Various first impressions from the Tales of Arise demo now that I had a chance to play it:

• Art style looks less...cartoony than other Tales Of games, though each member of your party dresses like they came from a different era of JRPG. From the oldschool full armor knight to the 90s antihero with a dark torn cape to the pretty princess with a (magic) gun, there's something for everyone.
• They really couldn't think of a better name to call monsters in general than "zeugle" (pronounced "zoo-gull") huh?
• Water is no longer an impassible barrier in the world, your character can actually swim through it to reach other spots! And yes, there is a treasure chest behind a waterfall.
• Though the zeugles have some different behaviors to help you decide whether to fight or avoid them, battle transitions aren't as seamless as they are in other recent RPGs like Persona 5 or FFXV. Wonder if that's because of the beta or that's just how they're going to roll.
• Like in FFXV, there's a campsite on the field where you can set up for the night to cook food, listen to amusing sketches, and restore health/mana.
• The battle system is pretty cool. I've often liked Tales Of games battle systems for using real-time action instead of turn-based, and this one takes it even further allowing you to dodge and move in 3D instead of locking you into a 2D plane unless you're trying to run away. Plus you can do finishing moves on enemies if you hit them enough times, boost attacks (I'm not sure how they differ outside of "does a bunch of damage at once"), and can even switch party members mid-battle (sort of, there are restrictions I'm not sure of yet).
• Equipment seems incredibly simple compared to other Tales games. Just weapon/armor/accessory slots for each character and that's it. Maybe there's a crafting system in the full game, but after suffering through Zestiria's system (and hearing similar complaints in Berseria) I won't be sad if there isn't.

I've only played a handful of minutes of the demo so far. Combat seemed more mashy to me than in the past? I don't know, it's been 5 years since Berseria now? That might as well be an eternity ago in terms of Tales games. I could just be misremembering.

I read that the producer said he was inspired by Life Is Strange when making this one, which I'm interested in seeing what exactly that means for the game, if anything.

No crafting system? YEEESSSS. Zesty's was fucking awful.

I just wanna find equipment upgrades normally again. Everything involved with Zest/Berseria equipment was a fuckin' bummer.

Is there one story, or is it a Scarlet Nexus dual protagonist sort of situation?

@csl316: Not sure, but from what I could tell from the trailers it's about a guy who can't feel pain and a girl who brings a painful curse to everyone she touches, and together they fight...I dunno, some evil god probably.

Is there a way to get this demo on PC? Not seeing it on Steam?

@rorie: I don't think the demo is being put out on PC unfortunately for whatever reason.

@rorie: Pretty sure the demo is only on consoles right now. I don't think they've said anything about whether one is coming to PC.

EDIT: In light of this question being answered seconds before I posted, I'll instead use this space to say that I have finished the demo. It's a real nice looking game. There's just something about the combat though that just seems... mindless, I guess? I don't know. At no point did I feel a need to change up my tactics, or switch party members. Maybe I should crank up the difficulty?

On a scale of Vesperia to Zesteria, where does the combat fall? I rather liked Vesperia, but Zestiria was a lot of “characters all stack up on top of each other and I can’t tell what’s going on.”

@therealturk: I would say the more traditional camera and free movement on a 3D plain gives you a better view of your character during the action, but is still a mess in the way of all anime games, with a whole bunch of spells popping off all the time and special effects all over the place.