you need a JRPG on the PS4 then this one is pretty short, but it would never be the first Tales game I'd recommend to anyone.