1/13/2024 0 Comments Tales of arise mantisThankfully, Arise avoids this trend with mature, professional-sounding voice acting. English localizations are often a secondary concern for JRPGs and tend to suffer from poor voice direction: chirpy and over-enthusiastic at best, and cringe-inducing at worst. The game's visual and narrative upgrades are accompanied by a stellar voice cast. It seems to say, "I'm bigger and better, so you'd better buckle up". With liberal use of gorgeous anime cutscenes and a booming orchestral score, the game's opening act forces players to recognize that Arise is not like other Tales games. It begins with a harrowing scene of slaves being tortured and mistreated, followed by a high-octane chase involving one of the game's main female protagonists, Shionne. Rather than spending its first couple hours in a boring, idyllic town like most JRPGs (and even past games in the series), Arise gets straight to the point. Narrative-wise, the game's first several hours are also impressive. Major props to the development team for this achievement in an era where most games struggle to maintain 30 FPS. Thankfully, despite being flashy and occasionally overwhelming, the game maintains a rock-steady 60 frames-per-second during battles (assuming you're on PS5 or Series X). Flame and lightening effect punctuate duo-attacks (called "Boost Strikes"), and despite being a little dizzying at times, the game's battles are a fantastic spectacle. Special moves are flashy and entertaining, even after the 100th time you've seen them. The environments and particle effects have a realistic, yet fantastical, quality to them, and character models look pleasingly anime-esque without looking too cartoony.Ĭharacter animations are also an amazing sight to behold: characters swing, punch, cast, and slam with a surprising amount of heft. I was initially concerned that the game's use of Unreal Engine 4 would make the game lose its signature watercolor aesthetic, but I think Arise's developers found a great middle ground between hyper-realistic and childish. The game's visual presentation, and especially the use of its "Atmospheric Shader", is excellent. Image Credit: Game RantĬredit where credit is due: Arise makes a fantastic first impression. Without further ado, let's get this anime JRPG party started! The Good StuffĪrise makes a great first impression. But in order to properly summarize those 80 hours, this review may get a little long: I want to praise Bandai Namco for taking a giant leap forward, as well as criticize them for taking several steps back. How well did Bandai Namco stick to their promises? Having spent 80+ hours in the world of Arise, I think I'm in a good spot to answer that question. In response to that criticism, the development team migrated the series to Unreal Engine 4 and promised to give the Tales series a much needed facelift, in addition to higher production values, a more-open world, and an evolution of the game's core mechanics. Both games were simultaneously released for the PS3 and PS4, and next to games like Uncharted 4 (2016), the Tales series was starting to look and feel stale. The last two entries, Tales of Zestiria (2015) and Tales Of Berseria (2017), both received criticism at the time for looking and feeling distinctly last-gen. Developed and published by Bandai Namco, Arise was pitched early on as a much-needed evolution for the series. Tales Of Arise is the latest entry in the long-running Tales series. I also got to witness first-hand how the game runs on PS4 (my wife was playing it alongside me). I played the game on the Xbox Series X. ![]() Beating the main game (with lots of sidequests) took me about 60 hours, while the post-game content took me about 10-15 hours. I also completed most of the post-game content. I completed the entire game on the "Hard" difficulty.I will keep plot-specific spoilers to a minimum, but beware: this post will contain spoilers.
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