Tales of Arise

Tales of Arise
Developer(s)	Bandai Namco Studios
Publisher(s)	Bandai Namco Entertainment
Director(s)	Hirokazu Kagawa
Producer(s)	Yusuke Tomizawa
Artist(s)	Minoru Iwamoto
Composer(s)	Motoi Sakuraba
Series	Tales
Engine	Unreal Engine 4
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 PlayStation 5 Xbox One Xbox Series X/S
Release	September 10, 2021
Genre(s)	Action role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

Tales of Arise^[1] is an action role-playing game developed and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. The seventeenth main entry in the Tales series, it was originally planned to release in 2020 but was delayed to September 2021 due to internal quality issues and the ability to launch the game on more platforms.^[2] The game follows a man and a woman from the opposing worlds of Dahna and Rena and their journey to end the Renans' oppression of the Dahnan people.

Developed by a team composed of both series veterans and newcomers, the aim was to revitalize the Tales series. Minoru Iwamoto, one of several artists who worked on Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Berseria, returns as both character designer and art director. The game is built using Unreal Engine 4. Upon release, the game received generally positive reviews. The game was praised for its plot, gameplay, characters, visuals and presentation, while its handling of DLC received criticism. The PS4 and Xbox One versions also received some criticism for technical issues.

Gameplay[]

Like previous games in the series, Tales of Arise is an action role-playing game, although its gameplay has gone through unspecified alterations as part of its development goals while retaining the basic Tales battle system, dubbed the Linear Motion Battle System.^[3][4] The game has a big focus on evading and countering, with Tales of Graces, a 2009 entry praised for its combat, cited as inspiration.^[5] Unlike many of the previous titles in the series, the game doesn't feature multiplayer, with the development team deciding to focus on various interactions between characters in combat, including the addition of the "Boost Strike" feature, allowing multiple party members to perform destructive attacks together under certain conditions.^[6]

Story[]

Setting[]

Arise takes place in a setting divided between the medieval world of Dahna and the advanced world of Rena. Three centuries ago, the Renans invaded and conquered Dahna, enslaving the population and dividing the land into five isolated realms, each ruled by a Lord: Calaglia, Cyslodia, Elde Menancia, Mahag Saar and Ganath Haros. Periodically, the "Crown Contest" is held to decide which among five Lords is chosen to become the next Renan Sovereign, based on the ammount of astral energy extracted from Dahna's population and environment, and stored on the Master Cores in each Lord's possession.

The main characters are Alphen, a Dahnan man with no memories of his past whose head is covered by an iron mask; Shionne Vymer Imeris Daymore, a Renan outcast woman with mysterious powers who allies with Alphen to take down the lords; Rinwell, a young Dahnan mage; Law, a young Dahnan martial artist who initially works an enforcer for the Renans; Dohalim il Qaras, the benevolent Lord of Elde Menacia; and Kisara, a veteran Dahnan knight serving under Dohalim's.

Plot[]

At the realm of Calaglia, a masked Dahnan slave with no memories of his past gets himself involved with the "Crimson Crows" resistance group, when they rescue a Renan woman called Shionne who is aflicted with a curse that hurts anyone who touches her from imprisonment and that whom he finds familiar. While evading their pursuers, the slave manages to pull a blazing sword from the Master Core in Shionne's possession and use it to repel the Renan forces. As only the slave can wield the sword due to his lack of sense of pain, he and Shionne form an alliance to take down the five Lords with their combined power. With help from the Crimson Crows, the pair confront and defeat Calaglia's Lord, Balseph. In the occasion, the slave's mask partially breaks and he remembers his name, "Alphen". After liberating Calaglia, Alphen, Shionne and the Crimson Crows' leader Zephyr depart to the realm of Cyslodia, guided by Rinwell, a mage and member of Cyslodia's resistance force, the "Silver Swords". Once arriving there, Zephyr is captured by agents serving the local Lord Ganabelt Valkyris, led by his son Law. Having a change of heart once his father is sentenced to a public execution, Law assists Alphen and the others in an attempt to rescue Zephyr who ends up being killed by Ganabelt himself. Law joins Alphen, Shionne and Rinwell to avenge his father and the four confront and kill Ganabelt while claiming the Master Core in his possession.

The party then sets to Elde Menancia, a realm whose Lord Dohalim abolished slavery and encourages Renans and Dahnans to coexist. However, they learn from the dying Migal, leader of the local resistance, the "Golden Dust Cats" about a plot from Dohalim's aide Kelzalik to drain the astral energy of the Dahnans in secret by poisoning them for his own gains. Accompained by Migal's sister, the Dahnan knight Kisara, Alphen and the others stop Kelzalik's plans and Dohalim sentences him to exile, before renouncing his Lordship and joining the party with Kisara. At the realm of Mahag Saar, the party discovers that the local resistance, the "Dark Wings", overthrew the local Lord, Almeidrea Kaineris, who is in hiding. While looking for Almeidrea, Shionne confesses to the others that her objective is to collect all the Lords' Master Cores to create the ultimate Master Core, "Renas Alma", in order to get rid of her curse. Upon news that Almeidrea was captured, the party attends her public execution just to discover that she took advantage of the situation to lay a trap for the Dahnans and kill them while extracting their astral energy. In the occasion, Rinwell recognizes Almeidrea as the Lord who killed her parents.

By lending a boat, the party boards Almeidrea's battleship and defeat her in combat. The Lord of Ganath Haros, Vholran Igniseri, appears and kills Almeidrea. Vholran also attacks Alphen and during the fight, the rest of Alphen's mask is destroyed, unlocking his memories and restoring his sense of pain before the enemy retreats, taking Shionne captive. Once in safety, Alphen reveals to the others that he was a test subject for Renan experiments centuries ago, way before the invasion, and forced to take part in a ritual using the Renas Alma. His partner in the ritual was a Renan maiden called Naori Imeris who is an ancestor of Shionne's. However, the ritual failed, causing countless deaths and it was Naori who put the mask on Alphen to seal his memories before sending him back to Dahna in a spaceship, his body preserved inside before he awakened one year ago. The party storms Vholran's castle, where they reunite with Shionne and defeat Vholran, with Alphen killing him in a duel. Having secured all the Lords' Master Cores, a mysterious woman in red appears before the party, using a sixth Master Core in her possession to absorb the astral energy of the other cores to form the Renas Alma and flees, with Vholran's body disappearing in the occasion.

During the following month, Alphen and the others help the citizens of Ganath Haros to rebuild until a bio-mechanical structure sent by the Renans begins draining the astral energy of Dahna directly and sending it to Rena's moon Lenegis. To prevent Dahna's destruction, the party infiltrates the structure and manages to partially shut it down, before launching a direct attack on Lenegis itself, boarding the same spaceship which brought Alphen back from Rena centuries ago.

Development[]

According to producer Yusuke Tomizawa, development of Arise began before the announcement of the Definitive Edition of Tales of Vesperia in 2018. Beginning development under the codename "Arise", the aim was to reevaluate and evolve the Tales franchise formula. The game's title derived from its codename as it best exemplified both the game's story themes and the team's wishes. While previous Tales games used a dedicated in-house engine, Arise was built using Unreal Engine 4, allowing much higher graphical quality compared to earlier entries. Character models and movement were also improved, with the team aiming at the same level of quality found in 3D films and television.^[4] While the previous game Tales of Berseria had been a cross-generation game for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, Arise was made exclusively for modern hardware.^[3] Tomizawa stated that while the team was aiming for a level of quality that can be enjoyed globally, the game would not neglect its Japanese fans.^[7]

Arise is developed by Bandai Namco Studios. The team included veterans going as far back as Tales of Phantasia, alongside newcomers who were passionate about the series. The art director and character designer was Minoru Iwamoto, who had worked on both Berseria and Tales of Zestiria. This was the first time the same person had filled both roles, and was part of Bandai Namco's move towards unifying the game's themes and artstyle. The world design went in a darker direction compared to earlier entries, both to further the series evolution and appeal to the Western market. Despite the overt focus on 3D graphics, 2D anime cutscenes are still planned as with previous entries.^[4] Similar to the previous games in the series, the anime sequences were produced by Ufotable, while the game's score was written by Motoi Sakuraba.^[8][9] The game's theme song is "Hibana" by Kankaku Piero,^[10] which marks the third time a theme song in the Tales series has had both an English version and a Japanese version. Ayaka performs two songs for the game, "Blue Moon" for the game's grand theme song and "Hello, Again ~Mukashikara Aru Basho~" (Hello, Again 〜昔からある場所〜, Hello, Again ~A Place that has Been Around for a Long Time~) for the game's insert song.

Arise was revealed at E3 2019, although details of the game had leaked on the internet a few days before.^[11][12][13] The game was originally planned to release in 2020 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One,^[3] but was delayed to September 10, 2021 due to internal issues and the ability to launch the game on next-generation consoles.^[14]

Reception[]

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Tales of Arise received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.^{[15][16][17][18]}

Sales[]

In under one week on sale Tales of Arise had sold over one million copies becoming the fastest-selling entry in the series.^[28]

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Official European website