Tales is a legacy RPG series that’s been around since the Super Nintendo days, one that built a reputation for unique, action-oriented combat. Nowadays, many JRPG franchises lean into combat-heavy gameplay, making the action-RPG genre the norm. Still, publisher Bandai Namco clearly put effort into making the Tales series once again stand out from the pack, with Arise being one of the highest quality games in the franchise to date. It feels like a bigger-budget game now, aimed at elevating the series and attracting new fans. Arise makes notable changes to many classic Tales gameplay systems, but its grandiose story is packed with the usual Tales-style anime tropes that the franchise has leaned on for decades. If you can overlook the anime cheese and a few odd balance choices, you’ll find that this $59.99 PC game is one of the most enjoyable action-RPG titles released this year.
Swords and Space Invaders
Tales of Arise depicts the strife between the world of Dahna and the technologically advanced colonizers from the world of Rena. With their superior high-tech weaponry, Rena invaded Dahna and ruled for centuries, enslaving the Dahna people for the benefit of the Renan ruling class. The story follows Alphen, an amnesiac slave fitted with an iron mask who ekes out a living among the other poor souls in his labor camp. He is well known among the slaves for his analgesia, a debilitation that deadens any pain he’d ordinarily feel.
Alphen quickly becomes embroiled in a Dahna resistance operation that puts him in contact with Shionne, a Renan woman afflicted with a curse that harms anyone who touches her. In addition to being untouchable, Shionne possesses a powerful artifact, Master Core, that she uses to produce a blazing sword that incinerates anything it comes into contact with, including the wielder. To top it off, she also uses powerful healing spells. Surely you see where the plot is going.
Alphen and Shionne set out together, each with their own personal vendetta, to take down the Renan lords. Alphen serves as the team’s brawn, with Shionne acting as healer and support. The story moves a bit too quickly during its first few hours, establishing plot points while also explaining the state of the worlds and general politics between the races. This isn’t a new problem with Tales games: most of my favorite games in the franchise dump nonsensical lore terms at you, while establishing early plot points. Unfortunately, Arise doesn’t really improve much on this front. That said, the story and cast become much more enjoyable as you encounter new characters and interact with your party members.
Character banter, skits, and and side quest interactions make the cast and the world vastly more interesting and likable, as their personalities shine strongest through these events more so than the main story beats. Skits are a long standing Tales feature that pause the gameplay and depict conversations between party members, giving you a deeper understanding of the cast’s thoughts and motivations. Previously, the skits used 2D, anime-style portraits to deliver the back-and-forth conversations, but Arise utilizes the in-game character models, movements, and expressions, along with with comic book/manga panels.
Skit prompts become available as you make game progress, and after specific story events. They are all generally thoughtful, interesting, or amusing, so I played them as soon as they became available. However, you can watch them at campfire checkpoints if you choose to skip or ignore them earlier in the game.
Addicting, Team-Based Action
Tales of Arise tightens the series’ action-focused combat formula in almost every way, delivering engrossing gameplay that easily stands above its predecessors. To date, Tales games have hybridized 2D and 3D movement during combat, but Arise commits to full three-dimensional movement. It also features a revamped control scheme that makes the fighting as smooth and intuitive as possible.
Six skills, or Artes as they are called in game, can be assigned to a character for combat purposes: three for ground inputs and three for airborne inputs. This total doubles later in the game. No character can use block as a defensive option except for the shield-touting Kisara, so most cast members have an evasive side step or roll to avoid damage. Your core kit revolves around using basic attacks, evasions, jumps, and your equipped Artes. Despite this simplified system, Arise includes many unique mechanics that liven the action.
You control a single character at a time, while the other three party members are AI-controlled. You can freely swap characters on the fly to directly control them, if you so wish. AI characters function fairly well by default, but you can fine-tune their actions by adjusting how often they use Artes, turn off Artes, and even adjusting specific AI parameters, much like the Gambit system from Final Fantasy XII.
Attack strings performed on enemies fills a blue diamond icon over the targeting reticle. When the reticle’s full, you can perform a Boost Strike, a powerful team attack that outright kills smaller enemies and deals massive damage to tougher foes and boss monsters. This mechanic is not new to Arise, but it is more impressive here than in previous games. Boost Strikes are a spectacle, with each character pair performing their own unique attacks, reminiscent of Chrono Trigger’s Double Tech maneuvers.
Battles award experience and skill points, which feed character levels and new abilities, respectively. The Title system in previous Tales games returns, and is tied to the each character’s unlockable skills. Previously, Titles could be earned by performing unique feats in the game, such as cooking a certain amount of meals, finishing specific quests, or completing combat-related achievements. Titles were generally cosmetic or trophy-like, oftentimes unlocking new costumes. In Arise, Titles are tied to skill panels, each with five ability nodes. These can unlock health or defensive perks, new Artes, and other skills. When all five abilities for said Title are activated, the character earns a permanent stat boost. These nodes strengthen your characters, so those hard-earned skill points should be used liberally to keep your party at peak performance.
In terms of fighting styles, Arise’s cast isn’t particularly unique compared to earlier series entries. Previous titles featured swordsmen, projectile characters, pugilists, spell casters, pole-wielders, and the like. But Arise’s streamlined combat system makes these character archetypes the most accessible they’ve ever been. Each character has his or her own unique set of Artes and specialized combat mechanics that change the experience for the better, without deviating from the simplified defensive and offensive options that Arise establishes early on. Every character has a powerful Boost Attack they can perform in addition to their basic combo-centric Artes. It has its own meter that fills with successive attacks, and can be used to call said character into the fray to perform the ability, even if the character isn’t in the active party. In execution, these function like assists in tag-based fighting games, and they do wonders for party synergy and utility. With six vastly unique characters to explore, the action never dulls throughout the beefy 30-hour adventure.
Rebalancing a Classic
Arise’s balance adjustments change up how you approach combat and character growth compared with earlier Tales games. Money is scarce, and the monetary rewards for quests are minimal. However, money is vital for weapon and gear crafting, which is the primary method with which you gain stat bonuses outside of Titles. You can find gear in dungeons and on the field, but these upgrades are few and far in between. The best and most consistent means of upgrading your party comes from crafting, which gets expensive.
To afford these costly upgrades, you are expected to break out your fishing rod and reel in some lunkers. Fish can be used as a cooking ingredient in camp sites, but it is also the easiest and most lucrative way of earning money throughout most of the game. The mini-game uses a series of button prompts to attract fish to your lure, and another set of prompts to reel in the beastie. Fishing is an enjoyable diversion, but it’s an odd method of earning cash in an RPG.
In previous games, each character had a mana pool (MP) to draw from to perform their Artes or spells. Arise removes this resource from its meta, so Artes are essentially free and balanced around a regenerating stamina bar, called the Artes Gauge (or AG). However, healing skills utilize a special resource called Cure Points (or CP) that are effectively the same as MP. You have a finite amount of CP in your party’s pool, so any character with healing abilities pulls points from the CP stock whenever they cast healing magic. You can restore CP with specific items, or when resting at campfires or inns.
The problem with CP is its odd balance. I presume the idea of utilizing a CP system is to limit how much you tap healing skills, to push players to get better at evasion and general combat. But Arise still makes healing items available to you. You get a wealth of healing fruit gels to use during combat that don’t consume CP, which you can stock up on in towns. Enemies drop these gels, too. Arise’s convenient fast-travel system also lets you zip back into town to rest at an inn pretty much whenever you want, mitigating the CP limitations.
What’s more, characters have specific map actions they perform to interact with the environment. Law, the pugilist, can punch-through magical barriers, for example, while Alphen can absorb flame walls and destroy ice barriers, opening alternate routes in the zone. These map actions also use CP, adding to the resource-managing tedium. This is the only aspect of Arise’s gameplay overhaul I didn’t like, and one that hopefully gets rebalanced and polished in future Tales entries should they retain the mechanic.
Can Your PC Run Tales of Arise?
Tales of Arise is an attractive game with its painterly visual style and anime aesthetics, but it isn’t particularly demanding. On a desktop PC fitted with an AMD Ryzen 5 3600 CPU, Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, and 16GB of RAM, Arise moved at 100-120 frames per second with the graphics set to 1080p resolution.
To run the game, your PC needs at least the 64-Bit Windows 10 operating system, an Intel i5-2300 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 CPU, Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 or AMD Radeon HD 7950 GPU, 8GB or RAM, and 45GB of space for the game. To run the game optimally, Bandai Namco recommends an Intel i5-4590 or AMD FX-8350 CPU, and a graphics card equal to or better than an AMD Radeon R9 390 or Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 GPU.
Unfortunately, Arise is a purely single-player game with no multiplayer or online support, which is a departure from past Tales games. On the up side, Arise supports Steam Achievements, Steam Trading Cards, Steam Cloud, and gamepads.
An Adventure Worth Undertaking
Tales of Arise may not have a blockbuster story, but its presentation and action represent the best in the series. Despite the expected anime tropes, Arise kept me engrossed from start to finish with its excellent combat that contends with the genre’s best offerings. If you dig action-RPGs, consider Tales of Arise, an Editors’ Choice pick, a must-buy title.
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