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Preface

What is it with publishers like Namco Bandai having such beloved IPs and yet pulling a somewhat of a Square Enix type, d@#k move to propelling people into buying their DLCs. Because it enriches the playing experience. They do that, but let me tell you something else, they also do others a lot worse.

The DLCs consist of increased inventory caps, free level up packs, a heckton of in-game currency for you to go crazy with, and newer, fashionable and much more powerful items to use. It's one of those DLCs that reviewers would like to use because they speed play the game and tries to act like they are reviewing these games at a fair basis sometimes. You have to fork up 30 USD for the ultimate edition.

But this isn't the kind of post where I want to trash on the game. Much like Scarlet Nexus, which came out few months back, I had fun playing this game. It is far better than Berseria, Zesteria, and Vesperia in terms of gameplay. It provides a more vertical playing field, where you can have 3D camera movement and attack enemies while on air. Just like what DMC does.

It borrows a few stuff from other games but adds these neat systems and mechanics to differentiate from anything else. It is a different fun Tales game that stands out pretty well. It is visually a more stunning game, the artwork reminds me of the Prince of Persia 2008 reboot but also doesn't eat up my PC as I would normally expect it to.

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Story

Tales of Arise takes place in the world of Dahna, which got invaded by the advanced galactic empire named Rena(if am being honest, they don't exactly specify what they are, an advanced cilization, Dahnas from the future or just some galactic armada). The Renas are highly advanced in terms of technology and are superior to the Dahnas in a lot of ways. Including magic.

After losing the war, the Dahnan's are subjected to slavery by the Renans for around 300 years. While they have shaped their medieval fantasy civilization into something more, well fashionably comtemporary. The Dahna had only little resistance since they were always underpowered. Of course, this is an adventure game, so everything changes with a group of heroes that rolls out to set things straight.

You play as Alpine, who is originally named Iron Mask since he is amnesiac slave that can feel no sense of pain at all. Stuck in Calaglia, Alpines meets a Renan girl named Shionne on the run from her own race. Together, both Shionne and Alpine finds a common goal to fight against the Renan empire and rid Dahna of the 5 lords taking control of the realms and gather their master cores. Alongside 4 other main characters that you'll find in each of the realms.

So the big themes are fascism, colonialism and slavery, because you are fighting alongside your friends to free people of the several centuries of conquest the Renans had over Dahna. A lot of the themes and overarching story becomes pretty heavy-handed from the start, but it only got me super interested till 10hrs of playtime. That's because becomes a by the numbers "save the world" story, with a number of interesting characters and villains to boot.

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Playing The Game

Tales of Arise is a very fast-paced action game. You can select and use upto 3 different artes, which you can change from the menu much as you want. Each character's attacks differentiate from being melee, shooter, mage to fists, among others. Attacking enemies fill up yours and your parties Strike meter. Once filled, you can launch a Strike at the press of a button. You attack them in fast combos till they break, this is when you launch your Boost Strikes. That deals in far more damage.

Unlike prior Tales games, you can jump and dodge, also fling enemies upwards and attack them mid-air. Artes are separated into ground and aerial types. Upon playing a certain character, if you've managed to dodge enough attacks or take certain damage long enough, Over Limit becomes active. This is where you launch Mystic Arte attacks by pulling mixed button prompts. The game lets you switch back and forth between characters during battles. You can also change who their targets are.

You migh think that's all I've gotten to explain about the game, but there's so much more to uncover. Each characters have unique additions to the mechanics. Like Alpine can do unlocked 2nd Arte attacks that follow up from the first ones. Shionne fires from a distance but can heal and revive teammates while also dishing out insane damage.

There are RPG elements like crafting and enhancing accesories to get good stats, unlocking better weapons and armor gears, and if you want to look fancy, you can change outfit, which has no effect on gameplay, just there for you to look good in whatever ways you want.

Unlocking Skills get you new Artes, new skills like counter-attacks after evading, increase your AG slots, level up other skills, and so on. All characters, even ones not present within 4 selected parties passively gain experience, even after battles. So you have quite a bit of micromanaging going on.

This can be a pretty lengthy experience, as you'll clock in around 35hrs playing at cruise mode or doing the completionist marathon will put you over 50hrs. It's an intensely fun game, most of the mechanics are easy to learn, all you have to do is follow the help book. There's even a codex for each of the enemies you've faced, learning their weaknesses and all.

There's one complain I do have, and that has to do with the terrible controller support. I've had to deal with problem so many times, that I just switched to KB&M. Except this game was made fittingly to be played with controller. The other option was a bad experience.

Visually all I can say is, this game looks gorgeous. Especially since it is made with Unreal Engine 4. Animation, the cutscenes, lip sync, and all that are top notch. It is also easy to play for your PC. Like, you can play this at the highest of settings running a GTX 1060 around 60FPS for the most part. Speaking of, it baffles me why they haven't released it for the Switch.

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Definitely Worth Playing

It has an acceptable story, yet everything around it is superb. From the fun, intense gameplay with so much to do, gorgeous visuals, amazing soundtrack, high production value, good voice dubs.

The problems with the DLC stuff exists. It is kind of egregious to sell people game breaking items that completely change how you're supposed to be playing the game. Even after getting them, I've only used like 15% of it and I could tell something was wrong.

Despite that, you should definitely check it out. It is a good return for the Tales franchise, the only other good Tales game I know of is Vesperia and I played that like 9 years ago. Also, am a month late, but I thought it be a good time than never to talk about this. Hope you liked what you've read.