Anime Tales of Arise - Shounen trying to be deep.

[Rean]

Yeah, I remember having to do a bunch of config editing for both Scarlet Nexus and Tales of Arise, absolutely necessary with these games.

 

[Ravielsk]

Alright so I just finished the game and I have to say I dont get how this game has a mostly positive rating on steam. For one the "shounen trying to be deep" is a complete fucking miss, the story deliberately avoids getting in depth with any of its themes so much its borderline offensive. It either only lampshades the theme(slavery is like a thing guys and it bad m'kay) or it brings it up and resolves it in under 10 minutes with some sappy anime cliche(I used to be alone, I want to die -> but now I have friend, I want to live). It does this so much that it straight up undermines its own ability to built intrigue or interest in the story because after the third time it did this I absolutely could not give a singular fuck about anything happening on screen.

It also does not help that the pacing is probably the worst I have ever seen in game like this. Its simultaneously rushing and dragging its feet. Its rushing in the sense that it literary runs between each individual plot points like a fucking speedrunner. You enter a new area and immediately b-line it to the nearest lord with nothing really happening that would impede your progress(like the lord running or trying to trick you), at best the game throws some run around objectives so you have to loiter an hour or two before it lets you bitch slap whoever is on the menu and then you get a new party member and move on to do it all over again. There are no real side-quests or even secrets to discover just a straight kill this guy or gal and dash onwards. For about 40 mother fucking hours there is literary nothing else happening in the plot.
But at the same time the game is absolutely dedicated towards making that b-line as long and as boring as possible with constantly recycled encounters, endlessly repeating how specifically the current lord sucks and how Shionne does not give a fuck while visible making giving a fuck noises(and being a gluton). Each area has about 40 minutes worth of actual story that it painfully stretches into about 5 hours of repetitive content and skits. It got so bad I had to install cheat mods and turn to the lowest difficulty because it was just that unbearable walking through the same halls fighting the same enemy for the billionth time in a row.

Only in the last maybe 4 hours does the game starts to get good as it finally bothers to actually have a story with some intrigue(as in you get to wonder what it might do next instead of knowing exactly how its going to go down) and some actually novel and deep themes. But its the last 4 hours so there is no time for it to really do anything with it and so the ending in just more shonen bullshit that would not be out of place in a YT parody.

Saddest fucking part being that I see a diamond underneath all this bullshit but its a tiny one and the game would need a full scale overhaul to its whole structure to polish that pebble into something presentable. As it stands I would only recommend this game at a extremely heavy discount, aka less than 10 bucks and only on the lowest difficulty to cut down on the tedium. Otherwise avoid it if you have a finite lifespan.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Otherwise avoid it if you have a finite lifespan.

What was your final played time?

 

[Ravielsk]

What was your final played time?

45 hours but if I did not turn down the difficulty to very easy in the final stretch of the game I could easily see it go up to 50.

 

[Vic]

I still haven't beaten Arise, I stopped when they started throwing dungeon after dungeon at me after beating the "final lord".

 

[Ravielsk]

I still haven't beaten Arise, I stopped when they started throwing dungeon after dungeon at me after beating the "final lord".

You are not missing much to be honest. Lenegis is somewhat interesting in the sense that if it had come about 20 hours earlier and had lasted at least twice as long it might have made for great second to final act but as it stands the ending is better watched on YT than played in person.

The one thing Arise does absolutely brilliantly is that it demonstrates how to specifically not structure a game's story. It technically has all the parts to make for some top notch storytelling and game experience but it always misses the mark just enough to make it truly bad while still making it obvious how much better it could have been. Invaluable experience for aspiring developers but not really a good game.