(for reference, i've also played zestiria and berseria. a lot of what i have to say below draws on comparisons to those games.)


the cast absolutely carried this game, no doubt about that. individually, some of the characters are rather underdeveloped. as i played through the game, I had some questions about some folks that were never answered other than a throwaway line or two-- this was not particularly satisfying. said folks also have limited character development (in comparison to the first two characters you get in your party). when they interact with each other, though, we get some geuinely good conversations out of it. it's very easy to get emotionally invested in characters as a result.

the villains are much less interesting (in comparison to both this cast and, say, the villains of berseria). the villains in the first half of the game are pretty one-dimensional, and the ones in the second half are pretty lame too (once you realize the extent of their abilities). there's a story-related reason for the second half villains being boring, but it still sucks. there's one person in the second half who is somewhat interesting, but was not fleshed out at all. as a character, they suffer greatly because of it. like seriously we don't explore any of their backstory until it's way too late.

the characters in berseria were definitely better developed and fleshed out, but these characters were a lot more cohesive as a team. but don't worry, they still slap the ♥♥♥♥ out of the relatively forgettable folks from zestiria.

the story is handled fairly well in the first half of the game. The skits are relatively nuanced; some are unnecessary recaps of recent events. in the second half, though, it gets way too fast. this part probably could've been spread out in a more even manner (over a longer story), but it is what it is. there is way too much exposition here (you will spend hours sitting through cutscenes and you will be very tempted to mash the x button to skip voicelines), but i think the devs banked on the reveals being "big" enough so that players would stay interested.

the characters engage with the story well. people react to things the way you'd expect them to. there's a lot of mental "check-ins" and self-reflection amongst the characters, which is really nice to have. that said, the story gets very predictable in the second half as the cast sets their sights on bigger fish to fry. it's always the damn spectacle creep with these games lol

also i guess bamco (or the fans) got tired of the protagonists having bittersweet endings, so this game has a happy ending. the romance is there and it's fine-- not overblown at all (insofar as we're used to looking at japanese media for a "norm"). predictable, but i suggest you just sit back and enjoy.

imo berseria had a much stronger story, for what that comparison's worth.


the combat was alright. it's definitely a lot easier to pick up than the combat from previous tales titles. i'm pretty sure their dodge mechanics (or whatever was the closest thing they had-- quicksteps?) were pretty clunky to use. arise's combat was comparatively much easier to pick up, so that's nice. one small complaint-- normal attacks (R1/the right shoulder button) are pretty useless (unless you're playing as one particular character). they do so little damage that it's really not ever worth using them (unless they're counterattacks-- then you can break enemy combos). some people are out there saying this game has soulsborne gameplay when that's really not true. you dodge and interrupt attacks and some attacks have wind-up time. that's about it for similarities.

if you want to enjoy the combat properly, learn how to string combos together. I know reigning slash (on the main character) is absolutely broken and better in terms of DPS, but it doesn't look as flashy-- that's part of the appeal of the combat in these games. (full disclosure: I spammed reigning slash in my playthrough.)

the boost gauge and boost attacks were really fun to use, at least initially. forcing boost attacks as finishers on bosses (and minibosses, towards the back half of the game) is eyeroll-inducing, but it's not a huge deal.

another small nitpick: the teammate AI is absolutely awful on unknown difficulty. from the boss of the second area onwards, I found much more success in 1) setting teammate strategy to "do nothing" so that they could avoid enemy attacks and 2) playing chicken with the bosses. it got pretty bad towards the end, especially as the enemies got more and more difficult (and outstripped my party on level-- I was levelled on par with the enemies in the game until around 30-ish, when I got tired of watching my teammates die on regular encounters and started either fleeing or tediously soloing them as a result). the moral of the story is to not play on unknown difficulty unless you have an insatiably large ego. unlike zestiria, this game will not give you any additional achievements for difficulty-related settings. and besides, part of the tales magic is seeing everyone in the party go ham on some enemy while yelling out their attacks-- tales combat is very loud and noisy. that's non-negotiable.

the combat system is still nicer than berseria's (and miles ahead of the mess that was zestiria's), since it's relatively intuitive and easy to pick up.


so much simpler than zestiria and berseria, thank ♥♥♥♥. this was a huge dub from bamco-- this game has very little fluff in the equipment system, and that's great. accessories in this game are easy to customize and not confusing at all. huge dub.


it's alright. the dungeons are all quite repetitive, but that's pretty much how berseria and zestiria functioned as well. the towns are alright too, nothing special.

special complaint about the final dungeon: it's padded to hell and back. probably the two most tiring dungeon treks you will have in this game (excepting postgame content since i haven't attempted that yet) are 1) the castle of the fifth lord and 2) the final dungeon. absolutely hated the second one in particular-- was fleeing from every unnecessary encounter because combat was just not fun for me by that point (SEE BELOW SECTION, but tl;dr: don't play unknown difficulty lol).


You don't really have to grind in this game at all (unless you're going for 100% completion, in which case you know that every Tales title is like this). I thought I was underleveled for the first few bosses, so I grinded a bit, but later on I realized it was just because the teammate AI (again, on unknown) is stupid.

The menu interface is pretty clean; the landing screen on the menu has these beautiful character artworks that update as you progress through the game.

For how much talking there was in the second half of the game, the ending sequence has virtually no voicelines (it's told in a series of artworks). That really sucks imo but it isn't the end of the world. It's really sweet, but unreal engine 4 (tm) would've made it sweeter.

Unknown difficulty is so poorly done. The devs really just opted to pump up enemy stats instead of making enemies more complex-- I just got really good at hitting and running throughout this game (while also telling my teammates to do nothing but dodge-- see above).

The game disincentivizes grinding: if you're underleveled, you'll gain xp incredibly fast. If you're at the right level or overleveled, your xp gain will slow to a trickle. It makes sense; I like it. Anecdotally, this also means that post-game grinding is much easier than before you finish the story.


great game if you're looking to get into the tales series. not particularly deep or complex, but it's a feel-good game with a character cast that you can get behind. don't think too hard about anything (esp. wrt characters and story) and you'll come out a happier gamer.