Tales of Arise Marks the Beginning of 2020 Which Looks to be a Promising Year for Anime Games!

So I recently did 2.. 3? videos on Blue Protocol, and have made several references to Tales of Arise – Bandai Namco’s other highly anticipated upcoming Anime game.
While Blue Protocol is an MMORPG, and has been confirmed via actual gameplay during their Alpha to be a full-MMORPG like Final Fantasy XIV, Tales of Arise isn’t.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not eagerly awaiting its release nonetheless.
I’m a fan of Anime games, Anime MMOs and Anime series in general. I’m also a fan of JRPGs, having grown up on games like Final Fantasy, Legend of Dragoon, the Tales of games, Suikoden games, Star Ocean games and so many others.
And while the Star Ocean games are a distant memory, the Suikoden games have long since vanished, a sequel to Legend of Dragoon was never realized, Final Fantasy and the Tales of games have both lived on.
Thankfully. And although they’ve both had titles in their respective list of releases that have fallen short of the quality I expect from the companies, they’ve both continued to be my main sources of JRPG entertainment.
Or the companies behind them, anyway.

So in anticipation of Tales of Arise releasing next year I wanted to do a video on it – and talk to all my JRPG brothers and sisters that love the genre as I do.

Tales of Arise is the newest title in a long-list of “Tales of” Japanese Role Playing Action Games. Arise in specific is said to be a “rebirth” of the franchise that aims to be a “highly immersive experience.”
The team have expressed that they have had some difficulty along the way as the new direction of the game has been challenging.
However, their goal was the “succession and evolution” of the game while attempting to remain traditional and honor what the game had been up to this point.
Arise takes a slightly different approach to normal: Instead of being grounded in fantasy, the game takes place on two neighboring planets.
As you can expect, the two planets are.. not really on the best of terms with one another, leading to some unsavory behavior from both.

Exceptional- or, exceptional looking, at least.
While there has yet to be a dedicated gameplay trailer showcasing what the combat will look like outside of these hand-selected scenes, what we’ve been given looks incredible.
For me, anyway. I know there are a few people that are upset that it’s changing the combat so drastically.
To me though, for the game to appeal to this new generation of gamer, it needs to evolve to better suit what this generation wants out of an action title. I feel like what they’ve shown is indicative of their understanding of that.
Their goal was to retain as much of the classic Tales of experience as possible and I hope that in the future, when additional information is revealed, gameplay is shown, that we get to see that in action.
I would like to point out one thing: In the Tales of games, you encounter monsters roaming around the world. Interacting with them triggers an instanced battle to take place.
Your party then does combat with the enemies, ultimately winning and you gain XP, items and sometimes even have funny little conversations and skits occur afterwards.
However, from what I’ve seen of the gameplay thus far, monsters are still roaming around the world but I don’t see instanced battles taking place.
I daresay it looks as though you fight them outside in the very open world you’re traversing. Which is a nice change of pace, honestly. An interesting if a little bold change, but not unappreciated.

Right? UFO Table does some amazing work. If you’ve ever watched Fate/Zero or Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works, then you’d know just how large a budget they have and just how amazing their work looks.
While the Tales of series has always utilized very Anime-esque graphics, Arise is – albeit, still using an Anime style, but a 3D Anime style that they claim is comparable to television and theater Anime and Anime movies.
And I can’t say that I disagree with what I’m seeing.
Arise is built on Unreal Engine 4 – with the developers casting away the engine they’ve used thus far for Tales of games, instead, choosing to focus on rich lighting and a unique, watercolor-like atmosphere and character models.
I’m sure you’ve also noticed that the characters are made much more to scale this time ’round.
That is because Arise attempts to offer a “highly immersive experience,” with a representation of that being how they want their characters to feel as if they “live in this world.”
So they’ve combined fields and characters, depicting them both in a watercolor style and made the characters all look much more Humanoid – fixing overall heights and body sizes in-game.
I’ve read a lot of what they plan on doing and the small things, like slowly rotating their body instead of moving the entire body around feel as though the franchise is finally catching up.

So Tales of Arise sounds like quite a large difference from the Tales of games we’re used to. My favorite Tales game was Tales of Symphonia, followed by Vesperia, Phantasia, then the Abyss.
However, at least Symphonia, Vesperia and Phantasia were all very, very similar. Arise seems to be contrastingly different but as I mentioned earlier in the video, change is good. Change is necessary.
I think Arise is going the right direction. The game looks amazing, although honestly I can see that the game doesn’t look too much like a Tales of game.
I’m a little concerned that we’ll only have 2 characters as opposed to an entire party as we’ve seen nothing denoting additional party members or.. really any other characters, so at the same time.. I’m not too worried.
I hope there’s a lot of customization for my character, or characters. At least pertaining to skills. I’m also hoping the skits that I’ve grown to love are all still there.. I couldn’t imagine a Tales of game without them.
My hope is that the game is also large, open and filled with content that I can explore.. with a second player.
Tales of games have always allowed for multiplayer combat, so I’m hoping that returns in some capacity and allows for my wife MrsStix to join in and explore the world, or at least aid me in combat.

Tales of Arise marks an exciting new beginning for the franchise and I couldn’t be happier embarking on the journey with you all!