D é atípico. Para os padrões da atualidade: completamente mirrado. Para muitos não passa de um jogo encarquilhado e esquecido... Exatamente, o tempo não foi generoso com D, nenhum pouco mesmo... todavia, ao experimenta-lo eu só posso dizer que... eu o amei.

Não há como falar sobre esse jogo sem antes comentar sobre seu criador, Kenji Eno um pioneiro na indústria de jogos japonesa, visionário ao ver que o mercado de jogos independentes tinham sim futuro, e que amava tanto suas obras que desempenhava diversos papéis em suas produções, como roteirização, programação e até mesmo composição de músicas. Seu amor e empenho por suas obras é admirável, ele se provou para mim um homem extremamente engenhoso e espantosamente um artista único...

É por pessoas como ele que eu me pergunto: O que faz um artista? E apesar de ter muitas respostas para essa pergunta, muitos se esquecem que uma coisa que faz um artista é sua peculiaridade, sua anormalidade e pra mim Kenji Eno é a representação perfeita disso... ainda mais com seu primeiro jogo feito: D.

D se tornou especial para mim. Sua atmosfera incomum e sinistra são com certeza o ponto mais alto da experiência, nesse jogo temos que termina-lo em no máximo 2 horas, por motivos que são intrínsecos ao plot principal da obra. E para isso, você deve se aventurar por uma mansão que carrega consigo um ar sombrio enquanto deve passar por uma série de puzzles, alguns bons, outros nem tanto. Ele não é um jogo de terror horripilante e nem mesmo possui puzzles excepcionais, talvez a única coisa que eu consiga tirar de realmente aterrorizante dele é sua corrida contra as 2 horas e a lentidão que as coisas acontecem como o movimento da personagem e sua demora para inspecionar as coisas. É, esse jogo quer gastar o seu tempo e isso é pra mim, uma escolha bastante prudente, pois você fica agoniado e aflito pra ela ir rápido aumentando a tensão e perto dos momentos finais do jogo, te deixando bastante aflito.

Enquanto eu o jogava e tentava decifrar os mistérios que cercavam toda a estética e essência desse jogo, eu me sentia um espectador que está contemplando uma obra de arte e tentando a dirimir mesmo ela não sendo exuberante ou bonita, porém, toda a sua composição e estrutura é intrigante... cada mínimo detalhe foi pensado para estar ali, não há nenhuma ideia simplesmente jogada ao ar... tudo se conecta e logo, você vê que tudo aquilo faz parte de um montante maior e isso o torna louvável... é, D realmente é singular... eu sei que esse jogo não é perfeito, não... ele é sim muito conflituoso, e até difícil tentar não levantar os vários pontos negativos que ele tem sem desencorajar alguém a experimenta-lo, mas é aí que eu percebo que ele infelizmente não é para todo mundo... ele é um jogo difícil pelos motivos de poder ser extremamente desconfortável pra uma grande gama de gente.

Eu tenho os meus problemas com o jogo, desde suas mecânicas ultrapassadas até mesmo o desfecho da história que aparentou ser extremamente corrido... além dele ter momentos que apelam pra um horror desnecessário e que quebra toda aquela atmosfera tensa e desesperadora do jogo. Mas eu consigo relevar essas coisas, eu consegui tirar de tudo isso, uma experiência extremamente artística... Sei que eu provavelmente não volte a joga-lo, sinto que ele é algo para ser experimentado uma única vez, só que eu também quero preservar essa minha primeira impressão dele... quero manter na minha mente e memória o seu jeito insólito de ser... não quero que isso seja estragado de jeito nenhum...

Eu amei esse jogo e eu sinto que gosto ainda mais dele ao término dessa review.. D realmente é um jogo sui generis.

Arrest of a Stone Buddha is about depression. It tells the story of an emotionless man who goes through his life in a state of numbness. He finds joy only in killing people, justified by the will of the organization that commands him.


What elevates the narrative is that it’s told almost entirely through the player’s mechanical interaction with the world. Arrest of Stone Buddha is separated into two parts: highly entertaining shootout sequences and the simulation of an empty daily life. Between every mission, you’re forced to wander around a small, colorless town engaging in activities utterly devoid of meaning. You watch a movie, you visit an art gallery, you spend time with a lover, you stay at home lying on your bed staring at the ceiling… All of these share the same purpose. You're waiting for the day to end. It's a loop that perfectly translates the main character's situation and lifestyle to the player's experience. With each passing cycle, this connection grows stronger, the game becomes more and more boring. Even the music gets irritating. By the third level, you'll most likely have done everything there is to do in the town, and at that point you'll find yourself constantly checking the time, eagerly anticipating the moment you're allowed to sleep. You're going through the motions, at least until it's time to kill people again.
Combat is the only fun part of this game.
It's always the same core loop for every level with little to no variation, but it's a solid, engaging core that never stops being entertaining. And that's all that action is for the main character, too. The part of his life that's still engaging, that makes him feel something.

Violence is the only meaningful interaction he has with other human beings, even dialogue is kept to a minimum and exists only to reinforce what ideas were already solidified by the gameplay. People serve the purpose of objects. His lover provides pleasure, the pharmacist provides sleep medication, his friend provides missions and the men he kills provide entertainment. He doesn't care about Lanky, he doesn't care about politics, he doesn't care about real life. All he cares about is his next assignment. People, to him, are like NPCs, which further his disconnection from reality and connection to the player. He sees the world through a narrow, detached point of view and interacts with it as a player interacts with systems.

In a sense, the main character lost his humanity. He has become an emotionless machine of hedonism. His choice in the end, the only one that matters, is whether to accept his death (now physically) or let a last sign of humanity slip through by giving up and crying.

I'm well aware that I'm in the minority when I say this game did not click with me.

The story and characters were very engaging. The environments were breathtaking. But the gameplay felt so dull to me. All I remember of my several hours of trying to stick with this game is running through areas with very little freedom, hacking away at some enemies, to be rewarded with loot that felt minuscule in it's impact. The interesting parts of the gameplay were so sparse between each other, that I had to purposefully decide to keep playing it, which I ultimately failed on.

I understand why people love this game as the recipe for a masterpiece is in there, but it's hampered by gameplay that brought little satisfaction or did anything to set itself apart from countless action games before it.

5/10

Tales of Arise had a ton of hype for it, and a lot of advertisement to boot to really help sell this game. Despite it's initial problems of no co-op multiplayer, the series was honestly looking like it was going to be a smash hit. The graphics looked good, the gameplay looked fun, and the story looked interesting from what was shown. Yet as time moved on I didn't really hear much about it. In fact, if I did hear anything, it was likely about how the game kinda fell off during it's last act, or that the story wasn't has good as previous games before it. So when I did decided to play it, I was wondering to myself what the big twist was and bracing myself for Zesteria levels of writing and bad pacing. Sadly, I hit the part that ruined a lot of the game for me, and yes it's really as bad as people said it was. Honestly this is the most disappointing Tales of game I have played in my life.

Mind you that Tales of Arise, functionally, is an amazing game. The combat system is once again revamped, and honestly the fighting has never been better. The amount of combos, supers, and mystic artes you can do has never felt easier to handle, and combat really gets as combo heavy as a typical fighting game does. Each character controls a bit differently, and while some are easier to wield than others, I have heard plenty of people play the game as nearly every character in the party. The chemistry with the characters and relationships is honestly as strong as ever, and it really helps that a lot of the gang kinda trauma bonds over their living situations. The graphics look amazing, although a lot of the first few areas don't give you much imagination for it till you finally leave it, and the enemy designs are at a peak. The games UI, and leveling system has been simplified to the point that all micro managing just helps a little over being a necessity like it was in previous games. Really, just a lot of the mechanics of a Tales of game is done extremely well here, and it's fined tuned to the point that I don't want to see a newer system in place for future games. Tales of Arise is Tales of games functioning at their peak.

Yet, I still have to inform you that this game is a disappointment, and for that reason we have to blame the second act of this game's story. The story's first act is rather interesting as a sort of rag tag group of individuals slowly topple down the royalty that has ruined the lives of many given kingdoms. Each chapter focuses on acquiring a new character, learning more about them, and about the situation that area is having trouble in. Near the end of the half way point we finally get our whole group, and the dynamics of each members finally start to show. So far, everything in act 1 has been great, and paced itself well in terms of explaining itself.

Sadly Act 2 opens up on a 3 month time skip that doesn't address why Alphen and Shionne haven't really been talking, gives the group dynamic googly eyes for each other like we are pairing heterosexuals like our life depend on it, and literally kicks off with a beam of light from the sky hitting the world. As much as I want to give you more information on this nonsense, the best I can really say is the game doesn't really give you a reason for said nonsense. Just all the characters suddenly want to smooch each other, questions or motivations are answered further with wilder and wilder things, and a ton of plot threads just spread out to the point of wondering where it came from, and where it's going. I get that the writers probably wanted to tell a grander story, and they probably had trouble getting things finished on time or didn't have the budget to do it, but honestly the biggest problem isn't so much the grand reveal, but everything that surrounds it too. I really can't express how odd it was to see a Tales of group really dive into more romantic tendencies, and the whole second act ships everyone so hard with each other that it's blatant at the very end who the game wants you root for. Shipping and romantic undertones is fine for any given games, even a tales of game, but the way that Tales of Arise does it feels so jarring, and tries to make callbacks and give unearned plot threads that act 2 simply decides to go with. Act 1 really doesn't have much romantic tendencies, and a lot of this is tribute to the group dynamics that the Tales of series is known for. Furthermore the themes of the first Act and the themes of the second Act just don't match up. It really gets to the point where the game as tone deaf as it can says that the oppressors are also oppressed. I get this was probably not written by an American person, but it really feels like they should have consulted some outside sources with that one.

I could probably go on and on about the major problems with Act 2 and the story as a whole, but I rather keep this as spoiler free as I can. The major takeaway is that Tales of Arise is a game full of contradictions, and I really wish it wasn't. If the game just let me play through a longer Act 1 I would have loved it, sure it might have felt samey, but sometimes that's just a better fit than trying to make a big twist when you didn't budget correctly. Tales of Arise is still a wonderful game under the awful story, and it's kinda the reason why I say this game was such a let down.

copy of a steam review i made
this is the only serious steam review i have

i did have fun with this game, and i was considering recommending it to people. but then i found out that the mods of the game will ban people for being openly trans or any part of LGBTQIA+, and being a trans girl myself, i was mad when i found out about this. they try to label any discussion of LGBTQ+ as "politics" when, no, that's not politics, it's just identity. to make it an even bigger slap on the ass, they dont do anything to people saying "i'm straight/cis." there are people who straight up watch porn on this game but the mods are too busy banning people who say "im kinda trans"

steam needs to change their refund policy because a 2 hour maximum is not fair at all. sure, i only spent 10 dollars on the game due to the winter sale, but i still should've known before i accidentally gave money to terrible people.

this game sucks, do not support this game, at least not until the mods get their shit together