Why Tales Of Arise Was The Most Disappointing Game Of 2021

[@lordartoriuscollbrande7434]

I’m aware that there are other games that came out this year that were definitely disappointing for many people that I haven’t played myself such as Balan Wonderland for example which I’ll most likely never play and I can’t promise anything soon even if it’s requested because I’d rather talk about things that are things I’m very passionate saying things about. This for me was personally just my own most disappointing game of the year. I certainly believe that there were still actually worse games then this that were buggier and glitchier then this game still making it look like a great game by comparison. Disappointing is not the same as an absolutely terrible game. There were just flaws this game had I found worth putting out to the masses I just wanted to discuss how I felt about them personally and why I just didn’t think the game deserves or has earned the right to be considered one of the best games of the year and saying that it was is actually lying about it a little bit. I mean, I have absolutely no problem with someone who loved this game but the real reason I said all this in this video is mainly because of how I passionately felt about what was disappointing about this game in my opinion and I really wanted to vent about what made me so frustrated playing it and talk about the things that bothered me about it. I just wanted to make that clear so that’s all put into perspective and so it’s really understood how I felt about everything in this game also. It doesn’t really matter either if someone loves it. There’s absolutely no problem with that. I just wanted to share my perspective of this game to the public so people at least understood where I’m coming from. That’s all.

[@KeyleeTamirian]

About the villains, i agree. I mean, i do agree with them telling that those villains also were humans with their own good traits... ...except they haven't shown that. While i'm not a follower of "Show don't tell" mantra, i think they didn't shown enough of antagonists normal life to be able to sympathise with them. Let's compare to Four Great Exorcists from Tales of Berseria. Antagonists yes, but each of them feels like a person. While Theresa and Oscar feel like mad zealots of their ideaology, you still can see them loving each other

[@beyondthegrave852]

I kind of enjoyed my time with the game but i pretty much agree with you, this is not a Tales game i will be revisiting in the future for sure. I did not care for the characters and the plot. Got quite tired of the gameplay with the repeating enemy roster and how damage sponge they feel and the hyper armor bosses, i wanted the game to end in the middle of my playthrough. Good to see i am not the only one .

[@Ammy-q4w]

I prefer the characters and story of Berseria over Arise, but Arise definitely has the best Tales combat system so far, and I highly recommend the game to anyone who loves challenging battles, because the bosses have what you are looking for.

[@DogginsFroggins]

Luckily I got this on sale thankfully. I just realized I'm too old for these type of games, the writing is just so juvenile and makes me feel like I'm watching an episode of Naruto but the subject matter is slavery. The anime stereotypes are just so bad, I'm not sure why people put up with it. The game just also feels so on rails, like I get that most JRPGs have the illusion of choice but this makes you feel like you are literally playing a character action game being shoved from one setpiece to the next but there are anime skits every 2 seconds.

[@RaidenKaiser]

Honestly I have given up on the franchise bamco is too worried about changing the battle system for no reason and making it extra clunky with the super armor rather than actually improving on parts of the series that needed it. I was hoping after the love vesperia definitive edition got they would return to form and focus on other aspects to improve upon but unfortunately they had to just make an even worse zesteria battle system because now even the smallest of enemies dont react to attacks because everything is a brick wall.

[@reinsama2.09]

I can't say this is the most disappointing game of the year BUT I will say that this is the worst tales of game I've ever played, even worst than zestiria and say whatever you want to about zesty but at least that game had the spirit of the franchise and it ACTUALLY tried

[@gachako4948]

True that. It feels like it should be it's own title. It's like they swap the good elements to bad and bad elements to good.

[@ahdasick]

I honestly haven't played a Tales game before, Arise is my first, and so far, I like the combat, but i don't like how Linear everything feels. Story has a good direction but it always seems generic "anime" trope type story telling. The only game I played similar to this style was Star Ocean Till the End of Time back on ps2 and I remember the story being very interesting, of course the combat hasnt aged well compared to Arise, but it had a charm to it. Arise just feels like a nice game to look at and play, but it lack that charm/personality that I felt playing Star Ocean. There was a sort of mystery to every zone and I wanted to walk around and talk to everyone. In Arise i just didnt have that feeling.

[@ahdasick]

@Zurg How is Tales of Vesperia compared to Arise? I see a sale rn for PC but debating if I'll enjoy it, I do prefer equipment type rpgs so if there isn't any I don't think i'd enjoy it, but I see Tales fans recommend it all the time.

[@mksmike]

@@ahdasick Play Tales of Berseria next. You should take a look at the combat before buying, though, because the old combat system is a bit different. That being said, the storytelling is on a completely different level.

[@stevenliang3213]

@@ahdasick : Abyss, Symphonia, and Vesperia are often considered the golden trio when it comes to the best tales games. Fantastic storyline and good character casts Those three are a must play for any tales fan in my view.

[@noone-pf5zq]

I agree with most of what you say but I dont consider it to have a disappointing story I consider it a downright bad story...hell I'd say it's the worst story in a tales game period...this game is basically a much worse retelling of tales of symphonia first act...the renans and the lords are basically the desians and five grand cardinals done much worse...balseph is basically magnius but uglier with a much gaudier design...galawhatshis face the second one is basically rodyle/kvar almeidra the fourth one isnt pronyma no shes rodyle/kvar + even having a constant cheesy over the top evil laugh and volrhan I guess would be forcystus except where forcystus was known as a desian hero who was kind to his people and ruthless to his enemies volrhans just an asshole to everyone...they're the most laughably one note cheesy saturday morning cartoon villains imaginable being assholes even to their own people while being exceptionally cruel assholes to the slaves they rule over to a degree far beyond even real life slavery ever got to to the point of just being laughable...then of course we have dolahim who's the only one who isnt an asshole because hes really just the sixth party member and despite being a lord isnt actually remotely grey in any way just as black and white as everything else...I dont really have issues with non sympathetic one dimensional villains and I was fine with the first and second lords but they all ended up being the same one dimensional over the top evil Saturday morning cartoon villain each one worse than the last...I mean could you at least implement some subtlety in your fucking black and white villains...these fuckers might as well be going mwahaha look how evil I am the entire time...and i think volrhan is laughable...they keep treating him like hes this big bitter rival antagonist to alphen...but we literally have zero fucking personal connection to the character...hes literally no more unique or special than any of the other 3 lords we kill and gameplaywise I actually found him to be the easiest of the lord bosses...and the final appearance he makes that's supposed to be this big epic final clash was just downright idiotic and out of nowhere...since the fucker shouldn't even have been alive after being stabbed through the chest or the second time after that he supposedly dies...its just stupid...and the world and setting are just so uninteresting...in tales of symphonia the desians were a destructive and oppressive force but they werent always there all the time and life still went on normally for the worlds inhabitants more or less independent of the desians but in arise everyone is either a bad guy or a slave...its such a dull dynamic...and our merry band of heroes motivations are pretty damn stupid...I mean fighting of tyrants to free yourselves is one thing but then they keep going on about nonsense about getting rid of all hierarchy and rulership as a whole...the kind of dumb retarded shit youd hear from some dumbass progressive neo liberal anarchist...then once you're done with the lords the story decides to get extra retarded and basically becomes about....aliens?...all to pretty much end with a final boss that is just some generic world ending monster...and people complained about heldaf from tales of zestiria not being very interesting...compared to anything in this game heldaf was a bloody Shakespearean masterpiece...gameplay was alright but really wasnt any grand improvement over berseria...if anything it was worse by adding extra tedious elements...the jump mechanic and air combos added absolutely nothing to the gameplay...the boost mechanics felt like an annoying extra tedious mechanic that only complicated things and added nothing to the gameplay not too dissimilar to armatization in zestiria...and I dont like them replacing blocking with dodging specially since you can do both in damn near every other tales game...I also dont like that they give generic enemies super armor...specially since you cant dodge cancel inbetween combos...they also give bosses and even some generic enemies too much godamn hp making battles take way too godamn long...even on the easiest difficulties...speaking of which I dont like how they artificially implemented more difficulty in this installment by limiting your ability to heal hp as well as the ability to stock up on healing items because not only did they restrict your resource for healing abilities they restricted your item inventory to 15 instead of 20 like every other tales game they also made healing items very expensive and took away the ability to grind for levels or gald since enemies dont drop gald like the other games and you gain virtually no exp from defeating enemies lower levels than you...unless of course you feel like dishing out some extra real world money for some bullshit DLC and just buy an overabundance of in game currency or extra levels to the point where you can start the game at end game level right of the bat or other little perks like more experience more cp(aka your resource for healing)more hp and even changing your inventory capacity from 15 to a whopping 99 instead...its some real grimy ass bullshit...this game is either the hardest tales game if purchased raw or the easiest tales game if you decide to dish out an extra 20 to 30 bucks for all the DLC buffs bullshit...so yeah I certainly wouldnt call this a bad game or anything...but it's certainly no exceptional tales of game...storywise it's easily the worst in the franchise...but the combat is still moderately decent enjoyable tales style combat and gameplay albeit made annoyingly tediously challenging without some bullshit DLC purchases....and the main cast of playable characters is alright...at least characterdesignwise...a shame the story and setting really doesn't allow anything interesting to be done with them...I'd say tales of berseria is the significantly superior game in damn near every aspect...I would say tales of arise is similar in quality overall to tales of zestiria...which isnt exactly most tales fans favorite entry...I'd say the majority of people who were singing this games praises so highly are either playing this as their first tales of game and possibly even first action rpg period or your typical bought KZbinr shill who's only real interests are getting more sponsors

[@ninjedi6710]

it felt like a visual novel instead of an actual rpg

[@feliyulita1092]

Bad visual novel... 😐

[@chronicxdzed2693]

​@@feliyulita1092all tales games are bad visual novels

[@summerwinter89]

@@chronicxdzed2693symphonia was amazing.

[@zerobob8586]

I had no problem with the story. It wasn't the best but i liked the relationships in the story. Game play lacked fluidity and could get glitchy at times. The bosses you cant stagger them. There could have made it atleast take hit and be stunned at some points. Its hard to live up to a story like Tales of Symphonia .

[@Mattonores]

My biggest regret. I wish I could refund

[@Mr._Matt]

Vholran was not intimidating or well-written. He's just annoying in every scene he's in, and not in the good way that antagonists should make things more interesting and exciting. I rolled my eyes whenever he was on the screen, and disliked everything narratively about him. Berseria set the bar so high, and Arise surpassed it in certain mechanical aspects (quality of life improvements, etc.), but narratively, Arise doesn't come anywhere close to touching Berseria, both in an intellectual level of writing, or in regard to the emotional effects the writing delivers to the audience. When I think back on Berseria, I have a flood of positive emotions and excitement, but when I think back on Arise, the only positive thing immediately springing to mind is the visuals. In any case, I enjoyed Arise, but it was definitely a huge disappointment, and by the time I 100%'d the game, I was eager to be done and promptly uninstalled it, feeling "sick" of it for the time being.

[@lordartoriuscollbrande7434]

I 100% agree with you. Vholran was just a very tiring, annoying, and just altogether a weak villain from every aspect. I thought literally nothing was compelling or cool as a character about him. He’s just an unfleshed out, poorly utilized joke in the story that was extremely underwhelming and they could’ve added so much more about who he was but instead made him a vague, 1-Dimensional villain that acted like a joke and was really nothing in the whole story. Artorius was a compelling villain because I actually understood his sadness about his own unborn son and how he never met him due to being manipulated by Melchior. He was tricked and due to the world being infested by daemons, he had no choice but to suppress his sadness otherwise he would become a daemon himself and his goal was ridding the world of all emotion to fully free the world from daemons using Innominat as a weapon. Artorius was a great character not only because his motivations actually are fleshed out and have a real sense of purpose but because you can actually sympathize with him and you realize Velvet wasn’t the only one who lost everything. The character who really lost everything that was good for him tragically was Artorius and he tried holding himself to the point where he was a monster using Laphicet just to create a new world that was perfect to save the world from daemons in his own image and while Melchior influenced him. Vholran can’t even literally compare with Artorius. That’s not even a debate. Compared with Richter from Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World and Artorius from Tales Of Berseria, Vholran doesn’t even measure even near close to how great of characters they were. In my opinion so far from what I played, I think Vholran crowns himself as the worst villain in the whole franchise without question. Only Alexei from Tales Of Vesperia is near him being the worst but Tales Of Vesperia is a topic for another day because I wasn’t a big fan of that game either for it’s own reasons. I totally agree with you. Vholran is one of the lamest villains ever in a video game.

[@Mr._Matt]

​@@lordartoriuscollbrande7434 Well put. It's easy to see how Artorius could view himself as the hero in his own story, which should be the way of writing a compelling villain. Erasing all emotion from humanity is indeed horrible, as we see with the guy who is going to jump off a pier and drown in one town, but - based on Artorius' observations of the world for years now - it's "worth it" to have a few people die here and there, and have emotions removed, because he has personally lived without emotion (most emotion, anyway) for years, lest he himself become a daemon were he to despair over the loss of his woman and child, or to allow himself to "feel" anything for what he did to Velvet. The loss of emotions is a sacrifice he is willing to make, and a person could make a decent argument that he's doing the right thing given the rules of that world and the information the characters all have. He's not wrong. Daemons would cease to exist except when the blood moon comes every ~10 years or however often it is, and that's "manageable," whereas the world at the start of Berseria is a losing battle for humanity. Of course, one could also argue in favor of our protagonists as doing the right thing, as removing emotion brings into question whether or not what's left of humanity is even "human," or rather, just borderline soulless husks of who they once were, not even worth saving...kinda like Artorius himself, even though his emotional shutdown is self-imposed (and I mean that not as an insult, but as a sad assessment of "who" or more aptly "what" he has become). Ultimately, both sides can be argued as being correct, but the "tie-breaker" in my opinion is the new Laphicet (party member) becomes a great spirit of the silver flame, which allows changing daemons back into humans, completely turning the tide of the human/daemon conflict for millenia to come..until the age of Zestiria when the writing is poor and contradictory to its (Zestiria's) own lore. "You can't kill a hellion if you're not a Shepherd!" *A few minutes later, folks in town kill a hellion dog/wolf thing.* Sigh. It makes me sad that Berseria shares the same universe as Zestiria, but I'm glad Zestiria "happened" since Berseria turned out SO good. If only all JRPGs could have writing of this quality...

[@blaby4ever]

The game was basically: Fight, fight, peach gel, group the enemy, finish off with artes. Then boss The game was too easy and the gameplay was dry. It presented no challenge whatsoever

[@1876UTB]

@Zurg what are you smoking

[@1876UTB]

@Zurg Beer. I got a platinum on PS for both Arise and Horizon. I don't know what's more funny. The fact u said Arise had a story 1000x better than Horizon or when you said you put Arise into hard mode, only to put it into Auto for the battles. Arise was also my first Tales game but I won't be back anytime soon. The game was trash.

[@1876UTB]

I am looking forward to the new Star Ocean though

[@1876UTB]

@Zurg Yes. When you compare the game Horizon Zero Dawn that redefined developer Guerrilla Games, from makers of Killzone, they created the new IP to the overall positive review from gamers and critics alike. It proved so successful that they even released the PS4 exclusive on PC 3 years later to critical acclaim. When you do that and you say another game's story is 1000x better, you can't say it about a game that is universally known for its amazing story without coming across like a fvck mook. 2 totally different styles of games, yet you feel the need to compare them, all good. I'm the one that's sorry that you never got to enjoy Horizon for whatever reason. Plenty people couldn't get into Horizon either, but when you make statements on a online forum, don't be so offended if someone wants to let you know that you sound like you're talking out of your sphincter.

[@TheStormieKnight]

Seems like Tales fans didn’t rock with this one too much. I’m brand new to the series and thought it was amazing. I’m sorry that you didn’t enjoy it like I did. :(

[@lordgaynondorf2148]

Happens, when you let your 10yo little bro write the plot and characters.

[@kurakurakii3792]

i just finished this game just few hour ago, and honestly it suckeed. i hold out for long hopping that the writing gonna improved. but nooooooo they end up calling for dahnna god to cover up for their excuse of story ending. wow so convenient plot. dam its soo bad and i missed playing tales of legendia and tales of the abyss. bruhh atleast theres a 2B mod for kisara and i can pretend to play a yoko taro game instead.

[@richardyamato]

a recipe for disaster. But I came for the combat so im going for platinum now. I love zestiria combat more.

[@Osimear]

Loved the demo can't wait to get it!

[@yifeipei5484]

I haven't bought it. So I checked some reviews. But I feel the combat is a little bit noisy and visually overwhelming. When all members are speaking, I cannot hear anything clearly. Their speaking becomes noisy. Too many members with various skills actively involved in combat can only make my eyes tired. Did these developers really know "design"?

[@MyNameisRevenant]

They should had gotten rid of the flashy effects that clouds my vision when i do the most basic of attacks. Darksouls got flashy attack animations right compared to this game.

[@LostOdyssey91]

I didnt enjoy this game really, enemies are hp sponges, upgrades to weapons didnt feel like real upgrades i was still stuck at around 200-400 damage per hit. i only finished this game because it was expensive af and no multiplayer biggest let down for me, meanwhile other Tales im playing and buying it again on other consoles to play it with my bestfriend over and over again. This game is forgettable.

[@Voltroc]

Just finished it and man. Combat was fine, but the story is just soooo mediocre.

[@lordartoriuscollbrande7434]

I mean, the story wasn’t horrible in this game. I just thought there were some really bad parts to it that really brought the game down for me and overall the game was a big disappointment for me. There are definitely worse games out there than Tales Of Arise for sure but I definitely expected better than this compared to a great game like Tales Of Berseria. The villains were honestly the worst characters in the entire game for me. Vholran should honestly be a high contender for the worst written antagonist in a video game ever. Not only is he an over the top evil bad guy but he’s also an idiot for not even killing the good guys for the sake of the plot when he had a direct chance doing it when they stood no chance against him and beyond that is how horrendous they actually utilize his character in the entire story. I mean, they didn’t even bother showing anything or any real moments between him and the main character Alphen. It would have been a lot cooler if Vholran had a lot more interaction with him especially 300 years ago in the past since everything in the story is based from that exact part of it. They could’ve honestly had Vholran at least be the one who actually killed Naori in the cutscenes showing the past but I guess they didn’t bother utilizing that well. Something was definitely wrong with the storytelling in some parts of the game for sure. The game felt very basic writing the first half of the game all feeling like a basic chore of getting from one spot killing a lord to another and then the second half of the game was a convoluted mess because it utilized it’s characters so poorly and ran dry with some of it’s humor. I thought the combat system in the game was just mediocre. My biggest problem was dealing with boss fights since some of them were too easy and others spiked up difficulty and threw too much at you and it was annoying. It wasn’t terrible but nothing was really that fun either.

[@TheMagnificentGman]

Felt like another Tales of Jank to me

[@VisualdelightPro]

In what way it is?

[@TheMagnificentGman]

@@VisualdelightPro it's just too stiff in its feel that takes away all Immersion for me

[@aoao3340]

>Tales of Jank Lol well said xD

[@mksmike]

I liked the gameplay but not the story. Shionne's importance to the story is obvious and yet she doesn't get a proper backstory. Heck, even Dohalim gets a couple flashbacks. The only stuff you know from before is that she was always alone, feared and shunned by other people, and experimented on. You never understand why she even gives a damn about her thorns destroying everything. And Vholran is all over the place, one minute he wants to kill Alphen, the other he wants revenge on the great spirit and the other he gives up revenge just to spite Alphen.

[@summerwinter89]

nothing can match tales of symphonia.

[@rockdesu]

The women were just horrible... They are annoying 2ats....I ignored them. I didn't even add them to my team when possible.

[@MOAON_AABE]

I freaking love this game, sorry if you did not enjoy it as much as I did. 😊

[@niveyoga3242]

I love this game!

[@georgeblack2749]

I thought it was amazing.

[@JJKMagic]

If all you care about is good antagonists I get not liking the game but it does seem a little hyperfixated on that issue. Calling it the "most disappointing" game just sounds like it's an awful game when really it has a lot of outstanding features even if the story has a lot of pacing issues and some of the characters aren't the most interesting ones you have ever seen (but I very rarely find any character interesting so my expectations are always low in that regard). At least on a technical level it's still a very good game.

[@MrMadmaggot]

I think the story is good, but Berseria left the hurdle too high. It is good, but not great, that is why it might be a lil disappointing. it is still my GOTY anyways, not lik we had many good games. I mean it is not close as TLOU2, where the story really messed up the experience. The happy ending was good, not terrible dude they saved Shione, if Shione dies just cuz her curse it would also be good but with a sad ending.

[@nemesisencounter2060]

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