Preview of 'Tales of Arise'
What's up, guys? Your old friend here! The hype for Tales of Arise is increasing as the game's release is approaching, and outside of playing other games, I've been diving deeper into the game's demo that everyone's able to download right now on consoles! Because of that, I'm here to talk about my other experiences in the demo and let you know what you can expect from the full version that you didn't experience by playing the said demo.
Battle & Story System
The the following article & battle system will be test on PS4 Pro. This time around, I went deeper into the demo's battle system, which seems limited to six selectable Artes. Artes are mapped to the face buttons, and you're able to change these at your whim in the appropriate menu. Some of you guys have expressed your concerns about how limited six selectable arts are. I'm happy to report that the devs confirmed that there would be twelve mappable Artes in the full game instead of six in the demo, which means that there will be six Artes available on the ground, and six available while in mid-air. The implementation of this isn't quite clear but rest assured that I'll be watching it when I get my hands on the game to see how that's all implemented.
I also want to address some comments who have said that Tales of Arise's battles are easy or too automatic - as it were - and I can see that perspective. But I want to clarify each point individually. Some of the criticisms I read talked about how they didn't like that when you press the attack button, your character would automatically walk the said target and initiate the attack.
You can turn this off for those people by going into your party formation screen and selecting Manual. That way, this automatic walk can be disabled. Another common criticism I found in the comments was that pressing select Artes would initiate multiple hits, making the combos "feel automatic," with some even calling its gameplay button mashy. I certainly understand the complaints about this. After all, we're used to action RPGs that allow us to create combos from scratch. However, these kinds of Artes have been around for a long time, and just because these automatically do multiple hits doesn't mean that they're completely safe. If you're stuck in an animation loop because of the Artes that you pressed, you cannot cancel nor evade while in the middle of these abilities, which means that while these animations fully play out, it will leave you up for an attack from any direction! This means that if you try and mash buttons and hit an Arte that does multiple hits multiple times, you're going to be leaving yourself up open to a whole bunch of damage! And again, I want to reiterate that I certainly feel the concerns of the people who have mentioned these comments.
After all, Tales' approach to action RPGs is very different from other games in the genre. So this might be a matter of selecting the correct difficulty level to help understand how the battle system works. I did notice the game's default difficulty on Normal is more accessible than most other action games, so if you want to learn how the system works, I highly recommend increasing the difficulty to either Moderate or, for the brave, Hard, to grasp what the game offers at tougher difficulty levels.
I also do feel that another way to grasp the depth of Tales of Arise's combat is to select Kisara as your default playable character. She's a lot more deliberate when it comes to her attacks, meaning it'll be a slight bit slower. I will say that based on personal experience, and because of how she's designed, I started getting into how the system works and began pairing attacks with their shield and really understanding and at times remapping the Artes that she has equipped. It helped me get a good feel of what the game is trying to accomplish, and maybe this will help you out as well! One thing that I did discover playing through the demo again is that Boost replenishes the Artes gauge. By doing so, people have been able to keep Dohalim in mid-air indefinitely because he has that one attack when he's in mid-air that propels him up, up and up and up. This seems trivial, of course, since enemies can't be juggled infinitely and will drop to the ground after a certain amount of hits. But this is interesting to note given that most Tales games have had many exciting fighting game-like nuances that people are starting to discover just through the demo alone. In addition to replenishing the Artes gauge, using specific character's Boost abilities have other effects, such as Kisara boosting the party's defence and countering any enemies rushing towards you.
Overlimit & Mystic in 'Tales of Arise'
Another thing that people might miss and I have too is Overlimit and Mystic Artes! Overlimit is a state where your character will have a little bit of glow, and you'll be able to use Artes without depleting your Artes gauge as well as temporarily be immune to knockback. You'll reach Overlimit by getting damaged a certain amount of times or performing perfect dodges. To use Mystic Artes, you'll need to be in an Overlimit state. And once that happens, you press two face buttons to activate them! Keep in mind that if you do your Mystic Arte, you will be taken out of the Overlimit state immediately. One thing about the Mystic Arts is that they are also super powerful, and if you haven't seen these yet, I highly recommend booting up that demo again to see if you can trigger them!
Voice System in 'Tales of Arise'
Finally, I want to clarify that the entire game is voice acted. The demo we're all playing was explicitly made to show off the combat, and its various systems, so much of the dialogue scenes found here were only made for the demo, which is great because it reinforces the idea that it's quite spoiler-free, for the most part! All in all, I enjoyed this demo of Tales of Arise, and I'm really surprised how much I can get from this demo every single time I boot it up! And hopefully, with this video, I've clarified and given you some information that I'm hoping will help you appreciate the various systems and gameplay that you'll find in this demo because it is pretty comprehensive from a gameplay standpoint!
Q & A Time
when does tales of arise come out?
'Tales of Arise' will come out on 10th Sep 2021.
Can I play 'Tales of Arise' on PS4?
Yes, You can enjoy 'Tales of Arise' on PS4.
Is 'Tales of Arise' Open World?
Yes, 'Tales of Arise' is an open world game.
Where to buy 'Tales of Arise' on PC?
You can purchase 'Tales of Arise' on Steam Platform.
In the END
Before I go, I do want to know who your favourite character is! And if you've played the demo multiple times ever since its release, let me know what else you've discovered from it! I will keep updating the news after 'Tales of Arise' released.
