Tales of ARISE

A pretty solid JRPG title. Not amazing, but not bad either. The story was great... until it wasn't. There are some pretty fun character interactions here and there. Combat feels good and smooth, and you can swap between different characters, each with their own playstyle (or just play one character through the entire thing and forget you can even swap). The graphics are visually appealing, and the game has some banger opening and ending songs if you wanna look them up (contains spoilers, obviously). I'd give it a 7/10, mainly because you're now forced to buy the base game bundled with the Beyond the Dawn DLC. You used to be able to buy the base game on its own, but now they force you to get Beyond the Dawn as well. Otherwise, it might be an 8/10.

Since release, I've started this game three different times and get sick of it shortly after the first lord. The characters aren't very endearing, the combat isn't really compelling, and even the levels aren't that fun to walk around. I don't think it's bad necessarily, I just think it's weak compared to some of the other Tales games, and lacks the charm the series usually has to compensate.

I can't stand the way these characters are written. The main character is an insufferable idiot that will have you rolling your eyes every 5 mins of dialogue (and there's a LOT of dialogue). The combat and story is not enough to make up for it, unfortunately.

nice

Nah, seriously, f*uck this sh1t.

Overall a good game, and unlike some of the other tales of games I've played here the AI does a lot better in battles. Story was solid, progression was fun, and I had to do very little grinding. Fishing was a bit tedious. Getting all the achievements was fun to do.