Tales Of Arise Review

Just Going Through The Motions

I really wanted to love Tales Of Arise. I’ve loved every mainline Tales game that I’ve played. Well until now that is.

Not to say Tales Of Arise is a bad game. It’s passable. Enough so that I could get through the campaign. Although at the end I was just barely holding on. Like what is the point. It just feels like a hollow shell of a tales game.

No ambition. And no reason for being.

So naturally I searched for some reviews if other people felt this way. And they didn’t. All the other reviews for the game praised it. Which I don’t get. This is probably the worst tales game I have ever played. And here’s why:

Let’s start off with the story. The story is, by far, the weakest part of Arise. OK, where do we begin? For starters the entire first hour of the game is the most ridiculous exposition dump you have ever heard. And it’s not even that complicated. Side A enslaved Side B. How many words do you need to describe it?

It does get better as you progress through the game but it never reaches what I’d expect from a Tales game. Probably about 15 hours in is where I went from actively hating the game to being ‘meh’ on the whole thing.

For one it’s generic. In other Tales games you’d usually get to a point where you have to go through all the temples. And it is a slog. But they usually don’t do it immediately upon starting the game. And even then you have some justification for why you’re doing it.

OK, it is technically explained later. But not well. It’s just some throwaway remark. The costs and benefits of what they’re doing is never explained.

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