Tales of Arise review – the perfect mix of fantasy and sci-fi

The following text and screenshots may contain partial spoilers.

If you like the JRPG genre or are even looking forward to the latest installment of the famous Tales saga with pre-order ready, then I highly recommend this review – or read any other. While we’ve grown accustomed over the years to the fact that the genre is full of clichés and easily predictable after a few years, Tales of Arise is able to resist established conventions very effectively, so the game and its story constantly surprise with great new twists. and content. The best way to enjoy such a creative, narrative and touching ride is to be completely blind. Come back to the review when the game is over and let us know in the discussion below how you liked it. And for the rest, I invite you to take a closer look at one of the best games in the genre in recent years, a big step for the Tales series, and a love letter to Xenogears fans from 1998.

• Platform: PS5 (peer review), PS4, X1, XSX | S, PC
• Publication date: 10. 9. 2021
• Producer: Bandai Namco Studios (Japan)
• Genre: japanese role playing game
• Czech location: Not
• Multiplayer: Not
• Data to download: 37 GB
• Game time: 50+ hours
• Availability: from 13 years old
• Sales version: box and digital
• Price: 1799 CZK (Xzone)

From the ashes to the stars

With its advanced technology and magic, the Renan Empire has ruled the lands of Dan for 300 years since the initial devastating invasion. During this time, all the inhabitants of Dan became slaves, and all natural resources, including the energy of the five elements, are systematically stolen by the ruling Renans. You go down in history as the mysterious young man Danen, who woke up a year ago in the mines among other slaves with a strange helmet on his head that no one could take off, and also with one unusual feature: he does not feel pain, he can bleed. and he wouldn’t know about it. Before you know it, you will be swept away by the whirlwind of events caused by the attack of the resistance movement and the arrival of the no less mysterious girl Renan, who for some reason is being persecuted by her own compatriots. She also has one unique feature: whoever touches her will collapse in pain from the impact of the mysterious “invisible spikes”.

A man who feels no pain and a woman whose touch hurts: it doesn’t seem like a coincidence. But it quickly turns out that the pair, through their unique combination of abilities, can tame the Fire Core, one of the Renans’ five technological “wonders” used to extract the planet’s fiery elemental energy. As the central couples join forces, they manage to use the core to power an incredibly destructive “fire sword” with which they hope to finally defeat the individual lords ruling the five colonies. Although the union of the central couple is very explosive at first, it does not take a genius to understand that a fateful love story awaits him. The brave Alphen and the stubborn Shionne thus form the core of a group of adventurers, in which you will also find the leader of the resistance, the young witch with her pet owl, the former commander of the guard or, for example, a secret service agent. . Together they will have to face five Lords, armed with their own elemental nuclei.

A man who feels no pain and a woman whose touch hurts.

While everything seems to take place within traditional genre clichés, you are preparing for an iterative cycle of conquering individual colonies and fighting their Lords in a well-defined pattern. But while the first colony took place quite traditionally, the second colony represents an interesting turning point because of the unique aspect of the Spy Cold War. And this is nothing against the third colony, where everything is not at all as one might expect. One of the biggest draws up this game’s sleeve is the ability to continually surprise with a growing focus on the political and social complexity of each country, bringing amazing twists to the story and atmosphere. The game at this stage is more like Game of Thrones than traditional Japanese stories. But it still doesn’t mind launching your spaceship and leaving the planet to embark on a sci-fi expedition that’s more like Mass Effect than a Japanese RPG: not without strong religious overtones and sometimes ridiculously long dialogue or plot passages.

Personality, stylization, wildness

By far the biggest hallmark of the Tales series are the so-called “Sketes” or optional dialogue sequences between your party members. Since Arise is the first game in the series to be powered by the Unreal Engine, these popular sequences have also received a visual update that combines on-screen dubbed animations with dynamic “comic” shots. At the same time, they are optional (a small icon informs you of their presence, and then just press the button to play them), and you also have the option to play them (repeatedly) while camping, where in the “memories” menu you will also find all large animated sequences. The sketches don’t get in the way, but if you want to immerse yourself in the story and deepen your understanding of the relationships between the characters, they’re a great “second pillar” to the main story. However, be prepared for the fact that during the turn of the genre of your journey into space, several hours of complex dialogue await you as the characters try to understand their new reality.

The combat system allows you to control only one of the four characters on the battlefield in real time, but you can switch between them. The other three are controlled by artificial intelligence, but you can specify in sufficient detail and clearly how aggressive it should be or how many items from your inventory should be used. Exciting is the ability to set the active fighter’s controls to manual or automatic, where you can control them completely manually or let them fight and dodge fully automatically. However, even in the case of full automation, you will have to deal with “power attacks”, which are a special and often very effective attack of a pair of characters. At first, you can afford to boost every half minute, but as your characters improve, it gradually turns into a continuous rain of button inputs (different pairs of characters have a boost attack on different buttons), reminiscent of a bit of an exaggeration of dance mini-games – so even when setting the battles to automatic, you will enjoy hand-to-hand combat. Of course, the difficulty of fights is also adjustable, where higher difficulty attracts you to level up your abilities faster.

Rain of buttons resembles dancing mini-games.

One of the main reasons the fights offer an absolutely amazing experience is their high speed, especially with the perfectly smooth inclusion of impressive special attack animations and story interludes. It often happened to me that I wanted to take a screenshot of one of these moments and, despite relatively good reflexes, I simply did not have time in a millisecond. But the amazing audio-visual processing extends throughout the game – just look at some of the screenshots that look better than some of the most expensive anime movies out there. The only pity is that the creators apparently made traditional development mistakes and developed the locations in the game gradually – thanks to this, it is noticeable to find out how much nicer and bolder each other is than before. In practice, however, this means that the game won’t draw its biggest aces in the first hours, such as giant waterfalls that create rainbows over the horizon, or stunning biomechanical mazes from other worlds. Playing a unique role in the visual processing is a unique shader that uses oil painting textures and stylization, which gives the appearance of the game an enchanting “sleep” atmosphere.

However, don’t expect any miracles from the mini-games, although they are a source of useful items (especially on higher difficulties), so your concern for the animal ranch is limited to buying and harvesting them, and fishing can only be done in a handful of designated places. The PS5’s tactile experience isn’t widely used and is completely absent from combat – perhaps due to its wildness and speed. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the music, which is perhaps too great, so its massive tunes sometimes struggle with dialogue and general atmosphere. Personally, I found the ability tree a little confusing and I always had to re-orient myself in it to clarify what to choose next. Some bonuses from pre-orders and special editions of the game are also controversial, which “break” the difficulty of the first hours of the game with too strong equipment or even smack of microtransactions in the spirit of Ubisoft (subject to additional experience), and the microtransaction store is available right in the game. Despite these weaknesses, Tales of Arise is one of the most impressive JRPG expeditions that rivals Final Fantasy VII Remake in many ways, undoubtedly ushering in a new era in the 25-year history of the Tales series.