Tales of Arise: Early Impressions

Tales of Arise

Oh how long have I waited for this game.

I remember my excitement at its reveal and my frustration counting the days till it would get a release date. 

Little did I know but that I would by the time of launch actually be able to pre order it and play it and have first impressions with everyone about what a solid game it is.

My history with Tales series goes back till Phantasia and this JRPG series is closer to my heart than any other. I have played almost all of the main ones, relished in their ups aswell as their downs and have been utterly addicted to the battle system everytime a new game came about trying to master its ins and outs.

Now while time due to various responsibilities at my age may be limited, I have literally struggled to make every minute to play this game and am enjoying every second of it. 

But what is my impression overall of this Tales game?

While it's too soon to say that where the game may stand in the list of my favorite Tales overall as well as gameplay and plot wise, It would also be going too far to call it an evolution. 

Tales of Arise is rather a perfection.

The perfection of an evolution in style and design it introduced about a decade ago in Xillia.

For me I've felt the Zestiria DNA the most prominent in this game but that does not mean in a bad way considering how for many fans Zestiria remains a sore point of discussion. Yet it would simply be childish to deny that it had no potential! Rather Zestiria was taking up many challenges in scope and its finally here today that they are being fully realized.

The Battle system is literally Berseria's but much more improved in style and balance and after about 12h of gameplay and entering the land of green, Elde Menancia, it is quite clear that finally the boss battles have been turned many notches up and are really well crafted. 

Ofcourse the default controller scheme was a bit weird with the attack button on R1. But shifting dodge to R1 and jump to R2 and Attack to circle really made it click. It's fast,it's flashy and it's incredibly addictive even at 30fps that sadly I have to experience with being limited on the old generation of machines but honestly, the game is so well engineered that I don't miss it as much as when Zestiria had made that switch or when Symphonia on PC and PS3 had done that. Even in tense effect exploding moments the game manages to remain very stable. All in all they seem to have perfected the battle system changes they had been trying to make since Graces and Zestiria.

The music so far for me has been beautiful and grand and the orchestration really makes it shine but while there may be some solid bangers in there, I haven't yet found one that really remains in memory like many of the past Tales games. But it all comes together to make a very atmospheric experience.

The design of dungeons and zone fields behind the veneer of incredible graphics is still pretty much the same as what we've had in the past 5 mainline Tales. But atleast this time they made effort to introduce some forms of going back and forth and flicking switches like we did in Symphonia to Vesperia as a form of puzzle. But really the new openness there is very enjoyable. It keeps things incredibly comfortable. 

The skit system is something I still have incredible gripes with. I can appreciate what they are trying to do with the manga or visual novel style, something that Lost Odyssey had implemented a lot in its cutscenes but honestly I miss the old Tales style. This one I've personally found to be a little irritating, slow and stilted and it slows the game down loading in and out (an issue probably only on old gen of machines).

The characters are pretty great and well fleshed out and it's incredible how well their costumes are designed and how they gel with the art. Can't wait for the whole party to get together to have some banger comedy on the way to exterminate Renan Lords.

The Graphics and Art Style meanwhile are the greatest champion of this game. This one factor of the game is a genuine evolution that for many manages to hide the old design format of the previous games.

The painterly water color backdrop is always astounding to look at. Every texture looks great and it seems like the game with this kind of look will stand the rest of time much much better than the few past Tales games we've had. I cannot say if it will be as ever green as the cell shaded Vesperia though. But yes I cannot help snapping screens of this game every other minute. 

And here is where my greatest gripe exists. 

With a Game that looks this beautiful, and keeping in mind the trends for this whole generation, I'm amazed this game did not come with a dedicated Photo Mode. Honestly Bamco, I'll even pay for this photo mode, just make it happen somehow!

Similarly one of the biggest irritants on screen for me in the way of lush beauty of every area and taking in the atmosphere of this game is the minimap that just remains static as an ugly blip on the side of the screen and honestly I don't even make use of it here much. It's really just a squashed mosquito on the windshield here. I just press the Square to pop up the full map and voila for me that's enough to find my way.

BAMCO please introduce an option in the setting to turn this blip off.

But these are the only gripes I have in particular with this game. 

Thus with these overall first impressions I can only say that TALES OF ARISE is as much a Tales game as there can be. It retains its charms, it does not make any drastic changes to the formula to remove what was good about it. Its fun, addictive and really well plotted and it's a stunningly beautiful and incredibly addictive game that's a must play!

I cannot wait to finish this journey to the end and do it all over again!

THANK YOU BAMCO FOR THIS INCREDIBLE Experience. 

The Excited Mystic.