Just finished Tales of Arise, pretty good JRPG for the most part. Some random thoughts.
Positives:
- It's a beautiful game, both artistically and technically. Most outdoor areas look fantastic with some stunning vistas here and there. There's a good variety in environments and the level design is decent.
- The combat is pretty good, if somewhat flawed. It can get a little too hectic at times and sometimes seems in conflict with itself; the game wants you to maintain long combos but at the same time also encourages a reactive style with perfect dodges and counter-attacks. But it remained fun throughout the +-80 hours I've played. Getting in and out of battle is super fast, which helps.
- The characters are interesting and all have distinct roles in battle, which I like. Voice acting is mostly good (with some exceptions). The story was intriguing enough and I liked the execution for most of the game.
Negatives:
- Enemy variety feels limited and is just a colour palette swap in many cases. Mini-bosses get re-used as regular enemies too often on top of that.
- Difficulty balancing is weird on the normal setting. The overwhelming majority of the encounters feel far too easy and then suddenly you encounter a stupidly difficult boss, so upping the difficulty never felt like an option for me.
- The main character's voice actor is far too melodramatic for me. It's not constant, but frequent enough to be annoying. He just totally overacts and it took me out of some story moments.
- The narrative, pacing and (the already wonky) balancing completely breaks down in the final third, souring what had been a fine game up to that point. It's not enough the ruin it and, in terms of narrative at least, I guess that's just anime for you, but it's clearly a major point against the game. It becomes an insane slog.
All things considered, a solid 7/10 game if you can look past some of the annoyances. It's certainly miles better than the (imo) awful Berseria, the only other Tales game I've played. I enjoy it enough to continue with some of the higher level and post-game content I still have left. After Berseria I had almost written off this series but this game has made me cautiously optimistic for the next one.