Recent reviews by dz ™

I love restocking shelves as long as it does not involve physical strength.

Game tries really hard to incorporate the RPG elements into a looter shooter, but failed to deliver on two fronts.
The contents are plagued by the crazy grind for materials, as expected of a korea-developed game, and the repetitiveness of its own gameplay loop.
If you are looking to pick up the game, give yourself the first 3-5 hours to get the feel.
By then, you will know if you truly like the game or not.

As an added bonus, note that to instantly unlock any characters using cash shop "micro" transactions, it will cost you anywhere between 50-100 USD thereabout.
Don't let corporate greed get the better of you.

Game is good at the early stages when you are playing solo through the story campaign.
But as soon as you hit end game (100+ hours) and try to search for coop missions either through quest selection or quick quest. you are just hit with "unable to find anyone" 99% of the time.
Funny thing is, the community is going around with their version of the fix, but even that does not work.
Furthermore, Cygames themselves have been radio-silent this entire time as their community is imploding.
Where is the online fix?
Playing 300 hours of this game solo is, for a lack of better word, bland.

Don't get me wrong, I love this game.
But the matchmaking really needs a fix ASAP.
Otherwise, please just market it as a "single player game."

Game keeps crashing.
Especially when you are running 30 mins into the 2nd mission, only to crash right before extraction.
Fix the damn game.
(Fixed in April patch, good job ArrowHead devs)

Edit May 4th:
With the new addition of PSN account being required for this game, I would not be playing this game anymore once it goes live.
From the perspective of us, the players, there really isn't a need to even have 2nd or 3rd authentication.

Edit May 6th:
Sony has uno-reversed the decision to go ahead with PSN linkage.
Maybe now we can go back to killing bugs again?

Final verdict:
Game starts out a little slow, with the fact that you have to complete missions to earn medals and materials to unlock "better" stratagems.
The game is a bummer at the early stages as you are facing foes with improper equipment, making it hard to go against enemies at higher difficulties.
But once you pass level 15-20, the game becomes a lot more fun.
And playing with friends at difficulty 9: Helldive, becomes rewarding.
All in all, good game to play with your friends.

NOOT

Cannot connect to friends' lobby, even if we tried different hosts.
Got the game to play with friends, but if you cannot even connect to each other, then what's the point?

The fact that I spend more hours in this game on a per day basis compared to my day job means something

There are no spawn limits for the specials.
Having 4 tall boys (3x crushers and 1x bruiser) in your face is not fun.
Do people get fun out of being molested?

Tales of Arise has incorporated all the best parts of the previous Tales games, accompanied by the new UE4 graphics, made this game stand out from the crowd of any JRPG.
The pacing of dungeon to story, fights to the inevitable running around, are all-round good.
I did not get too bored of one particular section of of the story-telling.
If you are a fan of action-JRPG, this is a game that you must try.

After getting used to the jittery screen shake (due to the "recoil") the game ain't that bad.