Announced since 2019, and delayed from an originally intended summer launch last year, Namco’s 17th installment in the long running Tales series, Tales of Arise, certainly has us intrigued.
Thankfully, it seems that we won’t have to wait much longer in order to get a feel for how the newest entry will play, and fit, within what has turned into a very competitive (mostly western dominated) Role-Playing Game Genre over the last decade.
The adventure of a lifetime starts in just ✨ one month ✨
A FREE PLAY DEMO of #TalesofArise will be available on PS4, PS5, Xbox One & Series X|S on August 18th! pic.twitter.com/PCio2xwvlm
— Tales of Series (@TalesofSeries) August 10, 2021
Sporting a new engine (Unreal 4) for the series, Tales of Arise promises modern visuals, and a huge world to traverse. The premise of the two leads (from different, and opposing ‘worlds’) is also interesting. The Tales team certainly knows how to build its characters. So, I am expecting an engrossing story with a likable cast here.
Given the genre’s (even Japanese series’ like Final Fantasy) shift to action-based combat, as opposed to turn based one, it will be interesting to see what advancements have been made in Tales’ own brand of action-based combat in its upcoming August 18th demo.
Unlike most Japanese RPGs, The Tales series has, since its inception, featured action-combat as a staple of its gameplay.
The Tales of Arise’s demo will arrive less than a month away from the game’s scheduled release date (September 10th), and thus, it shows that Namco/Bandai is confident that Tales of Arise will grip those of us who download the game next week.
Why the Tales of Arise’s Demo is Important
Before I review the final product, I can’t really say whether Tales of Arise will be great, good or bad. While the series has a few ho-hum entries, I can’t recall a single ‘bad’ Tales game.
However, the Tales series is one of the longest running Japanese Role-Playing game franchises (since the SNES days), and thus, being that it is also one of the few left that continuously publishes ‘big home console’ entries to this day, I recommend that everyone who reads this article downloads the demo, and gives this entry a shot.
It would be sad for most us, if the Tales series goes the way of the dinosaur (it happened to Suikoden, and Wild Arms). Hopefully, Tales of Arise ushers a new era of success for the series, and it turns out to be a great game in the process.
Stay tuned for our take on the game’s demo next week!
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