[Edit two years later on 2/26/24 for some minor errors (spelling, etc.)]

Overall: This game is perfectly serviceable on its own, but it's not Tales. I really hope this isn't the way forward for what has been my favorite series for nearly two decades.

Completed all sidequests (pre-final boss), minus most of the training area stuff.

Clear save was at ~71 hours

Level 61

Rating: 7.5/10

I always play Tales games with guides because there's so much that you can easily miss (extended sidequests with multiple parts, some of the costumes, etc.). However, since this was yet another release without a physical guide, and since it came out everywhere on release day, I obv didn't use a guide. I was a bit nervous going into it because I didn't want to miss stuff, but this game is ridiculously linear and marks available quests on the map for you, so I don't feel like I missed...anything, really.

Characters: 4.5/5

This is another entry into the very short list of Tales games in which I like the whole party. I enjoyed the variety of backgrounds and belief systems, and approaches to problems. I liked that they were kind of paired off, which added further depth to the dynamic. I loved walking around as Rinwell, and she definitely grew a lot as a person, but sometimes she was a little irksome. I loved Dohalim's story.

Story: 3.5/5

Does that seem low? I think the story was solid enough. I was very pleased with the ending. Getting there was just a little messy. The pacing was off, I guess. When the two main characters decide in the first couple of hours that they're going to defeat all of the Renan lords, you expect that to be most of the game, with lots of little stuff in between. Think Symphonia with going to all of the temples--a lot happens in between each one. There are so few actual locations in each domain in Arise that it all feels rushed until after that task is complete and the party realizes the Actual Problem hasn't been dealt with. There were predictable parts (though predictability is not necessarily a bad thing, as a writer just doing random shit trying to trick a reader/player without it even making sense is way worse), and there were some good reveals/twists. The overarching two worlds/slaves/energy collection stuff is all very Symphonia. Not in a bad way; it felt like an ode to the classics but with a new spin.

Music: 2.5/5

This was pretty disappointing. None of it was bad; it actually all suited the game well enough. But I could not hum a single tune from the game for you right now if you asked me to. Nothing stood out to me like it usually does, like getting to a new area and going, "Ooh, I like this music." Also, almost none of it felt particularly Tales. No chh-chh-chh sounds in the music of a forest area like pretty much every game in the series, no little folksy flute village theme. Not really any of the tell-tale Tales sounds in general.

Locations/Exploration: 3.5/5

Speaking of towns, each main domain only really has like, the capital and MAYBE one other town. There weren't lots of little small villages to visit and help people in. The game is very much focused on the main objective and little else. While linearity in some regards was welcome, the quick, occasional sidequests in the major areas don't have the same feeling as exploring a vast world that has lots of stops along the way to major plot points. I suppose this is explained away by the whole five domains thing, and maybe the Renans wanting to keep the Dahnans in centralized locations, but that's definitely something that, looking back, I realize left me feeling like something was missing.

Otherwise, lots of beautiful, detailed locations to traverse.

The map is fully visible as soon as you enter an area, minus what each exit leads to, and treasure/mining placement. This definitely sped up the process of exploring each area, as you could just focus on each dead end first and not guess about which direction to try. The fast travel was wonderful and saved a lot of time when it came to sidequests, but there wasn't too much need for backtracking otherwise. These could be pros or cons depending on your preference.

This point kind of goes in tandem with the map, but...there are no puzzles in this game. Dungeon maps are like any other area. There were never any twisty, wonky teleporters to figure out, or switches to alternate or anything. It was all very straightforward. Having just replayed Graces before this, which has a ton of insanely annoying puzzles (even with a guide), I was fine with not dealing with that level of frustration, but never having to do any kind of puzzle or even an ice-sliding minigame was weird.

Combat: 4/5

I do quite enjoy this new combat overall. It still feels kind of Tales-like and it runs super smoothly. The boost attacks are like a Super Upgrade 6.0 version of the links from Xillia. It gets to the point where they charge so fast you're just boosting to use them for damage rather than the strategy aspect.

I'm just not a fan of how limited you are in the number of artes that you can set and the fact that they're set to different buttons. I've spent a long time being able to have four artes set to the left stick and Circle or B, and then another four set to the right stick. Yes, you unlock being able to set 3 more ground and aerial artes while holding L2 after getting your full party, but it's still not great. The split of 3 ground/3 aerial artes was not my favorite. Aerial artes went woefully underutilized for me. Most of the time I just wanted to be able to use the ground artes I had set while I was in the air, and I'd forget they wouldn't work. I used Dohalim for more than half the game so I got into a rhythm with it, but I don't understand the change from one button + stick to three different buttons.

There are some skits about how Dahnan and Renan astral artes look different and I…could not tell you what that difference is? Everything in battles is just so colorful and chaotic and I really didn't pay enough attention to what anyone else was doing. Like, I can tell you the element of an arte if I saw it, but not who was casting just by looking.

Crafting and Cooking:(not really rating this; just thoughts on it)

These were both quite simple systems, which was nice. I only occasionally made accessories, but I kept up with weapons and I think I got all of the recipes. I loved the campsite addition to the game. That is def a new feature that I enjoyed and think should become a staple.

Other:

One other main thing to note is how experience/leveling up worked, which is...I'm not sure? Within the first few days of playing, I tried looking it up to see why it was so wonky but never found a straight answer. Essentially, all of my characters had the same amount of earned exp, and none had been dead at the end of a battle. However, in the early game, Alphen was obviously ahead since you have him solo first, but then for a while, Shionne was like half a level ahead. Rinwell stayed a good half level behind the next lowest person until the party was in the mid-30s, while everyone else just kind of sporadically took turns levelling the fastest. No one ever got two levels ahead, but it was still odd.

Also, it's nearly impossible to grind until the final area, where the experience is pretty high. Every time you enter a new area, monsters tend to be about 3 levels higher than you if you've been just fighting everything you pass as you go through the game. You'll even out with them before going to the next area, but if you try to do more than that, experience is just shit and you'd have to spend hours chaining for still-paltry exp.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with this game. I was playing pretty neck-and-neck with my friend, so that kind of upped the ante while playing each day. One of us would get ahead and when the other would catch up, we'd gush over certain areas or artes or whatever. He's probably going to finish it today.

I missed Tales staples like Katz/Turtlez and was disappointed in the music. I think they really made this an easy-mode game with the lack of puzzles and such. Since I prefer playing this series with a guide, I'm sure that sounds hypocritical, but a lot was truly lost by making the game so walk/talk/combat/repeat with little else in between. A lot of that Tales luster was lost because of that, regardless of how "vaguely Tales" other aspects were.

My friends asked where I place this amongst other Tales games, and I honestly haven't tried ranking the series other than my favorite being Xillia with Berseria coming up a very close second. I think it's very middle of the road of the new style of Tales (everything post-Vesperia where combat got a bit quicker and we lost the world maps). I might post the ranking I tried making up last night a bit later, but for now, I think this is safely tied with Zestiria in the middle. (I actually liked Zestiria, so don't think that other people thinking it's trash means this one is to me. Arise is also so different from previous entries that it's hard to really compare it with previous games.)

The move away from self-sacrifice endings, FINALLY, earned this game serious points. Just a note.

Great game. This was my first tales of experience so I didn't know what to expect But the overall experience was satisfying.

• Story : 4/5 It could be a 5/5. The first part is really good but what ruins the story is the ending part. Everything was so out of place like WTF I really don't know how they ruined it. They could have just gone a more simple way and also the 2d animations were meh.... I mean come on Ufotable can do better
• Gameplay 5/5 At fist I thought it was a turn based RPG as a lot of my friends told it was like final fantasy from sakaguchi era. But I really liked this action RPG approach. I also played scarlet nexus earlier this year. My biggest complain was you can't change characters in battle so tales of arise is a better experience for me. still i wish the enemy design was a little bit better
• characters 5/5 Thats the best part of the game even if the story at the end is a bit messy but the characters easily fills the gap. They are memorable and likable

Overall a great game definitely recommended. even if you dont know anything about tales of you will still like this game

It took some time, but Tales of Arise did click with me! This is the second game in the franchise that I actually finish and although I expected a little bit more from it, I'm amazed with how it slowly became a game that I just couldn't put down.

This is a gorgeous game! The environments, enemies, character design and combat effects are great. It's a stunning experience featuring soothing scenarios and bleak dungeons.

While I initially didn't like the main cast, I ended up loving them towards the end. Character development is strong, well-constructed and pays off in the conclusion. By the end of the game I was almost part of the group and I think the more mature approach in the writting is the reason.

The story is also beautiful! It is a very long game, but throughly well-paced (except for the second half) and genuinely well told. There are so many nuances to each thing you uncover in the story and so many surprises and plot twists that it's hard to talk about it without spoiling anything. But trust me, it is a very deep and beautiful story, with nice character interactions, a good message and a charming ending.

But the true highlight of Tales of Arise is the combat. My god, it is fantastic! Fun, fast, addicting and a bit confusing, but powerful! It's definitely one of the best battle systems I've ever played in an Action JRPG game. It might not be as tactical as the likes of Vesperia, but it's definitely more engaging.

You get to feel that through boss fights. They're epic and amazing. Each one plays differently and you have to adapt to it. It's a shame that with so many things happening at the same time, battling a few of them (especially fights against the lords) can be quite confusing, with some of them being damage sponges. But they're great, nonetheless.

And while I may be gushing over this game, it does comes with a few notable flaws. The worst one is how generic it may seem at first. It actually took me a long while to finally get hooked, but when it did it hit hard! I'm not sure what it is, but there's something holding this game back from being truly incredible, in my opinion. Maybe it's the soundtrack. Good JRPGS are synonymous with fantastic OSTs and this one is just extremely forgettable. Side quests are also a mixed bag. Sometimes you're facing an incredible tough optional boss fight, sometimes you're cooking or collecting hidden owls. It's unbalanced.

I also disliked how they approached the second half of the game. It cuts the pacing of the entire story, slows things down, throws a bunch of exposition at you and stuffs you with a lot of dialogue. And I do mean A LOT OF DIALOGUES. It gets really boring before it picks itself back up again.

AND WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE MONEY IN THIS GAME? EVERYTHING IS TOO EXPENSIVE!

Tales of Arise brought back the feeling of experiencing a good traditional action JRPG. It is quite a journey and one that I won't easily forget. Took a while to convince me, but I'm really glad it did.

Firmly mediocre game that doesn't do anything exceptional. Play it if you like JRPGs; skip if you don't like JRPGs. To expand on this short review with some scatterbrained thoughts. Played around 95 hours on hard with no cheat 'DLCs'. Never played TALES game before.

SPOILERESS REVIEW

Premise of the game is: race of aliens is enslaving the race of protagonist person to leech space energy from them; you, the protagonist (an amnesiac), embark on a mission to shed the shackles of slavery and discover your past.

Sounds boring? Because it is. Story has an odd structure of being split in two; and each of the halves having three acts each. Second half of the game feels borderline like sequel. If you had your fill after the first big half (you will know when it is) it's a good point to end your journey with the game composing some headcanon ending. There's pretty big chance that whatever your headcanon is it won't be worse than actual ending. It's hard to judge story as one because of the split; the first one is at least competent, second half is dreadful.

Protagonist can only be described as 'stupid good' with 0 nuance to him and he stays the same throughout the game.

The antagonist is an afterthought and his last appearance will probably make you laugh with how silly it is. There's a second antagonist, but that 'character' is even worse than the other one.

90% of sidequests come down to killing monsters and are there to give you extra story/character bits and level up/give you currency or consumables.

Throughout your journey you will meet companions. Some of them are teenagers and they act like teenagers. If you are not used to JRPG teenage characters you might have an issue with not finding them frustratingly annoying. There're adult companions, and one of them pretty much made the whole game bearable for me (when I put him in stylish sunglasses I couldn't stop myself from laughing my ass off). Companions are also 'stupid good'. 'Stupid good' but reckless then a little less so. 'Stupid good' but 'racist (racist in quotes because I wouldn't say that hating on the race of aliens that enslaved your people and killed your family is racist). Etc.

Combat in the game is chaos, with awful camera, brainless AI companions (I had to use resurrecting item around 20 times in one boss encounter because they just kept dying even when their strategy was set to staying away from enemy at all times), meaningless combo points system. You play as a party of 4, but control one character at the time. Combat strategies that are usable in normal encounters are completely unusable for bosses. On higher difficulties encounters with bosses very often come down to having enough items to survive whacking the creature for 10 minutes due to horribly bloated hp pools. Game constantly takes control away from you for special attacks, which gets annoying really fast, since you will see those animations 100s times. Enemy variety is quite low, you will be beating on same monsters again and again, sometimes they might have a different shade though!

Difficulty is there if you are outleveled by enemies and isn't there if you outlevel enemies. Enemies have handful of attacks, same with bosses (some seem to have like 2-3 attacks tops).

To add on to the gameplay interruptions by the way of attack animations. Tales of Arise loves stopping you from playing and it will be doing it all the time. At certain points in the game the structure of gameplay will be as follows: Enter a room > cutscene > skit (short comicbook like cutscene) > skit > skit > move for 5 seconds > cutscene > skit > move for 4 seconds > cutscene. This is not an exaggeration. it's absolutely horrible.

Game is pretty much completely linear with no choices to make. Story will be exactly the same each time you replay the game; only replayability being trying different character in combat encounters.

Music, there're definitely some good pieces there; but I quickly found it too bombastic too often, it was so even during slower exploration moments. Turned it down to 20% and can't say much more about it due to that.

Game has absolutely useless crafting system that boils down to: instead of monster, mission, whatever rewarding you with weapon; we will give you random crap to craft stuff! Same goes for accessories (sort of ring/amulet that you can put on each of your companions), BUT not for armours for some reason, which you can buy/find in chests. While UI for crafting weapons is very straight forward, crafting accessories is a different story. While maybe not overwhelmingly tedious, the fact that you need to engage with this pointless mechanic made me completely apathetic to them and after crafting some okayish ones 30-40 hours into the game I didn't use the system at all for the rest of the game.

Some more thoughts:

Areas/zones are better than something like CODE VEIN but that's not exactly a high bar. Some of them are bad, some of them are nice. At no point the game will make your jaw drop with a gorgeous vista or well-designed enemy.

Art direction is there. Not much to say about it. Looks very similar to something like CODE VEIN.

Game has really curious game mechanic clash. On one hand it has party banter while you wander the world, on the other it has battle encounter chaining bonus to your various experience points. I missed probably around 50% of the banter because I was runing from encounter to encounter to maintain the bonus. Maybe it's normal for TALES games, maybe it was two different mechanics developed too independently and merged too late in development to change them.

Last dungeon made me switch difficulty to story mode and avoid any combat encounter I could. It's atrocious; long, boring and tedious. If you are there for 30 minutes and you find yourself hoping it ends soon; seriously, lower the difficulty.

My opinion of the game started pretty low; I started quite liking it in the middle; and for the last few hours I wanted it to end as soon as possible.

Ending is surprisingly OK.

Fishing is cool.

Owls are cool. (Hootle best character in the game).

The immediate impression when booting up tales is - wow, this game looks gorgeous. It's nice to finally see Tales get the budget and time it deserves. I've been a fan of Tales since Tales of Graces F came out on PS3 in 2012. While I may not exactly be an old-school fan of the series, I've been one for many years now. I've always been a cheerleader of this series, and was very much anticipating 2021's Tales of Arise.

The presentation, as stated prior, is absolutely stunning. Tales has never looked better. The watercolor-esque aesthetic really impressed me even after 60+ hours with the game. There were several times where I had to stop and gaze upon the environments, they really were impressive. I was honesty surprised there wasn't even a photo mode, with such a gorgeous game you'd think there would be.

The story was immediately captivating to me, and I wholeheartedly enjoyed how the story unfolded. I was worried, initially, given how there's a lieutenant-like system with each continent's Renan lord that it'd be predictable. Without getting into the nitty-gritty details of the story, essentially the story is about an alien race, Renans, enslaving the natives of the planet Dena and these said Denans fight for their freedom. There were a lot of surprises that unfolded within the narrative, and I'm incredibly happy with the ending.

Characters have always been a huge part of Tales, and I'm glad to say Arise's characters are some of the best in the series. Each and every one of the main character's evolve with the story, and there's some stellar character development to go along with it. Everyone brings a unique dynamic to the story, and have their unique quirks that shine; whether it be via skits or simply throughout the narrative, they're great.

Traditionally, Tales' combat mostly remains the same with its real-time action combat. It's very fluid here, and feels more like an action RPG than its predecessors. It was odd at first, having R1 being the dedicated attack button, but I quickly got used to it. The combat is a little more streamlined than prior games in the series, but I think that's what partly made it one of my favorites. Each character has their unique perks they bring to the battles, which complement the game nicely. Everyone has a break attack, which is assigned to the d-pad, making for easy execution in tight situations. For example, Shionne's break attack is useful against flying enemies, when executed properly puts the enemy in a down state where they're open for attack. Also new to this specific entry is CP (cure points), instead of MP or whatnot you have CP. It adds a whole new dynamic, while running around a dungeon you can either use CP for healing your party or in some cases use it to open up a pathway to some treasure. It's a resource you've got to manage carefully, and I enjoyed having that dynamic to the game. The boss battles are incredibly well done, and they were surprisingly challenging. With each boss battle, I walked away in awe, and proud that I accomplished the task at hand.

My one very minor complaint about Tales of Arise, is its skits. Every other game featured their anime counterparts within the skit, whereby here uses their in-game version. It isn't a huge deal, and I did grow to appreciate them all the same, but I was missing that familiar Tales staple.

Tales of Arise is easily my favorite game this year, and probably my favorite Tales game ever. I loved the story, characters, epic boss battles, music, and gorgeous visuals. It's nice to see Tales finally get the extra attention it's always deserved, and I'm excited for whatever Bandai Namco does next with the franchise. I highly recommend this phenomenal JRPG. Welcome back, Tales.

With the DLC being out this week I thought it was a good idea to go back to this one and review it.

I’ve been a fan of the Tales Of franchise for years now – going through Symphonia, Abyss, Tempest, Hearts, Graces, Xillia 1 & 2, Zestiria and Berseria. So it filled me with joy to see this particular entry received positive reviews and even Best RPG at the Game Awards 2021 back in the day.

Story

The story starts very strong, with some mysteries here and there for you to think about. It does seem like it takes ideas from other games in the series and mixes these together, so as a Tales Of fan I could connect a lot with the themes. I thought it was a big wink-wink for the fans. The lore had a lot of thought put into it, and it intertwines with the plot in an organic way for most of the game, letting you have your own conclusion and reflections on what is being presented. Nevertheless, as we start to reach the end of the road… this plot transforms into a last-minute infodump with little context. It feels like they merged two games into one, or maybe they wanted the ending to be “shocking”, but the truth is that it felt underwhelming and a little bit disconnected with what was happening before. I also think somewhere in the way the game forget what it was really about, and some of the mysteries presented earlier in the game find their resolution in a very anti-climatic way (i.e the iron mask).

Characters

Following with its legacy most of the characters are very anime trope-ish oriented with their own very anime trope-ish personality. You have your white hair tsundere, your redhaired bishounen, etc etc. Complaining about this would be complaining about the very base of Tales Of game, as to me is one of their trademarks that make the games actually work – so I’m completely fine with that. I found Alphen too similar to Ludger from Xillia in more than one sense, I would have preferred some other character archetype. The story arcs connect with the main plot enough for them to have reasons to stick together so I’m good with it.

Visuals

The game looks STUNNING. Very polished, great visual effects. Designs are incredibly well done. If you’re into JRPG and modern anime this is your cup of tea. I would slightly complain that you can see they wanted this game to be a PS4 game too – so even though you see incredibly detailed landscapes, the maps are very limited in the space you can go through, and I felt some of them were very corridor-like.

Gameplay So… here start’s my ranting. These games have evolved across the years, and some of them implement great ideas, while some others… don’t. Following up from the INCREDIBLE battle system that Berseria had, I found this one very undercooked. For a game in which the main attraction is the action/RPG battles I feel they couldn’t reach the bar they’d raised for themselves on previous entries. The gameplay starts very strong and as the game goes it doesn’t add much features or new things – it stays very static. Not being able to play with another person as player 2 was also a big let down.

Music

`Motoi Sakuraba. Nothing to add. 10/10. And the insert song at the end of the final battle… my goodness. That song destroys me.

Final Thoughts

Unpopular opinion, I thought Berseria was a lot better than this one even with its flaws. The story starts strong but falls apart towards the end, and it does look they forgot what the game was about. The characters are good but not enough to carry the game on their own. The game suffers from COVID-19 era issues – you can see the team didn’t work together in a lot of specific moments and that caused a disjointed experience in the narrative and in general. Said all of that - the game IS fun, and I think that has its own weight.

Finished! Got the platinum in around 75 hours, a little under.

Pros:

Characters felt believable and refined and well-developed

Dialogue between characters was witty and fun and served to help develop both plot and character--if a bit quirky sometimes... Definitely a "good dumb" at times.

Environments are varied and genuinely fun look at

Combat system was fun and satisfying

Solid story that slightly leans into the "WTF is going on"-ness that some JRPGs can adopt

Post-credit content was enjoyable

Cons:

Pacing stumbles in the back third of the game

Level design isn't anything to write home about

No mounts :(

The story does wander a biiiiiiit into Crazytown at the end

Once you reach a certain proficiency with the combat, there isn't much reason to create different builds and swap out Artes, etc., even on Hard mode. You just sort of fall into a rhythm. That rhythm IS good, I'm just saying. It kind of plateaus at a point.

Verdict

All in all, a very, VERY solid JRPG that's worth your time if you're into the genre. It has its quirks and things that might annoy individuals, but it's well-designed and well-executed almost across the board. It struggles in moments, but when it hits its stride, boy does it sing.

9/10 - play it (if you enjoy JRPGs)