Awesome / Tales of Berseria

The very first shot of Velvet in the intro, and it doesn't stop after this.

Most of the Tales games have their fair share of awesome, and Berseria is no exception. Our main character Velvet belts out more than a few, but pretty much every major character gets their own.

WARNING: Per wiki policy, Spoilers Off applies to Awesome Moments pages.

• After the prologue, at the end of the prison island sequence, Velvet comes face to face with Praetor Oscar, and after facing him a damn dragon as well. After an emergency power-up, she kills and eats the dragon and uses its power to blast Oscar in the face with a fireball. And while doing so, she delivers the first of her many Badass Boasts.
  Velvet: My name is Velvet Crowe. And I will devour daemon, malak, and exorcist alike. I Am a Monster. I am a THERION!
• A subtle one, but when Eizen first joins up with Velvet he tosses Velvet his coin and she throws it back. This is the only time the coin ever comes up heads. Given what we know about blessings and domains from Zestiria and the double headed coin skit revealing that Eizen's curse doesn't let it land heads up, Velvet must have overpowered the Reaper's Curse. Perhaps foreshadowing her future status as the Lord of Calamity. She also was possibly passively counteracting the majority of his curse for the rest of the group, allowing them to travel mostly unaffected by it (though it certainly didn't protect everyone else).
• The whole scene after the Hopeless Boss Fight with Artorius is awesome for both Velvet and Laphicet. Velvet absolutely refuses to stay down no matter how readily apparent it becomes that she doesn't stand a chance against Artorius, Laphicet continuously healing her until she can barely even stay conscious even with Laphicet's healing. Then, for a moment all Laphicet's own, once Teresa shows up and tries to force him under her control again Laphicet No Sells it with his own determination.
• Say what you will about how she always seemed to be one step behind the party; Eleanor definitively proves her mettle in her third fight, where she takes on Velvet alone. Her last two losses were due to her fighting against a party of four; this time, against the leader of Magilou's Menagerie, she not only puts up an excellent fight, she wins, and Velvet needs to get dirty to cheat her way to a win. This means, in terms of pure skill, Eleanor actually beat Velvet in a fair fight. Immediately afterwards, too, Eleanor once again proves her mettle, fully willing to attempt offing herself just to deprive Velvet of her victory.
• Magilou preventing Melchior from reaching the party by enduring Melchior repeatedly breaking her heart over and over. She even gives a very dark "No More Holding Back" Speech about how she feels nothing, and how she just has to see how this all ends. Even for a jaded cynic, that takes some guts, especially when you remember that Melchior was her foster parent and teacher. She still doesn't let up.
  • When Velvet and the rest of the party returns from the earthpulse where they fought previously with Innominat and reunites with Magilou, they fight against Melchior and Silva. Being overwhelmed by the party, Melchior proceeds to summon daemon Aifread to support him. When it looks another battle is going to happen, then Zaveid appears and shoots both Melchior and Aifread back into the earthpulse, saving the day.
• Laphicet snaps Velvet out of her Heroic BSoD by delivering a "No More Holding Back" Speech of his own. While almost being devoured by Innominat, he outright admits that Velvet is a complicated mess of emotions, but she's also the one who gave him a name when he was a number and allowed him to experience the world. Despite her being the Lord of Calamity, he doesn't want to live in a world without her.
  Laphicet: Will you STOP WHINING?!
  • As if this were not awesome enough, due to Laphicet grabbing Velvet by her Therion hand, her claws start digging into his arm and eating it on instinct. Velvet starts to panic and tells him to let go before she really hurts him. Laphicet responds in a manner that causes him to take about five levels of badass per word.
    Laphicet: Eat my arm. I don't care. Just... leave me the other one. I need it to clobber the jerk who made my Velvet cry!
  • He later makes good on that promise when he squares off against Innominat by himself while the party has to fight a dragon. Right when Innominat is about land a fatal blow, Laphicet holds up his compass to block the attack. This destroys the compass, but gives Laphicet enough time to literally punch Innominat in the face!
  • Eizen gets his own awesome moment during this scene too. When Innominant begins to suck up Velvet and Laphicet, he refuses to let this happen so he uses his chain artes to hold himself, Laphicet, and Velvet from being sucked up. The kicker is him telling Laphicet to get her to listen.
    Eizen: Laphicet, tell this self-absorbed idiot what she needs to hear!
  • While it's somewhat of a Tear Jerker, Velvet finally admitting she still loves Arthur and Innominat!Laphicet, despite everything, is an awesome moment as well, mainly because of the stellar voice acting.
    Velvet: (voice breaking) I...I loved them all...I loved Laphi, and Celica....Arthur, everyone...To have it all stolen from me...Why them? Why not me...? (sobbing) IT HURT SO MUCH!!!
• During the third battle against Shigure, have Rokurou be in your active party. Then, let Shigure activate his Mystic Arte. Right as it cuts to him preparing Rangetsu Eagle Rokurou, having learned how to counter the move, steps in with his Kurogane blade and intercepts with Rangetsu Final Judgement, effectively negating the Mystic Arte.
  • How he beats Shigure also deserves a mention even if Rokurou admits that Shigure is still the better swordsman. He uses his two swords to catch Shigure's sword and tosses all three weapons up in the air and while Shigure is stunned, Rokurou draws out his third sword and cuts Shigure down in one blow.
  • And then there's Shigure himself. While the others exorcists rely on their Malaks to enhance their powers, Shigure asks his Malak, a fat cat named Morgrim, to restrain his body. This means he took on the party in his previous encounters in a much weaker state. The party promptly soil themselves in reaction to knowing this.
• After Melchior's boss fight, Velvet consumes his soul. With four high-ranking souls ready to burn, Velvet begins the ritual to awake the Empyreans by diving headfirst into a volcano.
  Velvet: Hey Empyreans! The Lord of Calamity is here! WAKE THE HELL UP!
• After the drama following Kamoana's boss fight, Oscar tries to justify the Abbey's actions to a distraught Eleanor. Velvet provides some catharsis by rushing past her and shutting Oscar up with a kick to the face, knocking him out cold in the process.
• A basic understanding of the setting and how the world works reveals Eleanor to be a walking manifestation of awesome. Eleanor Hume might just be the greatest Determinator in the entire Tales Of series. To explain; Desolation is a world where strong negative emotions turn people into Daemons. There are few ways to revert back from becoming a Daemon, and it is all too depressingly easy for someone to end up a Daemon. Anything can become a Daemon - rocks, trees, animals, humans. All they have to do is have one terrible day. Velvet becomes who she is because she gave in and became a Daemon when she saw her brother become sacrificed. Jealousy and ambition made Rokurou a Daemon. The only reason Magilou isn't a Daemon is because she can't feel anymore. And yet Eleanor has managed to maintain her humanity despite what might be a lifelong Trauma Conga Line; she lost her mother to Daemons, suffered horrific scarring to her abdomen and back, watched as hundreds if not thousands of people lost their homes and lives to the Daemon scourge (and Eleanor is empathic to a fault, to the point she'll cry if anyone suffers any degree of indignity), realized the religion she fought for was a lie, and lost everything when she was forced to betray the Abbey she believed so hard in to do the right thing. Despite this, she never complains, she never moans and groans, and in general she ends up serving as a beacon of positivity in the party. She has a lot of underlying traumatic issues, but she always bounces back from every tragedy that befalls her. She is Incorruptible Pure Pureness distilled.
  • This gets even better once one realizes she's able to walk completely unhindered in the malevolence that Velvet just passively creates, which would cause lesser humans to be wracked with pain and become consumed by Daemonblight. Not only that, she actually embodies everything good about the Abbey more than its Shepherd, Artorious, does. Even the man who has given away all of his emotions in favor of pure logic has a small amount of malevolence in him that he can freely call upon. Perhaps it's only fitting that Eleanor is heavily implied to become the first Shepherd to popularize the term and start the process of changing Daemons back into their original forms.
• After the Final Boss fight, Artorius still decides to fight Velvet in a one-on-one, even destroying Velvet's wrist blade. This doesn't stop her as she then decides to punch Artorius who catches it. So she then uses her therion arm to try to devour him and still is blocked. So what does Velvet do? Headbutts and eats him to wrench Innominat out of Artorius, flip kicks the sword out of his hand, hammers him down to the ground, and finally stabs Artorius with his own sword. And all the while, Velvet is repeating the very same words Artorius said to her in the very first scene in the game.
  Velvet: Arthur's Forgotten Maxim: "Don't despair... NO MATTER WHAT!"
• Just before the final boss fight, there is a cutscene fight between the heroes and the villains. Now, obviously, as expected of the protagonist, Velvet gets a good kick on Artorius. However, much like in the vein of how Jade was the only one besides Luke to get a hit in on the final boss in the Abyss anime, some of the other heroes get some hits in, too. Notably:
  • Innominat was affected by Laphicet's punch to the face and later tells him that he can't figure out how he feels about it. Laphicet's response?
    Malak!Laphicet: Then I'll just have to hit you again and see if that helps.
  • Eizen manages to briefly catch Innominat off guard and elbow him in the chest.
  • Magilou catches Artorius off guard as he's fighting Velvet and Rokurou and gets an Explode spell to nick him.
  • It's also amazing to see how great they work together now. You had to fight everyone except Magilou for them to join the party and they were butting heads all over but now they know and trust each other completely and it shows. Whenever someone gets rebuffed someone else is immediately there to cover them, everyone's weaknesses are covered and their team attacks are as coordinated as if they had been practicing. And all of that without any verbal communication between them. In a way, this cutscene recreates how the party actually fights during actual gameplay, and if the player is skilled enough, they can keep that momentum going through the actual boss fight.

---