So, Velvet. Some folks really freak out when they see her shredded outfit with crazy underboob hanging out. I've seen dorks on ResetERA flatly refuse to play the game at all because of it, acting all high and mighty while they white knight for video game characters. They have it dead wrong, though. Velvet, or any of the women in the game, is basically never sexualized. It is never, ever, presented like "Oh look how hot she is". Ever. It isn't a sexy game at all, really. It reminds me of Kill la Kill where certain folks are obsessed with the skimpy outfits - that, again, are almost never presented as "sexy" - and frequently and repeatedly have to tell everyone not to watch it because scary boobies, while totally ignoring that it's about stupidly powerful women and clothes are ultimately the whole point of the story. They don't know any of that, of course, because they didn't bother to watch.
Tales of Berseria is the same way. Velvet wears that torn up outfit with her underboob hanging out because she's a demon and literally doesn't give a shit. She can't feel heat or cold and is strong enough no one would ever try anything with her no matter how much skin she's showing. It's her whole character that she just doesn't care. Refusing to acknowledge her character and the choices this strong independent woman makes kinda seems like the opposite thing the "any anime boobs are bad, akshually" people think they're protesting. Velvet's outfit is one of utility, not titillation, and who are you to say she's wrong.
Now, there are caveats. If you're simply uncomfortable with the outfit that's one thing and I get it. You have kids or get embarrassed playing games with anime girls or whatever, fine. The remaster has tons of extra outfits available from the start and you get no judgement from me if you want to use them. I stopped caring if people saw me playing lewd games a long, long time ago, but you do you. It's the people that want to deny the whole character and miss the whole point of the story and try to convince everyone else not to play it that are the problem.
It's a shame some folks have such a crippling fear of underboob, because Velvet is a really complex character that has a ton of development over the course of the game. You actually play as the bad guys for most of Tales of Berseria. Sure, their fight is ultimately right and you save the world from evil in the end, but for most of the game your party ends up causing a shocking amount of death and destruction and suffering. Velvet feels increasingly remorseful about the sacrifices she has to make and the weight of that guilt nearly tears her apart. Her emotional growth through the story is the best part of Tales of Berseria and shouldn't be missed.
The rest of the game is great as well, which makes it doubly annoying so many people just skip it entirely because of scary underboob. The rest of the cast is genuinely great and it has one of the best child characters in any game I've ever played. The combat system is fun and surprisingly deep, too. The world is great to explore and the endgame content after you finish the story is pretty fantastic. They also did a good job cleaning it up for the remaster and it looks really nice despite originally being released on PlayStation 3 a million years ago. The only negative thing I'll say about Tales of Berseria is that the final story dungeon kinda totally sucks, but my advice there is that if you're stuck you just need to jump down a hole. Find a hole. Any hole. You'll make progress from there.
Anyway, I've been holding onto this rant about Velvet for years now. She's so awesome and the story is so good and it makes me sad some people will never see any of it because they can't get over a silly outfit.
I'll add that I originally played Tales of Berseria on PS4 and I only paid like $7 or something back in 2018. I paid the full $40 for the remaster on Xbox and have absolutely no regrets buying it again. It's a huge, great, game that I love and just want to shout it from the rooftops so more people will give it a chance.
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