The main narrative starts with a simple tale of slavery and the fight for freedom against oppressive forces but then slowly expands into themes dealing with racism, classism, individuality, family, community and more. The major reason why is because (at least for me) the first 30 or so hours set in the five realms are almost perfectly paced. If that sounded like it might be another JRPG that tries too hard to tell a convoluted high fantasy tale thankfully it doesn’t quite descend into those tropes. The story starts with a Dahnan slave, locked in an iron mask not remembering who he was finding the courage to save a random Renan stranger starting an epic adventure that spans all five realms. The poor souls responsible for extracting the Astral energy are none other than the remaining Dahnans. The reason for the split was because of a Crown Contest held by the Renans every seven years with the lords fighting for the right to be the next Sovereign ruling over both Rena and Dahna by extracting and accumulating the most Astral Energy in that time frame. Dahna was then split into five main regions with each region under the control of a Renan lord. 300 years before the start of the game Dahna was invaded and subjugated by Rena, the technologically superior race. Tales of Arise tells an epic fantasy tale of the twin worlds Rena and Dahna and the divide that separates them. Thankfully, even though Tales of Arise is not a perfect game it does a lot of things right and at the end of my almost 50-hour playthrough I could happily put down my controller feeling satisfied for the most part once the credits rolled. It had a very interesting premise but fell far from the scores that it had been earning (just a personal opinion). I had been hungry for a really satisfying JRPG experience for quite a long while now and was quite disappointed with how Scarlett Nexus turned out. Then review scores hit and seeing all the 9’s and 10s and somehow it felt like Deja Vu to me.
I did try out the demo and although I did find the graphic style to be gorgeous and the combat to be satisfying, I had my reservations about the final product. Even before the review embargo lifted, internally there were a few members of our team that were really anticipating Tales of Arise due to how solid the demo experience was for them.
Thanks to the generous folks over at Bandai Namco Entertainment, we were fortunate to receive a review code.
TALES OF ARISE LENGTH SERIES
Tales of Arise is the latest in the series and was due to release last year but was pushed forward due to development issues and wanting to release on more platforms especially with the new PlayStation and Xbox hardware just on the horizon. It might not have achieved mainstream appeal worldwide on the level of the Final Fantasy series but is generally considered to be one of the biggest JRPG series in Japan. The Tales series has been around for several years spanning seventeen main titles, multiple spin-off games and also crossing over into anime and even manga.
TALES OF ARISE LENGTH PC
Developed By: Bandai Namco Studios Published By: Bandai Namco Entertainment Platforms: PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox One & Series X/S, & PC Reviewed On: PS5
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