1. Final Fantasy XIV Online [ PC ] - Stormblood 4.1 - 4.5 / Shadowbringers - 5.5 / Endwalker Main Scenario
(A Realm Reborn - Heavensward - Stormblood) - 9 ~ 10
(Shadowbringers) - 8
(Endwalker) - 6 ~ 7
2. WarioWare: Get It Together! [ Switch ] - 7.5
3. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon ( Replay ) [ Switch ] - 10
4. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD ( Replay ) [ Switch ] - 8
5. Dolphin Blue - 8
6. Metal Slug 6 - 8
7. Pokemon Legends Arceus [ Switch ] - 7
8. Kirby and the Forgotten Land [ Switch ] - 8.5 ~ 9
9. Genital Jousting [ PC ] - 7
10. Valis: The Fantasm Soldier [ Switch ] - 10
Mathematically engineered to appeal to all of my tastes.
11. Tales of Arise [ PC ] - 5
I legit came to hate the combat of this game, never mind the fact that the series has nailed action RPG combat with the linear motion system, or that when it did make shifts in tempo and style, like Graces, it created one of the best combat systems in the series, Zestiria and Berseria may have bumps, but they still were fun games to play, Arise feels like is mostly style, and whatever substance is left is a bunch of issues created by not understanding why things were designed like they were in the first place from previous games in the series.
- Make every enemy feel like a sponge to push the boost break system, decent idea in theory, but it bogs down every fight in the game in execution, staggers are harder to do on the whole, and because every boost breaker is on a cool-down, so it makes everything take that little bit longer, plus the absolute brain dead finisher, with the same animations over and over, which are cool to look at the first time, but doing so many in a row it gets tiring, and because is ramdomized, sometimes you'll get repeats a lot, drilling in the repetitiveness, they should have just copied or expanded upon the pair up system in the Xillia games, instead of whatever this was. Also the fact that the boost break itself works as a advantage to you when the game wants it to, normal enemies? mostly fine, boss fights? actually let's make the boost breaks attacks scripted now.
- Camera is absolutely atrocious for this kind of game, if it was a 1 combatant thing it would be ok, but Tales of isn't DMC or Bayonetta, you have a team, and visibility across the field is fucked because of the camera, and is all accentuated in how bad it is by all the UI elements from previous games that would have worked to alleviate this view, whenever your characters are casting magic is now a very small speck on the side, instead of the flashing portraits that would clearly tell you what is going on, in a game like Symphonia the enemy list on the side would flash when they were casting, if the good view of the battlefield wasn't enough to warn you about it, this stuff should be spread across the front, not small and to the sides. And they knew a lot of this was an issue, otherwise I don't see why else there is an annoying amount of audio cues from your party members, that absolutely don't shut up in this game, and all the dialogue overpowers the music, in order to keep you on track of what you are supposed to boost break.
- A visual mess, the AoE and particle effects get so cluttered and unclear at times that I can't keep track of things, they aren't pretty, just annoying.
- The arte number you are allowed is a small pool, plus now is sensitive to wherever you are airborne or in the ground, reducing expression, and honestly the button layout, and how shortcuts and sets work, feels so cumbersome, that I rather not bother and just work with the 6 artes I have at the time.
- The absolutely abysmal enemy variety, not only there is a bunch of recolors across the different regions with like one new enemy here and there, but bosses in the game become a part of the normal mobs of enemies, reducing the uniqueness of the boss fights and making normal fights take that much longer to complete, and honestly it wouldn't be the end of the world if it wasn't so boring to begin with.
I like the area sizes tho, that is legit improvement over the overworlds from Xillia to Berseria that were too large and empty, I prefer this more focused design, the dungeons were there for the most part, nothing exciting like the elemental temples from Zestiria, or anything close to the older games, but they were fine in length, until the castle, from there they feel bloated for no good reason, christ that final dungeon.
Charm and smaller details take a hit to pay for this game on the Unreal Engine 4, or at least, I assume that is where the money went. Custom victory animations and quotes are gone, battle banter is in shambles and absolutely repetitive, skits continue to get worse from the charming and perfect face frames, to the full render but still at least animated in 2D skits from Graces, Zestiria and Berseria, and we are just left with the 3D models talking to each other, enemy variety is almost at the tier of an Atelier game now, and other more specific stuff. While I appreciate that cooking is in the game, I dislike that the boost effect only comes from one characters, there isn't any level of improvement, and there aren't characters that are less proficient at it than others, no Wonder Chef instead just some dude without anything unique to him in terms of design to compensate.
And speaking of skits, this has been a problem that pops up since Zestiria, but it was still to an extent tolerable, but is horrendous in Arise, since when did skits became main cutscenes, they are all so wordy, a lot of them deal with stuff that should be a main cutscene, or has been established already and is just beating the same point over and over because I guess they assume my attention span is terrible, they are so needlessly wordy.
Visually, is ok, the game has some pretty moments here and there, but it also looks janky and kind of awful in other moments, is wholly inconsistent, and still less visually pleasant than 2008's Vesperia.
Music is an absolute low point of the series, there is like 3 or 4 tracks that made me feel something, but for the most part is forgettable, and worst of all lacking any sort of energy, most of it feels limp and boring, the kind of stuff that would make me fall asleep.
The story? I'll be honest, it was kind of bad at the start, but it picks up at the third main city, it was like 20 hours in on my playtime, but at least it picked up, while she is not up to the level of the greatest mages, Rinwell ended up being a highlight, alongside Dohalim, the team acts more like a Tales of cast past those 20 hours and keeps improving, and while it can feel jarring, is better than whatever the hell they had going at the start. Despite that jankiness, I'll always appreciate and praise that the Tales of series nails interactions and team dynamics far better than most JRPGs, really I'm only so harsh on Arise because I love this series and know it can do and has done better with this, I'm quite sincere when saying that I take this bunch and some of their jankiness over most JRPG characters, overall Arise's cast ended up being solid, despite the rough and janky start, and I appreciate that the romance aspect was actually not intrusive or annoying like in Hearts or Graces, pleasantly surprised about that. Antagonists sucked, far too little development time, the second world yet again feels rushed, why did only Symphonia and Eternia nailed developing two worlds in one game I'll never know. And for probably the first time in a main series game, I don't think this game quite earned its 1v1 fight, the protagonist and rival fight, which is generally absolute hype and one of the highest points of each entry that features one.
I would say that, this is probably the worst mainline Tales of I have played? Graces has always been the low point there, with its awful story and very questionable characters, but the combat is so good and unique that I wouldn't doubt replaying the game just for that. Arise is a game with a decent story, but the worst gameplay in the series, so is not something I would really consider playing again, a lot of the stuff it does thematically has been done better in much better games as well before.
I can trust nothing will ever be as bad for the series as Dawn of the New World, but this is still quite a disappointment, I hope the combat is heavily revised in the next game, because I don't think I could handle another game like this.
