Tales of Arise

[Fiery Diamond]

So it's been almost two weeks since Tales of Arise released, and I'm 50+ hours in. It's a good game, and the main strength of the series (characters) shines as always. I admit that I may have hyped it up a bit too much in my head, causing it to not quite live up to my unrealistic expectations (the grinding is kind of annoying, as is the high cost of restorative items). The story seems a bit simplistic compared to, say, Tales of Symphonia (my favorite in the series in terms of story), but it's not the facepalm-worthy fiasco that was Graces' story. Granted, I'm not quite at the end yet (just got to Berg Volcano), so there's still room for some surprises.

There is one thing that's driving me crazy, though - something minor that I have no idea how to resolve. There is an item, the Dragon Flame Sac, which can only be found by being dropped by the Vandal Dragon, which according to the internet appears in two locations: Adan Lake and the boat dungeon (don't wanna spoil things by naming it!) This item is required to craft the mid-tier version of one of Shionne's weapons. You need two of them. I got the one from the boat dungeon (kind of can't miss it), but the Vandal Dragon in Adan Lake isn't spawning for me, and I don't know why. Perhaps my Google-fu is just failing me, but I can't find any answers online. I finally found a website telling me the exact map location of the Vandal Dragon in Adan Lake... except there is no dragon there for me: there's a Creepzilla instead.

SO: Discuss the game, what you like and dislike... and if anyone has an answer or me about the stupid dragon, please give me an answer. if it makes any difference, I haven't gone online with the game at all, so if there's an update or something, that might be relevant to let me know. I don't have internet at my apartment, so I have to actually make a trip somewhere to do so, which is why I haven't checked for myself yet.

[Zevox]

Can't say what your issue with the Dragon might be - it was at that lake for me, just east of the fast travel point. Though by the time I tracked it down, got that part, and forged that weapon for Shion, I already had better anyway, and I don't know if there's a fourth tier of weapon to turn it into or not.

I've been posting a little bit about it in the "What are you playing?" thread. The most important of which, to my opinion of the game so far, would be this one:

With Tales of Arise I'm now in the midst of the fourth area, about level 26-27, and honestly, I feel like my opinion of the game is mostly dropping.

Combat is largely fine or even fun against regular enemies in isolation, but I feel like I'm blowing through CP very fast as I go through areas, resulting in me needing to fast-travel back to a campfire to rest a lot, and then avoid enemies as I return to where I was. Avoiding taking damage just isn't feasible when you only control one character our of four, battles get very chaotic with four PCs and 3-5 enemies typically, and Alphen deals self-damage with his boost attack even if you don't use his other flame sword moves (which, indeed, I've taken to ignoring). Battles with bosses (or the large Zeugle enemies that serve as optional side-quest mini-bosses), meanwhile, are just a slog, as they're damage sponges you can never get into hitstun - and even when you break their cores (which themselves are massive damage sponges), the knockdown doesn't really last that long. I think I'm going to start turning the difficulty down against those, because it's just not fun, especially since I'm often burning through most of my healing items (and certainly all of my Orange Gels, the one item that restores CP) as well in order to beat them.

Story-wise, well, spoilers:

Spoiler

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The first couple of areas are fine - very straightforward with the villainous evil Renan Lord oppressing the Dahnan slaves, but they work. The third one I thought would have potential when I got there and found a place where it didn't seem like the Dahnans were being oppressed or enslaved at all, but it just wound up feeling disappointing, and like a bit of a missed opportunity. I thought it might turn out to be a more subtle Lord, who got most of the Dahnans to work for him willingly while hiding whatever the worst things he was doing were. But nope, he was someone who actually didn't care about the whole Crown Contest and had mandated Dahnans be treated equally to Renans - which was also neat for showing that some of the Renans embraced that, thus making Shion no longer the only Renan who isn't an evil monster. But then you get to what actually happens instead of you needing to overthrow the evil Lord, and it's a whole lot of "really?" The evil vizier's plan made no sense, I don't know how he pulled it off in the first place or why Kisara's brother wasn't trusted when he tried to expose it previously, and oh boy the whole sequence with Kisara, her brother, and Dolhim at that lake was just... ugh. Kisara's brother is an over-dramatic idiot for committing suicide that way without even telling you the name of the guy behind the plot, and while I get her Kisara being emotional right after that happened, Dolhim and her acting as if it's some horrible thing that his decision to start treating the Dahnans as equals was just because he, personally, couldn't stand to hear people suffer due to a traumatic backstory moment of his own rather than out of pure, undiluted idealism is just all kinds of dumb and disappointing.

And for the fourth area, which I haven't finished yet, I've gotten to the, for lack of a better term, T-Rex boss fight, and am still finding some disappointment. Okay, they seemed to want to use this area to show some Dahnans being less than pure, with this area's rebel group having a disturbingly cruel, self-centered leader, and most of his followers nonetheless following happily, I get that. But then they just all fall victim to the Lord's plot (and it's unclear to me how exactly that worked, but I haven't beaten the T-Rex boss I mentioned that comes right after it yet), so that plot thread goes up in smoke, and it's immediately followed by.... Rinwell and Law. Okay, Rinwell having a vendetta against this Lord for killing her parents is all fine, and helps explain why she's been the most vehement Renan-hater of your group. But then Law getting in the way of her trying to attack the Lord is... why? Just why? Rinwell is totally right to call him out on his BS there, but again, the game's acting like the fact that she doesn't have the purest, most idealistic motives ever just then is terrible, and she therefore needs to be stopped from lashing out at the Lord in anger and hatred... even though your group is totally going to go after that Lord and almost certainly kill her anyway, especially after she just liquefied dozens of people before your very eyes. What the hells?

Yeah, at this rate, this might end up being the most disappointing Tales game story ever. ...that I play enough to speak to, anyway, I never did finish Zestiria or Xillia 2, so I can't speak to those, and of course there's a number of entries in the series I haven't played at all, mostly the older ones. Though I guess I should add that things aren't all bad, as indicated above I can see what they're going for at times with the plot, it's just not coming together; and characters, outside of moments where they spontaneously become dumb like those, are largely good. I like Alphen and Shion and how their relationship is developing, and their companions are all good too. It's just, well, the basic plot isn't anything to write home about, and wow, parts of it are getting really, astoundingly dumb from time to time.

I'm now in the mid-40s of levels and a bit further into the story than you (though not much, I've just wandered around the area you're about to go to a bit, and sat through a bunch of cutscenes that are mostly the party being puzzled by things). So far, nothing as dumb as the above since then, though I'm starting to fear some more dumb is coming soon-ish. Characters have gotten better, at least, I really like Shion in particular as I've learned more about her story.

Yeah, my overall opinion of the game so far is that the characters are its strong point, the story sadly weak for the franchise (especially at certain points like I highlighted in the quote), and the combat system... eh. It has some good ideas for the series, but the enemies being damage sponges (even some non-boss, non-giant enemies have come to feel that way over time...), needing a lot of hits to start taking any actual hitstun, and bosses never taking hitstun makes it start to feel tedious after a bit. I've at this point just dropped the difficulty to normal and decided to leave it there. This combat system just isn't fun when it's challenging, it's just annoying, so I'd rather dice through things with big flashy moves and not much difficulty.

If it can avoid more moments like the couple I highlighted and otherwise keep up the quality its had at other times, I might end up considering it fairly middling for the series overall - I suspect somewhere around my opinion of Xillia. Definitely not going to be dethroning my favorites (Vesperia, Abyss, and Berseria, in that order) though.

[Anteros]

I'm somewhere in act 2 after deciding to take a break from Pathfinder and picking the game back up. Right about the part where

Spoiler

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The bad guys stand around and let their prisoner televise a rousing speech towards the rebellion for no reason.
Followed by the shocking betrayal of the guy I have spent approximately 12 seconds with, and who was clearly evil from the start. All part of his Machiavellian scheme to lead me into a trap...after helping me escape from his last trap...after passing up the opportunity to just stab me in my sleep while I rested in his headquarters. Honestly, who writes this crap and then says "yeah, that's a good story. Let's release that to millions of people." Why aren't they more ashamed of themselves?

Yeah, plot isn't the game's strong point for sure. It's no worse than usual for a Tales game so far though. The plots are always terrible nonsense propped up more by anime tropes than actual writing. Combat is decent though, and I don't hate the characters. Plus, there's just something relaxing about grinding on a Tales game. Solid 7/10 so far for me with plot being the weak point.

[Zevox]

I'm somewhere in act 2 after deciding to take a break from Pathfinder and picking the game back up. Right about the part where

Spoiler

Show

The bad guys stand around and let their prisoner televise a rousing speech towards the rebellion for no reason.
Followed by the shocking betrayal of the guy I have spent approximately 12 seconds with, and who was clearly evil from the start. All part of his Machiavellian scheme to lead me into a trap...after helping me escape from his last trap...after passing up the opportunity to just stab me in my sleep while I rested in his headquarters. Honestly, who writes this crap and then says "yeah, that's a good story. Let's release that to millions of people." Why aren't they more ashamed of themselves?

Yeah, plot isn't the game's strong point for sure. It's no worse than usual for a Tales game so far though. The plots are always terrible nonsense propped up more by anime tropes than actual writing. Combat is decent though, and I don't hate the characters. Plus, there's just something relaxing about grinding on a Tales game. Solid 7/10 so far for me with plot being the weak point.

Yeah,

Spoiler: Area 2

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the second Lord's whole thing of being the resistance leader in disguise is very much a "don't think about it too much" plot twist, because it doesn't make much sense in a lot of ways. Which is honestly the main reason I didn't expect it, despite the resistance leader's appearance giving me "I'm a bad guy" vibes. Not the dumbest thing the game, it didn't bother me as much as the moments I mentioned in my prior post (which are from areas 3 and 4), but definitely a fair criticism.

I'm now pretty close to the end, I'm sure... and oh gods, the combat is dragging things down hard now. The endgame starts relying heavily on giant monsters, and those are the biggest problem I have with the game's combat. Health bloat is so absurd that I'm contemplating dropping the difficulty down to easy. And the side-quests that I still have remaining are throwing me against giant monsters that are also like 10+ levels above me, which means I'm going to need to grind to deal with them, and good gods does that suck.

Story-wise, well,

Spoiler: Endgame spoilers

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The most irritating thing to me lately has been Volhran surviving. Because seriously, I saw him get stabbed through the chest by the Blazing Sword and fall to the ground not moving, with the wound still on fire. And unless I missed it, nobody mentioned anything about his body vanishing afterward until just before he reappears on Leneghis. Still, important NPCs surviving when you thought they wouldn't is hardly unheard of in video game RPGs, and they're not trying to turn him into the main villain or anything, so it's not bothering me too much.

Overall, I'd say that as the late-game plot twists come in, things feel better. The Renans being originally Dahnans who were experimented on by the actual inhabitants of Rena is a cool twist that fits with the themes they're going for, Rena turning out to be a hollowed-out husk of a dead world is a striking visual, and even the "Great Spirit" that has become the true final villain they've given something of an understandable motivation to, so they are ultimately trying not to have everything come down to one person/monster/thing that's just evil because it is. Though I can't help but feel like the twist of "the two worlds were originally supposed to be one!" is bringing this dangerously close to rehashing Tales of Symphonia. Granted it seems to be a less central part of what's going on in the plot than it was in Symphonia, but still.

All in all, I feel like I can see what they were going for, with the central themes of hatred both justified and unjustified between groups and how that must be overcome, but there's a lot of parts that are handled badly, or at least clumsily, and it just doesn't come together as well as I'm sure they wanted as a result.

Character-wise, I do really end up liking everyone, especially Shion. Her character arc feels really well done, with the revelation about her being essentially suicidal due to her plans and beliefs related to her thorns thoroughly explaining why she was so aggressively unwilling to let people even be too friendly towards her early in the game in a compelling way that I never imagined. And her romance with Alphen one of the rare instances where I've felt that a romance in a Tales game has really worked. (Honestly, strangely enough it feels like they did a good job with that all around in this game, as they're clearly also hinting at similar relationships forming between Law & Rinwell and Kisara & Dohalim, and those actually work for me as well.) Though granted, the skits of them pontificating on certain things do start feeling too repetitive at times - I've gotten quite enough of Law's daddy issues and Kisara idolizing her brother at this point, thanks.

I don't know, I'm going back and forth between finding things in the story that I like more about it as I get towards the end (even if they don't fix the problems from earlier), and damned combat dragging my opinion back down.