Tales of Arise - 2 Million Copies sold

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I would answer all these questions with <no>. But this is art-style (a very subjective matter) and has nothing to to with the gameplay. )

You would be wrong then.

Does it have an oval shaped side kick to provide "cute" comic interludes?
https://aselia.fandom.com/wiki/Hootle

Does the game have school uniforms?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1202043/Tales_of_Arise__School_Life_Triple_Pack_Female/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1202042/Tales_of_Arise__School_Life_Triple_Pack_Male/

Does it have some human looking characters with either tails or cat/bunny ears?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-lAmNhecTM

Does it have teenagers saving the world?
The ages of the protagonists are 14, 16, 18, 19 and a 25+28 year old.
 
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All these options are totally optional, can be avoided and don't affect the gameplay at all. And you have proven my point that it's not only teenagers. But even if it were all teenagers - so what? In every D&D RPG I use the default age of 18.

You judge a game by the age of the protagonists and their looks?

If you don't like the looks of Faeries or Hobbits in Wizardry 6 - is a bad game then?
If I play a Felpurr I'm a furry then?
These are not my judging categories for RPGs - let's agree that we disagree.

PS: I love Wizardry games - and they are in many ways role-models for many J-RPG dungeon crawlers.
 
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Woah this thread took a huge 180 after going to sleep. As for me I have nothing against JRPGs as I played 100's of them in the past. My post was for a certain member.

Anyway bjon045 does make a few valid points. Those reasons he mentioned are why I stopped playing the majority of new JRPG's now that I'm in my forties.

That's just me and my opinion.:)
 
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Well, HiddexX has nailed my tastes before, so I trust him implicitly where that is concerned. I'll keep an eye on this one and grab it during a good sale at some point.
 
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Well, HiddexX has nailed my tastes before, so I trust him implicitly where that is concerned. I'll keep an eye on this one and grab it during a good sale at some point.

It's on -40% deal right now
and remember to buy just the standard edition without any dlcs which are useless.
 
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I liked a lot of things, and I usually don't even like JRPGs, which is something. Just to point out some things:

- The story was compelling and the characters were likeable and relatable. I liked especially that the female characters had strong and magnetic personalities, all with their own goals, that were part of the story for more than being romanceable by the main male character.
- The game was polished, beautiful aesthetically, and I can't tell I found a single bug all through my gameplay.
- The game is pretty much fully voice-acted (save some minor NPCs) with pretty high quality even in the English-speaking market, which is rare for a JRPG.
- The soundtrack was outstanding, and I don't mean you could just sit and listen to the music as if it was a classical recital. The soundtrack is beautifully tweaked and matched always to what you are seeing on the screen, making for an amazing audiovisual experience.
- Bouncing off the last point, many battles, but especially the end of chapter boss battles were something like I hadn't experienced in a while - they felt truly epic and fulfilling. At the highest difficulty (which I played), they also were very challenging, fun, and satisfying to defeat. After each of them, I would literally slump back on my chair sighing in both joy and amazement.
- Pretty fun and intuitive combat system, allowing you to choose your playstyle with each different character, and mix and match abilities for a very satisfying gameplay.

Also to note, that even amongst all the Tales games, this one was the best selling one, ever. There are many similar games that don't get a fraction of the score or the sales that this one got. Again, I'm not a JRPG fan, I just have a good taste for good games.

For anyone that is not afraid to discover something about themselves that they might not like to admit, it doesn't hurt to give it a try, it's on sale on Steam right now.

Nice review. Not all of those points appeal to me, such as full voice acting, something which I find hinders the pace of a game and makes things awkward when you have to keep cutting them off having already read the text, but most of those things I can get behind.

I must admit, I do wish global devs could have the same dedication to bug-free experiences that the Japanese are definitely world leaders at, but there's always the caveat that jRPGs tend to have more routine functions that require or create less chances for bugs in the first place, particularly with regards to linearity of narrative and NPC reaction, itemisation and unvaried builds.

I'm quite new to jRPGs myself. I got completely won over by Legends of Heroes Trials (trails?) in the Sky, one I would certainly recommend to someone new to jRPGs which ticks a lot of great boxes, but I really didn't like the sequel, which burned me out long before the end and finishing it became a chore, thereby shying me away from jRPGs again.

Should I get the urge to try another I'll certainly keep this one in mind by the looks of things.
 
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I tried a few of the previous games in the series, and they're not for me. I don't need to play this one to see that it's not radically different.

Cool that it sold 2M copies and got some good reviews though. ;)
 
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I think it's clear people have different tastes, the hardest thing for people in forums to admit.
 
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You cant have an opinion without pissing someone off on the internet.

It's the first rule of the internet.:biggrin:
 

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I've tried a few of the Tales of... series (Graces f, Berseria, Xillia), and there does seem to be differences in systems and the degree of cringe (or whatever you'd like to call it).
Berseria seems a bit darker than most, and Graces f seemed way too childish/cringey for me.
Xillia seemed somewhere in between, but what I liked about it was the character progression/skill system. Way more interesting and complex than the other two I tried.
Where does this particular installment fit in as far as interesting systems, etc?
 
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I've tried a few of the Tales of… series (Graces f, Berseria, Xillia), and there does seem to be differences in systems and the degree of cringe (or whatever you'd like to call it).
Berseria seems a bit darker than most, and Graces f seemed way too childish/cringey for me.
Xillia seemed somewhere in between, but what I liked about it was the character progression/skill system. Way more interesting and complex than the other two I tried.
Where does this particular installment fit in as far as interesting systems, etc?

Tales of Arise tells a serious story: The story about an enslaved race of people, who slowly learn how to pick up arms and fight back against the oppressors. The combination of compelling interesting characters and the serious plot mixed with a well made combat-system make this Tales game one of the best in the series.

The Tales games I have played (ranked):
  1. Tales of Arise
  2. Tales of Berseria
  3. Tales of Zestiria
  4. Tales of Vesperia
  5. Tales of Symphonia
 
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Last time I played a tales game was on the PS 2 called Tales of the Abyss. Maybe it's time for a refresher and try some of the later games as well. To much DLC though.
 
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I personally agree the DLC is offputting, but I pin that on the demands of the Asian market. It's very easy to ignore and never during the gameplay do you find a shop button or anything prompting you to spend money on costumes.

Besides all these cosmetics DLCs you can find different accessories scattered through the game that are purely cosmetic just as well, like caps, hats, canes, glasses, cat ears and other random stuff. They are all props (there are no bunny people or catgirls in this game, you just wear a diadem with fake cat ears attached) and again, it is most likely meant to appeal to the Asian culture, and it's no different than edgelord cosmetics/outfits found in western RPGs, or other silly things like a fish, or a rolling pin that can be equipped as a weapon.
 
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Surprisingly, this game has a demo, so I'll be able to satisfy my curiousity about interesting systems.

Xillia has an artes tree that was like a smaller version of that huge skill tree in FFX (or Path of Exile). Any of the others have kewl stuff like that?
 
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You judge a game by the age of the protagonists and their looks?

If you don't like the looks of Faeries or Hobbits in Wizardry 6 - is a bad game then?
If I play a Felpurr I'm a furry then?
These are not my judging categories for RPGs - let's agree that we disagree.

PS: I love Wizardry games - and they are in many ways role-models for many J-RPG dungeon crawlers.

I think you are missing my point somewhat. I was talking about it following standard jRPG tropes (which most reviews, even the positive ones, do also say). It's not about a single incident. It's when you get a bunch of things that are the same. It's not about a cat person. Having a cat person like a Khajit is fine. Putting some cat ears on a person just make them "cute" like what they do in Anime holds zero interest to me. Using greek names for everything - another jRPG trope. Having 2 empires at war/one oppressing another is another jRPG trope that is excessily used ala Final Fantasy, Last Story, SoA etc. Teenager/member of the royal family/child of destiny features in almost every title.

Now having said that, I was moderately interested in it when I researched it about 6 months ago and I must admit some of the things you said have intrigued me somewhat i.e. sci-fi elements (I did play Xenoblade about 10 years ago) and the combat system does sound like it has a bit more to it than the typical jRPG. If I did have the inkling to play a jRPG again it would probably be near the top of my list ;)

re: Wizardry 6, it is actually one of my favourite games of all time. One thing most people don't know about Robert Woodhead (founder of Sir-tech) is that he has a strong interest in Japanese culture and history (he also married a Japanese lady). This is why there are so many references/nods to Japan in all the Wiz games i.e. all the different Japanese weapons etc. I met Robert once and had the pleasure of having a short chat about Wizardry. He also owns the company AnimEigo which brought a bunch of Samurai movies to the US about 20-30 years ago. Unfortunately all the Japanese Wiz clones I have played are abysmal compared to Wiz6/7.
 
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I spent 15 hours with Tales of Arise and being JRPG fan I was looking forward to this game. After 15 hours I was seriously bored by gameplay, story and characters. None of the parts is bad, but it strongly lacks in highlights department.

Story was bland and unimaginative and so characters. The game was strongly signalling there will be some "unexpected" twist, it started to be off putting to me and I put the game aside even before it came.
Character and their motives are completely flat and just a placeholder for twist to come later. I keep talking about twist, but I actually dont know if there is such thing for real. If not, now that would be finally something unexpected in this game.

World design is also very basic and progress is strongly on the rails. I had high hopes which is probably main reason why I became so disappointed. The game is very nice though, graphics are definitely strong point. Unfortunatelly, in RPGs I value gameplay, plot and characters much higher then graphics.

If there is some time period, in my future, when I have nothing to play, I might get back to Tales of Arise to finish it.
 
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After 15 hours you are still at the very beginning of the game. Short after the first big boss I think.
 
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After 15 hours you are still at the very beginning of the game. Short after the first big boss I think.

No, its after second lord fight and I saw chunk of the third "world" as well.
 
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Okay - I'm playing way more slowly then :)
 
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It's okay to have a poor taste in videogames. One does not go to jail for that.

You can also like worse games like Pathfinder, or Goldbox crap.

In fact, you're even allowed to post here about it, despite the fact that it matters nothing and the games that are so bad and sell so bad won't be having more sequels,
while good games keep being great and selling great, and there will be more like it coming from their successful studios.

Praise Natural Selection.
 
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