This thread is getting kinda hijacked so let me try to bring it back to course.
I couldn't help it and got Tales of Arise last night, hoping I'll get some time to play it during the weekends. I know it's a 80 hour game, but I just liked too much what I was reading about it.
So, just 1 hour into the game, I am loving it. The two first characters you find in the game, knon as "Iron Mask" and "Shionne", are really interesting to me. Maybe I'm befooling myself and this is very standard in modern JRPGs, but I'm actually digging into their personal stories and finding it very appealing. I usually prefer games in which I make my own protagonist these days, but given the variety of characters the game offers and the fact that you can treat any of them as your "main", it kinda works for me.
The combat is fantastic and spectacular, and also playing it well makes all the difference on whether you succeed or not. Feels like you could tackle fights well above your paygrade if you are really good at it, opposed to most RPGs that is really your level and power what determines whether you will win fights or not. The difficulty has a lot of scaling options, with a very high difficulty setting just released as free DLC (the one I'm playing of course because I'm a lil masochist!).
Also the fact that the game features full anime movies/sequences every now and then, including a full orchestrated intro is amazing. I wish western games had this kind of thing, it does so much towards hyping the story and making you feel like it's more than just a game.
So yeah, I'm having a lot of fun, also very limited by the fact that I have deadlines to hit, but hopefully, that makes every moment I play it all the sweeter.
Oh, and because this is not a given these days, also have to mention. Absolutely zero bugs, failures, or glitches of any kind. Virtually no loading times even as you change areas/scenes, and generally pleasant to enjoy all throughout. It runs smooth as the smoothest velvet.
I'm sure I'll find negative things soon, I'm only one hour into it, but so far I'm impressed.