I want to start this by saying that i really, desperately wanted to like this game. Genuinely. I was so excited to start it as I'm quite a fan of the series.
However, Tales of Arise slowly but surely began to wear me down due to a variety of reasons and finishing it left me with a pang of worry for whats to come for the franchise.
For the positives, the game's presentation is the best of the entire franchise. I would kill for a Tales of Berseria that looked as good as this game. The environmental design and graphical fidelity are gorgeous to look at. On top of that, I found the combat to be a decent step up for the franchise. I do enjoy the more classic Tales Of combat, but Arise's flashy combo system was a good evolution of the system, albeit with some additional faults that I will get into.
What started my growing dislike for the game was the characters. Tales Of games have very strong parties, and I found that Arise had the weakest of all the games in the series I've played so far. In terms of design, the entire party was painfully bland. Visually they were just uninteresting to look at, Chinese mobile game tier (not Genshin) bland design. I think Arise's biggest problem is its characters, I cannot stress how little I cared about any of the cast. That's not a good thing! How you go from Berseria to this is mind-boggling - where you understand and care about a character within the first 2 hours. This game had me struggling to give a shit about the entire fuckin party over a 30-hour runtime.
It doesn't help when a majority of skits are relegated to expository text and exposition about some geopolitical crap when ideally they should be used for fleshing out your party's interactions (like they used to be in other freakign games!!!). *side note, dont give me 3-4 skits in a row that sucks and breaks up the flow of things
It pains me when I look at comparisons of parties between different games within this same franchise, and I can understand a character's personality and what they might be like based on how they dress. But with Arise, I can't. Even my girlfriend who hasn't played a single Tales game couldn't figure them out. That's what we like to call, Bad Character Design.
This problem further develops within the narrative. I don't care about these characters, so the narrative completely suffers because I genuinely cannot bring myself to care about anything that's happening, because of how bland everyone behaves to what's happening. Alphen has no character development until the last like, 1/4 of the story, and is an extremely weak protag and feels more like an empty shell shounen protagonist for you to self insert to. Shionne is a bitch and the game expects me to care about this bland romance that feels incredibly forced (an aspect btw that was done way better and more believably in Symphonia and even Vesperia). Rinwell is a nothing character that could be deleted from the game and nothing would change, not even the story would be affected. Dohalim is boring and Kisara is almost as ineffective in the plot as Rinwell, I just think she's hotter. The only character I genuinely had an ounce of care for was Law. Law was fine, no criticisms for Law. Wish he was in a better game.
I was going to give this game a 3 Star rating but the final dungeon was so genuinely fucking garbage i had to dock it a point.
I hope to Christ the next game is not a sequel to Arise. I do not want to spend any more time with these characters.
OH I also like how it's lowkey a Star Ocean/Phantasy Star game i thought that was neato
TLDR; Bland. Its too bland.
However, Tales of Arise slowly but surely began to wear me down due to a variety of reasons and finishing it left me with a pang of worry for whats to come for the franchise.
For the positives, the game's presentation is the best of the entire franchise. I would kill for a Tales of Berseria that looked as good as this game. The environmental design and graphical fidelity are gorgeous to look at. On top of that, I found the combat to be a decent step up for the franchise. I do enjoy the more classic Tales Of combat, but Arise's flashy combo system was a good evolution of the system, albeit with some additional faults that I will get into.
What started my growing dislike for the game was the characters. Tales Of games have very strong parties, and I found that Arise had the weakest of all the games in the series I've played so far. In terms of design, the entire party was painfully bland. Visually they were just uninteresting to look at, Chinese mobile game tier (not Genshin) bland design. I think Arise's biggest problem is its characters, I cannot stress how little I cared about any of the cast. That's not a good thing! How you go from Berseria to this is mind-boggling - where you understand and care about a character within the first 2 hours. This game had me struggling to give a shit about the entire fuckin party over a 30-hour runtime.
It doesn't help when a majority of skits are relegated to expository text and exposition about some geopolitical crap when ideally they should be used for fleshing out your party's interactions (like they used to be in other freakign games!!!). *side note, dont give me 3-4 skits in a row that sucks and breaks up the flow of things
It pains me when I look at comparisons of parties between different games within this same franchise, and I can understand a character's personality and what they might be like based on how they dress. But with Arise, I can't. Even my girlfriend who hasn't played a single Tales game couldn't figure them out. That's what we like to call, Bad Character Design.
This problem further develops within the narrative. I don't care about these characters, so the narrative completely suffers because I genuinely cannot bring myself to care about anything that's happening, because of how bland everyone behaves to what's happening. Alphen has no character development until the last like, 1/4 of the story, and is an extremely weak protag and feels more like an empty shell shounen protagonist for you to self insert to. Shionne is a bitch and the game expects me to care about this bland romance that feels incredibly forced (an aspect btw that was done way better and more believably in Symphonia and even Vesperia). Rinwell is a nothing character that could be deleted from the game and nothing would change, not even the story would be affected. Dohalim is boring and Kisara is almost as ineffective in the plot as Rinwell, I just think she's hotter. The only character I genuinely had an ounce of care for was Law. Law was fine, no criticisms for Law. Wish he was in a better game.
I was going to give this game a 3 Star rating but the final dungeon was so genuinely fucking garbage i had to dock it a point.
I hope to Christ the next game is not a sequel to Arise. I do not want to spend any more time with these characters.
OH I also like how it's lowkey a Star Ocean/Phantasy Star game i thought that was neato
TLDR; Bland. Its too bland.