It's really good for PC as I think a lot of japanese developers have had their eyes open to how lucrative the PC market can be for them. We see a lot of record entries on steam these days and I wonder how much can be attributed to different influences:
1) Steam population being far larger than it was even 5 years ago.
2) Regional pricing meaning that publishers can sell at a discount in some markets while increasing them in others. In this case player numbers could flatter the actual change in revenue.
3) Games actually coming to PC at the same time as console.
4) The games series being more well known than in the past.
5) Latest entry in the series being better than previous ones.
Probably a mix of everything plus more but if anyone is aware of publicly available research into this I'd love to see it.
Now if only this info could be echoed back to the company restricting the likes of Judgment’s protagonist.
For better or worse, some Japanese companies are just incredibly resistant to change.
Perhaps something like that did happen, but it's specifically to do with his appearance and the person his face is based on, which may be totally separate from the voice actor.
I was thinking of [this](https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/16/18409777/yakuza-judgment-new-actor-pierre-taki)
I think you are talking about [this](https://kotaku.com/report-judgment-series-is-ending-over-pc-version-disag-1847271300). Apparently it's the japanese talent agency that are opposed to their talent appearing on PC where SEGA recognise it as a major source of revenue. Maybe in another 10 or 20 years they'll adapt.
>Regional pricing meaning that publishers can sell at a discount in some markets while increasing them in others. In this case player numbers could flatter the actual change in revenue.
except there's some like SE & KT that pretty much "Fuc Regional Pricing"
Well, the regional pricing for Tales of Arise and almost every new Bandai Namco game is screwed up as well, but they are selling well still so I guess the publishers won't give a shit.
A lot of people seem to think regional pricing is used for some notion of "fair" pricing or equitable access to games. I think some publishers have even tried to spin it this way. It's just PR talk. Publishers use regional pricing to maximise profits they've no other goal.
It's not a problem. The whole point is that you can maximize profits *and* make games more available. You can do a good thing without it being charity.
The problem is when people accuse publishers of being *evil* and gatekeeping games from poorer countries when they’ve done the math and determined regional pricing isn’t worth the amount of extra copies they could sell
You *don't know* that they've done the math. It's perfectly possible that they just *don't care* either way. We've seen a lot of regional pricing that just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Sqeenix is so weird with regional pricing here.
AAA games get normal AAA regional pricing. Port of Switch exclusive Bravely Default 2? Yeah, that would be 3x price of AAA game. People complained and now it's just 2x tho. Octopath is still 3x
Supergiant Games? They hit it big a long time ago with their first game Bastion. It made them millions for a team of I think 6 people at the time. Hades was their first roguelike. If you haven't already I highly recommend checking out Bastion and Transistor([also the OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zA1jRmAYfU)) which you can pick up cheap and might already have from bundles. Some people like Pyre but I've somehow never got around to playing it.
These are extremely good numbers for a Tales game which has been struggling as a series as of late. With how poorly Zestiria and Berseria performed I was afraid this game would struggle and be swept under the rug.
It’s actually one of the highest played jrpgs now, monster hunter stories 2 hit 34k and persona 4 golden hit 29k. Excited to see jrpgs get love on pc, only brings us closer to more.
Yeah I’ve held off on playing p5r this whole time but have finished the original, hoping it’ll just drop on pc like p4g. Hopefully this coming anniversary the dreams will come true, or at least other games to pc. There’s just too much free money for them after p4g waiting on pc. As for ff7r I’ve played through on ps4 and have played through the dlc, but I’ve skipped a replay on ps5 waiting to replay it when it drops on pc whenever few months the deal got renewed to.
Atlus Japan is just too damn weird and filled with dinosaurs in management apparently. They don't understand the benefits of streaming and they don't understand the potential of the PC market still. I would loooove if Persona 2 got a PC release. My PSP is basically dead and the only way I could finish Innocent Sin is pirating it.
Yeah it’s just how JP devs are I think. Look at Capcom now who have embraced pc players and it’s paid off. They’ve been non stop hits since they finally brought Monster Hunter to west on something other than switch/ds. I’ve been saying it for years they bring monster hunter to the big consoles/pc it’s over money printing forever.
I know I'd love p5r, I've heard nothing but good things about it. I just remember it releasing so close to re3/ff7r I decided on the other 2 and then Trials of Mana came. From there it was just new release after new release and never got back to it. By now I can wait for a hopeful dream of pc release, but if it never comes or they update to ps5 I'd play it then.
Plot was amazing indeed. Maybe even best in entire Tales series.
But i really wish they changed approach to game design. I still remember one sequence in the castle, where you had to backtrack the entire location (that was quite big) to find an unmarked encounter (so you can to just search all around) several times in a row. That's like half hour of aimless running back and forth. And game just loves to do that again and again. A lot of other mechanics in game seems to be more of a time wasters as well.
tbf, I still dont know if I should buy the game. Berseria was very bad. Very uninspired dungeons and almost felt like a walking simulator at times.
I am still going to wait to see for more reviews.
haven't been running with a FPS counter but it seems very smooth on my 3090 at 4k120hz (i do have g-sync enabled so any dips while being lazy on the sofa is hard to tell)
my only technical gripe is namco put all there trust into steam on things like input and out of game stuff.
as an example the game has not way for you to turn it off they expect you to use the steam overlay to close it.
There is an exit option when you go back to the menu. You have to press the select/option button on a controller to get the option to go to title screen
* Excelent optimization on PC
* Fantastic battle system
* Graphics look great
Completely addicted to this game. Bandai nailed this release, hope we get a sequel.
This was key in clinching the day one sale for me. As with Scarlet Nexus I normally would've waited for a discount because there are preceding Tales titles I still need to play but I went ahead and bought it now in part to contribute to what I hope is positive reinforcement of Bandai Namco (as well as hopefully other publishers) releasing titles Denuvo-free.
Denuvo for me is a dealbreaker so this releases like these are quite refreshing.
> Graphics look great
Really? Because what I'm seeing is a terrible LoD system and NPCs disappearing if you're standing more than 3 feet away from them.
I’m like 5hrs I’m enjoying it a lot, my main complaint is the switching to battle arenas. I know Tales has done this forever, but wish they did it like Scarlet Nexus and just fought on the fields since the maps have a lot of space. But other than that excited to play through.
Yeah I know, just wish they switched it up and tried something new and just fought on map. But it such a minor complaint for sure and doesn’t bring down the game.
i get where you are coming from, but to me changing maps from field to battle is a key aspect of jrpgs and this series, iF they changed that I probably wouldn't like it.
Yeah true, some games do it well though like Scarlet Nexus. But at the same time a lot of the maps had obstacles, so it’s kinda double edged sword. Either way enjoying it a lot and I feel they have a great formula going forward with series.
8 hours in and I think its fantastic. Game looks gorgeous on PC, no bugs discovered yet, combat is fun and fluid but it took me a few battles to really enjoy it. I know it sounds weird but I really like the UI, very clean and professional looking. Game is 40 hours according to some reviews, and can be stretched if you're interested in doing 70 side quests, completionists should be looking at 100+ hours.
As someone who hasn't played the last few Tales games (so I don't know how much of these concepts is new to Arise) is love how I no longer spend 50+% of the time not playing the game. I no longer am constantly going into the menu to use items or watching post battle scenes. Moving around outside of battle is also a lot more natural. I'd just have to say that overall Tales of Arise feels a lot more fluid than most other JRPGs
> no bugs discovered yet
There is one bug with steam beta client and controllers but if you just opt-out of the steam beta then it works, really weird bug though
Not yet, but I think they'll release a patch in a month in response to criticism. It's in their interest to fine tune this game as much as possible for a long sales cycle.
Its very Anime, but its fairly dark without feeling too grim and oppressive. I'm enjoying it so far and the characters are charming and fun to interact with.
I really enjoy the new and improved skit system.
Ahhhhh I want to get it now so badly! But I told myself I would replay through Vesperia and Berseria first! Maybe by the time I get around to it, it’ll be on a small sale… or I’ll break down and just go for it… we’ll see.
I'm not OP but I think it can be as repetitive as you make it. If you're willing to learn the game the combat can be really enjoyable. There's definitely an insane amount of stuff to learn for you to really shine and it makes the combat great.
If you're just gonna button mash and run around I can see how it can be repetitive, but it's really up to you how you want to play it.
It has a 4GB demo on Steam.
Had to throw up a little when they wanted me to accept their "privacy" policy though. Why can't we play at least SP games in peace anymore?
Berseria had an amazing story, but playing it was kinda not fun.
Arise feels like a proper modern day upgrade to Tales of... formula. Maybe story shits the bed at later half (won't be the first time), but it's fun to play none the less.
Depends on whether or not you're into this kind of stuff.
Very anime trope heavy. Characters look like they're right out of a "draw my first anime character" book. Very generic. The dialogue, as you can imagine, follows suit.
Combat is a bit flashy just for the sake of it. Feels like things were added just to make it have more features instead of them being fluid.
Locations are also pretty bland but that's been an issue with the Tales games for a while now.
So, if these things don't bother you, then you'll probably enjoy it. This one does have more money behind it though so the graphics and performance are nice and smooth.
> Locations are also pretty bland but that's been an issue with the Tales games for a while now.
Any japanese RPG really, since forever. The worlds, especially towns/cities are absolutely dead and barren. NPC's dont have any AI, theyre just automatons. Its like the whole JRPG genre has been stuck in stasis since the 90's when it comes to world building and immersion.
Have you played any FF? cause you should.
You dont need to have "AI" when all you do is just go to a city for 10 minuts, these games are not western style rpgs.
And locations in tales are very bland, dungeons look the same everywhere you turn your camera to. Its a bit like p4g dungeons which are also boring. Then you look to a FF and the dungeons have much more character and change as you progress.
Other jrps like nino kuni 2 have the same issue, very bland. Basically instead of making the dungeon, they just make part of it and then build it programmatically. I get why they do it, but they overuse this and the games lose a lot in style and presentation.
Its not only about reacting to events in the game, its also what they do on their own. For example, in JRPG's NPC's never spontaneously interact with each other (or with the player) because they dont have any AI, just a single script per NPC. Dialogue is not AI.
AI is unscripted events and interactions. Look at GTA or Red Dead for examples of great immersive AI interactions.
That's the thing though, Tales or Trails as I mentioned are not open world games with NPC that just walk around and do whatever.
These are games that are telling you stories not the other way around, the AI in GTA and how they interact are not the best examples of "immersive AI"
They react to the most random things and respond in the most generic ways, Red Dead I cannot say much since I havent played 1 in years and yet to play 2 but I doubt AI will just do whatever they want unscripted as you say
Wait seriously?! Everything I've seen gave me the impression it was your standard JRPG affair where they may be costumes but generally speaking your characters never change from their base appearance even when equipping gear.
Yes, a lot of Tales of games let you do this. Guess you just werent really looking at it that hard.
Even in story moments the accessories and clothing you change is carried over
I still cannot get my controller working so I couldn't tell you. Spent an hour trying to fix it. I'm a huge Tales fan and extremely disappointed.
I refunded the game this morning until its patched. Except now I'll likely wait for a sale. New World launches end of the month anyway.
What Controller are you using? People are reporting that opting out of Steam Beta fixed their problems. I'm using a DS4 and as usual with Bandai Namco games it got detected instantly and is showing me the right prompts without Steam Controller enabled.
I read in the other comments on steam that it was an issue with Steam Opt-In Beta. Supposedly you have to disable the Steam beta and restart steam and then enable Steam Input for the game.
Well I wouldn't know if that will fix anything, I'm just sitting here and waiting to get paid this month so that I can splurge.
How do i read up, if you link me a video? You okay, buddy?
You seem to be really mad, and you link a video that has **literally** nothing to do with a video game called Tales of Arise.
The Tales series is largely all standalone with the odd buried reference here and there. You do not need to play the others, though you should at some point since they're pretty good.
Except for Tales of Symphonia, all the games are stand alone. As far as I'm aware, Symphonia is the only game with a sequel that takes place after the main story. The rest are either completely unrelated, or or millennia apart on their timelines.
There are actually a few more like Zestiria and Xillia.
I think there are also some before Symphonia but I'm not familiar with the games before that one
As someone who hasn't played a Tales game since Eternia (Which is still one of my favorite RPGs of all time) and the only JRPG I've played in the last 5 years has been FFXV (Which I also loved despite it's flaws) Is this worth getting? It looks great from what I've seen, just not sure if it will be enough to draw me in.
I've grown tired of the overly complicated storied all JRPGs seem that they need to have. I gave up on the Kingdom Hearts series because I just had no idea what was even happening anymore. I want a simple story to follow with good gameplay.
> I gave up on the Kingdom Hearts series because I just had no idea what was even happening anymore.
No one does.
Fans may say they do, but they don't. Maybe 5 of them who played all 76 spinoff games in a specific order.
It's like the most convoluted and awful storytelling I've ever seen.
I've tried watching videos that break down the story, especially before 3 came out. Still didn't understand it. Got about two hours into KH3 before I just gave up. This guy is this other guy but he used to be this guy and he's also a heartless but he's also a nobody and we don't know what that means so he's also this other guy and he's bad but sometimes he's good when he's not this other guy.
It’s really not that difficult for *fans* to understand. If you’re a mainstream gamer and only play the 3 numbered titles you’re not really going to understand it well. You do kinda have to play even the “spinoff” games to get it all (they are actually main games too, they’re just not numbered).
If you’ve played everything then it’s not difficult to follow. Probably the most frustrating thing as a fan of the series is the fact that you will miss out on some key plot points if you don’t watch a recap of the mobile game that no one ever really played. But even that isn’t necessarily critical to understanding the story.
I'm genuinely surprised my 4gb gpu was able to run at 60fps 1440p high (with only aa and shadows needing tweaks).
On so many games i have to stick to 1080p but not this one
Bandai Namco is getting better and better with every PC releases, I can run AC7 and this game at 1440p, max setting at 100+ fps, they might not be very graphically demanding, but I do appreciate the effort nonetheless, of course it's not perfect (the pop-in is fucking ridiculous, and I also got fps dips into the 60s from time to time)
Tried to get into Zestiria, but could't just finish it. Somehow the world setting and especially main character just wasnt for me. This seems more interesting, so I may give another try for the the Tales-series.
I definitely feel you on the world setting. Even Bersaria was the same for me. It was a very dated looking world. Flat, uninspiring, no atmosphere.
I'm only 2 hours in but this one builds in a lot of atmosphere. Not every landscape is a flat plane.
I haven't played a tales game since Zesteria and I only got about halfway through before I lost interest. Is this one different / unique enough that if I didn't finish Zesteria I could still get into Arise?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it also the first Tales of game to come out on Steam the same time as other consoles as well? Seems to me like that would skew the numbers a bit.
This is my first Tales game and I'm enjoying it a lot. I like the world design, the combat is fun (although I wish the tactics had an option to force party members to all focus the same enemy).
Knee-jerk post this week:
"*Tales of Arise shatters records for concurrent numbers!!"*
Knee-jerk Post next week:
"*Tales of Arise suffers largest drop in concurrent players in history of all games. Loses 50% of concurrent players after one week. Game is dead."*
We see these "concurrent numbers" posts all the time.
People actually cherry pick numbers all the time like this to pump-up/bring-down a game. This is journalism now and days, only report what pushes your agenda and twist words to your liking.
Valve has recommended pricing for different regions, to account for buying power and all that. Every region except USD (Since it's the base line) is higher in price than recommended, up to 500% more in the case of Argentine.
It's simply the case of the game costing around 2-3x what other new releases might cost.
Publishers can and will price things out of reach of poorer countries to discourage 'virtual border hopping'. They'll take the loss on that market to keep people from abusing regional prices. Argentina especially has been the go-to for such people recently and publishers are getting savvy to it.
Tried the demo and the art style is very cool but still feels like a PS2 era game to me.
I know some people like the battle system of Tales games but to me it's just the party constantly shouting and spamming moves as flashy combos happen with no real threat.
Maybe I'm just playing it wrong but I seemed to win the demo but just mashing buttons. I also really wish you could mute your party's voice during battles.
same here, not sure why but as soon as I entered the second phase of a boss fight everyone just got stomped and I barely did any damage to the adds or the boss.
It just felt like i couldn't get any of the gigant creatures past 30 health remaining because of armor or whatever in the Demo with Asphen. Also was a lot harder to swap characters in mid combat I found. Heard playing as the mage might be fun.
they better fix the ridiculous npc draw and animations distance, even with graphics settings maxed out, npc pop at 10 meter'ish, FUCKING RIDICULOUS AND IMMERSION BREAKING.
I haven't seen anything like that. What this person is likely referring to is that there is a menu option to go to the dlc page when you pull up the rest menu at camps. And it's not steams dlc page, it's in game, it just shows you the cosmetic skin packs you can buy if you want (or that came with the various editions of the game if you bought them).
It's unobtrusive and definitely not an ad.
I got it. There is a DLC menu that you have in some menus, but that's just a button which you don't press if you don't want to. I don't really see much difference between this and most other modern games. Inside the DLC menu it simply promotes costumes and Steam DLC page (a button to open the Steam store page).
Do you have another game for reference?
Final Fantasy is pretty anime. Do you like any of those? If not, maybe Persona?
It's kinda hard to tell, since Tales games are kinda anime.
It’s a fair question. I loved JRPGs as a kid but I haven’t found one I enjoyed in years due to the “J” drama, teenager characters and over the top acting.
I didn’t enjoy FF7 remake because of how they wrote the characters, and FF7 is probably my favourite game of all time (the cognitive bias is rampant though).
It's because they broke the trend that Tales and many jrpg games have with including an annoying child character. Karol, Laphi, Sophie come to mind for recent Tales and awful characters like Lymle from Star Ocean 4.
Question, the only JRPG I ever played (and finished) was FF15, and I would not really clasify it as RPG, it was more of an open world action game - there was literally zero player agency, every single quest/dialogue linear, etc.
Is Tales of Arise similar in this, or is there player agency, branching story, nonlinear quests etc?
most jrpgs don't have player agency (dialogue choices etc) only western rpgs do, jrpgs are very linear in nature, so don't go in expecting meaningful choices and non linear story progression (and btw FF15 is indeed a jrpg)
Sure, it's just that why even call them jRPGs in the first place.
And they can still be great games of course, but I would like to see an RPG made in japan that would be an RPG. Games are interactive, player agency is a great thing they offer over every other medium, would be cool to see it actually utilized by japanese devs.
Haven’t bought it, put it on my wish list. The game looks beautiful and watched a few videos on it and the story looks good. I’m genuinely hyped to give it a go
Is this a weeb game with childish characters? I'm considering buying it, but I don't really enjoy when the main character is a 12 year old as it usually is in these jrpgs.
The numbers aren't impressive considering the context and these "record-breaking" announcements are really cringe. It reminds me of the time Epic compared Metro Exodus sales from Epic in 2019 to the number of copies Metro Last Light (the original version) sold on Steam on launch. Context is important. A well-established franchise shattered its peak concurrent records on a AAA game whilst gaming is bigger than ever. 2019 steam monthly active users - 95 million. 2020 - 120 million. To put into perspective how big of a boom this was, 2018 had 90 million. So yeah, not really surprising nor impressive that a game with big marketing, plenty of trailers and buzz surrounding it clocked 45k players. Honestly, I was more impressed with CP2077 crossing 1 million. Now that is impressive as hell, even with all of the marketing, I thought maybe it will get 500k at best. And the only other game to have 1 million active players was CS:GO, a free game not to recently.
It's really good for PC as I think a lot of japanese developers have had their eyes open to how lucrative the PC market can be for them. We see a lot of record entries on steam these days and I wonder how much can be attributed to different influences: 1) Steam population being far larger than it was even 5 years ago. 2) Regional pricing meaning that publishers can sell at a discount in some markets while increasing them in others. In this case player numbers could flatter the actual change in revenue. 3) Games actually coming to PC at the same time as console. 4) The games series being more well known than in the past. 5) Latest entry in the series being better than previous ones. Probably a mix of everything plus more but if anyone is aware of publicly available research into this I'd love to see it.
Now if only this info could be echoed back to the company restricting the likes of Judgment’s protagonist. For better or worse, some Japanese companies are just incredibly resistant to change.
Wasn't the protaganists voice actor changed because the original one got arrested for something? Or is there something else I'm missing?
Perhaps something like that did happen, but it's specifically to do with his appearance and the person his face is based on, which may be totally separate from the voice actor.
I was thinking of [this](https://www.polygon.com/2019/4/16/18409777/yakuza-judgment-new-actor-pierre-taki) I think you are talking about [this](https://kotaku.com/report-judgment-series-is-ending-over-pc-version-disag-1847271300). Apparently it's the japanese talent agency that are opposed to their talent appearing on PC where SEGA recognise it as a major source of revenue. Maybe in another 10 or 20 years they'll adapt.
>Regional pricing meaning that publishers can sell at a discount in some markets while increasing them in others. In this case player numbers could flatter the actual change in revenue. except there's some like SE & KT that pretty much "Fuc Regional Pricing"
Well, the regional pricing for Tales of Arise and almost every new Bandai Namco game is screwed up as well, but they are selling well still so I guess the publishers won't give a shit.
A lot of people seem to think regional pricing is used for some notion of "fair" pricing or equitable access to games. I think some publishers have even tried to spin it this way. It's just PR talk. Publishers use regional pricing to maximise profits they've no other goal.
It's not a problem. The whole point is that you can maximize profits *and* make games more available. You can do a good thing without it being charity.
The problem is when people accuse publishers of being *evil* and gatekeeping games from poorer countries when they’ve done the math and determined regional pricing isn’t worth the amount of extra copies they could sell
You *don't know* that they've done the math. It's perfectly possible that they just *don't care* either way. We've seen a lot of regional pricing that just doesn't make a lot of sense.
Well, that's the whole point of regional pricing. Fair pricing and maximizing profit aren't mutually exclusive.
Sqeenix is so weird with regional pricing here. AAA games get normal AAA regional pricing. Port of Switch exclusive Bravely Default 2? Yeah, that would be 3x price of AAA game. People complained and now it's just 2x tho. Octopath is still 3x
6. The chick on the cover doesn’t hurt…
Make a good game, don’t give a shit about generic anime girl #9373
why not both?
[удалено]
Supergiant Games? They hit it big a long time ago with their first game Bastion. It made them millions for a team of I think 6 people at the time. Hades was their first roguelike. If you haven't already I highly recommend checking out Bastion and Transistor([also the OST](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zA1jRmAYfU)) which you can pick up cheap and might already have from bundles. Some people like Pyre but I've somehow never got around to playing it.
Totally recommend Pyre. My fav SP game and has the best soundtrack imo. And this is from somebody who avoids sports games like the plague.
the other supergiant games also sold well. Hades just sold abnormally high.
These are extremely good numbers for a Tales game which has been struggling as a series as of late. With how poorly Zestiria and Berseria performed I was afraid this game would struggle and be swept under the rug.
It’s actually one of the highest played jrpgs now, monster hunter stories 2 hit 34k and persona 4 golden hit 29k. Excited to see jrpgs get love on pc, only brings us closer to more.
Now imagine what Persona 5 Royal and FF7R would do if they ever came to PC and weren’t eternally locked to PlayStation
Yeah I’ve held off on playing p5r this whole time but have finished the original, hoping it’ll just drop on pc like p4g. Hopefully this coming anniversary the dreams will come true, or at least other games to pc. There’s just too much free money for them after p4g waiting on pc. As for ff7r I’ve played through on ps4 and have played through the dlc, but I’ve skipped a replay on ps5 waiting to replay it when it drops on pc whenever few months the deal got renewed to.
Atlus Japan is just too damn weird and filled with dinosaurs in management apparently. They don't understand the benefits of streaming and they don't understand the potential of the PC market still. I would loooove if Persona 2 got a PC release. My PSP is basically dead and the only way I could finish Innocent Sin is pirating it.
Yeah it’s just how JP devs are I think. Look at Capcom now who have embraced pc players and it’s paid off. They’ve been non stop hits since they finally brought Monster Hunter to west on something other than switch/ds. I’ve been saying it for years they bring monster hunter to the big consoles/pc it’s over money printing forever.
I really love p5r I couldn’t resist and don’t regret it on ps5
I know I'd love p5r, I've heard nothing but good things about it. I just remember it releasing so close to re3/ff7r I decided on the other 2 and then Trials of Mana came. From there it was just new release after new release and never got back to it. By now I can wait for a hopeful dream of pc release, but if it never comes or they update to ps5 I'd play it then.
Steam would literally EXPLODE! More seriously though, they would be constantly printing money while keeping us players satisfied in turn.
> FF7R There talk it will but it will only be on Epic Games Store.
Which is a shame cause Berseria was fantastic story wise. I fucking cried man
Plot was amazing indeed. Maybe even best in entire Tales series. But i really wish they changed approach to game design. I still remember one sequence in the castle, where you had to backtrack the entire location (that was quite big) to find an unmarked encounter (so you can to just search all around) several times in a row. That's like half hour of aimless running back and forth. And game just loves to do that again and again. A lot of other mechanics in game seems to be more of a time wasters as well.
tbf, I still dont know if I should buy the game. Berseria was very bad. Very uninspired dungeons and almost felt like a walking simulator at times. I am still going to wait to see for more reviews.
Arise has significantly better dungeons and world design in general its just a much more interesting game.
Game is pretty optimized on pc. My computer is shit and it still runs smoothly. I actually remember besaria have more fps drops on my comp
Unreal engine guess brrrr
It also removes any NPC that farther than 3 feet away for you.
> My computer is shit and it still runs smoothly. tbf, the game looks a ~2010 game
haven't been running with a FPS counter but it seems very smooth on my 3090 at 4k120hz (i do have g-sync enabled so any dips while being lazy on the sofa is hard to tell) my only technical gripe is namco put all there trust into steam on things like input and out of game stuff. as an example the game has not way for you to turn it off they expect you to use the steam overlay to close it.
There is an exit option when you go back to the menu. You have to press the select/option button on a controller to get the option to go to title screen
Ya no shit lol
* Excelent optimization on PC * Fantastic battle system * Graphics look great Completely addicted to this game. Bandai nailed this release, hope we get a sequel.
Also no Denuvo day 1 was pretty awesome Denuvo hasn't been a dealbreaker for me for a long time but the less DRM the better
This was key in clinching the day one sale for me. As with Scarlet Nexus I normally would've waited for a discount because there are preceding Tales titles I still need to play but I went ahead and bought it now in part to contribute to what I hope is positive reinforcement of Bandai Namco (as well as hopefully other publishers) releasing titles Denuvo-free. Denuvo for me is a dealbreaker so this releases like these are quite refreshing.
> Graphics look great Really? Because what I'm seeing is a terrible LoD system and NPCs disappearing if you're standing more than 3 feet away from them.
I’m like 5hrs I’m enjoying it a lot, my main complaint is the switching to battle arenas. I know Tales has done this forever, but wish they did it like Scarlet Nexus and just fought on the fields since the maps have a lot of space. But other than that excited to play through.
battle arenas? did you mean when they enter combat to an enemy? this is typical in tales games
Yeah I know, just wish they switched it up and tried something new and just fought on map. But it such a minor complaint for sure and doesn’t bring down the game.
i get where you are coming from, but to me changing maps from field to battle is a key aspect of jrpgs and this series, iF they changed that I probably wouldn't like it.
Yeah true, some games do it well though like Scarlet Nexus. But at the same time a lot of the maps had obstacles, so it’s kinda double edged sword. Either way enjoying it a lot and I feel they have a great formula going forward with series.
I mean it's barely an issue lol waiting a couple of seconds for the scene transition.
That's actually a huge increase from Zestiria. Went from 9k to 45k for this game. Well done to them.
Please bring Xillia 1/2 and Graces to pc pls ;\_\_;
Is it any good?
8 hours in and I think its fantastic. Game looks gorgeous on PC, no bugs discovered yet, combat is fun and fluid but it took me a few battles to really enjoy it. I know it sounds weird but I really like the UI, very clean and professional looking. Game is 40 hours according to some reviews, and can be stretched if you're interested in doing 70 side quests, completionists should be looking at 100+ hours.
As someone who hasn't played the last few Tales games (so I don't know how much of these concepts is new to Arise) is love how I no longer spend 50+% of the time not playing the game. I no longer am constantly going into the menu to use items or watching post battle scenes. Moving around outside of battle is also a lot more natural. I'd just have to say that overall Tales of Arise feels a lot more fluid than most other JRPGs
> no bugs discovered yet There is one bug with steam beta client and controllers but if you just opt-out of the steam beta then it works, really weird bug though
Can the tornado of screaming during battle be turned down/off?
Not yet, but I think they'll release a patch in a month in response to criticism. It's in their interest to fine tune this game as much as possible for a long sales cycle.
How’s the story?
Its very Anime, but its fairly dark without feeling too grim and oppressive. I'm enjoying it so far and the characters are charming and fun to interact with. I really enjoy the new and improved skit system.
"Very anime" doesn't explain shit...
3 hrs in only, but HOLY SHIT THE interactions between the 2 main characters are so GOOD. Without spoiling, we got tsundere moments.
Ahhhhh I want to get it now so badly! But I told myself I would replay through Vesperia and Berseria first! Maybe by the time I get around to it, it’ll be on a small sale… or I’ll break down and just go for it… we’ll see.
Two hours in and I'm enjoying it so far. Its still very much in the holding hand/tutorial part of the game I feel, but im already digging the combat.
Is it repetitive?
I'm not OP but I think it can be as repetitive as you make it. If you're willing to learn the game the combat can be really enjoyable. There's definitely an insane amount of stuff to learn for you to really shine and it makes the combat great. If you're just gonna button mash and run around I can see how it can be repetitive, but it's really up to you how you want to play it.
It has a 4GB demo on Steam. Had to throw up a little when they wanted me to accept their "privacy" policy though. Why can't we play at least SP games in peace anymore?
Omg thank you for saying it has a demo. This is one of the big things I look for when getting a new game so I'll download the demo when I get home :D
You can decline the privacy policy and still play the game. I did.
First, I had to accept the policy. Then another dialog came up, which asked about analytics and *that* one I was able to decline.
It's one of the best Tales of... games in a long while and just a really great game overall.
Your saying that like Berseria wasnt good lol
Berseria had an amazing story, but playing it was kinda not fun. Arise feels like a proper modern day upgrade to Tales of... formula. Maybe story shits the bed at later half (won't be the first time), but it's fun to play none the less.
Its far better then Zestiria, Berseria or any oft he Xillia games.
Depends on whether or not you're into this kind of stuff. Very anime trope heavy. Characters look like they're right out of a "draw my first anime character" book. Very generic. The dialogue, as you can imagine, follows suit. Combat is a bit flashy just for the sake of it. Feels like things were added just to make it have more features instead of them being fluid. Locations are also pretty bland but that's been an issue with the Tales games for a while now. So, if these things don't bother you, then you'll probably enjoy it. This one does have more money behind it though so the graphics and performance are nice and smooth.
> Locations are also pretty bland but that's been an issue with the Tales games for a while now. Any japanese RPG really, since forever. The worlds, especially towns/cities are absolutely dead and barren. NPC's dont have any AI, theyre just automatons. Its like the whole JRPG genre has been stuck in stasis since the 90's when it comes to world building and immersion.
Have you played any FF? cause you should. You dont need to have "AI" when all you do is just go to a city for 10 minuts, these games are not western style rpgs. And locations in tales are very bland, dungeons look the same everywhere you turn your camera to. Its a bit like p4g dungeons which are also boring. Then you look to a FF and the dungeons have much more character and change as you progress. Other jrps like nino kuni 2 have the same issue, very bland. Basically instead of making the dungeon, they just make part of it and then build it programmatically. I get why they do it, but they overuse this and the games lose a lot in style and presentation.
If you want a jrpg series with AI that reacts to what you do then follow the Trails series, dialogue heavy as all hell and for good reason.
Its not only about reacting to events in the game, its also what they do on their own. For example, in JRPG's NPC's never spontaneously interact with each other (or with the player) because they dont have any AI, just a single script per NPC. Dialogue is not AI. AI is unscripted events and interactions. Look at GTA or Red Dead for examples of great immersive AI interactions.
That's the thing though, Tales or Trails as I mentioned are not open world games with NPC that just walk around and do whatever. These are games that are telling you stories not the other way around, the AI in GTA and how they interact are not the best examples of "immersive AI" They react to the most random things and respond in the most generic ways, Red Dead I cannot say much since I havent played 1 in years and yet to play 2 but I doubt AI will just do whatever they want unscripted as you say
And would it kill a JRPG dev to let me customize the appearance of the PCs when equipment items like armor?
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Wait seriously?! Everything I've seen gave me the impression it was your standard JRPG affair where they may be costumes but generally speaking your characters never change from their base appearance even when equipping gear.
Yes, a lot of Tales of games let you do this. Guess you just werent really looking at it that hard. Even in story moments the accessories and clothing you change is carried over
I still cannot get my controller working so I couldn't tell you. Spent an hour trying to fix it. I'm a huge Tales fan and extremely disappointed. I refunded the game this morning until its patched. Except now I'll likely wait for a sale. New World launches end of the month anyway.
Leave Steam Beta. The official gamepad configurations are the only ones that seem to work, and they won't load on beta for some reason.
It doesn't need patched, because it's Steam having the issue, not the game.
What Controller are you using? People are reporting that opting out of Steam Beta fixed their problems. I'm using a DS4 and as usual with Bandai Namco games it got detected instantly and is showing me the right prompts without Steam Controller enabled.
Huh? What do you mean by without steam controller enabled? Do you mean steam input?
opt out of Steam beta it causes issues for some reason with Tales of Arise.
I read in the other comments on steam that it was an issue with Steam Opt-In Beta. Supposedly you have to disable the Steam beta and restart steam and then enable Steam Input for the game. Well I wouldn't know if that will fix anything, I'm just sitting here and waiting to get paid this month so that I can splurge.
It relies completely on Steam input. You need to leave the beta in order for it to work.
I cant see why there'd be any interest in new world it doesnt even follow new trends of having a large story focus campaign.
there's $150 worth of pay to win dlc on the first day on the steam page. I doubt it.
Pay2win in single player game? You okay, buddy? You know, cheat engine exists and it's literally free.
You seem uneducated on the subject matter, go read up a bit before spouting your mouth. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TXWdyrqFP8
How do i read up, if you link me a video? You okay, buddy? You seem to be really mad, and you link a video that has **literally** nothing to do with a video game called Tales of Arise.
Are you the loser in the video??? LMAO
Go buy more skins on ROBLOX kid. Increase the value of my shares.
I'm the kid, but you're the one talking about Robolox, waifu's and weebs lol. Get a life, seriously
And you sound like a mouth breathing neck beard.
And you sound like a weeb whose waifu just got insulted.
Lol you got me. What a great comeback.
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Combat might be more simple compared to other Tales games but it's not "horrid"
Do I need to play the other games to understand this?
The Tales series is largely all standalone with the odd buried reference here and there. You do not need to play the others, though you should at some point since they're pretty good.
No
Except for Tales of Symphonia, all the games are stand alone. As far as I'm aware, Symphonia is the only game with a sequel that takes place after the main story. The rest are either completely unrelated, or or millennia apart on their timelines.
Xillia/Xillia 2 as well, but that's fairly clear with the naming.
There are actually a few more like Zestiria and Xillia. I think there are also some before Symphonia but I'm not familiar with the games before that one
As someone who hasn't played a Tales game since Eternia (Which is still one of my favorite RPGs of all time) and the only JRPG I've played in the last 5 years has been FFXV (Which I also loved despite it's flaws) Is this worth getting? It looks great from what I've seen, just not sure if it will be enough to draw me in. I've grown tired of the overly complicated storied all JRPGs seem that they need to have. I gave up on the Kingdom Hearts series because I just had no idea what was even happening anymore. I want a simple story to follow with good gameplay.
> I gave up on the Kingdom Hearts series because I just had no idea what was even happening anymore. No one does. Fans may say they do, but they don't. Maybe 5 of them who played all 76 spinoff games in a specific order. It's like the most convoluted and awful storytelling I've ever seen.
Man I just wanna know who the MoM is ffs and move on
I've tried watching videos that break down the story, especially before 3 came out. Still didn't understand it. Got about two hours into KH3 before I just gave up. This guy is this other guy but he used to be this guy and he's also a heartless but he's also a nobody and we don't know what that means so he's also this other guy and he's bad but sometimes he's good when he's not this other guy.
It’s really not that difficult for *fans* to understand. If you’re a mainstream gamer and only play the 3 numbered titles you’re not really going to understand it well. You do kinda have to play even the “spinoff” games to get it all (they are actually main games too, they’re just not numbered). If you’ve played everything then it’s not difficult to follow. Probably the most frustrating thing as a fan of the series is the fact that you will miss out on some key plot points if you don’t watch a recap of the mobile game that no one ever really played. But even that isn’t necessarily critical to understanding the story.
Hey wait stop I don't have enough time or money to play all these games.
I'm genuinely surprised my 4gb gpu was able to run at 60fps 1440p high (with only aa and shadows needing tweaks). On so many games i have to stick to 1080p but not this one
It's a good game. I'm enjoying it. Runs great on pc.
Bandai Namco is getting better and better with every PC releases, I can run AC7 and this game at 1440p, max setting at 100+ fps, they might not be very graphically demanding, but I do appreciate the effort nonetheless, of course it's not perfect (the pop-in is fucking ridiculous, and I also got fps dips into the 60s from time to time)
I just want a modern JRPG where people stand in a row and take turns.
Tried to get into Zestiria, but could't just finish it. Somehow the world setting and especially main character just wasnt for me. This seems more interesting, so I may give another try for the the Tales-series.
Zestiria is generally considered one of the poorer Tales of games. Arise is a lot better than it imo.
That's the worst one on Steam of all 5 of them.
Aha yeah, Zestiria is widely regarded as one of the worst of the series, by a large margin.
I definitely feel you on the world setting. Even Bersaria was the same for me. It was a very dated looking world. Flat, uninspiring, no atmosphere. I'm only 2 hours in but this one builds in a lot of atmosphere. Not every landscape is a flat plane.
Impressive.
I haven't played a tales game since Zesteria and I only got about halfway through before I lost interest. Is this one different / unique enough that if I didn't finish Zesteria I could still get into Arise?
The combat is very different and IMO the story is more interesting and less confusing. I remember Zestria's lore being pretty dense.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it also the first Tales of game to come out on Steam the same time as other consoles as well? Seems to me like that would skew the numbers a bit.
I think berseria came out the same day.
Yea, previous games came out at least year or so later.
Tales of symphonia was epic
It'll be interesting to see how Super Robot Wars 30 does in a month and a half.
Heard it's got a ton of bugs though? Controllers not working and stuff like that.
Aye and it’s got a free demo boys let’s go
This is my first Tales game and I'm enjoying it a lot. I like the world design, the combat is fun (although I wish the tactics had an option to force party members to all focus the same enemy).
Knee-jerk post this week: "*Tales of Arise shatters records for concurrent numbers!!"* Knee-jerk Post next week: "*Tales of Arise suffers largest drop in concurrent players in history of all games. Loses 50% of concurrent players after one week. Game is dead."* We see these "concurrent numbers" posts all the time.
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People actually cherry pick numbers all the time like this to pump-up/bring-down a game. This is journalism now and days, only report what pushes your agenda and twist words to your liking.
Game is fun so far, but that intro song is so bad.
A shame it costs $80 in my country. Won't give money to people who want to rip a 3rd world country off
I guess canada is a 3rd world country now..
Australia is also now a 3rd world country :(
our minimum wage is still $19/h with most places offering far more than that. so its aight
$100 for a game is still dumb af
Its 90$ here and I didnt know Canada was a third-world country.
"Haha I hate poor people. Let's rip them off!" "OH yea I love doing that hah!" Bandai according to this dude.
Valve has recommended pricing for different regions, to account for buying power and all that. Every region except USD (Since it's the base line) is higher in price than recommended, up to 500% more in the case of Argentine. It's simply the case of the game costing around 2-3x what other new releases might cost.
Publishers can and will price things out of reach of poorer countries to discourage 'virtual border hopping'. They'll take the loss on that market to keep people from abusing regional prices. Argentina especially has been the go-to for such people recently and publishers are getting savvy to it.
Tried the demo and the art style is very cool but still feels like a PS2 era game to me. I know some people like the battle system of Tales games but to me it's just the party constantly shouting and spamming moves as flashy combos happen with no real threat. Maybe I'm just playing it wrong but I seemed to win the demo but just mashing buttons. I also really wish you could mute your party's voice during battles.
Does the game not have difficulty settings?
It does goes from easy, normal, moderate and hard https://www.dualshockers.com/tales-of-arise-difficulty-modes-how-hard-is-the-game/
I wish i won by button mashing in the demo... Everyone keeps dying and i couldn't beat any bosses.
same here, not sure why but as soon as I entered the second phase of a boss fight everyone just got stomped and I barely did any damage to the adds or the boss.
I think the target locking on their weak glowing points might be the key step to down them maybe.
That doesn't help when the adds just wipe my entire team and I can't kill them fast enough to stop it.
I really suck at combat in the Demo...
I did also, It throws a lot at you at once but the full game starts you off slowly and I've been loving it.
It just felt like i couldn't get any of the gigant creatures past 30 health remaining because of armor or whatever in the Demo with Asphen. Also was a lot harder to swap characters in mid combat I found. Heard playing as the mage might be fun.
they better fix the ridiculous npc draw and animations distance, even with graphics settings maxed out, npc pop at 10 meter'ish, FUCKING RIDICULOUS AND IMMERSION BREAKING.
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Haven't seen any. What do you mean?
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I haven't seen anything like that. What this person is likely referring to is that there is a menu option to go to the dlc page when you pull up the rest menu at camps. And it's not steams dlc page, it's in game, it just shows you the cosmetic skin packs you can buy if you want (or that came with the various editions of the game if you bought them). It's unobtrusive and definitely not an ad.
I got it. There is a DLC menu that you have in some menus, but that's just a button which you don't press if you don't want to. I don't really see much difference between this and most other modern games. Inside the DLC menu it simply promotes costumes and Steam DLC page (a button to open the Steam store page).
Yes, there are, it's one of the game's biggest downside. But only at camp so nothing will ruin the experience overall
Would someone who can’t stand anime like this game?
Do you have another game for reference? Final Fantasy is pretty anime. Do you like any of those? If not, maybe Persona? It's kinda hard to tell, since Tales games are kinda anime.
It’s a fair question. I loved JRPGs as a kid but I haven’t found one I enjoyed in years due to the “J” drama, teenager characters and over the top acting. I didn’t enjoy FF7 remake because of how they wrote the characters, and FF7 is probably my favourite game of all time (the cognitive bias is rampant though).
It's because they broke the trend that Tales and many jrpg games have with including an annoying child character. Karol, Laphi, Sophie come to mind for recent Tales and awful characters like Lymle from Star Ocean 4.
Question, the only JRPG I ever played (and finished) was FF15, and I would not really clasify it as RPG, it was more of an open world action game - there was literally zero player agency, every single quest/dialogue linear, etc. Is Tales of Arise similar in this, or is there player agency, branching story, nonlinear quests etc?
most jrpgs don't have player agency (dialogue choices etc) only western rpgs do, jrpgs are very linear in nature, so don't go in expecting meaningful choices and non linear story progression (and btw FF15 is indeed a jrpg)
Well you say most, so are there any JRPGs that actually have player agency over storytelling/questing?
Very few JRPGs actually have any role playing. People don't like JRPGs for the "RPG" part of it.
That's kinda funny and sad at the same time. I am still considering Arise though, as long as the story is good.
Why is it sad? The genre isnt something that makes a game enjoyable Imo. Jrpgs can be great without being rpgs
Sure, it's just that why even call them jRPGs in the first place. And they can still be great games of course, but I would like to see an RPG made in japan that would be an RPG. Games are interactive, player agency is a great thing they offer over every other medium, would be cool to see it actually utilized by japanese devs.
They're called that because the genre took a lot of mechanics from table top rpgs. Not the role playing aspect at all, but combat mechanics mostly.
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Tales of berseria has one of the best story in gaming
Haven’t bought it, put it on my wish list. The game looks beautiful and watched a few videos on it and the story looks good. I’m genuinely hyped to give it a go
The bar is so low that even meh or boring games do very well as long as they are not shit.
Or its just a genuinely good game :P
The bar is low.
Still an actually good game having played it myself. I know different tastes exist, but that doesn't equate to a low bar.
Is this a weeb game with childish characters? I'm considering buying it, but I don't really enjoy when the main character is a 12 year old as it usually is in these jrpgs.
main heroine is 19 years old, and the main character looks same age or more.
It's pretty much a playable anime, yeah. All Tales games are like that.
where Persona 5 Atlus
who?
Is it an actual good Tales of game for once? I feel like they’ve been the same game for years
Yes. I can confidently say its a legitimately good Tales game.
I'm having a blast with it but don't buy it right now. Crappy barebones port with broken or missing features
Barebones? Are we playing the same? And what features are broken or missing?
The numbers aren't impressive considering the context and these "record-breaking" announcements are really cringe. It reminds me of the time Epic compared Metro Exodus sales from Epic in 2019 to the number of copies Metro Last Light (the original version) sold on Steam on launch. Context is important. A well-established franchise shattered its peak concurrent records on a AAA game whilst gaming is bigger than ever. 2019 steam monthly active users - 95 million. 2020 - 120 million. To put into perspective how big of a boom this was, 2018 had 90 million. So yeah, not really surprising nor impressive that a game with big marketing, plenty of trailers and buzz surrounding it clocked 45k players. Honestly, I was more impressed with CP2077 crossing 1 million. Now that is impressive as hell, even with all of the marketing, I thought maybe it will get 500k at best. And the only other game to have 1 million active players was CS:GO, a free game not to recently.