Tales of Arise

(Played on OneXPlayer Windows gaming tablet through Steam in Japanese, both voice and text.)

If Tales of Arise set out to be the dark and gritty reboot of its 26 years old series with the marketing buzzword like “mature”, then it can be regarded a failure. What it did achieve is to attract yours truly, who once swore off Tales Of series, to play through it from start to finish.

Tales of Arise has a very refined comic book like story with elements like an established rogue galley of five. Despite the PC version not having graphic option, it runs better than Scarlet Nexus, a Bandi Namco game earlier this year, on the Window gaming tablet I played both on. Its RPG mechanic like escape from battles make it more like a sim of fight-or-flight fantasy adventure than tiring gauntlets in action games. If you got 40 to 50 hours to play a RPG, I would recommend this one wholeheartedly.

The short of it...

Usually this is where yours truly would have summed up the game’s story then proceeded to bullshitting about pop culture products the game reminds me of. Tales of Arise simply has way so much on that regard that several pieces of blogs might have to be written so I can get it completely out of out system. So here is the short of it.

Tales of Arise is essentially a playable action comic for boys. The game set up a rouge galley of 5 for player to cut through, much like the 7 Deadly Sins in Fullmetal Alchemist. It turned the series tradition skits into multiple panels affair. The game menu graphic would make suitable comic book covers.

I found the story overall to be sort of a “page turner”, just when I thought I can put the game down for couple of days after a pivotal plot point, some thread would pulled me back in until the credits rolled, whether it’s the fate of a character, some mystery teased or world altering event. 6 party members would get more likeable as the story goes on. It certainly matches the feeling I have reading through a complete collection of comic books imported from Japan.

Fight and flight

I played through on the lowest difficulty called “Story” because it’s the first action fused JRPG I played through. My previous encounters with this type of games include the long , grindy and critically acclaimed Xenoblade Chronicle 2, a game Arise got compared to in both Steam user review section and IGN comments, and the short, grindy and not so well received Shining Resonance. Arise’ combat feels more like a straight forward character action game compared to those 2.

Except the right face button for jumping, the other 3 face button can be assigned an Arte to attack. There can be 2 sets of Artes, one for ground and one for aerial. If the gauge for Artes runs out, one can still whack enemies with the right bumper. It feels like right trigger is legally required to be the evade button in non shooting action game and Arise follows that law to a t. D-pad is boost attack, whether it’s one party member simply jumping in when their gauge is full or 2 party member gang on a almost down enemy. The way they yell is Japanese action comic for boys in a nutshell.

One can switch freely among the 6 party members in battle. There is in-your-face sword dude and more or less player character Alphen, then there is in-your-face fist dude and borderline “Goku clone” Law. You get your typical mage in booky Rinwell and typical tank in shield wielding Kisaka. Kisaka actually fights with a mace but when you upgrade her weapons, it’s always getting her new and better shields.

Shionne, the armored white dress wearing pretty lady with a gun, is relatively not typical. While the gun in her hand would not make the game suddenly into a shooter, she being the main healer makes her keeping the enemies at distance while keeping the friendlies alive my favorite style in the game. The same can be said about her fellow “Roman, but with space magic” Dohailm. I still have not figured the princely stuff wielding dude’s deal after beating the game in a 41 hours long playthrough.

Construction wise, as an orthodox to a fault RPG, Arise is bountiful in terms of side quest. Range from big game hunting to go X place to talk to character Y then something weirder, I got distracted from that page-turning main plot for more than once.

Though compared to those with Nintendo brand on them, Arise can get messy when it comes to recommended levels for the side quests. The big game hunting is better on that regard, as party members’ chat would tell you whether you should take the optional boss at that time. One particular unpleasant surprising one is late in the game. It started as the youngest 2 wanting to go somewhere and see a nice flower, then I had to fight a monster 10 levels ahead. As the time of writing, I have not completed that quest.

It feels like after Nintendo Switch launch, long Japanese games finally allow their players to save at will rather than confine saving to save points. Arise is the first one with such mechanic I played on a Windows device. The game allow players to save outside combat, cut scenes and ,ironically, camp fires. Camp fires are where party members rest and restore. Given that those are where Soulsborne games only allow their players to save, Arise doing the opposite is quite funny to me.

Arise is not free of some AAA games endgame frustration. Before both the fake out ending and the real ending, the game would throw out gauntlets of 2 to 4 battles and no section allowing saving in between. The only positive I can say about it is that at least it’s endurable than the bullshit DOOM Eternal throws out.

Other that the occasions mentioned in the paragraph above, combats can be avoided mostly in Arise, whether it’s through trying not to run into enemies or allowed to escape where ran into. This makes the game feel like a fellowship of 6 adventuring through a fantasy land rather than forced to committed genocide on one. Boy, doesn’t this feel good.

Verdict

For past 2 years, my favorites of the years are one I didn’t except much from but ended up devoted a whole month worth of play time into and had a great time. Like Fire Emblem Three Houses soaked my time in August, 2019 and Hades devoured my time in October, 2020, Tales of Arise managed to entertain me throughout September, 2021. You all might want to give it a chance.