Tales of Arise (9th September 2021)

[drahkon]

"A testament to the knowledge gained" 
...
Haha, I LEARNED NOTHING ABOUT YOUR WORLD. I skipped it all of the lore, you chatty, stupid, boring characters.

Congrats on the Platinum, H-o-T.  No way I'll go for it  

I will gladly give back my sister's boyfriend's copy and tell him: "Sell it, it's not worth playing."

Edit: Aaaaaand I burrowed H-o-T's post on the previous page  Sorry. 

Edited May 10, 2022 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, drahkon said:

Edit: Aaaaaand I burrowed H-o-T's post on the previous page  Sorry. 

Good. I'll be able to open the thread on my phone now without gifs and videos crashing the page before it can open.  

[Sheikah]

[mention=2521]drahkon[/mention] 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 [emoji3], 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.

That's a real shame. I'd heard good things about this game and was planning on getting it, and it seemed like it reviewed well.

 

Also - worst Tales game? Have you ever played Tales of Legendia? [emoji14]

[Hero-of-Time]

15 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

That's a real shame. I'd heard good things about this game and was planning on getting it, and it seemed like it reviewed well.

 

Also - worst Tales game? Have you ever played Tales of Legendia?

I did. I had an imported PS2 to play that and Tales of Abyss. I'd still play Legendia over this.  

[Happenstance]

This was one I was planning on playing on the Steam Deck. Might re-think that now.

[Hero-of-Time]

I was thinking, the constant chatter in the game is in keeping with other Namco games. Both Code Vein and Scarlet Nexus had the same problem. Scarlet Nexus, which I enjoyed, was the worse of the two for this but Namco went overboard with Arise.

[Sheikah]

14 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I was thinking, the constant chatter in the game is in keeping with other Namco games. Both Code Vein and Scarlet Nexus had the same problem. Scarlet Nexus, which I enjoyed, was the worse of the two for this but Namco went overboard with Arise.

I think it's a very Japanese developer issue. Sony first party games are also known for their "chatter" but it usually happens in the background and doesn't interrupt the gameplay (but it's still annoying). "Oh a rope, I could use that to get up!"

[Hero-of-Time]

14 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

I think it's a very Japanese developer issue. Sony first party games are also known for their "chatter" but it usually happens in the background and doesn't interrupt the gameplay (but it's still annoying). "Oh a rope, I could use that to get up!"

Yeah, Horizon was terrible for that. From what I've heard, the sequel didn't fix this issue either. 

[Dcubed]

Did... did @Hero of Time just Hate Platinum a game!?

I think you may have a problem buddy...

Edited May 11, 2022 by Dcubed

[Hero-of-Time]

51 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Did... did @Hero of Time just Hate Platinum a game!?

I think you may have a problem buddy...

It's not the first time I've done this and it won't be the last.  

[Hero-of-Time]

At least I got another platinum out of the game.  

Figured I would transfer my PS4 save over to the PS5, install the free PS5 version of the game and unlock all the trophies. Almost makes my pain playing the game worthwhile. Almost....