Tales of Arise: Review - My JRPG of the Year

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David W Vincent
PO Box 94192
Las Vegas, NV 89193

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[beeniecat]

Ya know I've been recommended the "Tales of" series for years but never did up till now. After seeing some of your reviews I decided to give it a shot, I bought the ones I can access right now on discount and I'm having a blast. I started with Berseria and got confused by its rigid at the beginning combat system and put that one down and played Vesperia and kick myself for missing out on an amazing game. After that I went back into Berseria and treated its combat system like if it was a beta version of Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks which overall improved my time with it and got to see a great story and dressed up Eizen like he's Albert Wesker. Now I'm playing Zestiria and part way through it realized that Berseria is the prequel to this game and trying to compare the games landscapes like comparing the maps between LoZ Ocarina of Time to the maps in LoZ the Wind Waker. It's a very good in depth game and I want to try the other Tales games I can legitimately get and emulating the ones I can't before getting to the newest one Tales of Arise. Thank you for convincing me to finally give the games a shot.

[egil]

Glad you liked it. I haven’t enjoyed one this much since Vesperia.

I’m about 45 hours in, and it’s clear there’s about to be some serious story reveals, digging back in tonight.

[Popnwinbee]

Man, your review was spot on.

I disagree slightly on the skits, in that SOME of them do expound upon a character’s backstory or motivations, but overall you’re 100% right in that there’s just way too many.

I also hadn’t considered how the grinding combo meter enhanced grinding and made it kinda fun. I definitely remember sprinting around the map trying to keep my combo going as long as possible.

Excellent review for an excellent game!

[ParasaurolophusZ]

Getting notification on reaching points of no return is a huge thing for me. I still remember restarting FFX over an hour in just because I missed an item in the opening area that you can't get back to...
Even worse are those games that drag you into cutscenes when you get too close to an objective, forever locking you out of a side area you may not have gotten to yet.
It definitely encourages me to keep playing spoiler-free when the game warns me that I can't go back, to make sure I don't miss anything.

[joiseydragun]

Rinwell was super helpful near the end of the game where you got alot out of exploiting weaknesses.

[cam]

I enjoyed ToA until the last half. It severely drops off and also turns in 'Tales of SHUT UP ALREADY'.

"We can do this together!"
"Together, I think we can do this!"
"Can we do this?"
"If we stick together we can do this!"
"But the Lords [something something]"
"They didnt know that together, this will be done!"

[internetsurfer]

Thanks for the coverage of this game!! I am now sure that this is the game I will purchase right after finishing the Trails of Cold Steel games and Ys 9

[HybridAngelZero]

It makes me so happy that so many people are not only loving Arise, but it's been a huge success and getting a lot of people into the Tales series for the first time!
I... still haven't picked it up yet. I definitely want to, but I've been trying to be more responsible about my backlog as of late, and I want to finish a few other games before I dive into this one. When I do, I wanna savor it.
Overall, 2021 has been an awesome year for RPGs!

[ButchLeColosse]

I agree with you on the last part of the game. There was so much exposition, I had to turn off the game at some point to take a mental break. Every trash boss in the last dungeon are bosses in disguise and it made me furious. I was also broke from buying healing item and I was always using them in these fights.

[tdblackboxx]

i played the demo after watching you stream it. cant really say im a fan. it wasnt bad or anything, but it just didnt click with me. my brother bought and beat it, and his opinion is similar to yours, so i will try it someday. i just wish they kept the multiplayer (no, i will not let that go!), then we coulda played through together, like previous tales games. glad to hear so many people enjoy it.

[bandrew]

That thumbnail is one for the history books.

[joshuarobinson]

Glad to hear you and so many people are enjoying it. The demo didn't quite do it for me, but everyone seems to love it so much. I've been thinking about trying it out anyway.

[celebi]

Your review made me want to play this again, and this is coming from someone who went out of their way to get the Platinum trophy on the PS5 version. This game is a masterpiece in my eyes. From the story, the characters, the combat, the music, side quests ect.

[supafiyalaito]

Just finished all the sidequests not long after you published this, Out of all Tales of games I've played so far I think this probably has the best gameplay for me.

[SnapshotNautilus]

I haven't picked it up yet, but this was really helpful! I'm glad you enjoyed it!

[fd]

I actually thought Dohalim was one of the most useful characters. Law just seemed to die at every boss fight, while Dohalim not only survives but helps with physical and magical damage while also helping out Shionne with the healing job. Maybe it's just me, bu the is more of a sgae than a red mage in my books.

And yes, whyare the thrash mobs getting this hard near the end? The last dungeon is so annoying to get through with the old bosses and side bosses suddenly turning into mobs, can I just finish the game please? At least the dungeon is short.

[emmychansuper]

I'll be getting the game to livestream it, but that will take a long time till that happens. My first Tales-game is Zestiria and it's not a bad game as people say. In fact, it's good despite it's a button-masher

[JhakceMorgan]

I'm looking forward to my playthrough of this!

[Patrick-bnrp]

Hey David, would you mind taking a look at the Tales of Abyss HD project over at the Tales of ABCDE server? It isn't finished yet, as it's still in the beta stage, but...

[CuteAndFunnyFan]

It is also my goty so far. Honorable mention to Ys 9 though.