As we eagerly wait to see what awaits the future of the Tales series, remasters have been keeping the games relevant since the last mainline entry: Tales of Arise. I’ve been a bit let down by the Nintendo Switch versions of the last few remasters, with each of them being 60 frames per second titles now capped to 30. Any of these getting an upgrade to Nintendo Switch 2 with enhanced resolution and framerate would be great, but at the moment, that doesn’t seem to be the plan. Things are looking up slightly with the release of Tales of Eternia Remastered, which aims for a 60 frames per second experience on Switch alongside a native Switch 2 port. Before that, though, we have a new dedicated Switch 2 version of Tales of Arise, bundled with all its downloadable content.
Given the technological gap between this and the entries that have been getting remastered, I’m a bit more understanding of why this one also decided to go for a 30 frames per second cap. Bandai Namco has stated that this release aims to have 1080p in both docked and handheld. The only quirky feature that I can’t wrap my head around is making cutscenes target 60 frames per second. This is a fine way to play the game, and a more impressive port than I was expecting.
While it’s always ideal to play an action game in 60 frames per second or higher, the experience of Tales of Arise isn’t diminished. I haven’t touched the game since the PS5 version on launch, but I jumped back into the flow of battles pretty quickly. If an action game needs to target 30 frames per second because of hardware constraints, I can still get invested as long as it hits that without noticeable dips. Tales of Arise on Switch 2 feels responsive where it counts, which is in the midst of battles with a lot going on. Extra complex special attacks can cause dips, but they were all minor. Battles are very hectic in this game, with each of your characters firing off moves or team-up attacks regularly, but it stayed close to that 30 target.
Where I found performance issues mainly was out in the field, mostly for stuttering when traversing and moving the camera. This isn’t consistent across every area, with only certain ones causing these frame time inconsistencies. The very first map of the game, the lava section of Calaglia was rough, but the desert maps immediately after were a lot more stable. This remained across the parts of the game I’ve played, with only minor dips here and there. A perfectly stable 30 frames per second would be preferred, but I think at least falls into the “playable” category of port.
I’m a fan of how much of the presentation has held up in the conversion to Switch 2. I never really felt that I was playing a severely downgraded version of the game, with textures and models being faithful to the original. If cuts were made, they fit the painterly effect put into textures. The strong aesthetic choice to present details in this game as smudgy watercolor paint even does a great job at hiding a lower shadow resolution.
The visuals look sharp, but maybe just a bit too sharp. If you really get up close to the screen in either mode, but more so in handheld, you can see the upscaling method (full transparency, I’m not sure what exactly they’re doing to it) slightly oversharpening parts of the image. The character models themselves look fine, but background elements like the environment have sharpening artefacts. This could be a combination of the existing art style and upscaling not playing the nicest, but at the very least, I don’t think it detracts too much from the game’s presentation.
The only other visual issue I’ve noticed is that if you spin the camera just a bit too quickly in certain spots (usually dungeons), you can catch the map loading in the corner of the screen, but that’s about it. There haven’t been any post-launch patches as of the time of writing this to address this or any frame time stutters. The visuals have scaled up pretty well, not having the death by a thousand cuts that more and more third-party Switch 2 conversions have had. It won’t be as pretty, but this is, without a doubt, a comparable experience. The user interface also scales well, increasing its size if you undock the system.
Speaking of loading, load times are more noticeable than on previous versions I’ve played. This is likely due to the system not really having an SSD to load data off of. Getting into a battle will take about 3 seconds, and there were a couple of times that a cutscene would end, and the game would need to take about 5 seconds to load before I could resume running through the dungeon I was in. The longest I’ve felt it loading into battles after loading a save on a fresh boot was about 10 seconds.
As a game, I think this is an uneven experience that at least plays like a dream. The combat is frantically paced, with a wide variety of options to customize your characters’ kits with. You learn artes at a steady pace, and I rarely felt I was just spamming the same moves again and again in battles with no kickback. I don’t find it to be the most complex battle system in the series (I’m head over heels for Tales of Graces F), but I find it to be a big improvement over Tales of Zestiria and Tales of Berseria. The only thing against the combat design is that I feel Arise pads battles out with spongy enemies that can drag encounters out the further you get. This is definitely the kind of action game where you’ll want to do as much content as possible, so you don’t fall behind the level curve.
Exploring the world, doing side quests, building out your skill tree, finding hidden hours for cosmetic items, and chatting with your party member in skits is a simple but fun gameplay loop. The returning elements fans know and love might not be presented in the same fashion as they were in past games, but it works for a modern prestige take on the series. If you made me choose between fancy-looking Tales and PS3 Tales that can get new and creative games every year or two, I’d obviously choose the latter, but Arise has an identity that is worth pursuing further. I’d like it to return more to the fighting game roots past games were known for, but I can’t deny that this is a really fun action RPG to play moment-to-moment.
Where I think the game ultimately stumbles is with how it presents its core theme in the narrative. Without spoiling too much, Arise’s whole narrative crux is on the complex cycle of violence between oppressors and their oppressed. You begin the game pulling off a slave revolt, and aim to free the rest of your people in each of the main zones of Dahna. As you work through the world and liberate its people, your party continues to discuss the complexity of their situation. The answers the game comes to simply just don’t match the impassioned spirit the game presents early on, in my opinion.
I could hardly call myself a Tales fan if I wasn’t used to great premises that lack proper execution. I’d never say this series is incapable of depicting heavy subject matter, but I think they bit off more than they could chew. At its heart, what it has to say about freeing yourself from oppression is infectious, and it pulled me in right away despite an opening section that can meander in spots. The game picks up steam from there, but gets lost in the weeds by the end as it tries to fully understand who is really at fault in this metaphor they made. I think there’s enough of the story that works to motivate you to finish, but I hope the writers find subject matter they’re more comfortable with next time.
If you’ve been waiting to check this particular version of the game out for the first time and haven’t already played it, I think this is a solid way to do so. Extra patches to smooth over stuttering and get a fully locked 30 frames per second would be great, but I’m not sure if Bandai sees value in coming back to this one. Arise isn’t a perfect game, nor my favorite entry in the Tales of series, but this is a good version of it. There’s a lot of extra downloadable content and a whole expansion to take a look at, making this package ideal for portable action game enthusiasts looking to see the latest from the Tales of series. I am personally stoked for the upcoming release of Eternia, and eagerly await diving into the series’ 2D era.
Version Tested: Nintendo Switch 2
Review Copy Provided by Bandai Namco Entertainment
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