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[LakeOf9]

I heard so much praise for this game, but I don’t know why. It looks really nice, but other than that, combat is boring (all enemies are way too damage spongey), exploration is super linear, RPG mechanics are very minor (you never get meaningful growth options), and the story started out really really cool but had just gotten weird as time goes on (at this point my enemy is a planet? And it’s not a planet but a rock that looks like a flower? And it’s actually a life form?

The skits are a big downgrade from the older games too, they don’t have any of the character moments and banter and just end up being a repeat of the story cutscenes.

Honestly it started out super well and just got worse and worse as time went on. At this point the only thing I can praise without reservation is character designs (Alphen and Dohalim are great, and I would gladly fuck Shionne or Kisara), but that’s not nearly enough to keep playing.

This is now the third Tales game where I fell for the hype and didn’t like it - Symphonia remaster on PS3, Vesperia with the remaster a few years ago, and now this. Maybe this series is just not for me (or maybe it’s just constantly mid).

 

[Go_Ly_Dow]

I heard so much praise for this game, but I don’t know why. It looks really nice, but other than that, combat is boring (all enemies are way too damage spongey), exploration is super linear, RPG mechanics are very minor (you never get meaningful growth options), and the story started out really really cool but had just gotten weird as time goes on (at this point my enemy is a planet? And it’s not a planet but a rock that looks like a flower? And it’s actually a life form?

The skits are a big downgrade from the older games too, they don’t have any of the character moments and banter and just end up being a repeat of the story cutscenes.

Honestly it started out super well and just got worse and worse as time went on. At this point the only thing I can praise without reservation is character designs (Alphen and Dohalim are great, and I would gladly fuck Shionne or Kisara), but that’s not nearly enough to keep playing.

This is now the third Tales game where I fell for the hype and didn’t like it - Symphonia remaster on PS3, Vesperia with the remaster a few years ago, and now this. Maybe this series is just not for me (or maybe it’s just constantly mid).

+lovely graphics engine/style (I find many are weak to cell shaded art direction)
+good art direction
+some nice music
+combat is serviceable
+story is serviceable

That said I'm in agreement with you largely. Particularly certain main characters don't develop so well or are forgotten.

 

[adamsapple]

I liked it a lot personally, probably my favorite Tales game since Vesperia.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I own it on disc but never really got far into it, maybe I should.

 

[Nankatsu]

Think it holds pretty good until the end, specially if you learn to combo and switch between the characters mid battle. Combat system is deep and varied considering you can use and control every single member on your party. It might seem busy and confusing at first, but it works surprisingly well if you put your time into it.

Story is very anime service, sure, but I thought it was solid and well presented.

Skits are actually good at showing off the groups chemistry, which is one of the things that I think the game does really well. I don't get how you're saying they're bad tbh.

Overall I really liked the game, even went for the platinum trophy. It's easily one of my favourite action-rpgs this generation.

 

[Minsc]

It was very average, but at least you could do stuff like jump decently and swim freely. Games like FFXVI don't even let you really do that. But yeah, very spongey combat, and average at best everything else. But at least there's an actual party and some RPG elements in the game.

 

[Chuck Berry]

Friendly reminder: The only good Tales game is Symphonia

Except stay away from that remaster. Utter shit.

Hunt down a Gamecube copy.

 

[MagiusNecros]

Much prefer Berseria and Graces F.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Its my number one Tales game. Very fair platinum trophy too, can be done in one run.

The combat is excellent, there is a full party and you can call them for boost attacks which will cripple certain enemies weak to it. The crafting system is decent, you can make OP accessories such as almost no CP spent on heals, and fast boost gauge refills. You can chain artes, unleash mystic artes etc. Every character plays distinct, and I found them all fun to use. They can all do some sick shit.

The bosses are sponges but once I was fully leveled and did the secret duos fight I actually nuked them extremely fast.

If you ask me, Arise's combat and party mechanics give FFXVI a run for its money. As does its equipment and crafting.

 

[Bojji]

My first Tales game, I loved it. In many aspects it's better than FFXVI.

Now between finishing latest FF and Starfield launch I think I will continue playing Berseria (I'm like 2h in).

 

[German Hops]

 

[JordiENP]

The story at the end is not worth it and the gameplay easy as f. The more I play Xenoblade the more I question if other jrpg developers are just stupid.

 

[Paltheos]

Mid on the whole (my ranking is Vesperia>Graces>Berseria>Zestiria>Abyss>Arise>Symphonia>Xillia or something close). The game does allot of stuff right and allot wrong. Off the top of my head:

+Presentation's on a whole other level. The world is so much bigger than before and the combat is as flashy as Tales has ever been.
+Sakuraba swung and hit this time. Most of his music is really good - particular shoutouts to the main battle theme and the dynamic tracks in major dungeons that switch gears depending on whether you're in the field or battle.
+Start of the story is decently exciting and the main duo have good chemistry. I dig the Utena callback and the fire sword in general.
-Ironically, the mixing is kind of garbage, making the awesome tracks not as easy to hear as they should be and somehow Bandai doesn't have individual volume sliders for different sounds (music/voice/sfx are the standard three).
-Some elements of the combat interface were annihilated. For god knows what reason, AI instructions for your teammates are not available in this title and you can't... say, instruct your party to attack other monsters on the field instead of the one you're trying to combo. Baffling.
-The rest of the cast did not land with me. Part of this might be related to replacing the 2D animated artwork in skits with their in-game 3D models which have... just so less personality.
-Story falls to pieces by the end, as is often the case in Tales games, but this one's particularly memorable for its mind-numbingly long and tedious cutscenes by the end. Middle section isn't great either.

This is now the third Tales game where I fell for the hype and didn’t like it - Symphonia remaster on PS3, Vesperia with the remaster a few years ago, and now this. Maybe this series is just not for me (or maybe it’s just constantly mid).

Probably not for you is my bet. Vesperia's often lauded as the best although not everybody agrees on that (and I can see it - some of the other games are really good). If you've tried two other games and still don't like it, yeah, I think your gut is right.
They are B games though! I affectionately refer to the Tales series as "the best B-level franchise there is". They know exactly what they are and go for it.

 

[Fbh]

I finished it but found it disappointing overall. Story is just ok, combat has a solid base but weak bosses, and overall it's another JRPG that keeps on going for like 10-15 hours more than it should.
The story is very cliche but serviceable. My main issue with it is that I didn't feel a lot of chemistry between the characters compared to previous entries. I think it's partially because they made many of the skits too serious and exposition heavy, it was missing more fun lighthearted moments like in previous games.

The combat against regular enemies was fun IMO, they are spongy but the idea is to do long combos which allow you to do a "boost strike" and insta kill them regardless of how much HP they have left.
The problem is that the entire combat system feels designed around the "combo --> boost strike" mechanic, but that gets thrown out of the window during bosses which are just boring spongy encounters where you feel like you are hitting a wall for 10 minutes. What's worse is that in late game dungeons they start adding boss type enemies as regular encounters which is extremely annoying

 

[Werewolf Jones]

No Fujishima, no Inomata and you expected it to be good? Lol

 

[FoxMcChief]

The story at the end is not worth it and the gameplay easy as f. The more I play Xenoblade the more I question if other jrpg developers are just stupid.

I would at Atlus as well. It just seems like JRPG quality has gone down ever since Final Fantasy stopped being JRPG’s.

 

[Brigandier]

I really liked it the battle system was good the specials felt really satisfying especially Laws.

 

[SF Kosmo]

I'm a big fan of this series but I really didn't connect with this one. I thought the art direction was excellent but the story is just the same old shit they have done so many times before in this series, and I didn't love the cast.

Dialog and cutscenes also suffered hard from that stiff, disjointed feeling you see in a lot of Japanese games, with long pauses in between each character's lines and no sense that this is actually two people talking to each other.

And they would just prattle on and on, over explaining everything.

 

[JordiENP]

I would at Atlus as well. It just seems like JRPG quality has gone down ever since Final Fantasy stopped being JRPG’s.

yeah, Atlust, Monolith Soft and Falcom are carrying the genre.

 

[R6Rider]

I barely managed to finish the demo it had.

Awful

 

[Madflavor]

I definitely felt tricked by it's high MC score, and the first third of the game is legit great. Then it dips in quality during it's second third, and then nosedives in the last. I wasn't able to finish it, I lost interest.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

I was soo excited for ToA. Love the series in general. Game turned out to be very disappointing to me in the end. Their adventure started out fine, but mid to late game it just felt sort of artificial. The dialog became stale, the story turned stupid, and it ended abruptly and was really anticlimactic.

 

[Cornbread78]

Arise had a couple shortcomings, but it was a great game/experience overall!

 

[Exede]

When you search for a great JRPG theres no way arround the Xenoblade series.
Better in everything than Tales of for me, well minus GFX fidelity.

 

[Chuck Berry]

No Fujishima, no Inomata and you expected it to be good? Lol

You expect anyone to know who those people are? Lol

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Don't tell me that. I just bought it for $20 to try my first Tales game. I also got Star Ocean and Valkyrie Elysium cheap too. FFXVI has me on an action JRPG kick.

 

[stn]

Don't tell me that. I just bought it for $20 to try my first Tales game. I also got Star Ocean and Valkyrie Elysium cheap too. FFXVI has me on an action JRPG kick.

I love all of the games you mentioned, haha. Enjoy.

EDIT: Look into Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Its an excellent action RPG.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

I love all of the games you mentioned, haha. Enjoy.

EDIT: Look into Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin. Its an excellent action RPG.

Remind me in like 2 years. haha. I have a 1 year old so it'll take me forever to play these games.
I got star ocean, valkyrie and tales for a total of $70. Thought I was doing pretty good.
I almost bought star ocean and valkyrie around launch after playing their demos, but glad I waited.

 

[jshackles]

The story was pretty good, right up until you leave the planet. Then the rails come off. Honestly, the game should have just ended there.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I'm a big fan of this series but I really didn't connect with this one. I thought the art direction was excellent but the story is just the same old shit they have done so many times before in this series, and I didn't love the cast.

Dialog and cutscenes also suffered hard from that stiff, disjointed feeling you see in a lot of Japanese games, with long pauses in between each character's lines and no sense that this is actually two people talking to each other.

And they would just prattle on and on, over explaining everything.

Every time something happens they yap on and on. Then 3 seconds later you get a skit where yap some more about the thing you just witnessed.

 

[stn]

Remind me in like 2 years. haha. I have a 1 year old so it'll take me forever to play these games.
I got star ocean, valkyrie and tales for a total of $70. Thought I was doing pretty good.
I almost bought star ocean and valkyrie around launch after playing their demos, but glad I waited.

Try the Stranger of Paradise demo, I think it is still up. Personally, it is probably my second-favorite action RPG ever. I'm actually doing my first run of Valkyrie Elysium, it is also solid (though not as good but still good enough).

 

[The Cockatrice]

Well it's a jrpg. I swear every single non From Software jrpg devs use the exact same fucking story plot patterns. Starts cool, reels you in with mistery, cool companions and then it just goes fucking downhill with overpowered garbage, insane mythical shit, blablabla, generic ending. All FF games are the same, all tales games are the same, all DQ games are the same, all average overrated stuff only because they are jrpgs and westerners love any japanese media. If western game had the same cliches over and over, they wouldnt be as popular.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

The writing for Arise is GENUINELY atrocious from start to finish.

It feels like zero thought was put into the story/world/lore and the characters (at least to me) have the charisma of a plank of wood. I didn’t like a single member of the cast. I tolerated Kisara but that’s about it. I usually love characters like Shionne (I mean, I love Lightning), but she was way too much for me. Alphen was a ridiculous Gary Stu who acted like he’s in the middle of his Philosophy 101 course with his “yknow, those murderous villains are humans at the end of the day, too. Not excusing them, but they’re people just like us.”


For starters: how exactly did Shionne start the game off being handcuffed? Not even the devs were able to answer that question.

So many extremely silly plot points and contrivances.
I recall the battles being fun (though like everyone else I got annoyed with some repetition + spongey enemies) and the game being pretty good-looking, but I also didn’t like:

1. The skits… the anime portraits are far more pleasing to the eye

2. The main menu portraits. It’s just in-game models with a watercolor paint effect over them. I vastly prefer the sleek and clean anime portraits.

3. Sakuraba finally has a full orchestra at his disposal and he decides to go in the most generic, dull direction possible. I mean I seriously only remember 1 track.

4. The actual content of the skits. The actual cutscenes were already repetitive and the skits were basically just regurgitations of info from cutscenes.

5. The very obvious downgrade in quality for the anime cutscenes compared to Xillia/Xillia 2/Zestiria/Berseria. Though, to be fair, this might have been due to COVID and scheduling, idk.


Ugh. It was so, so, so disappointing. Easily the WORST written Tales game.

 

[Werewolf Jones]

You expect anyone to know who those people are? Lol

If you don't you shouldn't be speaking about Tales games.

 

[Chuck Berry]

If you don't you shouldn't be speaking about Tales games.

Really?

 

[Neilg]

It was enjoyable enough, and while the ending sequence was a bit of a mess, at least it didnt drag on. the combat is fantastic and there are a few really standout moments that made the game quite memorable.
the first half is a solid 9/10. drops to 7.5 as a whole by the end. not mad I finished it by any means.

 

[Shifty1897]

I like Berseria, Symphonia and Phantasia a lot. I played the demo for Arise and the combat immediately turned me off.

 

[AmuroChan]

2nd half of the game fell apart for me. I enjoyed the first half of it.

 

[semiconscious]

'fiery death ray of purple passion!'
'glowing ember of deadly discombobulation!'
'twisted knob of savage thrusting!'...

i've tried, but've simply never been able to get into this series...

 

[drganon]

Game was okay, liked berseria more. Still better than zestiria, so arise atleast has that going for it.

 

[Rickyiez]

Lost interest in the second city . The story has not enough pull TBH

 

[sigmaZ]

I heard so much praise for this game, but I don’t know why. It looks really nice, but other than that, combat is boring (all enemies are way too damage spongey), exploration is super linear, RPG mechanics are very minor (you never get meaningful growth options), and the story started out really really cool but had just gotten weird as time goes on (at this point my enemy is a planet? And it’s not a planet but a rock that looks like a flower? And it’s actually a life form?

The skits are a big downgrade from the older games too, they don’t have any of the character moments and banter and just end up being a repeat of the story cutscenes.

Honestly it started out super well and just got worse and worse as time went on. At this point the only thing I can praise without reservation is character designs (Alphen and Dohalim are great, and I would gladly fuck Shionne or Kisara), but that’s not nearly enough to keep playing.

This is now the third Tales game where I fell for the hype and didn’t like it - Symphonia remaster on PS3, Vesperia with the remaster a few years ago, and now this. Maybe this series is just not for me (or maybe it’s just constantly mid).

My take.
I hate Tales and I enjoyed it a lot overall.
The skits were better because they werent as drawn out and soy.
The party banter in Japanese is fantastic when running through dungeons.
If you dont use the DLC upgrades I agree the enemies are too spongey.
The quests are pretty much throw away
Liked how they handled the romance
Though relatively short the third act feels a bit anticlimactic and drags a bit but has a satisfied ending.
Love that they revamped an old jpop classics for the second half.
Great mature anime designs and visuals. I will never play another game with that ultraclean moe crap artstyle again so help me the Founder.

 

[Duchess]

One of the most disappointing games I've played in years.

It starts off really well, has a logical endpoint, then just keeps going for many more hours, and falls off a cliff as a result.

 

[Neolombax]

Started off quite strong in my opinion. The story of the last act absolutely downgraded the game for me, also the dungeon design was hideous. I was already on board with the plot of the first arc, and when it became about that space flower, I was out of it. I kinda enjoyed the battle system but I hate that it became too over-reliant on staggering the enemy to make any progress to defeat bosses especially.

 

[Icymanipulator]

I ran out of steam about 1/2 way through.

Battle system is not as fun as Berseria
The skits were not as engaging
The cast while well designed are little on the boring side
The story takes a huge nose dive mid game

It does look pretty though so there’s that.

I tried to sell my copy online and kept dropping the price and no one would buy it. Take that for what you will.

Vesperia was good, but Berseria is still the king imo. Once I clear up some back log and take a break from Genshin, I’ve been meaning to play through it again. Just love nearly everything about that game. The characters, the battle system, the story, the adventure you go on, the places you see, Velvet, uh, so good.

 

[mxbison]

It dragged a bit towards the end but I enjoyed it and got the platinum trophy.

Combat was super fun and if you used the assists properly to get extended combos into burst most of the enemies weren't spongey at all.

 

[STARSBarry]

the story started out really really cool but had just gotten weird as time goes on (at this point my enemy is a planet? And it’s not a planet but a rock that looks like a flower? And it’s actually a life form?

I actually didn't mind this so much... but it put that down to being a big fan of Eureka 7 where that sort of makes more sense with the coral... so its not the first time I'm encountering this plot.

I came away thinking that yeah it gets weaker nearing the end but overall happy... I do think JRPG's need to nail ramping up for the final battle. It feels like a lost art these days.

 

[names are for friends]

I have a particular contempt for this game. I've never had as little fun finishing a game before. The writing was bad way before the obviously stupid plot twist.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I have a particular contempt for this game. I've never had as little fun finishing a game before. The writing was bad way before the obviously stupid plot twist.

I thought the writing was horrible from the get-go. And it just got worse and worse. Everything about Shionne’s thorns, Alphen’s mask and memory loss, the competition between the lords, Astral Energy, etc. was SUPER contrived.

 

[SantaC]

This game was victim of covid.