“My god Tales of Arise is good”, “Tales of Arise, finally a good Tales of”, “Tales of Arise is the JRPG of 2021”, “I have never played a game as incredible as Tales of Arise ". Here is what you can read in Facebook groups, on Twitter, or even in the specialized press. With so much hype we can only be overjoyed, can't we? Not really. You may have guessed it, I am not of this opinion and count on me to argue. It's a bit of the danger of being an expert in a field, you end up seeing the strings and those of Tales of Arise are sometimes coarse.

But first, you know me, a little history. Tales of Arise is the 17th episode of a series that began 26 years ago with what remains in my eyes the best of the series, Tales of Phantasia . At the time, in December 1995, the Super Famicom was at the end of its life, but the developers of Wolf Team managed to pull off a masterstroke, giving a real swansong to the JRPG on Nintendo's console. The foundations of the series are laid: charismatic protagonists, a rich medieval fantasy world, and above all, a dynamic combat system in which you control a character.

"Hey, boy, is he going to tell us about Tales of Arise eventually?" Patience, I'm coming to that.

26 years and 16 games later (not counting numerous spin-offs and remakes), Tales of Arise is here (you see, I'm talking about it).

A constant Manichaeism

It tells us the story of Iron Mask and Shionne, a couple of heroes with diametrically opposed characters. One is amnesiac, decked out in an iron mask that he cannot remove and suffers from his condition as a dhanan slave; the other is a Rhenish aristocrat who comes to the other planet in search of revenge. The world of Tales of Arise is indeed full of duality: masters and slaves, rich and poor, bad and good, two planets (and a satellite), informers and those who hold their tongues. I'll stop there, but I could go on for hours. It's extremely binary and it shows in the narration which is very down-to-earth.

Moreover, the hero, whose name we learn very quickly, is a simpleton. It would be funny if I was 9, but just like the show, I'm 26 older. A little maturity wouldn't hurt. Especially since some episodes have taught us that we could hope for more like Tales of the Abyss , the diptych Tales of Symphonia Chronicles , or more recently Tales of Berseria .

A revised but not corrected combat system

As our American neighbors say: “If it ain't broke, don't fix it” or what isn't broken doesn't need to be repaired, in good French. Yet that's what happened to Tales of Arise's combat system. When you come into contact with an enemy on the ground, a transition takes place and the characters find themselves in a combat arena. Our team, made up of one to four characters, plus the supports, is the occasion for unleashed combos to the detriment of readability… especially since the game is automatically semi-automatic or even automatic rather than manual. It's confusing.

If you only control one character, you can change it at any time and thus focus on the weaknesses of the enemies, but this is not necessarily useful if you play in normal or easy mode.

The most disturbing thing about the confrontations in Tales of Arise is that monsters like bosses are life point bags, real damage sponges. The fights are therefore unnecessarily long and seem very artificial. We are far from the mastery of Final Fantasy VII Remake or even Final Fantasy XV .

Technically perfect but not in all aspects

If Tales of Arise is a very beautiful game, it is clear that it has not been optimized for next-generation consoles and even less for the Xbox Series X, the version that we tested. Barely arrived at an hour of play that the game crashes, freezing during a skit , these famous sketches specific to the series. Rebelote a few minutes later before a fight, then when entering an area and again during skits . One wonders how the game was able to pass Microsoft's draconian certification test.

My other big regret is the lack of inspiration from Motoi Sakuraba, the saga's official composer. None of the themes that we have heard leaves us with an imperishable memory. Everything is so generic. I have the impression of reviewing and re-hearing Infinite Undiscovery , that is to say. If you don't know, this is one of the biggest misses on Xbox 360.

This Tales of Arise is a great disappointment for me. I was expecting an excellent game worthy of these illustrious ancestors. Instead, I end up with a generic game with a clichéd storyline, messy fights, and bland music. Pity.