Tales Of Arise (PS4)

A great tale of rising up from the lowest place to being truley free with a twist fantasic combat system and a likeable cast of charcters

Tales of Arise is a brilliant example of what can be achieved through passion and attention to detail when creating a fantasy world. The story focuses on the struggle of oppressed peoples rising up against the mighty rulers who have enslaved them for many years. Along the way various characters are met, friendships made, and broken, as the quest to defeat oppression develops into a complex and engaging story. Each character is developed through an interesting and surprisingly deep plot which captures the best, and the worst, of human behaviours.

Cut scenes consist of both real-time action animations and storyboard style animations which play out as a living comic strip as characters share information or reveal details about their background or how they are feeling. It’s not unique amongst games but it is executed here very well indeed and are graphically superb. For those who don’t have the patience or interest to invest in the character development, the animations can be skipped.

A huge world consisting of various realms is there to be explored. Each realm is superbly imagined with stunning art-style graphics painted in a rich colour palette. The game looks truly amazing on PS4 and PS4 Pro. The variety of attacks used by each character is complemented by huge flashes of brightly coloured light which fill the screen as you slash, hack and cast artes (spells) on the ground and in the air.

The game allows you to explore each world map with a degree of freedom, albeit the quests do force you to gradually head in a specific direction. That doesn’t stop you exploring every nook and cranny of the map to uncover hidden treasures and take on a few extra enemies before you move towards the objective though. I couldn’t help drawing parallels to Diablo3 in that respect and for me, it’s a formula that works very well.

As you encounter each group of enemies, the game cuts to an environment-related battle arena where you and your party take on the enemy creatures in a real-time fight using a wide combination of attacks, dodges, passive and active skills. The battle mechanics are superb, being easy to pick up but challenging to truly master as you strive to build better hit-scores to topple enemies. Each character brings their own range of attacks, artes and special attacks. The ability to either use only your favourite character or swap between characters on the fly to use each of their different skills to defeat an enemy adds another layer of complexity to every battle. A huge number of different enemies will be encountered throughout the game. Larger powerful creatures will show up from time to time which put your skills to the test and separate boss-battles are faced before moving into the next realm. As a gamer who generally prefers to play offline solo games, this system of offline party-based combat is brilliant.

As an RPG there are plenty of opportunities to upgrade weapons, armour and accessories for each character. You can rest at bonfires to replenish health and eat a meal. Collecting ingredients and eating one of the many unlockable dishes at the bonfire gives you a stats bonus (similar to Monster Hunter) before heading back out to do battle.

Importantly for gamers who have busy schedules, Tales of Arise allows you to save progress at any time, other than when in active battle. The game can be challenging at times but is also forgiving, death does not result in losing all your kit or progress.

Tales of Arise feels very polished when playing. It has an air of competence and perceived quality in everything it does, something which is often missing in supposedly AAA games. If JRPGs are your thing, this is definitely a journey I’d recommend.

been a long wait for this game, huge hype and thankfully it hasn’t disappointed, everything from the gameplay, graphics and story is the best in the series yet and sets the bar really high for the next entry, don’t want to say much more for spoiler reasons, if your on the fence wait for a price drop but in my opinion it’s worth full price.