Angst? What Angst?: Kyle's father was killed in front of him and his mother was crippled. He's sad about it, but doesn't seem to mind too much even when he remembers. Averted with Loni, who does remember and is upset about it, and with Harold and Judas, who both lose loved ones but just don't show their sadness too openly- Certain skits do show they're still pretty sad about their losses.
Base-Breaking Character: Judas, otherwise known as Leon mostly due to the fact that he is the only returning party member from the original game. While his story arc and interactions are considered to be good, some players had trouble forgiving for his abusive actions in the previous game and how dark he made the first half of the game feel. Then there are those who saw his inclusion as pandering to his diehard fans, especially considering he actually outlives Stahn, the main character of the original game.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: A party of Kyle, Reala, Judas, and Harold are pretty much the only party you will see use of, Nanaly and Loni are usually ditched the first chance the other three come along and stay along.
Complete Monster: Barbatos Goetia, a former member of the Er'ther Army, sold out his people to the Aetherians during the Aeth'er Wars so that he could be on the winning side. Due to the scale of the atrocities he committed, Barbatos's name was removed from history altogether. Following his resurrection by Elraine, Barbatos acts as her personal assassin, going after the heroes who saved the world from the resurrection of the Aethersphere and the superweapon Belcrant. In order to kill two of these heroes, Stahn and Rutee, Babartos uses a little boy as a hostage and threatens to kill him unless they drop their weapons. After they do so, Barbatos kills Stahn and cripples Rutee. Barbatos then tries to kill High Priestess Philia Felice and King Garr Kelvin of Phandaria, the latter of which he attempts to kill after crashing an airship into the royal castle as a distraction. When he returns with Elraine to the past, Barbatos encounters Dymlos, the old enemy who had killed him, and, in revenge, kidnaps a girl who's in love with Dymlos to use her as a hostage to force the weakened Dymlos to duel him. Utterly self-centered, Barbatos's ultimate goal and obsession is to force history to recognize him as a hero, even as he commits every evil deed imaginable and has no comprehension of what true heroism is.
Crazy Is Cool: Harold borders on this. During one skit, she offers Loni some home-cooked food. Loni (correctly) guesses that she's spiked the food with paralysing powder so that she can drag his body off for experimentation, and eats some of Nanaly's food instead. Turns out, Harold knew he'd come to that conclusion and switched the plates.
The full version of her last Mystic Arte, Crazy Comet, is this as well as a Game-Breaker.
Demonic Spiders: Any Reaper or Ghost enemies, which like to teleport around out of reach (usually behind a Stone Wall type enemy) and cast high level magic. Even worse is that where you find one, you will find the other, and it is possible for encounters to comprise of only Ghosts and Reapers constantly casting magic at you and trapping you in a Cycle of Hurting.
The Egg and Cyclops enemies in Spiral Cave are both incredibly annoying for different reasons. The Eggs are annoying because they soak up a ton of damage and ruin your Grade, while the Cyclops teleport around out of reach to cast magic.
Difficulty Spike: The Er'ther Wars segment of the game, where enemies will regularly begin to appear in the level 50s and have large chunks of HP. The game also features several timed missions, introduces some of the Demonic Spider Eye enemies, and the second of several Barbatos fights. Harold joins the party around this time for good reason.
Ensemble Dark Horse: Nanaly Fletch may also be a minor version of this, appearing/announced for spinoff games first before Kyle even appears/get announced. She even appeared overseas first out of all the cast. (She appeared as a cameo boss in Tales of the Abyss.)
How did Judas carry five swords on him when he performed his Big Damn Heroes moment and pull them out so easily? It's hard enough to carry more than two, and he was trying to conceal at least one of them.
Where does Judas keep getting new masks after performing Infernal Suffering?
Good Bad Bugs: The Title Glitch, which done properly boosts characters' growth patterns significantly and nullifies their weak stats.
The summon glitch allowing Nanaly to summon Efreet and Undine, giving her access to two more hi-ougis.
Growing the Beard: Despite some mixed reactions to some story elements, this game is the first to introduce two of the franchise's staples- Grade and the Grade Shop for use on a New Game Plus. It also included a polished (though still slightly unusual) Mystic Arte system.
In a sidequest exclusive to the epilogue, you have to hunt for a flower called Berseria Flower in order to make a medicine required to cure Nanaly’s little brother from his supposedly-incurable illness. Tales of Berseria stars an older sister who is motivated by the death of her little brother, and a sidequest chain in the game centers around making the medicine for a little brother’s supposedly-incurable illness. Worth noting that the origins of both “Berseria” are differentnote Berseria Flower is named as such because it only grows in a soil enhanced by Berselium ores, while Tales of Berseria is named after “berserk”.
"Nanaly" is very similar to the name "Nunally" from Code Geass. What's more, Jun Fukuyama acted in both... as main characters.
Inferred Holocaust: With Elraine creating several Bad Futures, including one spanning a thousand years in length with only three surviving cities, millions of people would have been erased from existence. This is retconned in the end, but it doesn't make it any less horrific.
It Was His Sled: The fact that it is obviously Leon beneath that mask has been lampshaded and parodied quite a bit. Here are afewexamples.
Heck, some dramas treat this as a Paper-Thin Disguise. one good one was when Stahn saw Leon (as Judas) and greeted him as Leon.
Love to Hate: Barbatos Goetia. He's a horrific villain, but also a very over-the-top and entertaining Large Ham, especially in skits. People don't soften the evil things he's done, but love him for his vileness and intelligence.
Low-Tier Letdown: Nanaly. She only has one Mystic Arte, compared to the several that other characters do, and her very fragile playstyle doesn't mesh well with the game's emphasis on defending the spellcasters so they can nuke the field, as Nanaly doesn't output enough damage to justify removing a mage to field her. People tend to ditch her when Harold comes along. A rather unfortunate example, since Nanaly is beloved character-wise.
NO ITEMS EVER!note Barbatos Goetia has a counterattack for when the player uses either items or spells, depending on the fight. The item variant became a popular meme and returns whenever he appears as a Superboss in later Tales games.
Once Original, Now Common: Despite the influence of the game being felt across later installments (see Growing the Beard), it was still made before Tales became known for its deconstructionist plots. As a result, long-term fans who joined in the later installments may find this one difficult to get into. What's more, some fans who heard of this game through Nanaly's importance in later games were somewhat disappointed that the game is more about Reala than her.
Pandering to the Base: Fan response and love for Leon Magnus was so strong that he was not only brought back in this game despite having died in the first, but he was given significant Character Development to acknowledge his flaws and become a much better person. This was so well-received his character as Judas influenced all future portrayals of the character in both spinoff media and the PS2 remake of the original game.
Romantic Plot Tumour: Some people feel Kyle and Reala's romance plot, while well-developed and quite tragic, took the spotlight off of the more interesting side characters, leaving them there for gameplay and comedic purposes rather than any story significance starting in the third part of the game.
Harold may be a minor example, as she only joins the party late in the game and her arc ends fairly abruptly with her brother's death. She does get a few skits afterwards (and one is a Heartwarming Moment), but for the most part afterwards she only serves for exposition and comedic purposes. And to have a full-out mage.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Many plot threads, especially near the end of the game, are quickly glossed over, such as the budding friendship between Harold and Judas over similar ruthless ideals and losses of people close to them, the revelation that Stahn was Dead All Along, with Kyle witnessing his father's death, Phillia possibly recognizing Judas, the Stable Time Loop created by Chaltier's sacrifice (which causes some timey wimeyFridge Logic with the game's ending taken into account) and anything to do with Nanaly and Loni that didn't involve each other to instead focus on Kyle and Reala's relationship. While the development was good to avoid any string strangling that some Tales games suffer with official couples, that's a lot of glossed over material.
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