Tales of Arise (9th September 2021)

[Julius]

This game looks so damn beautiful.

 

Edited April 21, 2021 by Julius

[Magnus]

38 minutes ago, Julius said:

This game looks so damn beautiful. 

I'll take your word for it.

 

[Julius]

 

[Julius]

Delayed due to CV19.

Official statement from Bandai Namco:

Quote

The goal for Tales of Arise is to provide a familiar but innovative gameplay experience to fans of the series, while pushing the technical envelope to deliver a high level of graphical quality to impress both long-time players and those who have never played a Tales Of game. Development on the title has moved steadily forward in 2020 as we overcame challenges along the way.

While COVID-19 has affected some aspects of development, we’ve done our best to adapt to the situation and have implemented remote development capabilities for our team.

However, we will need more time to achieve the quality and provide the gorgeous experience we envision for our players, and therefore we decided to delay the launch timing for Tales of Arise.

A new launch window update will be provided once we have more details to share.

Not too much of a surprise there. 

[Dcubed]

It's alive!!!

It's now celshaded! First actual celshaded Tales game since Vesperia.  Looks like it has gone through some significant artistic overhauls in the TWO WHOLE WHOPPING YEARS since we last saw it...

This trailer is a bit of a nothingburger in terms of gameplay content, but hey! It exists!

Also...

Incredibly enough, it is NOT a crossgen title it seems; but rather it's still a PS4/Xbone title! Genuinely surprised by that!

Let's all hope that this is finally the return to form that the Tales series so desperately needs.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Dcubed

[Ike]

Well it’s looking good so far, I like the cellshading.

[Sheikah]

Maybe it's that I'm older now but that trailer looked a bit generic JRPG fantasy. Like, typical Tales fare, the kind of story you'll probably forget soon after it's finished. That voice acting was also very am dram (particularly the narrator).

 

To be honest, only Tales of Symphonia ever hit home for me, and that's possibly because of the timing of when it came out (when I was a teenager, and there weren't many games filling this niche on the Gamecube when it landed in UK).

 

I've even played a lot of them - some absolute stinkers (like Tales of Legendia) and some that are generally well regarded that I thought were not really that good (Abyss and Vesperia - although Vesperia was very recent and really showed its age in terms of QoL issues).

 

I'll wait to see more but I have a feeling that they'll never properly step up their game with the Tales series in terms of plot, characters, and voice acting; it feels destined to keep its very "B movie" RPG feel.

[Hero-of-Time]

On 06/03/2021 at 12:51 PM, Dcubed said:

Let's all hope that this is finally the return to form that the Tales series so desperately needs.

Done!  

[Goron_3]

On 06/03/2021 at 7:17 PM, Sheikah said:

Maybe it's that I'm older now but that trailer looked a bit generic JRPG fantasy. Like, typical Tales fare, the kind of story you'll probably forget soon after it's finished. That voice acting was also very am dram (particularly the narrator).

 

To be honest, only Tales of Symphonia ever hit home for me, and that's possibly because of the timing of when it came out (when I was a teenager, and there weren't many games filling this niche on the Gamecube when it landed in UK).

 

I've even played a lot of them - some absolute stinkers (like Tales of Legendia) and some that are generally well regarded that I thought were not really that good (Abyss and Vesperia - although Vesperia was very recent and really showed its age in terms of QoL issues).

 

I'll wait to see more but I have a feeling that they'll never properly step up their game with the Tales series in terms of plot, characters, and voice acting; it feels destined to keep its very "B movie" RPG feel.

Agreed about Symphonia - it's the only one that really impressed me and got me hooked, despite the cliches. The 60 FPS gameplay certainly helped, but I think it did some cool things with the plot and world building too. I did buy the Vesperia remaster but it was just too slow paced for my liking. I had to stop playing about 15 hours in.

[Julius]

Tales be arising 9th September 2021. 

A win for anime. Looking forward to my first Tales game! 

7 minute gameplay trailer:

Also coming to next-gen, with 4K and 60fps prioritisation modes and DualSense support:

Quote

Until now, the supported hardware was PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC (Steam), but with this announcement, it has become clear that it will also be compatible with PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X❘S. In this article, we will deliver an interview with Yusuke Tomizawa, the producer of "Tales of Arise". He talked in detail about the current development status, the outlook until the release date, the characters and systems announced this time, and so on.

...

--The PlayStation 5 controller "DualSense" has "haptic feedback" as a unique feature. Does it support it?

Tomizawa: Yes, we do. I would like to convey different vibrations to the player depending on the attack and action. For example, even if it's just one magic, it will feel different between electric shock and fire. I am trying to make you feel the reaction in more detail.

And ufotable (Demon Slayer!) producing the anime sequences. Think they worked on some before, but I had no idea.

Yep, this just got bumped up the pecking order a fair bit...

Edited April 21, 2021 by Julius

[Emerald Emblem]

A month before my Birthday, but I cannot wait for this.
 

There going to be a couple editions of the game.
The Collectors Edition (Already Sold out by the way):

 

• Tales of Arise full game
• An exclusive 18cm diorama representing Alphen and Shionne
• 64-page Artbook
• Steelbook®
• Physical and digital original soundtrack including 14 tracks
• Digital contents:
• Premium Travel Pack
• Artifacts, items
• Adventurer's Pack
• Premium Item Pack
• Artifacts, items, food, gald
• Premium Costume Pack
• 8 Costumes and 6 Accessories
• Collaboration Costume Pack: 3 costumes
• School Life Packs: 6 costumes
• Beach Time Packs: 6 costumes
• Warring States Packs: 6 costumes

The Hootle Edition:


The Hootle Edition has been inspired by the cute mascot of Tales of Arise! Hootle is a sweet white owl and also Rinwell's best friend!
Fall in love with the charming bird and get closer to Tales of Arise's main characters: Alphen, Shionne, Law & Rinwell.
The Hootle Edition includes:

• Tales of Arise full game
• An exclusive & Customisable Hootle Plush (15 cm) & 4 accessories
• 64-page Artbook
• Hootle Metalcase
• Set of Character stickers
• 3 Artprints 
• Physical and digital original soundtrack including 14 tracks 
• Digital content: 8 accessories representing different versions of Hootle

 

[Julius]

Developer message:

Had no idea it was the 25th anniversary of the series, there are so many of them this year! 

[Hero-of-Time]

 

[Julius]

2 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

 

I'm really liking what we've seen of the game so far, hopefully the weeks around it stay pretty empty so I can dive straight in! 

[Hero-of-Time]

Yup, that’s a Tales of opening.  

[Julius]

Free demo dropping next Tuesday on all platforms! 

The real question is: can I avoid starting a JRPG before the 9th? 

[Happenstance]

Did anyone end up getting this?

[Tales]

I did. Had to get it digital though because I couldn't get a physical copy by release. Anyway, completed the first two regions so far, about 14 hours played. Absolutely love it so far.

Edited September 13, 2021 by Tales

[Happenstance]

25 minutes ago, Tales said:

I did. Had to get it digital though because I couldn't get a physical copy by release. Anyway, completed the first two regions so far, about 20 hours played. Absolutely love it so far.

Glad to hear. I was thinking about getting it for the PS5 now but I've decided to wait and get it when the Steam Deck comes out.

[Dcubed]

Glad to hear that the sentiment is good with this game.  Sounds like it may well be the best Tales game in a very long time  

I’ll most likely wait until it inevitably comes to Game Pass however.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I'm working my way through the third realm now. I have to say, even though I am enjoying it, it's the least Tales feeling Tales game yet. Gone are the traditional RPG overworlds (or even massive Hyrule field style hubs, it's mainly corridor style), I think they've tried to "mature" up the game with the changing of skits into comic-esque sequences and it's given more of a "serious"* appearance and stripped away some of the more fun things like Wonder Chef, Katz and Turtlz etc.

Again, still a good game thus far. But nothing is making it stand out anymore... if this is how the series is going to progress, I'll be less interested.

 

*well it does have slavery and class oppression, but every Tales did.

[Sheikah]

I'm working my way through the third realm now. I have to say, even though I am enjoying it, it's the least Tales feeling Tales game yet. Gone are the traditional RPG overworlds (or even massive Hyrule field style hubs, it's mainly corridor style), I think they've tried to "mature" up the game with the changing of skits into comic-esque sequences and it's given more of a "serious"* appearance and stripped away some of the more fun things like Wonder Chef, Katz and Turtlz etc.
Again, still a good game thus far. But nothing is making it stand out anymore... if this is how the series is going to progress, I'll be less interested.
 
*well it does have slavery and class oppression, but every Tales did.

It's good to hear that the series has matured a bit but I'm still not convinced they have shaken their B movie feel, particularly when it comes to script and voice acting. There's something a little...immature about Tales games in terms of their story, characters and script, which is fine when you're 14 but it hasn't evolved to the point that I've ever really seriously enjoyed a game since Symphonia.

I might check this out if it goes cheap, we'll see!

[EEVILMURRAY]

25 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

It's good to hear that the series has matured a bit but I'm still not convinced they have shaken their B movie feel, particularly when it comes to script and voice acting. There's something a little...immature about Tales games in terms of their story, characters and script, which is fine when you're 14 but it hasn't evolved to the point that I've ever really seriously enjoyed a game since Symphonia.

I might check this out if it goes cheap, we'll see!

But the whimsical shit is what I like about the Tales games, otherwise I'd go into the other cookie cutter series out there which Arise is trying to emulate. I don't want merchants being generic hooded people by campsites. I want people with turtle shells putting Z's on the endz of wordz.

 

Always a treat having Bryce Papenbrook involved. As I'm watching Seven Deadly Sins on the Netflix I can't help but feel those Meliodas vibes ¬_¬

 

I think the script is a bit better this time around, it really hits you with the depressing slavery from the off. Although I'd like to see them try something more than "here's two worlds, one is trying to assrape the other (and the church is probably trying to fuck things over too), sort it out please", as such there's little more the dialogue can expand on what's not been said in these exact same circumstances

[drahkon]

Borrowed this from my sister's boyfriend and spent 3 hours with it.

So far so good. Combat seems fun, but it's as tactical as you'd expect from a Tales game...not tactical at all. Still early game, though. 

Two annoying things: There are so many cutscenes/dialogues that interrupt the game. You enter a new area, take two steps: BAM! Cutscene.
Aaaaaand there are a few optional, large, powerful monsters. I thought: "cool, something to grind for and take them out early", but no...they seem to be endgame content.  

[Hero-of-Time]

@drahkon I was crazy enough to do it.

Myself and drahkon have been discussing this game over the past week or so, with darksnowman listening in on the convo , and neither of us were liking the game at all. This pretty much sums up the characters and plot of the game.

Seriously, I don't think i've played a JRPG this bad in terms of unlikable characters who just won't shut the hell up. You can't walk forward more than a few steps without a cutscene or skit starting up. Due to how meh the story and characters are, I ended up skipping a lot of the story as the game went on. It's insane just how many times I had to hit the start button to skip said scenes. 

As for the gameplay, it's rough. The battles take an absolute age to get through. Standard enemies have a load of health but it's the bosses that take the cake. These things are damage sponges and the fights with them just drag on for ages. In most JRPGs, once you're 10 levels above the enemies and bosses you will easily take them down in a matter of seconds but not here. That's if you can even get your levels that high. The game is very stingy when it comes to dishing out EXP and so you're left trying to grind battles that already take ages to get through.

What makes the above problems interesting is that if you look at the paid DLC the game has to offer, you can see what's gone on here. There is DLC to double the EXP output, give you a boost in levels ( you can go up 40 levels if you want to pay ), give you loads of money, increasing the amount of items that you can carry...the list goes on. Some of these have been in past Tales games ever since Vesperia but this is the first time where the game seems to have really been balanced in order to get players to purchase these items. I wouldn't be surprised if reviewers used these in their playthroughs as they often get access to the DLC for free when reviewing games. This would explain why such issues were never raised. 

Then there's the enemy design in the game. I'm not kidding when I say there are only a handful of standard enemies in the game who are then repeated over and over again but just with different colours. This is something that happens in most JRPGs but not to this degree. There is usually a lot more variety on offer. I'm guessing because they were using a new engine that they didn't have time to design a whole host of new enemies.

Dungeon wise, I'm not sure what Tales game reviewers were playing but the dungeons here were no more impressive than any of the more recent Tales games. There were just as linear and had no real puzzle aspect to them. This doesn't really bother me at all but I don't understand where people are coming from when they were saying it was a return to earlier Tales games dungeon design because that isn't true in the slightest. It's essentially just walking from point A to point B and possibly going up a few floors via ladders and elevators.

All of these problems just made the game a real rough time to play through. It's easily the worst Tales game i've played and also the worst game i've played this year. Disappointing.