Tales of Arise Reviews
This title makes it clear that the folks at Bandai Namco have it in them to move with the times, without losing the essence of what a Tales game is.
I came away from Tales of Arise with a new appreciation for the Tales series. I loved my time with the endearing cast of characters and the exciting, fast-paced story alongside the energetic and action-packed battles. Tales of Arise is an excellent action RPG, and a fantastic entry point into the series.
Hell, even the genre's fonts are similar (or the same), and that's across rival publishers and developers over major titles designed to clash against one another at retail. But this familiarity has kept the genre on top in its home base of Japan, and evergreen as far as pop-culture relevance goes in the West.
By innovating and investing in Tales of Arise, as well as Scarlet Nexus earlier this year, Bandai Namco is leading the way to the next generation of JRPGs.
Bandai Namco promised that "now is the time for change," and Tales of Arise legitimately feels like a game that's trying to bring change to Japanese RPGs. It's strong characters, epic story, engrossing battle system, and lush visuals are only marred by a disappointing final act, and those areas of the game where the team refused to let go of outdated ideas and conventions. If the Tales team can find it in themselves to push things just a little further, then this might truly be the spark that sets off a revolution in a genre that's needed a regime change for so long now.
Overall, it sometimes feels like just moving on from each area to the next, with not much else in-between. Tales of Arise is a beautiful game to look at, but the game goes by too quickly due to the relatively limited side-questing. The last release in the Tales series, Tales of Berseria, offered a lot of gameplay in terms of extra content, and the story was enough to wrench your heart out. Tales of Arise offers a very compelling story but not much else in terms of extra gameplay.
As a result, we have a very highly detailed game where the story and gameplay are equally worthy of attention. Tales of Arise features a bright living world, peculiar charming heroes, dynamic battles that will keep you interested 50 hours in, interesting boss fights and exciting quests.
Some of the traditional projects that have been preserved add a lot of color to the game, and the improvement of the details makes the process more concise, but the map design is a little mediocre.
Review in Chinese | Read full review
Tales of Arise is the best game in the series, with a brilliant combat system and a story with a lot of important themes tied to the atrocious consequences of post-colonialism.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Combining the best ideas of the past three generations of 3D action JRPGs, stripped of excess and micromanagement, Tales of Arise is one of the most tactile and frenetic action-narrative experiences to come out of Japan in recent memory.
Tales of Arise combines a stunning world told with a mix of anime, cutscenes and comic strip styled conversations. The combat is fun, flashy with customisable skills in hack 'n' slash style. While the combat can feel a little unnatural with the auto-targeting and airborne moves, once you get used to it, there are some fun fights ahead. If you don't like having to choose between ranged, casting, melee in games, you won't have to worry as Tales of Arise let's you swap in different characters as you wish, keeping combat fresh. With over 40 hours of main story, side quests and exploring , this Tales entry has plenty in terms of content.
Tales of Arise heralds a brilliant new dawn for the series and is one of the best RPGs of the last generation.
With Tales of Arise, I think the Tales series is finally ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the heavy hitters of the JRPG genre – Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. This is a masterfully crafted adventure, and the best JRPG I’ve played in a very long time. Combining stunning visuals with a gripping story and the most exciting combat system found in a JRPG yet, this is a must-have for fans of the genre. Its standalone story makes this a great entry point for those looking to get into the Tales series, too. Put simply, Tales of Arise is outstanding.
JRPG fans and Tales of fans will be immersed and pleased with everything Tales of Arise has to offer and the game shouldn’t be passed up by any means. Even if you’re neither, you should give Tales of Arise a chance and experience the same joy I did.
Interesting fight for freedom and The Man in the Iron Mask. Good choice for JRPG fans.
Review in Slovak | Read full review
Tales of Arise is the best game in the series so far and I’m so happy with how the developers managed to modernize one my favorite series. With Tales of Arise I feel the series can finally go into the mainstream and get the respect it deserves. It does almost everything right; the story is handled well, the gameplay is amazing, the pacing is on point, the music will tingle your heart strings and the game systems will keep you coming back for more.
Tales of Arise is a successfully comeback story. It’s definitely one of the most refreshing Tales game and probably one of the best JRPGs launched in 2021. I’m not sure if Bandai Namco planned to make the Tales franchise mainstream, but that’s something that Tales of Arise manage to achieve, and that’s probably the best compliment I can give the game.
Overall, though, I am loving my time in Tales of Arise. The entire world is beautiful, the characters as I mentioned are fantastic, and the animations for team-up attacks and mystic artes never get old. It’s just not quite perfect.
The anticipation for Bandai Namco titles this year was anxiety inducing for me yet both releases by the publisher (this and Scarlet Nexus) wonderfully exceeded my expectations. I recommend Tales of Arise; take it neat.
Review in Turkish | Read full review
For an adventure game, the graphics and story are pretty interesting, but for an JRPG, the game is lacking in a lot of elements. While it has RPG trappings, it feels far more like an adventure/action game, which is a knock against those looking for some JRPG action. The graphics, story, characters and overall package are very well done. However, it is hard to shake the feeling of the game being far more style over substance, which in general JRPG-ers are not looking for.