Discussion YMMV / TalesOfArise

I don't know if it should go that far. The criticisms I've read are that the section of the story traveling through Rena goes on for too long to the point that it becomes monotonous, because the environments within are fairly similar and the main thing breaking up the constant fighting is a lot of exposition as opposed to the balance of humor and character moments that were the norm before. I wouldn't say the quality overall declines much though, and the final battles are quite good.

I haven't seen that on my end, personally. I think that exists with plenty of games and the stage has a lot of fun gimmicks. (The elevator action sequences, the cool fights with minibosses all over, the visuals, the updating dungeon music.)

If you're seeing a ton of people agreeing the final level is disappointing, sure, go ahead, but I'm not seeing anything on my end.

As far as final dungeons go, it's kinda plain looking especially since you'll be passing through similar looking rooms and corridors, but final floor itself is sorta picturesque.

Aside from that, I had no complaints with it. If anything, I was more disappointed that we couldn't actually explore Rena since the surface was just a hollowed ocean, rather than by the final dungeon itself.

That's been something a lot of Tales Of games have done recently. I think they lean a bit into the whole 'oh the plot should include two worlds' thing, and ever since... I'd say Xillia, it's become more of an obligation to have a world with just a few sections in it to explore.

I personally don't think it's a problem because the games always justify these areas in story, and I always thought Fodra did a lot of great environmental storytelling that simultaneously made it spooky and also the coolest sections of the game, but I can understand the disappointment behind it, especially since I know a lot of people grew up on Symphonia, which split the two worlds pretty evenly in terms of overall content.

I personally love the design of the final dungeon because of the sheer enormity of it, but that's just me.

Overall user reviews make it pretty clear that among the playerbase, this is one of the more popular Tales Of experiences, up there with Abyss or Symphonia. Comparing overall reviews to Zestiria, Arise blows the former out of the water.

Its status as being better than Berseria is slightly more contentious, granted, but overall reviews give Arise a slight bump, and most reviews and outlets praise the revamped gameplay - which is somewhat silly since all Tales Of games do things their own way, but hey, it's hard to deny how fun it is to parry with Kisara or air juggle with Alphen. This is the first Tales Of game I've played that eases you into comboing, which is really cool, and doesn't make combos break the game unlike some of the stuff you could pull off with Natalia, Raine, and Rita in previous games.

Most of the people who gave Arise reviews are also people who played Berseria, and that's where the trope comes from to some degree, as a lot of people prefer the gameplay here. Not that Berseria was bad - it was a fantastic game and a fun romp - but people also really love Arise.

Agreed with all of this. I'm currently replaying Tales of Arise now and not once does Law ever claim to feel "empty inside" after killing Ganabelt.

There's two field skits between Law and Alphen during time the party is travelling to El de Manecia, and all Law bellyaches about is his daddy issues. Specifically, because he was directly responsible for getting Zephyr killed by personally handing him over to Ganabelt. So he laments about his lingering guilt and whether Zephyr would approve of him now — not one word regarding Ganabelt.

Yet, when Rinwell tries to avenge her parents, Law and the others suddenly claim it's wrong?

Alphen wanted revenge for Zephyr's death himself and agreed to help Shionne kill the Lords to avenge his fellow Dhanans who had suffered three centuries of slavery and oppression under Renan rule. Not once does he, or any of the others, question their own motives. They simply go along with the program. Yet, they preach to Rinwell about not killing out of anger? That entire scene had me calling bullshit.

To be fair, Alphen gives up on the "kill the lords to avenge Dahnans" thing pretty early on, the start of that line of thinking being when Zephyr tells him how making peace with the Renans should be their ultimate goal.

Alphen was still commited to helping Shionne kill the Lords anyway, and reaffirmed his vow to her outside the Gold Cats hideout. And that was after meeting Dohalim, who hadn't oppresed the Dhanans at all. But even if he had decided to abandon killing the Lords, it wouldn't make him or the others any less hypocritical.

Right after forcing their viewpoint onto Rinwell, to keep her from killing Almeidria, they immediately decide "Now let's go kill Almeidria!" — all of 2 seconds later. Literally. So apparently, they feel it's okay as long as they're the ones doing it, but not her.

The other problem is that it reeks of Law projecting hard onto Rinwell. Their situations and their temperaments aren't even remotely the same. Law was directly responsible for getting Zephyr killed. Rinwell's case was purely circumstantial (i.e. bad timing, where Almeidria just happened to be present to see a Dhanan child using Astral Artes).

Also, just because Law supposedly felt "hollow inside" after avenging his father doesn't mean the same would be true for Rinwell. Nor does not considering what she'd do afterward mean she'd turn out like he did either. She's 14, she can always decide what she wants to do with the rest of her life later. There are numerous stories of people finding closure by bringing their loved ones killers to justice. But we'll never know, because Law interferred and the rest dogpiled her rather than let her make her own decision.

I very much agree, Miinu. I didn't want to contest that latest blurb to avoid edit warring, but just like gorobestboy, crsamue seems to be remembering the game very differently. The only thing clear about Law in that situation with Rinwell was how he felt she shouldn't kill with such hatred... just because. There was no real talk about any feeling of "emptiness" on his part.

Then again, the harder pill to swallow seems to be accepting that Arise's writing gets pretty hokey and sophomoric at times, where even the writers don't seem to know what they're really trying to point out.

But I specifically added two specific instances where players may have misunderstood or didn't catch what the story was trying to say: Law's mindset after killing Ganabelt, and the party's talk about the Cycle of Revenge.

The main reason people get upset about Law stopping Rinwell is because a) there's a lot of ways to interpret Law's mood after Cyslodia and b) "we have to make peace with Renans in general" or "we have to avoid reversing the oppression" is a completely different argument than "we need to stop people from seeking retribution against specific people".

Also, from a meta perspective, any decision to spare Almeidrea wouldn't have made sense. Dahna lacks any actual justice system or means of safely incarcerating a Renan lord, which it's why it's telling that the story then employs Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work and has Vholran kill Almeidrea anyway. The fact was, Almeidrea had to die for the story to make any sense, which only adds to why Rinwell's "aesop" feels so out-of-left-field. It comes across as moral pearl-clutching for a situation that isn't so ethically or practically simple.

I understand and just wanted to provide that context for what I was meaning.

I guess that's okay, but I still don't know what you mean.

Addressing the recent edit:

That's a debatable opinion. The work is free to state that opinion as a moral lesson, but players are free to disagree with it or feel that it fumbled the delivery.

"Don't be a slave to feelings" is a massive stretch to take from "don't be a literal slave". As stated before, there is a massive difference between "we must make peace with a race in general" and "we need to not seek out vengeance, even against people who deserve it". Also, "forgiveness" was never on the table for Almeidrea; even after Rinwell spares her, there was never any talk of forgiving her. Just that Rinwell wouldn't kill her "with hatred in her heart".

And lastly, players do not have to agree with that lesson, and there is good reason why many feel it comes out of nowhere.

The point is that this was easy for a player to miss because Law's mood after killing Ganabelt seemed more like Now What? rather than guilt.

Courtesy link to ATT thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/query.php?type=att#comment-105442

Just my two cents but I think what they meant by "slave to feelings" was in reference to Zephyr's "slavery is a state of mind" talk with Alphen, and how the game explores how every faction be they Dahnan, Renan or Helganquil are slaves in one sense or another, that even the Great Spirit is bound by its fear rather than intellect. It still might be a weak connection to the issue at hand though.

Just as a reminder, this was gorobestboy's exact words:

To me, this is like saying "Dragon Ball's core theme is don't be weak in fighting, morality or intellect". If you squint really hard, then yeah, it's kind of correct, but trying to extrapolate the literal conflict of the story ("Don't be weak" or in To A's case "Don't be a slave") to metaphor is a massive stretch. In that case, you could technically say "Don't be a slave to poor urban planning" was also one of the core themes of Lenegis.

What's debatable about it? It's a good lesson that was presented just fine. Some players just aren't able to get that message because of either personal bias against the message it's trying to teach (which in this case it's Revenge Is Not Justice/Vengeance Feels Empty and stopping the Cycle of Revenge through Forgiveness) or the player being too dumb to understand the game's themes and lessons.

Tales of Arise repeatedly states the message that being a slave is not just being a literal slave, it's also a state of mind. Examples: Zephyr teaching Alphen to not be a slave to him or his ideals, Alphen originally being a grunt soldier in an army who mindlessly followed the orders of a Dahnan Lord, Rinwell almost becoming a slave to her hatred towards Almeidrea before Law stops her from killing the Lord, the Renans being slaves to their meritocracy, Vholran being a slave to his Sovereign title and need to control others through domination, the Spirit of Rena being a slave to its own desire of merging back with Dahna, etc.

"We must make peace with a race in general" and "we need to not seek out vengeance, even against people who deserve it" are not mutually exclusive morals. One of the main points of the game is the victimized race needing to find peace with their oppressors by letting go of their feelings of hate, resentment, and desire for vengeance.

Why would players not agree with the game's positive lessons of "Revenge is bad", "Don't be consumed by hate", and "It's better to understand and forgive the people who wronged you then to let yourself be tied down by your grudge"?

Because some players are really stupid and aren't able to pay attention to or understand how Arise sets up and presents its themes and moral lessons.

It isn't easy to miss. Like at all. Most players understood Law's mood at that point. His guilt over his father's death wasn't satisfied from getting revenge on Ganabelt and that in his words he was gonna "go die in a random ditch on the side of the road" until Alphen cheered Law up and invited him to join his party.

You literally just explained what makes it debatable. Some people (whether by personal bias or moral disagreement) can debate whether it's a "good" message. This is a YMMV page. These are what we call opinions.

Easy there with the "personal bias".

Zephyr's statement was about not hating all Renans based on the actions of their race in gneeral. Alphen compares being a soldier to being literal slavery, since he didn't know who he was fighting for or why.

The Almeidrea example is the one in question. The rest happen after that scene, and thus cannot be counted as part of the lesson players were expected to get BEFORE the Almeidrea scene.

Sure, but they're not the exact same moral, either.

There's a difference between hating an entire race in general, and hating a truly despicable person who has done horrible things without remorse.

Because not everyone agrees with it, nor is such a lesson universal good.

For example, Koreans have been demanding compensation from Japan for decades for what Japan did to them during World War II. But not only has Japan not done so, Koreans continue to be harassed and mistreated in Japan, Japan continues to deny what it did, and some Japanese even still claim that what they did was a a good thing.

"Forgive horrible people for what they did to you, even if they were complete unrepentant monsters" is not a universally-good message and there are plenty of Real Life examples of why.

Again, careful there with the personal biases. As well as the rudeness.

In any case, I think your response here demonstrates your underlying motives.

You literally just explained WHY it was easy to miss. At the moment, Alphen's guilt was presented as stemming from his own role in causing Zephyr's death. Ie, he was feeling guilty for the role he played in his own father dying — it is NOT clear that Law felt guilty over killing Ganabelt.

His line about "dying in a ditch" furthers that; this line does not sound like it's said out of guilt of killing Ganabelt...merely that he does not know what to do, especially after he killed

This argument also ignores that Alphen also wanted revenge for Zephyr and, according to Law himself in later dialogue, Alphen was probably closer to Zephyr than Law was after not seeing his father in years. Alphen helped Law get revenge Ganabelt, so....why does Alphen not feel as guilty?

Again, the entire scene makes it seem that Law's guilt is because of his role in his father's death, NOT because he regretted killing Ganabelt.

Just saying, if Nubian's edit is what's gonna stick, then it should not be called Misaimed Fandom, because it no longer aligns with how the trope works. It should be renamed something more like Broken Base.

Heck, I think it should not be added back, tbh. The Values Dissonance post describes the whole situation better, in my opinion.

TBH, as I said before, I think it fits Lost Aesop more. I get the message they were going for, but in my opinion, they severely fumbled the delivery. Revenge Is Not Justice and Vengeance Feels Empty can work as moral lessons...but this game handles it questionably.

Like I mentioned elsewhere, the lesson of the story especially doesn't work when two minutes later, you have another bad guy come in and kill the Complete Monster. Or when you spend the final act talking about the need to create common ground after one group has oppressed another for 300 years, and then the story just ends without ever explaining how that will be done. And then there's the Space Whale Aesop that is the Fruits Of Helgan; "Don't kill someone with hatred in your heart, or you might explode into jelly".

It's like if a politician says "We need to create affordable living for our citizens", someone asks how, and then the politician says "I'm glad you asked that question..." and then walks away.

I actually agree. I love the game, but can't deny it's stuck with the same level of juvenile-minded preaching that other Tales games like Abyss suffered from, like Jade joining in the party in blaming Luke for his ignorant blunders and the game treating Luke like the whole thing was solely his fault when in fact, as someone who was well aware of what was going on with Luke and who could've at least tried to properly educate him, all Jade did was antagonize the kid with petty provocations. But I digress. To get back on topic, Law's preaching (among the other things you mentioned) struck me as just another in the long list of poorly conceived lessons from the Tales writing team.

A bit off topic, but I figured the implications of the common ground between Renans and Dahnans would be them finding out they are the same race and that they are all victims of the Spirit of Rena's desires. It wouldn't fix everything, but it would be a strong starting point given how the base assumption for both sides has always been they are different species of human. Rinwell even notes how integrating Renans into Dahna could make magic-capable Dahnans more accepted too.

Maybe, but on the other hand, "We're all actually the same race" hasn't exactly ended racism in Real Life.

Given this discussion, here is my first draft of a Lost Aesop entry. I tried to cut down on the wordiness as much as possible but, as we've talked about here, there was a lot to unpack. Any ideas on what to improve or what to cut are appreciated.

• Lost Aesop: The story makes the case that hatred of any kind is undesirable, which on its own could make a fair argument. The main problems are within the story's methods of delivering said message. For instance, one of the most contentious plot points lays with Law not allowing Rinwell to kill Almeidrea to avenge her parents despite doing just that against Ganabelt. The justification is that Law felt empty after revenge, and Dedyme and the Dark Wings are an object lesson against killing "with a heart full of hatred". But Law's feelings are barely touched on prior to this and also at odds with the fact that Alphen flat out stated he was just as eager to kill Ganabelt and get revenge, and never expresses regret — unintentionally making the case that hate and revenge are fine if directed at truly unrepentent monsters. Thus, the sudden desire to stop Rinwell comes across as majorly hypocritical. Likewise, Dedyme was nothing like Rinwell — he was a Jerkass who wanted power just as much as revenge, so equating he and Rinwell sounds more like a Slippery Slope Fallacy than a real possibility. Also, the demise of the Dark Wings was caused by a fictional plot device; people in real life don't explode into liquid if they get too angry, and Rinwell herself was in no danger of this happening. Finally, despite the game's argument that Revenge Is Not Justice, no other solutions are ever posited. Even in the case of Almeidrea, who is an unrepentent monster, exactly how the party planned to punish or incarcerate a Renan Lord with no judicial or penal system is never touched on. Instead, she is killed by another villain shortly after her defeat, unintentionally advocating that Murder Is the Best Solution. Likewise, the game ends entirely before any of the other problems it mentions are ever addressed.

One edit I would make to that is that it's only Law who opposes her, the rest of the group seemed willing to let Rinwell do what she thought was right, even if they thought it wasn't the right choice. The most we get from them is Alphen explaining where Law was coming from, and Shionne admonishing that Rinwell needs to find a reason to live rather than an excuse to die.

Done. That was just a simple word swap.

It's ben over a week, so I'm gonna go ahead and remove the misaimed fandom entry and add Lost Aesop to the main page.