I really enjoyed my time with Tales of Arise. It took me 76 hours to beat the game as a whole before doing any post game stuff with doing most side quests and I now sit at 88 hours after doing most of the post game stuff. There's some I didn't do like getting characters to max level and stuff because that just seemed like a grind. But I did do all the fishing!

Overall I really recommend this game. This was a fantastic game. It's not without it's faults. The pacing between story beats can be slow sometimes, there was certain plot points that just left me with a "Why did you just do that" feeling, and then some of the characters are a little tropey. But I think overall the package is really great. I will say that there were certain spots in the game where I considered putting it down but I pushed through those parts and I'm really glad I did.

The combat is fantastic and addicting, there was never a time I dodged out of combat other than maybe to conserve healing/restorative items while dungeoning. It was also extremely customizable. Not necessarily in terms of weapons but in terms of the artes you get. The weapons I will say left a lil more to be desired because it was always just raw stat boosts. Not necessarily bad, completely serviceable for what else is there but it is worth noting. But you also get this experience with every character in the party. You can play and customize everyone and they all play dramatically different. I spent most of my time playing as Alphen just because I felt the most comfortable with him but I can see people spending their entire playthrough playing as all of these characters depending on what you like. Especially Dohalim or Law.

The characters while I mentioned were tropey I grew to absolutely love. Tales games are usually renowned for their good characters, while only playing this one and Tales of Symphonia I can say that so far in my experience this is true. I don't think I like some of the characters as much as some from Symphonia but I do love all their interactions together and towards the end it really felt like they were a super cohesive family/friend group. It was fun seeing their interactions. And seeing all the skits. Although the skits are dispersed a little unevenly. There will be times where I get 3 or 4 skits at a time. I was compelled to watch them when I saw them, but there was a lot at once sometimes.

I won't touch too much on the story or give any spoilers but it starts out really strong and intense and then can kind of peter out towards the middle of the first act. The act then ends strongly though and I was pretty much hooked afterwards. I will say the 2nd act I can see being very hit or miss for people. It very much has that JRPG off the rails vibe to it, but it had been awhile since I played a JRPG that kind of got that crazy that I actually really liked it. I think I also genuinely enjoy that trope in JRPGs as well.

But if you're looking for a JRPG with really fun action combat, almost akin to a character action game like Metal Gear Rising (only one I have a frame of reference on, not an exact comparison) that's also super customizable, learning and meeting new characters and seeing their interactions and bonding with them, also doing goofy things like dressing them in bunny pig gloves or if you just really love shonen anime then I totally recommend this game. Because this game essentially feels like playing a Shonen anime.

I look forward to checking out more Tales games.