I'm gonna be honest, I got my hands on this game last year, I played the first few hours and then I dropped it. I wanted to like the game but I couldn't get into it, so I decided to drop it.
However, I pushed through the game recently, and well...
The story follows a premise of taking down 5 Lords and it tackles interesting themes, but unfortunately, it feels consistently monotonous and underwhelming. Once you take down the 5 Lords though, it all goes downhill from there; it becomes a jumbled mess of nonsensical, ridiculous plot points, exposition dumps, plot holes and a rushed ending. It gets really bad!
The characters aren't as bad as the story, but some of them are annoying and they make questionable decisions at times for no reason.
The combat system is good at least, it's not deep enough but it's fun and it looks cool.
Also, the art style is very good and the music is serviceable.
With that being said, while the gameplay is fun, the experience is brought down by uninspired level design, poor enemy variety, damage spongey bosses that make the game hard to play through and absolutely terrible pacing; oh my god, the pacing in this game is painful at times! It's genuinely some of the worst pacing I've experienced in any videogame, ever. It always makes things more complicated and tedious than they should be, and it tries to extend the length of the game by throwing damage spongey enemies everywhere, unnecessary cutscenes with repeated dialogue every few minutes, and even entire filler dungeons!
After the first 10 hours of the game, I was already feeling exhausted, seriously.
Pros:
+ Enjoyable combat system
+ Great visuals
+ Decent music
Cons:
- Very bad story
- Dull level design
- Enemy variety
- Damage sponges
- Awful pacing
Narrative: 2/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Content: ?/10
Characters: 4/10
Music: 6/10
Art Style: 8/10
Final Rating: 4/10
- Weak -
I'm disappointed in Tales of Arise... I really am.
I got into the game expecting it to be an exciting, intense Action JRPG, and I got a generic, boring and forgettable JRPG that I was longing for it to end.
Do I recommend it?:
No, there are much better RPGs out there.
However, I pushed through the game recently, and well...
The story follows a premise of taking down 5 Lords and it tackles interesting themes, but unfortunately, it feels consistently monotonous and underwhelming. Once you take down the 5 Lords though, it all goes downhill from there; it becomes a jumbled mess of nonsensical, ridiculous plot points, exposition dumps, plot holes and a rushed ending. It gets really bad!
The characters aren't as bad as the story, but some of them are annoying and they make questionable decisions at times for no reason.
The combat system is good at least, it's not deep enough but it's fun and it looks cool.
Also, the art style is very good and the music is serviceable.
With that being said, while the gameplay is fun, the experience is brought down by uninspired level design, poor enemy variety, damage spongey bosses that make the game hard to play through and absolutely terrible pacing; oh my god, the pacing in this game is painful at times! It's genuinely some of the worst pacing I've experienced in any videogame, ever. It always makes things more complicated and tedious than they should be, and it tries to extend the length of the game by throwing damage spongey enemies everywhere, unnecessary cutscenes with repeated dialogue every few minutes, and even entire filler dungeons!
After the first 10 hours of the game, I was already feeling exhausted, seriously.
Pros:
+ Enjoyable combat system
+ Great visuals
+ Decent music
Cons:
- Very bad story
- Dull level design
- Enemy variety
- Damage sponges
- Awful pacing
Narrative: 2/10
Gameplay: 7/10
Content: ?/10
Characters: 4/10
Music: 6/10
Art Style: 8/10
Final Rating: 4/10
- Weak -
I'm disappointed in Tales of Arise... I really am.
I got into the game expecting it to be an exciting, intense Action JRPG, and I got a generic, boring and forgettable JRPG that I was longing for it to end.
Do I recommend it?:
No, there are much better RPGs out there.