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Topic: Why can't I get into the Tales of series?

Posts 21 to 25 of 25

BruceCM

Hmm, when Tales of Arise released for XBox at the same time as PS, as well as PC, @glaemay, I'm not sure how it'd make sense to think it was only scored so highly for PS benefit?

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Varkster

Update: So, I've kinda tried to force myself to enjoy Arise because I did buy it after all, and it would have felt like a big waste if I didn't get into it even though I did buy those 4 other Tales games...

The combat is actually quite fun in the game, it feels a little random and chaotic but it's a nice break from something much more technical and punishing (I mean games like DMC, Souls, Dragon's Dogma, a bunch of others). It can get a little bit too much sometimes just with the sheer amount of effects happening on screen all at once, it's even hard to see what's actually happening. The main reason I'm probably having this much fun with the combat is that I decided to play through the game on hard difficulty, which means I have to utilize items and dodge and pay real attention. On the other hand, it's a little embarrassing that this game has so little enemy variety when it seems they've put a lot of budget in other places. Some of the landscapes look genuinely amazing from both a technical standpoint as well as an artistic one, but there is like 10 enemies with the same attack pool scattered throughout the entire game just re-skinned into other enemies. I think in a series such as Xenoblade this would be unacceptable and nobody would consider those games as highly. There are also no such memorable encounters or names for enemies like Rotbart from the Xenoblade series. All of the enemies seem quite generic and void of personality.

Speaking of personality, the game is lacking in that regard a whole lot. The side-quests are embarrassingly written and there's nothing there that I want to read to the point where I just started skipping 99% of the dialogue in those instances. Same goes to most of the skits. The skits are heavy filler and I am not interested in most of those despite them being fully voice acted and comparatively more interesting to look at than the barely-moving anime faces from the previous games.

I think the dialogue is by far the weakest part of the game. I don't know who wrote this but the characters are comically anime. I think Xenoblade 2 has exceptionally anime protagonists, however there are genuinely charming and unique features to all of them which makes seeing them interact interesting and in worst case scenarios tolerable. Here it feels like a chore. The protagonists have very questionable lines throughout the entire game and the voice direction (not the voice actors, they seem quite good) is just ridiculous.

I'm a little past the first ending of the story (so roughly 70-80% I'd imagine) and it has been alright so far, very basic and to the point with a few plot twists mixed it. Judging by what I've read online about what people feel about the story in Arise, I might not like how these plot twists play into the story or at least I will feel very disinterested, but I can't say yet because I wanna see it through to the end on my own. It's the character interactions that drive the story down, really. There is so much generic dialogue. There are so many things that feel like repeats of something previously said. They really bash your head in with the theme of the game and worst of all, the characters would just start arguing out of the absolute blue among themselves just for the sake of drama which doesn't feel deserved at all. It's all up in your face and weird. There's a point where two characters in the story that have been through a lot together just have a strange fit against each other when it's been clearly established that both characters have evolved past this point and there is literally no reason for this argument. All of this, of course, followed by a generic hard to listen to monologue from our main protagonist.

It all feels manufactured and not written. When I played the first Xenoblade I didn't even think of it as an anime, more like a story book with these characters who have flaws but stick together to the end. The scene where you see the first important character die, you really feel the weight of the moment about what's happening around you and there are many moments like that in that game. Here, I felt probably one emotion in the entirety of the game. It's a certain point where the main characters' hands touch, to not spoil anything for anybody remotely interested in this game.

Overall, while I'm having fun, yeah, I think so far I can say this game is okay. I don't regret playing it but I feel with this sort of budget and determination to make the Tales games mainstream Bandai should have perhaps tried hiring better writers and invested more time into making the enemy range and combat a little more diverse.

Would be curious to hear anybody else's take on Arise.

Edited on by Varkster

Varkster

Anti-Matter

@Varkster
Just don't overthinking too much in enjoying the games.
I have played bunch of mediocre games but still enjoy the games I bought.
Maybe you can try some light cartoonish JRPG games like Yokai Watch / Fantasy Life 3DS / Snack World/ etc.

Anti-Matter

RR529

glaemay wrote:

@RR529 Yeah but on PS1 and PS2 or even PSP you had all these games in like 1 month lol. Also you force yourself to assume these games will be good even before their release to pretend the Playstation has plenty of worthwile games incoming. We didn't see this kind of behavior before on Playstation before and it's showing something has clearly changed on Playstation compared to the previous consoles.

1. While it's true that we don't know how good those games will be, it's just as presumptuous to claim they'll all be duds.

2. If there's less JRPGs releasing on PS4/5 than on PS1/2, it's because there's less JRPGs in general being made (which probably has more to do with the longer/more expensive development cycles of HD games). The fact of the matter is that nearly every 3rd party JRPG that is being made today gets a PS release (I honestly can't think of any that have skipped the ecosystem, other than the handful of Nintendo published games like Live A Live or Bravely Default 2). Again, I've largely moved over to PC for 3rd party games so I'm not coming at this from a PS fanboy angle, it's just objective fact.

So no, it doesn't track that Tales of Arise (a multiplat that also released on Xbox & PC, as mentioned above by @BruceCM) was purposely overrated to give Playstation a boost for a "lack" of (good) JRPGs.

Edited on by RR529

Currently Playing:
Switch - Blade Strangers
PS4 - Kingdom Hearts III, Tetris Effect (VR)

BruceCM

Yeah, IF they were going to over-rate something to give PS some sort of boost, it'd have to be something that was exclusive, at least for a time, @RR529 .... Whereas, in fact, one of the factors that probably helped Tales of Arise get rated so highly was launching on everything simultaneously!
There's generally a lot more variety of games coming out in a year these days, of course & thus 'less' jrpgs, overall, perhaps

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