The story gets JRPG'd near the end, but the combat is awesome and renews itself pretty well during the game with new mechanics and abilities. Most characters are pretty fun and interesting too. Great music. Graphics are great but the artistic direction of most regions makes them look dead. Great time though
This review contains spoilers
My second tales of game, considering that vesperia is my favorite game, i expected arise to also be very good, but fate wasn’t so kind, starting from the first realm, while it is the best part of the game and i don’t really have any complaint’s, it didnt gripe me as hard as vesperia did, but judging on its on its a very nice start, the second realm mostly mantains the quality, also no gripes with the third, the fourth was were the major issues i have with the game became more apparent, the cast, or more accuratly, how they are written
Rimwell has a character arc that does not work in a game like arise, while her arc of not judging people for the mistakes of their race is nice in concept, it really falls flat with the necessity the game has for a few comedy skits with her and the other characters, it isn’t that believable, in the fourth realm, after the almeidra thing, law tells her that she shouldn’t take revenge with such hate, but because the game needs a boss, they go on with her to kill almeidra anyway, while its volhram who ends up doing it, they had kiled two lords already, and they would probably kill her too, i ended up liking her most because of her design and running animation, and the fact that she kinda looks like me
Law has an ok arc on chapter 2, causing the death of zephyr is a strong thing, but more because of zephyr than law in a way, i like that he never quite gets over it, but the thing that killed him for me was some of the late game content about him, the entire point of his and zephyr tragedy was the unspoken words, the feelings that were never given shape, so why the fuck would they give zephyr two fucking opportunities to tell law everything, he can even talk to zephyr regularly if you finish the boss rush side mission wtf, its so dumb
Kisara and dolahim finish their character arc before entering the party, and they dont do anything after it, Kisara is a character that only exists for sex appeal, she is literally just the strong big ass and tits mommy gf, i really like her in menancia expecially for the voice acting, but dude she only talks about migal and her only dynamic with the party is superficially taking care of them
Dolahim repeats the same character arc in menancia, during the travels, and in lenegis, what is even the point, and like, the part of he just creating the menancia utopia because he didnt want to hear the screams dont really make sense if you take into account some of the later conversations he has, but okay
Alphen is just alphen, nothing to say
Now the bad one, Shionne, her character does not make any sense, she says that she didnt even saw dahnajins as people before mahaag saar, wtf????? She literally has a crush on alphyn since after the baselph fight, her character arc if you take that into consideration is so abrupt, why she sees the meaning of life on the party if she just started thinking about them as people like 5 seconds ago? Wtf
The game has no side characters at all, except zephyr who dies in the beggining of the game, the bosses have no personality, including volhram, and besides that, just nothing, migal is nothing, the other leaders nothing, the mahaag saar dictator is okay i guess but only him
The dialogue is also very weird, sometimes lines dont connect at all, most glarringly in the confession scene from alphen on the base, but the whole game is full of weird writting
The gameplay is okay i guess, not that good but not bad either, i prefer vesperia’s one
The side quests, with the exception of the wedge ones, the boss rush and the crossover are also nothing, while they do have some really cute character interactions, best than most skits actually, its only that, no big deal in gameplay or story, only minibosses and things like that
You know its bad when the characters with the most fun and interresting dialogue are the ones from other games
And the skits are ugly and while i wouldn’t say poorly written, they really fall flat and dont reallt sell the characters friendship most of the time, but there are rare cute ones
Did all the side quests and main story, the ending is cute, and the ops and eds too, left pretty dissapointed, the true tales of game of 2021 is scarlet nexus, a mess of a story, godly gameplay, and fucking amazing characters
Rimwell has a character arc that does not work in a game like arise, while her arc of not judging people for the mistakes of their race is nice in concept, it really falls flat with the necessity the game has for a few comedy skits with her and the other characters, it isn’t that believable, in the fourth realm, after the almeidra thing, law tells her that she shouldn’t take revenge with such hate, but because the game needs a boss, they go on with her to kill almeidra anyway, while its volhram who ends up doing it, they had kiled two lords already, and they would probably kill her too, i ended up liking her most because of her design and running animation, and the fact that she kinda looks like me
Law has an ok arc on chapter 2, causing the death of zephyr is a strong thing, but more because of zephyr than law in a way, i like that he never quite gets over it, but the thing that killed him for me was some of the late game content about him, the entire point of his and zephyr tragedy was the unspoken words, the feelings that were never given shape, so why the fuck would they give zephyr two fucking opportunities to tell law everything, he can even talk to zephyr regularly if you finish the boss rush side mission wtf, its so dumb
Kisara and dolahim finish their character arc before entering the party, and they dont do anything after it, Kisara is a character that only exists for sex appeal, she is literally just the strong big ass and tits mommy gf, i really like her in menancia expecially for the voice acting, but dude she only talks about migal and her only dynamic with the party is superficially taking care of them
Dolahim repeats the same character arc in menancia, during the travels, and in lenegis, what is even the point, and like, the part of he just creating the menancia utopia because he didnt want to hear the screams dont really make sense if you take into account some of the later conversations he has, but okay
Alphen is just alphen, nothing to say
Now the bad one, Shionne, her character does not make any sense, she says that she didnt even saw dahnajins as people before mahaag saar, wtf????? She literally has a crush on alphyn since after the baselph fight, her character arc if you take that into consideration is so abrupt, why she sees the meaning of life on the party if she just started thinking about them as people like 5 seconds ago? Wtf
The game has no side characters at all, except zephyr who dies in the beggining of the game, the bosses have no personality, including volhram, and besides that, just nothing, migal is nothing, the other leaders nothing, the mahaag saar dictator is okay i guess but only him
The dialogue is also very weird, sometimes lines dont connect at all, most glarringly in the confession scene from alphen on the base, but the whole game is full of weird writting
The gameplay is okay i guess, not that good but not bad either, i prefer vesperia’s one
The side quests, with the exception of the wedge ones, the boss rush and the crossover are also nothing, while they do have some really cute character interactions, best than most skits actually, its only that, no big deal in gameplay or story, only minibosses and things like that
You know its bad when the characters with the most fun and interresting dialogue are the ones from other games
And the skits are ugly and while i wouldn’t say poorly written, they really fall flat and dont reallt sell the characters friendship most of the time, but there are rare cute ones
Did all the side quests and main story, the ending is cute, and the ops and eds too, left pretty dissapointed, the true tales of game of 2021 is scarlet nexus, a mess of a story, godly gameplay, and fucking amazing characters
Played most, got bored of the gameplay and watched the rest, overall decent. DLC options left a bitter taste and the lack of visual armor/weapons was disappointing. The story was interesting for the first 1/2 but the repetition exclamations of character motivations and revelations in the writing wore me down.
the game looks pretty, the characters are pretty, and the voice acting is excellent.
but given i drove myself to beat the main story out of spite, i think the game wasn't for me. i couldn't master the combat system, i was annoyed with how the skits were done visually, they overhauled the Party AI for the worse, and i forgot there was even background music. not to mention, the most powerful artes and skill trees are locked behind paid DLC.
i also had the rotten luck of the game just randomly softlocking every 2-3 battles, at the time i played it. i don't know if that issue has been fixed or not.
i wish i could forget i played this game at all, but unfortunately for me, the name Balseph Erwolsey Teldilys will haunt me until the day i crumble to ashes.
but given i drove myself to beat the main story out of spite, i think the game wasn't for me. i couldn't master the combat system, i was annoyed with how the skits were done visually, they overhauled the Party AI for the worse, and i forgot there was even background music. not to mention, the most powerful artes and skill trees are locked behind paid DLC.
i also had the rotten luck of the game just randomly softlocking every 2-3 battles, at the time i played it. i don't know if that issue has been fixed or not.
i wish i could forget i played this game at all, but unfortunately for me, the name Balseph Erwolsey Teldilys will haunt me until the day i crumble to ashes.
This review contains spoilers
pros:
-insanely good combat
-character designs and environments on dahna are fantastic
-the first half of the story on dahna is fantastic and makes you care about most characters to a certain extent
-calaglia, cyslodia, menancia, and pelegion are great regions with some pretty good storylines.
-early boss fights and lord boss fight were all very very good
cons:
-the story of the game in the second half falls of a cliff and feels like less effort was put in to flesh out the world and rena and lenegis
-the story as a whole is very much the same as xenoblade chronicles 1 but with its own twist and the main cast being pretty bland characters by the second half
-the enemy variety is pretty trash , you fight the same enemies but with a nice call of duty gun skin on them in the later stages of the game
-instance battles with these mobs are also a slog by the end of the game because it just boils down to getting a long combo then doing the finisher repeatedly
-mahag saar story was rushed and felt like it was trying very hard to force an emotional reaction to killing off the resistance group in the city even though they were built up to hate them to begin with
-rinwell is a bland character
-game needed to be longer to flesh out rena as a world better
-game story in general felt a little rushed in the first half then in the second half was definetly rushed and overall hurt the games emotional attachment to care about anything thats happening because its not fleshing out whats happening well enough for me to care or to make me feel like I need to value whats going on.
-some boss fight were insanely lazy and were just bad in the second half of the game, a lot of these boss fights just boiled down to hitting the core of the enemy until it broke or using alphen limit to stun them repeatedly basically cheesing them.
-also the AI is turbo trash
-the music was also very limited and got repetitive fast, the battle theme you heard fighting lvl 1 moth would be the same as fighting a lvl 100 gigantimax goliath terraforming giga moth
-insanely good combat
-character designs and environments on dahna are fantastic
-the first half of the story on dahna is fantastic and makes you care about most characters to a certain extent
-calaglia, cyslodia, menancia, and pelegion are great regions with some pretty good storylines.
-early boss fights and lord boss fight were all very very good
cons:
-the story of the game in the second half falls of a cliff and feels like less effort was put in to flesh out the world and rena and lenegis
-the story as a whole is very much the same as xenoblade chronicles 1 but with its own twist and the main cast being pretty bland characters by the second half
-the enemy variety is pretty trash , you fight the same enemies but with a nice call of duty gun skin on them in the later stages of the game
-instance battles with these mobs are also a slog by the end of the game because it just boils down to getting a long combo then doing the finisher repeatedly
-mahag saar story was rushed and felt like it was trying very hard to force an emotional reaction to killing off the resistance group in the city even though they were built up to hate them to begin with
-rinwell is a bland character
-game needed to be longer to flesh out rena as a world better
-game story in general felt a little rushed in the first half then in the second half was definetly rushed and overall hurt the games emotional attachment to care about anything thats happening because its not fleshing out whats happening well enough for me to care or to make me feel like I need to value whats going on.
-some boss fight were insanely lazy and were just bad in the second half of the game, a lot of these boss fights just boiled down to hitting the core of the enemy until it broke or using alphen limit to stun them repeatedly basically cheesing them.
-also the AI is turbo trash
-the music was also very limited and got repetitive fast, the battle theme you heard fighting lvl 1 moth would be the same as fighting a lvl 100 gigantimax goliath terraforming giga moth
One of my favorite JRPGs of all time - and I'm always surprised at the mixed reception this got by some tales fans. I guess this just proves that despite all the reviews you can read, your judgement is unique to you and you can only know by playing.
The combat is the most polished tales has ever has, it's ARPG with amazing visuals and very >responsive< - that's the key word there, because I feel like most non turn based JRPGs have really unresponsive "you press buttons, but we do things when we want" kind of feeling that feels like a freaking MMO. Here, you press buttons and gasp, the characters do things.
I really liked the plot and characters, something people have criticized. I guess being a huge romance nerd really helped, because I absolutely loved it. Had tear jerker moments, for sure.
I'll agree with most people that the latter quarter or so of the game feels kind of rushed and with too much exposition, definetely the low of the game. I feel like I could easily give it a 5/5 stars, if it weren't for that.
The combat is the most polished tales has ever has, it's ARPG with amazing visuals and very >responsive< - that's the key word there, because I feel like most non turn based JRPGs have really unresponsive "you press buttons, but we do things when we want" kind of feeling that feels like a freaking MMO. Here, you press buttons and gasp, the characters do things.
I really liked the plot and characters, something people have criticized. I guess being a huge romance nerd really helped, because I absolutely loved it. Had tear jerker moments, for sure.
I'll agree with most people that the latter quarter or so of the game feels kind of rushed and with too much exposition, definetely the low of the game. I feel like I could easily give it a 5/5 stars, if it weren't for that.
There's definitely some good here, and I can see why this series is popular - but for me the problems with 'Tales of Arise' made it too much to persevere with.
I need to qualify that this is my first experience with a 'Tales' game and first impressions were fine, if slightly underwhelming, given the grandiose intro cutscene. The story works well enough, focusing on an oppressed race of people being enslaved and then rising up against their totalitarian and more evolved overlords isn't exactly original, but the telling of this is precise and clear. The world building in general is probably the best thing about the game in truth. The gameplay is also serviceable enough, all battles are arena based and are usually quick enough to not outstay their welcome. I do though wish there were more layers to the combat as the battles are never as spectacular as what the flashy special moves would indicate. I was never at any point blown away with anything with 'Arise' but the loop and story was enough to keep me coming back, but then a grind became encouraged (which I ignored) and I was underleveled for a boss. I could've went back and farmed for a counter-gem and killed some more minions, but if a RPG wants me to retread old ground it needs to make it worth my while. 'Arise' fails here due to its small scale world, mediocre mob variety and corny characters
I need to qualify that this is my first experience with a 'Tales' game and first impressions were fine, if slightly underwhelming, given the grandiose intro cutscene. The story works well enough, focusing on an oppressed race of people being enslaved and then rising up against their totalitarian and more evolved overlords isn't exactly original, but the telling of this is precise and clear. The world building in general is probably the best thing about the game in truth. The gameplay is also serviceable enough, all battles are arena based and are usually quick enough to not outstay their welcome. I do though wish there were more layers to the combat as the battles are never as spectacular as what the flashy special moves would indicate. I was never at any point blown away with anything with 'Arise' but the loop and story was enough to keep me coming back, but then a grind became encouraged (which I ignored) and I was underleveled for a boss. I could've went back and farmed for a counter-gem and killed some more minions, but if a RPG wants me to retread old ground it needs to make it worth my while. 'Arise' fails here due to its small scale world, mediocre mob variety and corny characters
Starts off strong, beautiful world, interesting battle mechanics, engaging story. As it continues all starts to fall apart. Battles tend to drag on for too long towards the end game where you slap the same boss for an hour before getting one-shotted. World is beautiful but not much to do in and interact with. Story falls off once it enters the 2nd arc and becomes corny beyond repair. First 20 hours were magical with a sour latter half.