Tales of Arise (2021)

The writing is rich and evocative, and the developers took on a major creative challenge with the themes that they decided to tackle and did a superb job. The combat system is sharp and offers plenty of complexity, while being accessible to Tales series newcomers or people just looking to experience the story. The art and aesthetics are breathtaking, and about the only issue there is a lack of a photo mode so that I could make the most of it (what the hell, Bandai Namco?).

I may not have been the world’s biggest fan of the Tales series previously, but this game has immediately become one of my favourite JRPGs of all time. It’s hard not to love what Tales of Arise has to offer and while there are some small issues, it doesn’t take away from my opinion that this is the Tales game that will breathe new life into the series.

Characters 8/10 I really liked the protagonist and every party member got its own development. The skits really help here.

Music 3/10 Weak. Tales of Zestiria kind of weak. Elevator music. I don't think there's a single memorable theme throughout the whole game.

Graphics/Art 8/10 Very solid presentation. Definitely a step up from the previous entries. However, the watercolor filter in the backgrounds was unecessary.

Story 8/10 Solid, good pacing, the twists are there. I really like the ending.

Battle System 7/10 Good core battle system, plagued by poor decision on boss battles and very limited resources for no reason. Levels and gald as DLC.

Third game in the Tales franchise that I complete, the other two being Zestiria (My favorite) and Berseria. It can be said yes that Arise was a great evolution of the Tales formula.

My recurring problem with Zestiria and Berseria was the maps and their enemies. Maps used to be huge, flat and extremely empty where every now and then you'd find an item in the corner of the map that barely served you any good, besides the map being crowded with enemies that were basically damage sponges. This was fixed in Arise, the level design is much better designed, the enemies are more concentrated in specific places and the normal fights don't last as much longer even on hard.

The graphics are beautiful, one of the most beautiful Tales since Vesperia (It will probably be my next Tales, the look of that is very charming) the music of the 3 Tales I played are always top notch and for some reason they remind me of the vibe of FF 12 The Gameplay of the game is very fun, with 130 hours of gameplay I couldn't get tired, the only problem would be the visual pollution caused by the various effects of abilities on the field, not allowing you to visualize the enemies very well. In terms of story, this is really perhaps the lowest point of the game.

As much as the game's story is in a context of war and slave liberation I never feel such grandiosity from enemy parts except in Cazalia, you never have the threat of a large army and ships coming to get you, which the Zestiria and Berseria did a little better. After freeing a region from a lord, instead of them moving to stop you or set traps, they are each waiting in your castle for you to appear as if they were really NPCs while you wander around the cities peacefully. Villains are just stereotyped empty shells that serve as obstacles you have to overcome. What was supposed to be Alphen's big rival that appears in the Trailers is one of the most disappointing and unimportant things I've ever seen in a JRPG, the character is almost practically useless and bland. The main team characters are charismatic enough but the ones that really develop during the story are Shionne and Rinwell, the change in the way each of them behave at the beginning and end of the game was nice to see, but the others do not have great developments. The game's pace is strange, it starts very fast and more in the final line it drops completely and the game focuses much more on conversations, which for me as an RPG player wouldn't be a big problem if these conversations weren't actually a big loop of subject repetitions, this is not just an Arise problem, this is a problem that occurs in Zestiria and pretty much every modern JRPG nowadays, this crunching of every little subject that they insist on having, this part of Arise is very stretched. The story ends up being just "ok" at the end of the day.

Excellent game.

Almost at the end of the game (i think).

It's an interesting game for sure, and it's not terrible. But it's not very good either. The game has a lot of potential to be a great jrpg, but everything it does seems to be 'just short of good' and missed oppurtunities.

The story, while i still have to see the ending, is decent, but very simplistic in nature and seems dragged out a lot. The character building in the game is completely absent, where town npc's just feel like glorified signposts, sucking any feeling of liveliness out of the game. The villian storywriting is also absolutely terrible, where most of the villains i've seen so far boil down to 'i'm such a bad dude, look how bad i am'.

What really grinds my gears is the slapped on nonsense that hits you, continuously and way too muchat a time. There's over 500 skits in the game (!) and about 99% of the ones i've stomached to see so far have been of 'a 4 year old could have written something more interesting than this' level. This gets inherently worse in the latter part of the game, where apart from absolutely overloading you with said skits, they also put an insane amount of forced dialogue and cutscenes on you, none of which are of any better level than the skits themselves.

The positives of the game are it's great combat system, good enough to keep you playing, and the gorgeuos world design. It's a real big shame that they filled up that piece of art with the trash mentioned above.

All in all i would rate the game a 5/10 so far, because inherently, character building and story is what makes a good game for me, and ToA does not have either of those. The 5 points are for the great combat and art.

Let's see if the ending of the game still does anything to change that ;)

So a few hours in now. It seems like a really enjoyable game! I had played the demo a while ago and that one did not really picque my interest, but the game itself seems pretty good so far. The environments look really nice even though it's cellshaded, it kinda adds it's own flavour the the game. The combat seems really fun, although i probably only unlocked small parts of it's full featureset so far. Gameplay wise it really reminds me, a lot, of the old Star Ocean games, which is a good thing!

The only thing that annoys me so far is the overly long text scenes that don't seem to add much, i mean, a 2 minute dialogue about going to eat something at a campfire? really? :D But other than that i'm having a blast!

Okay, been chipping away. 33 hours in, currently battling the "man this is a great JRPG but it's a JRPG and has JRPG length and I need to balance that with other games I want to play" conundrum.

And then I go and blow 2 hours straight on fishing.

What a fun game. Right now it's up there with Returnal for my GOTY. Neither of which got nominated, of course. Psh.

24 hours 3rd realm

I hate Law.

I dislike Shionne.

Alphen is a s!mp.

I have nothing against Rinwell and Kisara is hot.

I don't like the story, it's boring. I can win without a deep understanding how things work. When I got the farm I thought it's a minigame, not just making steak.

Anyway, the gameplay is fun, but I am not sure if I'm going to finish it. I play because I like the story or the characters, and Scarlet Nexus is more interesting.

After a launch week full of hype I was prepared to pick this up. Thank goodness for demos. I gave the demo a whirl and am pretty comfortable saying this isn’t for me. It looks sharp, seems well designed but just not my thing.

I also gave the demo for Trials of Mana a shot and I’m 50/50 on buying it. I think I want to play the original first before I do.

Repeat, reuse, don't risk change. It feels like the Tales games just regurgitate similar story tropes again and again, similar story tones and beats, similar character arcs, similar everything in regards to story and cast. Plus the usual: 90% of playable characters look the same: young-looking, with perfect bodies and perfect faces (and worse, same faces). On too many different levels, everything feels the same. It's just boring. I couldn't finish it.

To this one's credit, its exploration of slavery and opression was not exactly what I expected. At worst I expected some truly terrible takes or framing where the oppresors where portrayed as good or whatever. At best I expected the usual "both sides are bad" or some variaton of that; a diluted uninformed or corporate-approved non-take.

But there is some attempt at depth and nuance at the different explorations of how each slave state falls in the game. There are even some that fall because of the people and not because the intervention of the party of heroes, though there's some story caveats there.

Sadly, I feel like there's still a levity given to the oppression the slaves experienced for 300 years. Like "Yeah, that was bad, but hating your oppressors is basically just as bad. Anyway, now that a couple of weeks have passed since you got freed, we should all hold hands and kinda forget about the deaths, torture, rapes and destruction of their dignity, minds and emotional life, etc that's been happening to you, your family and your people for generations". As if those wounds and the material repercussions of slavery didn't take centuries in real life to even start the path towards resolution.

So yeah, both-sides-ism. And I fear I didn't even get to then end because of boredom. The finale of this kind of diluted slavery stories is where the both-sides-ism sometimes kicks high gear.

Of course, in the style of many J-RPGs and animes, most of its explicit statements on slavery, oppression, trauma, revenge feel pretty toothless and predictable. I sometimes wonder if this happens because Japan is such a conservative society that even safe, mild, centrist statements like these are considered revolutionary.

If someone's going to make a videogame about slavery, I hope they actually research stuff instead of basing their version of slavery in the typical, watered-down popular imagination. There's tons of documental, testimonial and academic material out there, but I get it that it's not as easy to digest. For something easier I can actually recommend the first videos of the Crash Course Black American History youtube playlist.