Tales of Arise review

Our Verdict

Tales of Ascend doesn't exactly forge new ground in the JRPG genre, but a fast-paced boxing organization and a well-told story make information technology easy to selection up, and hard to put downwards.

For

Fun, fast-paced combat
Heartfelt story
Charming cast of characters
Catchy soundtrack

Against

Tales formula feels a little rote
Staid graphic symbol design

Tom's Guide Verdict

Tales of Arise doesn't exactly forge new ground in the JRPG genre, merely a fast-paced battle organisation and a well-told story make information technology easy to pick upwardly, and difficult to put downwards.

Pros

+
Fun, fast-paced combat
+
Heartfelt story
+
Charming cast of characters
+
Tricky soundtrack

Cons

-
Tales formula feels a fiddling rote
-
Staid character blueprint

Tales of Arise review: Specs

Platforms: PC, PS4, PS5 (reviewed), Xbox One, Xbox Series X/Due south
Cost: $60
Release Date: September 10, 2021
Genre: Japanese RPG

Tales of Ascend is the latest entry in Bandai Namco'southward long-running Tales series of Japanese RPGs. If that ways anything to you, then you probably already know whether or not you want the game. The Tales serial is easily the most consequent JRPG franchise from a major publisher, from the inventive Tales of Phantasia back in 1995, up to the refined Tales of Berseria in 2017. Just like its predecessors, Tales of Arise employs a familiar formula to deliver pure JRPG comfort nutrient. And, just similar its predecessors, Tales of Ascend is excellent.

If you've played a Tales game before, then you lot can practically sing along at this signal: Tales of Arise presents a enervating existent-time gainsay system, a charming cast of characters with a sharp script, and a story that starts off elementary, but winds its way into some tricky moral territory. Throw in some attractive anime graphics and a killer soundtrack, and Tales of Ascend is arguably the first great JRPG of the new console generation. Series fans should feel right at home, but fifty-fifty newcomers should consider picking information technology up, if only to see what they've been missing all this fourth dimension.

Read on for our full Tales of Arise review — and once you've completed the game, check out our suggestions for 10 games to play later on Tales of Arise.

Tales of Arise review: Gameplay

Tales of Ascend casts you lot as Alphen: an amnesiac swordsman who sets out on a globetrotting quest along with 5 other attractive young misfits. If y'all've e'er played a JRPG before, you can probably already guess the construction of the game. You'll gather a political party, journey from town to town, fight a ton of low-stakes battles forth the way, level upwards your skills, upgrade your equipment, discover a agglomeration of side quests and sit down through a barrage of story cutscenes.

What sets Tales of Ascend apart from most other JRPGs is its real-fourth dimension combat arrangement. When you come across a group of enemies, you and three party members enter a dedicated battle screen. Only rather than taking turns to dish out damage, you lot'll run around the battlefield, chaining together regular and special attacks, equally well every bit dodging enemy strikes. The big departure this time around is that your restorative healing Artes are tied to a resource called Cure Points, which don't automatically recharge betwixt battles. This provides both a carrot and stick for exploration. Y'all don't want to run out of CP in the middle of a dungeon, but you don't desire to hoard them, either — particularly since y'all can employ them to unlock optional areas. It'due south a smart balance, and gives Tales of Arise both tactical and strategic depth.

While existent-time combat systems are a Tales series staple, Tales of Ascend offers a few innovations. First and foremost, the game is very difficult, even on default settings. Most attacks deal paltry damage, significant your only hope of defeating enemies is to stagger enemies and chain together equally many techniques as possible. Tales of Ascend gives you ample opportunities to do this, between regular attacks, specialized Artes, unique character abilities and devastating dual-character strikes. Once y'all get the hang of combat, ordinary encounters aren't too troublesome, just the game's enormous bosses are always a claiming.

I'm of two minds about Ascend's gainsay system. Unlike in previous Tales games, button-mashing won't get yous through even the almost basic battles, which tin make combat feel exhausting after a while. Just it also means that combat never feels trivial — even if the rewards exercise. As you level up and fight the same enemy types over and over, the amount of experience you earn from them volition decrease. This means that level-grinding before tough bosses is basically incommunicable, and your only choice is to play the game more efficiently. While Tales of Arise is hardly an easygoing experience, it does feel rewarding to run across both your party members and your own skills grow over time.

Beyond that, Tales of Arise offers the standard suite of JRPG activities. You'll get stronger as you lot gain experience and level upward, and you can further customize your abilities via unlockable skill copse. You'll craft new weapons and purchase new armor; you'll cook meals to temporarily boost your stats; you'll hunt down optional bosses to better your healing abilities; you'll solve simple puzzles to brand your manner through the game's large, explorable maps. Everything basically works, although if you were hoping for a significant evolution of the Tales formula, you lot won't find one hither.

Tales of Arise review: Story

In Tales of Ascend, the spacefaring Renans have enslaved the earthbound Dahnans for 300 years. You play as Alphen: a Dahnan slave who's lost his memories, just is nonetheless ready to take up arms against his Renan oppressors. He teams up with a rogue Renan named Shionne, who has her own reasons to overthrow the v tyrannical Lords who control Dahna. As they travel from realm to realm, they choice upwards a political party of like-minded conspirators, and learn that the relationship betwixt Dahnans and Renans is not equally blackness-and-white equally they initially believed.

Similar most Tales game, Tales of Arise starts with a typical fantasy setup ("travel the earth, defeat the evil Lords"), only isn't content to stay there. Defeating the Lords gives Alphen and Shionne a skillful excuse to explore Arise's varied world, from the fire-flecked wastelands of Calaglia, to the verdant grasslands of Menancia. Simply it'south not long before the two realize that not even defeating the Lords can undo 3 centuries' worth of cultural damage. Alphen and Shionne's backstories complicate matters further, resulting in a three-dimensional story with some rewarding twists and turns.

The edifice blocks of the plot are all pretty familiar — characters dubiety themselves, triumph over adversity, fall in love, betray each other, hide their motivations, banter to build up camaraderie, and so forth. But the core party members are delightful enough to make these familiar tropes feel fresh. The upstanding Alphen and the conflicted Shionne have a natural chemistry, and they interact naturally with the bright-eyed mage Rinwell, the overeager martial artist Law, the motherly knight Kisara and the aloof healer Dohalim.

Tales of Arise review: Visuals and sound

Graphically speaking, Tales of Arise demonstrates that we may accept reached a betoken of diminishing returns with anime-inspired games. It's not that Tales of Ascend looks bad — it actually looks quite good — but it doesn't look radically different from Tales of Berseria, or other JRPGs from the terminal panel generation.

The animations are polish and the level design is varied, but the cardinal cast looks unusually staid, for a Tales party. Their costumes lean heavily on blues, whites and grays, with pretty conventional faces and hairstyles.

The soundtrack, on the other hand, is a matter of beauty. Composer Motoi Sakuraba (Nighttime Souls, Mario Golf: Super Blitz) has created what is probably the catchiest battle theme in Tales history, and the rest of the tracks sound similarly inspired. The voice-interim is also fantabulous, peculiarly Alphen and Shionne — although, oddly, Bandai Namco has not nonetheless revealed their English language voice actors.

Tales of Arise review: Verdict

Tales of Ascend doesn't rewrite any genre conventions, but it doesn't really demand to. It's a substantial adventure with a demanding battle organisation and a riveting story, just like previous entries in the series. If you take ever played a Tales game before, you know exactly what you're signing up for.

And yet, fifty-fifty if you lot haven't played a Tales game before, in that location'due south a lot to similar about Arise. Even if the cutscenes drag on for a bit sometimes, the gainsay volition keep you lot on your toes, and the characters will stay with you long after y'all plow off your panel. If you've been wondering how the PS5 and Xbox Series X could facilitate a whole new style of JRPG, yous'll accept to go on wondering. But if yous desire a reminder of why we keep coming back to this familiar formula later on 25 years, Tales of Arise is but what you're looking for.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom'south Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing groundwork, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. Later on hours, yous tin find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.