GamingTales Of Arise is fast, furious fun, and a JRPG that's surprisingly light on its feet

I'm a lifelong JRPG fan, but my history with Bandai Namco's venerated Tales series is spotty. I'm not sure how that happened. I might’ve been turned off by the 2001 fan translation of the original SNES game - yes, the same translation that suggested 17-year-old heroine Arche Klein “[Fornicates] like a tiger.” Or maybe it was Tales of Phantasia, in which all instances of the word “Ragnarok” became “kangaroo” thanks to a sloppy localization error. Again, I turned away. Finally, in 2019, a breakthrough. I bought Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition and was quickly enamored. Tales' traditional action-heavy combat system worked well with Vesperia's lush, ruins-dotted world, and its wise-cracking characters are honestly hilarious at times. (Foul-mouthed researcher Rita Mordio is a hoot, especially when she torments Karol, the party’s tagalong brat.)

Not surprisingly, there’s good and bad about previewing the long-awaited Tales of Arise with only Vesperia under my belt. On one hand, I can compare Arise's storytelling and mechanics with one of the best games the series has to offer. On the other hand, I can compare Arise's storytelling and mechanics with one of the best... well, you probably know what I'm getting at, here.

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