Back in the summer of 2018, I caught a glimpse of Granblue Fantasy: Relink and I fell in love with the way the game looked. I’m a huge fan of the art style, and the concept behind how the world works is something I find fascinating. Each year I was hoping to see some news regarding the game, but things went rather quiet for a few years. A few years later, I would be pleasantly surprised by the trailer for Tales of Arise, which was ticking all the same checkboxes as Granblue Fantasy: Relink. I wasn’t familiar with the Tales of series, so I ended up playing Tales of Berseria, Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Zestiria. Tales of Berseria was a great game overall, but the characters felt like edge-lords, which was probably because the developers felt that it would make the game feel darker than how I perceived it. I followed Tales of Berseria up with Tales of Vesperia, which is probably my favorite game I’ve played in the Tales of series. Tales of Vesperia’s characters are great, and I don’t think I’ve seen a game where the chemistry between the characters was as good as this game. I did try Tales of Zesteria, but that game was an absolute shitshow.

Tales of Arise came out in 2021, and the first half of the game was everything I was hoping to see. It had great characters, a gorgeous world, a pretty interesting story, and a neat way to develop your characters. You explore the world, talk to characters and learn more about the world. 85% of the game followed that formula, which was an absolute joy to play, but near the end of the game it just all goes downhill fast. I don’t know if the developers removed a zone, or if they had some release date issues, but the game just starts to dump a huge amount of lore on your through terminals and the last dungeon just feels lazy and repetitive. It basically ruined my whole Tales of Arise experience, which was a real shame, since the game had done everything perfectly up to that point.

They did release a DLC, and I imagine that the thing I’m complaining about now has been addressed, but that doesn’t change the experience I had. I am still keen to see what they added, but “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/740130/Tales_of_Arise

My overall review: 7.5/10