Tales of Arise | PS4/PS5/XB1/XSX/PC | 9/10/21

[Mike_Pipeson]

Finally had the game delivered to muh hotel last night. Can't wait to crush it

 

[KushSkywalker]

A game that gave actual answers is Trails of Cold Steel IV. I don’t agree with all the decisions the writers made in the end but they after the conflict was resolved. There’s a 8 minute narrated monologue that completely lays out the state of the world after the main conflict was resolved including specifically what happens to most of the major players of the supporting cast.

After that a similar type of event that happens at the tail end of Arise’s credits happens as a picture slideshow in the credits but the entirety of them is dedicated to that event and they literally show everyone you could think of hell even people who did not appear in the game but do appear in the series overall.

By the time the credits stopped it was more than satisfactory. With Arise it’s clear the ending was an afterthought. The bare minimum of effort went into it.

I like the idea of epilogues in games and I’m not against there being one.

But to call the ending rushed and an afterthought cause you didn’t get some cutscenes of the team rebuilding cities and holding hands into the sunset is odd to me.

You seem to only think whatever happened post credits is the ‘ending’ I would call the entire last excursion the ‘ending’. Which I found pretty epic and satisfactory.

Again I am not against an epilogue or more expansion on the post victory world. I just think you’re exaggerating a bit on its impact on this story.

 

[Khalil's_Black_Excellence]

Finally was strong enough to go back to the beginning and beat that praying mantis' ass.

 

[acri1]

Vholran really wasn't that hard I actually had a harder time with those things you fight before him.

Granted, it was close, but I beat him the first time. I'm...pretty confused about what happened after that but I guess I'll see what else is left.


I don't get the motives of these Renan Lords though, as far as I can tell most of them are just evil to be evil

 

[Thanos]

Yeah, the game is overrated to me so far, but I'm only on Ganabelt.

But the funny thing is, this game is actually a dramatic step up storywise from other Tales games IMO. This battle system is trash to me tho, it's the same Tales formula they been doing forever.

It's not trash, but the previous games just dealt with everything better and less binary too. Even Xillia 1.

 

[Methodical]

How the fukk you beat Grand Gnome? This mfer is tougher than all Lords.

 

[Carl Tethers]

I like the idea of epilogues in games and I’m not against there being one.

But to call the ending rushed and an afterthought cause you didn’t get some cutscenes of the team rebuilding cities and holding hands into the sunset is odd to me.

You seem to only think whatever happened post credits is the ‘ending’ I would call the entire last excursion the ‘ending’. Which I found pretty epic and satisfactory.

Again I am not against an epilogue or more expansion on the post victory world. I just think you’re exaggerating a bit on its impact on this story.

 

[winb83]

Playing Berseria again right after this and the combat system itself is better. Having enough health to get through a dungeon isn’t an issue. No fast travel out of a dungeon because we ran low on CP using it to get chest. When you level up your health is refilled. Money is in great supply naturally. Berseria fails at the cumbersome equipment and skill management system.

I hope they never bring back that CP system and the shortage of money but both are likely design choices they made to push people to buy DLC to make up for them. They’ll probably remain going forward because even posters here admitted to buying a stimulus DLC package.

The instant fast travel of Arise is great though. Lots of long tracks in Berseria or buying items to fast travel. Arise needs a block though. Too much focus on perfect dodging.

 

[Khalil's_Black_Excellence]

Playing Berseria again right after this and the combat system itself is better. Having enough health to get through a dungeon isn’t an issue. No fast travel out of a dungeon because we ran low on CP using it to get chest. When you level up your health is refilled. Money is in great supply naturally. Berseria fails at the cumbersome equipment and skill management system.

I hope they never bring back that CP system and the shortage of money but both are likely design choices they made to push people to buy DLC to make up for them. They’ll probably remain going forward because even posters here admitted to buying a stimulus DLC package.

The instant fast travel of Arise is great though. Lots of long tracks in Berseria or buying items to fast travel. Arise needs a block though. Too much focus on perfect dodging.

I just beat Berseria like a couple of days before Arise drop. The combat is not even remotely close to being better. Especially early one when your AG points are low and since all moves are tied to arts, there's not much you can do to mitigate that. The tagging your other members in on the fly is the only thing that was handled a lil better combat wise.

 

[ItWasWritten]

Are the other Tales games as fire as this ?
Or is this the best one ?

My first one ever and I’m having a blast, these marvel vs capcom style combos, each character having a strike style for a specific type of enemy or move, dragonball z style super moves … woooooo!

My only real critique is the economy of the game, I feel shyt costs way too much, although I have done pretty much every super zeugle i could find and my CP is in the 500’s so it’s not as bad as before but still … kinda lame

another small gripe is besides the different super Zeugles and bosses, the enemy types are basically the same with a different coat of paint ..

but I guess you see that in every rpg

 

[acri1]

Are the other Tales games as fire as this ?
Or is this the best one ?

My first one ever and I’m having a blast, these marvel vs capcom style combos, each character having a strike style for a specific type of enemy or move, dragonball z style super moves … woooooo!

My only real critique is the economy of the game, I feel shyt costs way too much, although I have done pretty much every super zeugle i could find and my CP is in the 500’s so it’s not as bad as before but still … kinda lame

another small gripe is besides the different super Zeugles and bosses, the enemy types are basically the same with a different coat of paint ..

but I guess you see that in every rpg

I haven't played all of them, only the ones on PS3 and PS4. IMO this is the best one but the other ones are good too, just a bit more dated with graphics and combat.

They're similar with the anime feel, skits, etc. although money is way easier to come by in those than this one, for some reason they got stingy in Arise. The one's I'd recommend (from best to worst) are -


Tales of Berseria (PS4)
Tales of Vesperia (360, PS4, XB1, Switch)
Tales of Graces (PS3, Wii)
Tales of Xillia 1 and 2 (PS4)
Tales of Zesteria (PS3, PS4)

I'd say they're all pretty good in terms of gameplay, although Zesteria had the weakest story and characters IMO. IIRC Berseria is a prequel to Zesteria and takes place like centuries earlier.

 

[xiceman191]

One feature I would like to see would be that when you are in the artes menu it would be dope if they had a quick video of what the move looks like.

 

[Khalil's_Black_Excellence]

One feature I would like to see would be that when you are in the artes menu it would be dope if they had a quick video of what the move looks like.

Yeah, that would be nice. Especially considering how many moves you get and that you can't refund a move if you don't want it. I generally don't skip on learning any new artes tho.

 

[winb83]

I just beat Berseria like a couple of days before Arise drop. The combat is not even remotely close to being better. Especially early one when your AG points are low and since all moves are tied to arts, there's not much you can do to mitigate that. The tagging your other members in on the fly is the only thing that was handled a lil better combat wise.

Everything in Arise's combat system is designed to frustrate the player. The fights with regular enemies are nothing like the boss fights. The end of the boss fights with the damage sponge bosses usually turn into them spamming ultimate attacks over and over again in a loop with wide AOE effects. Turns into you racing to try to build up your boost gauge, keep the CPU AI alive and end the fight before you run out of stuff to keep your party upright. One or two hits from a boss is enough to take your entire life bar. Many of their attacks one shot you.

They make you use healing CP to get items in the dungeon and make it difficult to refill it like it's a Persona game forcing you to leave the dungeon and sleep at an inn or campfire to regain them just so you can teleport back to the beginning of the dungeon and run back through it to get back to where you are. There's no time mechanic like Persona either it's just an obstacle they put in your path to frustrate you and waste your time. It doesn't really change anything it just consumes time. You either have to flee from all the fights or just do them and it's not really rewarding because once you reach the enemy level experience points aren't worth it and you're not really earning money from the fights either.

Money is purposely kept in short supply and CP restoring items are excessively expensive. The money for which contends with sometimes needing to buy new equipment.

Berseria at the very least has none of those issues. It doesn't feel like a game designed on a level to frustrate players into buying DLC packs to rectify flaws they knowingly baked into the game. I'm not constantly babysitting the AI team mates and guzzling life bottles to keep them alive. Healing has never been an issue.

I know people will say there's ways to get around the money issues with mini games. Still doesn't change the fact that in a normal playthrough for people who don't even care about going out of their way to do that they've purposely created a scarcity of money that doesn't exist even in previous games of this series then make sure they display there's low cost DLC for a couple bucks to buy in-game money with real money. In normal RPGs usually fighting battles nets you decent money.

Lastly they sent reviewers an ultimate edition package that contained DLC that mitigated all those baked in flaws simply by claiming the DLC.

 

[acri1]

Everything in Arise's combat system is designed to frustrate the player. The fights with regular enemies are nothing like the boss fights. The end of the boss fights with the damage sponge bosses usually turn into them spamming ultimate attacks over and over again in a loop with wide AOE effects. Turns into you racing to try to build up your boost gauge, keep the CPU AI alive and end the fight before you run out of stuff to keep your party upright. One or two hits from a boss is enough to take your entire life bar. Many of their attacks one shot you.

They make you use healing CP to get items in the dungeon and make it difficult to refill it like it's a Persona game forcing you to leave the dungeon and sleep at an inn or campfire to regain them just so you can teleport back to the beginning of the dungeon and run back through it to get back to where you are. There's no time mechanic like Persona either it's just an obstacle they put in your path to frustrate you and waste your time. It doesn't really change anything it just consumes time. You either have to flee from all the fights or just do them and it's not really rewarding because once you reach the enemy level experience points aren't worth it and you're not really earning money from the fights either.

Money is purposely kept in short supply and CP restoring items are excessively expensive. The money for which contends with sometimes needing to buy new equipment.

Berseria at the very least has none of those issues. It doesn't feel like a game designed on a level to frustrate players into buying DLC packs to rectify flaws they knowingly baked into the game. I'm not constantly babysitting the AI team mates and guzzling life bottles to keep them alive. Healing has never been an issue.

I know people will say there's ways to get around the money issues with mini games. Still doesn't change the fact that in a normal playthrough for people who don't even care about going out of their way to do that they've purposely created a scarcity of money that doesn't exist even in previous games of this series then make sure they display there's low cost DLC for a couple bucks to buy in-game money with real money. In normal RPGs usually fighting battles nets you decent money.

Lastly they sent reviewers an ultimate edition package that contained DLC that mitigated all those baked in flaws simply by claiming the DLC.

You could always just turn the difficulty down if it's that serious

The lack of cash in the first half of the game is annoying but it's not THAT bad, and once you unlock fishing it's not really an issue. I'm playing on moderate and other than a boss fight or two it's been fine.



So far I've not felt a need to buy any DLC at all, and unless there's something story-related I probably won't.