#and of course. it has dohalim. who i love so so so so so so much

[theblackbutterfly02]

I platinumed Tales of Arise and here are my thoughts on it

Aaaand, you guessed it, spoiler warning for the whole game, I will cry long and hard about this one

Where do I even begin? Well, at the very beginning I assume. Getting thrown into this game my partner and I immeadiately said: "It looks like a mix between Assassin's Creed, Monster Hunter World and Dark Souls - but definitely not like a Tales game" and playing it, that's exactly what it felt like as well.

The battlesystem is completely new, as is the perspective you see your character from on the open map - not that it was bad, it just wasnt't what I was expecting at all.

The story started out so damn dark! Honestly, didn't like that. It made me feel all kinds of things, none of them good - but I suppose that was the point.

It got better over the course of the game, once I started actually getting into it. The story generally had some interesting turns, but...

Jeez, that was some damn interwoven lore there, had to double check all the information the game threw at me to understand it at the end with all the reveals and stuff.

Overall I'm not sure if the story theme really was my piece of cake, but it was a decent story nontheless.

The characters!!

As always - okay I actually really liked the villains. As little screen time as they had, they were really interesting - as villains that is. That doesn't mean I support anything they did, don't hit me please.

My mom really latched onto Vholran and - who can blame her for it? Hot guy with a katana, hello??

The main group though! Okay yeah, these funky little people were awesome!

They're all carying their own kind of baggage, they are your usual group of misfits that we know and love in these games.

Dohalim really had me because I take self-loathing characters and project onto them xD

My mom totally loved Law and we laughed about the fact that he has the same English VA as Asbel from Graces - all while also having red/brown-ish hair, daddy issues and an inferiority complex. "Is that just the kind of character he mains?" - my mom. And honestly, his interactions with Rin were the cutest.

Speaking of which - yeah, I'm not really invested into her but I guess she's okay

The same goes for Kisara - idk, I just didn't like her... design wise, which made it a little hard to get accustomed to her. But she's a good group mom.

Shionne and Alphen just fit together tbh. And like, yeah, they were a good pair of main characters.

But like... ugh, I HATE how this game is so... heterosexual. Like, it just throws the hetero couples at you without any room for interpretation. I mean, Kisara and Dohalim are a sidequest and I guess I can just pretend it didn't happen, but still... ah well.

The playstyle of the game is something I was fairly used to before so I got into it rather easily - but while I perfectly dodged my group didn't which made it a little hard to fight enemies that were a few levels above us.

New way of unlocking ng+ bonuses? Okay I guess, interesting system.

The owls? Cute, had me going hoo-hoo whenever I heard one, as if it was some kind of conversation.

The fishing system was okay once I actually understood it lol

I was just kinda sad I managed to platinum the game in one go *shrugs*

Overall a good game I suppose, but not one of my favourites

[nanintell]

damn arise's story is really good. love it.

a bunch of spoilers below! I HAVE WARNED YOU!!!

dhana and rena reminds me of eternia's inferia and celestia mixed with graces a little. cause they are different planets after all.

though story is different and really moving me to tears ,especially at the end when shionne was really to die then alphen managed to save her and get rid of her thorns in the end. and hey, we got a happy ending for once where hero and heroine are together ever! i mean they got married! haven't seen these kind of ending for a while. mostly romance but proceed to wed? can't remember latest time seeing that haha

there's also a scene about alphen's past. damn that's deep. i mean, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGT HE'S FREAKING 300+ YEARS OLD! also the truth about thorns, sorveign, rena and stuff is really plot twisting. a scene when shionne's thorns went crazy after being kidnapped is also great, bring tears to my eyes. damn she was really lonely, unable to touch everyone. also thanks to vholran's brainwash and alphen suddenly getting hurt from her thorns when she was about to be taken, she thought she was really alone at that point. gosh, i feel bad for her.

i feel like this time we got a lot of animation though. then i saw someone combined it and turned out it to be around 25 mins long.

for characters, well i think i like everyone equally at this point. each of them has their own trait after all, like alphen always making food so spicy that shionne commented that it will make a hole in stomach, shionne loving to eat, rinwell and law fighting (i laughed everytime they fought in skit lmao), kisara being a mom to the group and dohalim listening to the relics (there's one skit where he tried to hold a conversation with relics and when there was a change, he thought that they finally responded but lo and behold, it's hootle's poops lmao)

of course hot spring scene is the best. i mean we normally got a peeping tom but walking out naked? LMAO (of course there's peeping tom but never got to peep scene)

don't ask me about gameplay though i didn't play it, i watched a playthrough in youtube (ok i'm sorry for not supporting the game financially) but overall graphic, color, others are great! recommended for everyone who can afford time to play and money to buy!

[semi-imaginary-place]

tales of arise something something menancia??? the green one

awww the boys are bonding over beings stupid.

alphen should be a weapon/armor smith. he just loves equipment so much

yes! yes! someone finally gets it that plants are wind element. if you think about it the majority of plant biomass comes from co2 in the atmosphere, its air! its air!

wait. noooo why are we harvesting wind rocks in the earth area?????

I waaasss thinking how cyclodia and ... fire area... grew enough food to feed everyone, i guess part of it comes from here.

farming simulator lets goooo

interesting to note that in each area we visit the standard of living has been higher than the last. who knows how things were run before balsef but living conditions were terrible under him! then we have cyclodia where at leas everyone has 4 walls and a roof and while things are lean starvation is less of a threat. and people generally seem to be doing ok in menancia. it still is inherently exploitative to embed those energy channeling stones on every dahnan baby to harvest energy for pretty foreign political struggles but things at least seem functional here

the contrasts between the realms also highlight why this lord system is a terrible idea. the lords can run things however they want, they aren’t beholden to the people or anyone else. and so governance styles can swing wildly from one lord to the next. one might run a benevolent dictatorship and the next might be balsef.

this is a good challenge to what the the team wants, help people or kill someone. if they cant decide they could always deal with dohalin last, that’s what I’d do. but the narrative has already established a pattern of explore realm then kill lord and i think it is a little early to break that pattern so i don’t think the game will do it. like why are we killing renan lords? is it to get rid of a despot? to get to lord out of the way? to collect the 5 orbs? (probably that last one. which means you don’t actually have to kill anyone if you can negotiate.). This also might be where shionne’s goals stop aligning with the rest of the party’s which i am interested in seeing how the game would deal with that.

oh and then of course there’s the twist that dohalim is secretly evil and everyone is brainwashed which the game has been hinting at. but thats such a boring option *sigh*

oh i forgot to comment on the last post but the comic style scenes are a good thing. its to save on animation labor and i don’t miss the alternative. like this looks good and its easier.

is ti me or are there a lot of drunk people in this city

i saw kisara’s armor and was like oh that looks pretty functional. and then i saw the back lol. business out front, party in the back. where’s that image of a dude wearing half a tux with lingerie showing form the back

aaahhahahaha shionne attempts to kill a man and he invites them all to dinner.

so he’s disillusioned with renan society’s pursuit of power?

why IS the fire master core inside of shionne. at first i though they were all stored inside their owners but ganabelt didn’t pull the light master core out of his chest and summon a sword so what is up with shionne and the fire core??

yeah there’s far easier ways for dohalim to kill the party then poison them at dinner. i don’t think he wants us dead but i do think there’s something up about eld menancia, too much foreshadowing. he’s trying to do something else but im not sure what. just get us out faster?

I also wanted to say I like how everyone acts their ages. after cyslodia i went and looked up character ages and im happy to say i was pretty close. I guessed shionne and alphen were around 20 and rinwell was like 14-15 she acts young. law gave me some trouble since his story on paper made me think he’d be older like 18 but the way he acts made me think more like 16 aka jrpg protag age.

ok so someone(s) trying to poison he populace. but who? its someone with enough power to get it in every dahnan’s food except the guard. logically i’d say its a renan group but who knows what the game will decide. migal was imprisoned by them and has no clue huh

people rarely try to touch shionne and when they do its never with good intentions, but still it happens even if its a negative experience. when was the last time it was shionne that reached out and touched someone? I really like seeing the progression of shionne and alphen’s relationship

yeah i vastly prefer dohalim’s jp voice acting to his eng one. shionne and alphen’s eng voice acting got my hopes up too far.

holy shit! dude would actually kill himself to prove a point. i damn hope he wrote everything down! ok there definitely were other ways to convince him migal just chose the most dramatic/traumatizing one.

the master core can go berserk?? what does that even mean?

breaking news more at 11 gang finds out that local man is human too. dohalim’s surprisingly open about talking about all this. but i suppose he did just get triggered and beaten to a pulp. you know there’s an infinite number of worse ways he could have gotten people to stop screaming and crying around him, arguably easier ways too, and instead he went with i’ll take away the reasons people are sad and distressed.

oh law can punch past those other barriers but he cant punch past these ones?

ehhhhh you sure letting him go is a good idea? he could still cause trouble down the road.

i wonder how much dohalim leaving will cause problems. like ideologically “menancia does not need a lord” is great and all but leaving a power vaccum is a terrible idea. and if dohalim and ... traitor dude were competent administrators uh things might collapse with them gone. i suppose its implied dohalim helped the whole city self organize but...

rinwell is taking the 2nd renan better.. i think?

hell yeah tear down the system. i did get spoiled on something so im curious to see what it all plays out

[hinasaki]

okay i finished arise so here are some thoughts:

(non-spoiler thoughts first, spoilers below the cut)

combat is very fun. everybody is fun to play as. i am bad at game but i still had a ton of fun trying everyone out in the arena

boost artes and strikes are good and useful. mystic artes are real easy to trigger, even advanced ones. i’ve triggered some of the advanced ones by accident, that’s how easy they are

i was dubious about the skit style change at first but i got used to it, and it’s fine.

camping is good and i loved the little scenes you could get between party members

the world is gorgeous. the painting style they went with really just looks amazing.

okay, spoiler time

some specific thoughts on characters first:

alphen: he’s fine. i’ve been spoiled by velvet in all honesty because i love a protag who isn’t all Good and alphen is definitely Good. they did a good job keeping the mystery of his past going and he has a lot of very nice interactions with other party members. he’s fine.

shionne: my wife is a bitch and i like her so much. shionne has a good arc and the way her relationships with each of the party members grows feels really natural. saw the reveal about her thorns coming a mile away but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. i care her and want her to be happy. I especially like her very cute friendship with rinwell

rinwell: baby. rinwell also has a really good arc! the way her opinion on renans changes over the course of the story feels very natural - she doesn’t immediately stop hating renans after meeting shionne and dohalim and even after she grows to love them she still occasionally slips up. she’s good. i like her

law: baby #2. most of law’s story is front-loaded which had him feeling a bit detached as far as the story went in the later chapters but i still very much enjoyed having him around. he’s a sweet idiot. he’s absolutely a teenager.

dohalim: i love him. consistently good interactions with other party members, he has very good scenes with alphen, shionne, and rinwell. i was VERY pleased that he got a lot of focus during the lenegis part of the game. i loved his arc of learning to cope with his guilt and growing from a Ruler into a Leader.

kisara: i wanted to like kisara. i really did. i tried. i kept hoping for a magilou moment (aka a single moment late in the game where everything crystallised and i fell in love with them) but it never came. and i’m sad about that because there are some genuinely cool things about her! there are good bones! she has some really nice interactions with alphen! unfortunately a lot of her scenes end up being either her talking about her brother or her trying to mother everyone and i am just.... not here for that

overall i liked the party. they’re not my fave but i did like almost everyone quite a bit. i felt like their evolution from working together out of necessity to found family way very well done. it was natural. i keep saying “natural” because the arcs really did feel that way. they flowed nicely and almost never felt forced or hurried. it was nice!

now, because this game has basically attempted to pair up all of the party members.... the ship opinions....

alphen/shionne: holy shit tales did a het ship that didn’t feel forced! their relationship flows very nicely and they grow closer slowly over the course of the game. i don’t feel like it’s a luke/tear tier canon ship but it’s good. Them getting married in the end credits was very cute

law/rinwell: very very cute. not entirely sold on rinwell’s feelings but that’s fine, it reads pretty much entirely like law has a crush and has decided that saving the world isn’t really the time to bring that up. it’s cute.

dohalim/kisara: bad. bad. bad. i’m glad it’s just tease because i can pretend it’s not happening. they have some really good platonic moments! they have a nice dynamic as people learning to be equals! it’s extremely uncomfortable to throw romance into that mix! and i feel like it was a *huge* disservice to kisara for the writing to push her into this ship. it just felt bad. not to mention this alongside the haha she’s like his mum jokes just ughghghhghghghghgghhg NO.

as far as the plot goes, it was pretty good. we had a clear goal from the beginning which is always appreciated, only to have the rug pulled out from under us at the end in usual tales fashion. i saw somewhere someone said it had a plot structure sort of like legendia and LMAO TRUE with the one month time skip. the game as a whole reminded me quite a bit of tales of rebirth funnily enough - similar plot structure, themes regarding race dynamics, some nebulous force being the cause of a lot of suffering... it’s a tales plot. it’s not particularly groundbreaking but the characters really carried it and made it compelling. also i just loved the design of the final dungeon. the thorns are Aesthetic.

The main problems I had with the game were the amount of spelling mistakes in the subtitles, or where the subtitles didn't match the dialogue. It's most noticeable with the battle lines but happened in other places too. I didn't have a problem with CP because I kept an eye on it and I was playing easy mode but i can see it being more than a little bit of a pain. Like. Why? And also, just as a side note, did they ever mention how shionne got to dahna? Because I might have just missed it but HOW DID SHE GET HERE? did she come down for the crown contest and just chill for seven years? Did she steal a starship and come down by herself - in which case what happened to her ship that we couldn't use it to get to lenegis? This feels like an important piece of information that we just.... never find out.

speaking of reminding me of other tales: oh boy! there were a lot of times i felt reminded of older titles, which made me real glad i’ve played almost all of them now. i talked about legendia and rebirth vibes above but also MASSIVE graces nostalgia what with going to space. i know twin worlds could be referencing a number of games too but the specific dahna/lenegis/rena structure reminded me a lot of eternia with inferia/orbus barrier/celestia and it was just nice. i can’t remember where? maybe pelegion? but the general aesthetic gave me big xillia vibes. i’m not sure how many of these were deliberately intended to invoke nostalgia but i’m glad for it - it really felt like a love letter to older titles (like zesty was supposed to be) while also clearly moving towards a new future for the series.

I'm not sure how I felt about there not being much of a primary antagonist. I guess it helped push the theme of forgiveness because really how can you blame a sentient planet for everything wrong with the world when it has no concept of human morality. I guess it's just my personal preference since I prefer the conflict to be a clash of ideals or wills (again, I'm spoiled by berseria). The sidequest where you get tiny little bits about the lords felt tacked on too. The lords largely felt cartoonishly evil but I guess that's probably so we don't feel bad killing them lmao. Vholran needed a whole lot more build-up IMO as a foil to alphen because he ended up feeling like he was just... there. There wasn't much to him. I wanted to know more about why he was the way he was but I guess we'll just never know.

overall i wouldn’t say arise is one of my favourite games but it was definitely an enjoyable experience! i’d absolutely recommend playing it yourself if you get the chance!

[nanintell]

I posted 360 times in 2021

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#on the turn b4 sync's ma i thought i died for sure cause after burst he had a bit of hp left not died and cress seems to have the least hp

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

[메이플] 얀데레 라니아와 루미너스 만화

the real reason lumi doesn’t come home often

4 notes • Posted 2021-05-25 07:39:50 GMT

#4

damn arise's story is really good. love it.

a bunch of spoilers below! I HAVE WARNED YOU!!!

dhana and rena reminds me of eternia's inferia and celestia mixed with graces a little. cause they are different planets after all.

though story is different and really moving me to tears ,especially at the end when shionne was really to die then alphen managed to save her and get rid of her thorns in the end. and hey, we got a happy ending for once where hero and heroine are together ever! i mean they got married! haven't seen these kind of ending for a while. mostly romance but proceed to wed? can't remember latest time seeing that haha

there's also a scene about alphen's past. damn that's deep. i mean, WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGT HE'S FREAKING 300+ YEARS OLD! also the truth about thorns, sorveign, rena and stuff is really plot twisting. a scene when shionne's thorns went crazy after being kidnapped is also great, bring tears to my eyes. damn she was really lonely, unable to touch everyone. also thanks to vholran's brainwash and alphen suddenly getting hurt from her thorns when she was about to be taken, she thought she was really alone at that point. gosh, i feel bad for her.

i feel like this time we got a lot of animation though. then i saw someone combined it and turned out it to be around 25 mins long.

for characters, well i think i like everyone equally at this point. each of them has their own trait after all, like alphen always making food so spicy that shionne commented that it will make a hole in stomach, shionne loving to eat, rinwell and law fighting (i laughed everytime they fought in skit lmao), kisara being a mom to the group and dohalim listening to the relics (there's one skit where he tried to hold a conversation with relics and when there was a change, he thought that they finally responded but lo and behold, it's hootle's poops lmao)

of course hot spring scene is the best. i mean we normally got a peeping tom but walking out naked? LMAO (of course there's peeping tom but never got to peep scene)

don't ask me about gameplay though i didn't play it, i watched a playthrough in youtube (ok i'm sorry for not supporting the game financially) but overall graphic, color, others are great! recommended for everyone who can afford time to play and money to buy!

5 notes • Posted 2021-09-12 18:22:38 GMT

#3

my daily 3 hours torment is finally over

7 notes • Posted 2021-08-01 08:39:29 GMT

#2

Well this is one hell of a coincidence.

8 notes • Posted 2021-10-16 09:55:54 GMT

#1

so i just had my evan reach 200 yesterday and i laughed at this so much LOL

9 notes • Posted 2021-04-23 06:18:20 GMT

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