Berseria is DEFINITELY definitely my favorite. I'm not even sure what all I can say about it without this post being a mile long; Abyss was my fav for like 15 years and I just finished Berseria a month or so ago and I don't even know what to do with myself now. It has literary merit I've never seen in the whole gotdamn genre before. It blew my expectations for like 3 entire character archetypes COMPLETELY out of the water & the overall character writing is the best I've ever experienced. The voice direction is STUNNINGLY good. The localization is off the chain. The pacing is completely bonkers but it WORKS. This game somehow trained me to get good enough at the combat system that I made it 30min into the post-EX-dungeon final boss fight on Chaos mode before I gave up because it was taking too long, and I don't even PLAY action games. I spent 200 hours on it and I'd NG+ it in a heartbeat. LIFE-CHANGING game.
Tbh I think the best story I have about it is that the first time my wife & I watched the intro video, we zeroed in on Melchior IMMEDIATELY; we were like "who the FUCK is that HAT MAN," & despite having now finished the game, & despite the fact that he's absolutely one of the best villains we've ever seen in any media ever, we still fucking call him "the hat man" instead of his actual name like 90% of the time. I think it suits him. He does illusions. 99 nightmares. It's fine.
I've also had a lot of fun playing Zestiria now that I have Berseria as context; they're SO similar and it's fascinating to see just how underbaked Zesty is by comparison! It's so obvious that its development was REALLY really rushed, & the extent to which they polished especially the gameplay for Berseria is absolutely amazing. But, like, Zestiria has a lot going for it in its own right (it's so funny. I've laughed out loud at it more than I have at any other game ever.) and it's been super cool to see the same story elements that were executed so well in Berseria being kinda fumbled and dropped all over the floor in Zestiria - they had a lot of potential even then! Makes me really happy for the writer; he did what he could with Zestiria on what must have been a really heinous timeline, and with Berseria he got the second chance he needed to really go all-out.
What else... I really do like Abyss as well. I feel like the things about it that still stand out to me are Luke's character arc (just all of it. I can't say anything about it that someone else hasn't said better already) & the way they really leaned into Anise being just. Very 13. She acts 13. I have never seen another character act 13 in the way that Anise acts 13, and I think she's awesome for that. I think it's awesome that they committed to that even though it had to have been obvious that people would be huge haters about her as a result. I feel very represented by Anise; I was probably just about that insufferable as a 13-year-old girl & I want to clink champagne glasses with her about it. Also the character designs for the God Generals have unreal levels of swag, & also also the menu UI in that game is the best they've ever done.
Not sure what we'll play after I'm done with Zestiria's post-game. Arise doesn't really appeal, but there are plenty of older ones I still haven't tried out. I'd like to find a way to play Rebirth sometime, in particular, I think! Got any other recommendations?