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Tales of Arise |OT| Back in Our Good Graces

SkylineRKR

Member
Would I be right assuming that this is basically a real-time action version of Dragon Quest 11?

Its much better paced than DQXI. I liked DQ XI but Arise blows it out of the water imo. Its more fun to play, isn't as drawn out with scenarios that repeat itself and less of a grind.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Lol its one of the easiest games to grind materials in, one of the easiest tales games to play on Hard mode and money is easy to come by if you sell fish and abundant mats. Those MT are the most useless ever.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
Lol its one of the easiest games to grind materials in, one of the easiest tales games to play on Hard mode and money is easy to come by if you sell fish and abundant mats. Those MT are the most useless ever.

Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. On all counts, really.

Orange Gummy: 3,000z...and you burn through them by the stack because the AI likes facetanking bosses.
 
That's the case for 13 years now for Tales and most Namco Bandai games. Pretty much since DLC's became a thing.

They looooooove their cheat dlcs.
To my knowledge, this is the first time they actually advertise these DLCs directly in-game, though.
Also, the Battle BGM pack is included in the Ultimate Edition in Asia regions (which costs the same), but here we have to pay 30 extra bucks for it? WTF?

That being said, the game is still fun, and Kisara has one of the greatest asses ever seen in a video game... but it's still not on the same level as Symphonia was. :messenger_neutral:
 
That's the case for 13 years now for Tales and most Namco Bandai games. Pretty much since DLC's became a thing.

They looooooove their cheat dlcs.
For someone like me these DLC's are a blessing. Between my job and my family I simply don't have the time for extensive grinding and whatnot. I just want to finish games ( I'm not rushing thru the main story and try to do all optional missions if possible). These boost help me finish games in a manageable timeframe.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Yeah, I'm going to have to disagree with you there. On all counts, really.

Orange Gummy: 3,000z...and you burn through them by the stack because the AI likes facetanking bosses.

Okay, CP items are too scarce. I agree with that. I also think map actions require too much CP (i've seen them going towards 65 CP I think) I'm quite far into the game and some dungeons have LOTS of fights but luckily most of the time you can fast travel out to a store.

But look at what you can sell. outside of fishes and those unique selling items, I looked at my materials. I had 50-99 of certain items worth 100-400 a piece. I probably got 40-50k from those things alone, just keeping a bunch just in case (but really I don't think you need more than 15-20 ish weapon mats, esp if you have crafted the latest ones). Some weapons are required to keep for creating a new one but armor thats outdated, I think you can always sell, its not upgradeable it seems. You receive many, many items (like 8 lustrous cores per fight, 400 a pop). Esp. if you keep the combat gauge up.

Honestly I did most of the 5th dungeon on Moderate starting with about 6 Orange gels and I could nearly make it to the end in one go and I never skip any fight basically. I think there are about 2, 3 gels in that place lying around as well.

You can also opt to use Life bottles for revive, and turn off healing circle. Those are the biggest CP sinks. But I'm usually too lazy for that. I think there is some CP reduction perks but they probably come pretty late as I don't have them yet.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
Okay, CP items are too scarce. I agree with that. I also think map actions require too much CP (i've seen them going towards 65 CP I think) I'm quite far into the game and some dungeons have LOTS of fights but luckily most of the time you can fast travel out to a store.

But look at what you can sell. outside of fishes and those unique selling items, I looked at my materials. I had 50-99 of certain items worth 100-400 a piece. I probably got 40-50k from those things alone, just keeping a bunch just in case (but really I don't think you need more than 1-520 ish weapon mats, esp if you have crafted the latest ones). Some weapons are required to keep for creating a new one but armor thats outdated, I think you can always sell, its not upgradeable it seems.

Honestly I did most of the 5th dungeon on Moderate starting with about 6 Orange gels and I could nearly make it to the end in one go. I think there are about 2, 3 gels in that place lying around as well.

You can also opt to use Life bottles for revive, and turn off healing circle. Those are the biggest CP sinks. But I'm usually too lazy for that. I think there is some CP reduction perks but they probably come pretty late as I don't have them yet.
I keep hearing fishing is the only way money is balanced, so I guess I gotta get going on that. I don't use gels on non-boss fights, but on boss fights that 15 stack disappears like mist before the sun. I fought that optional boar boss and it kills everyone, all the time, without fail as it charged. Had to solo it.

Already turned off Revive in favor of life bottles. I'm considering redoing the strats to make the ranged characters keep more distance.

Really wish you could animation cancel, so the AI could dodge things in the middle of moves.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I keep hearing fishing is the only way money is balanced, so I guess I gotta get going on that. I don't use gels on non-boss fights, but on boss fights that 15 stack disappears like mist before the sun. I fought that optional boar boss and it kills everyone, all the time, without fail as it charged. Had to solo it.

Already turned off Revive in favor of life bottles. I'm considering redoing the strats to make the ranged characters keep more distance.

Really wish you could animation cancel, so the AI could dodge things in the middle of moves.

I mostly use moderation as tactic and sometimes switch to all out on bosses, as I'm too lazy haha. But you can put decreased aggro on Shionne, dunno how much it helps. And faster casting and move while casting is something I always aim for on mages.

But that boar, yeah hes an elite. Those guys are hard esp if you're underleveled still. All you can do is catch his rush with Kisara, or just tank with her and use guardian heal when hes downed for 8 CP heals.

Bosses can be a pain. I beat some on Hard and on moderate but if I notice its too much of an item sink I do them on Normal. Boost attacks are key but not always available. There are some brick walls, like the third realm final dungeon and the ship, you can't back out there. I think the ship doesn't even have a shop. Those boss battles are a few of the hardest in the story.

Fishing is fun, so I don't mind doing it. Its a good way to earn cash also. But the same goes for selling materials you get from battles.
 
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saintjules

Member

Doesn't break the game at all. Just choose not to spend your money on microtransactions. You're not forced to purchase these and it doesn't hinder the experience if you don't. Especially if you're a Veteran at playing these games.
 

Teslerum

Member
Doesn't break the game at all. Just choose not to spend your money on microtransactions. You're not forced to purchase these and it doesn't hinder the experience if you don't. Especially if you're a Veteran at playing these games.
Even if you're not, the lowest difficulty is easy enough for anyone. Nobody should need to purchase any of the DLC.
(And I mean anyone here, worst case you set your main to auto)
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
Someone explain fishing to me like I'm in a special needs class. The game doesn't give a shit about explaining it, and apparently it has a million fucking steps. It's a minigame. The line should wiggle, I press B, I get a fish. That's it. All this horseshit is just going to make me install Cheat Engine.

Edit: Yeah, no clue what to do on the second phase of the fishing minigame. Pressing B doesn't fight the line tension, neither does rapidly pressing it. I follow the button prompts but I still fail, so there's something else I need to do that's not indicated.
 
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RoboFu

One of the green rats
Pro tip for those arguing about orange gels.

beating large bounties nets astral flowers that increase your cp. by the time you start really needing more cp you should go back to lower lvl areas and do quests.
 

Valonquar

Member
Just beat Arise on PS5, and while finishing up the post-game stuff I realized about 4 or 5 storyline unlocked trophies did not unlock. Neat. Guess I'll see if they do in NG+ with a lvl 100 murder run.
 

RoboFu

One of the green rats
Just beat Arise on PS5, and while finishing up the post-game stuff I realized about 4 or 5 storyline unlocked trophies did not unlock. Neat. Guess I'll see if they do in NG+ with a lvl 100 murder run.
Did do all the campfire talks for each character?
 

Valonquar

Member
Just have 1 left with Do to earn, but you have to wait a full hour to get the next speech bubble. Have all weapons crafted, farm fully unlocked, all fish caught, all subquests done, etc. Only story trophies and the 2 tied to finishing up campfires left.
 

Teslerum

Member
Between Vesperia, Abyss, Graces, Symphonia and Destiny which is the best one?

The newer ones don't entice me.
That's just asking for bloodshed.

Popular answers are Vesperia and Symphonia. Vesperia has some very strong qualities, but it's a very uneven experience and has massive quality drops. Symphonia holds up better as a whole. Abyss is the insider tip and Destiny is the old school gamers choice.

Mentioning Eternia here as the forgotten gem*

I'm personally in the Graces (f) camp, but it's certainly considered the odd one out here with some having massive issues with it. I don't.

YMMV
 
There are quests for 3 optional super bads coming up in your future. For two of them the AI was being pretty boss...the third was an episode of Jackass. I'll wait until you fight them to make an educated guess as to which one contained the hilarity.
Just did all three I’m guessing you’re talking about the one with the adds to the right of the bridge going out.

I ran the map to stack up the boost attacks so I could drop them back to back right off the mark and basically got the extras down in seconds with no hit windows. I learned my lesson the first time.
 
Question for those who have beaten the game/played extensively: how bad is the censorship? I only have PS4 atm, but if it’s not too harsh, I may still buy down the line(many other RPGS/Games take priority).
It is similar in structure but it basically shits on DQ 11 in nearly every way possible.
ERECTION RISING

All jokes aside, that’s good to hear. Just to clarify, when you say similar in structure, are you referring to pacing,gameflow, etc? For me that’s the biggest issue in DQXI.
 

Graciaus

Member
I'm kind of disappointed so far after they hyped up a new engine. This is essentially the same game I've been playing for years with a different coat of paint. Small linear areas with nothing to do in them. Tiny towns with no exploration. Not much has changed here. Unless there is another world you explore later the advanced statistics say I've found almost 1/3 of the campsites and I'm only in the 2nd lords realm. So the game I would assume is only killing the 5 lords.

I'm enjoying it but I expected more.
 

Danjin44

The nicest person on this forum
I'm kind of disappointed so far after they hyped up a new engine. This is essentially the same game I've been playing for years with a different coat of paint. Small linear areas with nothing to do in them. Tiny towns with no exploration. Not much has changed here. Unless there is another world you explore later the advanced statistics say I've found almost 1/3 of the campsites and I'm only in the 2nd lords realm. So the game I would assume is only killing the 5 lords.

I'm enjoying it but I expected more.
I mean to do what exactly? Do people want open world? After FFXV, I DO NOT want open world in my JRPG.
 
I noticed this happening during the performance/60 FPS Mode on PS5. The shadows stutter/shake when you look away from them and look back at them, or stare at them long enough.

I made a short vid of it:
 

Exentryk

Member
This game has good pacing so far, and the dialogue/writing is surprisingly decent (few minor issues aside). The graphics, action scenes, art-style are all good, and coupled with good pacing, it seems like a nice game to go through.

The combat is a hit and miss (no pun intended), where it's designed to string attacks together in long combos, which works fine for random enemies, but not so much against bosses as they barely get staggered. This leads to doing chip damage to bosses and repeating the same set of actions for a long time. Other issues with this system is the AI characters dying, which leads you to wasting your precious items to revive and heal them. Coupled with a limited amount of Cure Points, it doesn't quite work all that well as you'd expect.

Overall though, it seems like a decent game and I'm looking forward to my next play session to see this story through. I'm currently in the 2nd world area.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
Someone explain fishing to me like I'm in a special needs class. The game doesn't give a shit about explaining it, and apparently it has a million fucking steps. It's a minigame. The line should wiggle, I press B, I get a fish. That's it. All this horseshit is just going to make me install Cheat Engine.

Edit: Yeah, no clue what to do on the second phase of the fishing minigame. Pressing B doesn't fight the line tension, neither does rapidly pressing it. I follow the button prompts but I still fail, so there's something else I need to do that's not indicated.

There is almost nothing to do.

Just throw, doesn't matter where. Lure doesn't matter either. The rod does matter as better rods are easier and I couldn't reel in boss fish with the first 2.

All you need to do is press the button combinations and see what makes them tick. If you're looking for a fish in particular and its assigend to say, Square, Triangle, then press Square, Triangle. If no fish reacts, its not the one you want and cancel.

For the fishing itself, just use LS, never use the face button. Its useless and you will likely go into the red. The QTE are easy; jump is R2, and left and right are L1 and R1. Soon you press it before it even pops up. I've caught 30 plus different ones so far and fishing is only left stick and QTE, thats it.
 
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Graciaus

Member
I mean to do what exactly? Do people want open world? After FFXV, I DO NOT want open world in my JRPG.
Open world games are trash. At least make the areas have more paths with treasure chests. As it is its go from point a to b with nothing really along the way. I said what I wanted. Big towns to explore and non linear dungeons. Personal preference but the map should need to be filled out by exploring. There is little difference between Xillia here and that is a Ps3 game.
 

Lanrutcon

Member
For the fishing itself, just use LS, never use the face button. Its useless and you will likely go into the red. The QTE are easy; jump is R2, and left and right are L1 and R1. Soon you press it before it even pops up. I've caught 30 plus different ones so far and fishing is only left stick and QTE, thats it.

This doesn't tell me anything. When the tension bar comes up what exactly should I be doing. I follow the QTE, and I fail on the first one I miss, and it keeps going if I'm successful until I fail one. It never "wins". What do I need to do when there's no QTE on the screen?
 

SkylineRKR

Member
This doesn't tell me anything. When the tension bar comes up what exactly should I be doing. I follow the QTE, and I fail on the first one I miss, and it keeps going if I'm successful until I fail one. It never "wins". What do I need to do when there's no QTE on the screen?

Left stick.

Don't you see all the arrows pointing in a direction? Honestly I thought this was rather obvious or is your game bugged?
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
Left stick.

Don't you see all the arrows pointing in a direction? Honestly I thought this was rather obvious or is your game bugged?

I consider that part of the QTE: it's either a bumper or a direction (left or right). But inbetween the direction and bumper requests there's nothing, and then I sit there wondering if I'm meant to press B to reel or hold the stick to the left or what. Are the QTE's alone meant to get me to the finish line? Because the tension just keeps going into the red regardless. One failed QTE in the red and the minigame ends. I've never gotten the line into the green.
 

Paltheos

Member
About 25 hours in so far. If my Tales experience is anything to go by, I'm probably around 25% done with the game too. My very preliminary ranking so far of Arise is:

Vesperia
Graces
Berseria
Zestiria
Abyss
Arise
Symphonia
Xillia

Plot has been on the dumb side even for Tales games and none of the cast have really won me over as favorites, but on the other hand QOL features make the game very easy to play (faint praise) and combat is pretty fun... except for the glaring omission of a command to direct the attacks of your teammates in your strategy menu, which has been in the series since god I don't remember. These fools are always picking a different target from me and I miss the individual character macros you could set. The game's pretty though, although pop-in has been a big issue for me (PC; my rig can't run the game at max settings though without big FPS drops).

Between Vesperia, Abyss, Graces, Symphonia and Destiny which is the best one?

The newer ones don't entice me.

My position's pretty clear, but I'll qualify for you.
Vesperia's the best all-around package, also with the best protag and best overall team in any of these games (chemistry-wise). T Teslerum 's not wrong about the experience being a little uneven, and most of the story falls to pieces by the end, but Vesperia still comes out on top on the strength of everything else.
Graces is the dumbest game in this franchise and looks cheaply produced, but the cast is alright (when they're not talking about the main plot) and the combat in this game is still the best. Like, I'm sure you've heard but the hype is real. Everyone is fun to play and the game incentivizes you to play every character. Bandai's been struggling to come up with a meaningful evolution for the combat system in Tales games since then using Graces as a template and everything's just been a pale imitation. Graces is the best.
Abyss is needlessly long and needlessly wordy at every available opportunity and in the aggregate, but it's still a pretty good game overall.
Symphonia - I have doubts this game holds up at all. Sometimes I wonder if it's worse than Xillia (and then remember how phoned in that game is). There's some heart in the game but it doesn't have much in the way of ideas that are still novel 20 years later or any interesting catch in story, characters, or gameplay.
 
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SkylineRKR

Member
I consider that part of the QTE: it's either a bumper or a direction (left or right). But inbetween the direction and bumper requests there's nothing, and then I sit there wondering if I'm meant to press B to reel or hold the stick to the left or what. Are the QTE's alone meant to get me to the finish line? Because the tension just keeps going into the red regardless. One failed QTE in the red and the minigame ends. I've never gotten the line into the green.

No, holding left stick in the proper direction depletes their health bar and puts you towards green. Green or red doesn't matter as long as it doesn't go outside the red. If it goes into the red regardless you need a better fishing rod. Regular ones like those Dahnan bass in the first pond you can always get regardless of rod, unless you're doing it completely wrong. Fishing in this game is extremely easy.
 
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Lanrutcon

Member
No, holding left stick in the proper direction depletes their health bar and puts you towards green. Green or red doesn't matter as long as it doesn't go outside the red. If it goes into the red regardless you need a better fishing rod. Regular ones like those Dahnan bass in the first pond you can always get regardless of rod, unless you're doing it completely wrong. Fishing in this game is extremely easy.
Something is tripping me up hard. I'll go back to the beginning and try fishing there.
 

SkylineRKR

Member
I couldn't get into Zestiria either but I liked Xillia more than a lot of others did. Its almost like FF, with loads of different opinions on the ranking of the games.

Vesperia is regarded as one of the best though and I agree. But I was never really hooked to it, it took me months to beat. The pacing wasn't great, the amount of characters leaving and rejoining, the long dialogues when entering towns.. for me those are reasons I greatly prefer Arise. But Vesperia had an overworld which was pretty cool, among other stuff it did well.

Graces F is one of the worst I have played. The cast was insufferable. The dungeons were boring, and the OST is probably the worst. The combat might've been the deepest and best, but I didn't enjoy anything outside of that. Graces was for me a case of the series finally being back in the western market and thus I consumed it.
 

Paltheos

Member
I’m not sure I would agree with that list, I HATED Zestiria and Arise is 1000 x better that game in my opinion.

I think most people would agree with you too (on the first part at least; I haven't put my ears to the ground yet on Arise).

Zestiria is a very flawed game but I love it. It has a vision in mind of what it wants to be and carries through with it: Fun-loving nerd gets swept up into an Arthurian heroic adventure (with whacky sidekicks). The big, open fields you play on (uninterrupted) and sweeping arrangements (both Sakuraba and Go Shiina do great work even if it's blaringly obvious their styles don't complement each other) sold me on the adventure. Sure, the combat is clearly not optimized for uneven terrain, and god yes the skill system is a total nightmare, and the story doesn't really go anywhere interesting, but it's ok. My impression from the game is that the endpoint isn't really something Bandai were too concerned about. They just wanted a happy adventure and needed just enough of a hook to keep you pulled in. Worked for me.

My opinion on this game flip-flopped a number of times. Early on I loved it, partway through I felt tepid on it (a dumb twist by the end of the first act and the Rose character in general cooled me allot), late in the game I was briefly convinced this is my favorite game in the series (much of Pendrago, anything dragon-related, and the big 4 dungeons had a fair share to do with that). By the end, I concluded it's somewhere in the middle.
 

Markio128

Member
I am currently being trolled by a mid-level boss, that appeared straight after another mid-level boss, which was of equal trollage. Trolled.
 

Paltheos

Member
Thanks Paltheos Paltheos !

From what I can gather, a lot of people seem really fond of Graces and Vesperia
Vesperia is available on PC and consoles, but Graces is PS3 physical media only?

Yes on both accounts, although Graces should be available as a digital download too on the PS3 storefront.

Vesperia: Definitive Edition is the way to go - It's available on almost everything. I recommend playing this one dubbed - I don't know if that's your style or not, but the dub in this game is very good. Troy Baker's performance as Yuri Lowell is legendary - He's just the coolest guy around - Eden Riegel is just precious as the innocent but kind and adventurous Estelle, Michelle Ruff channels the picturesque energy of a tsundere as Rita, just to name a few. ... Which makes it all the more disappointing that the additional dubbing done for the Definitive Edition ranges from "We couldn't get this person back" to "This actor can't reprise this role from 10 years ago convincingly" almost across the board, but I still recommend the dub.

If you're considering Graces, just... hold on past the prologue. It's rough, man.
 

KàIRóS

Member
I'm currently at post game doing the Cameo side quest, this has to be the most elaborate cameo side quest ever in Tales, fans of the more recent Tales are going to love it.

And I can also safely say now that this is the best game I've played this year, my only gripe would be the amount of equippable artes being too low and the bosses being very Monster Hunter (or should I say God Eater?) inspired in their mechanics, not a fan of the whole "break the weakpoints" thing but overall amazing RPG, SMTV will really have to be a masterpiece to beat this.
 

Celcius

°Temp. member
Just finished the story and this is my 2021 GOTY.
I'm still getting used to a Tales of game having up to date graphics lol, the final dungeon looks amazing and the whole game is miles above any other game in the franchise graphically.
Now on to the post-game content! I just wish it was a little easier to earn money.
Also, in the Coliseum I can't seem to figure out how to down an enemy with Kisara during her solo training mission. Any tips?
 
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