The Clayton Awards 2021

Game of the Year 2021 – Cyberpunk 2077

There’s still so much potential in Cyberpunk 2077, but even if the promised patches, updates and DLC don’t deliver on that potential, 2077 will still be one of the best games I’ve played in recent years. With fantastic visuals, a stunning world, great gameplay and a compelling story and characters, it’s a game that, despite its poor release and numerous little flaws, is still pretty damn special. (Full Review)

Most Disappointing Game of 2021 – Battlefield 2042

I didn’t buy Battlefield 2042 after that absolutely terrible beta. Even so, it’s easily my most disappointing game of 2021. It was the game I was most excited about playing and I even had the Gold edition pre-ordered. But after that beta, I cancelled my order, ignoring the ‘it’s only a beta’ noise and the ridiculously inflated review scores because I knew what was coming. Everyone could see it, but nobody wanted to believe it. (Beta Impressions)

Gallery: Tales of Arise (Part 1)

 

Now Playing: The Room: Dark Matter (VR)

The Room: Dark Matter is a VR puzzle game. You play as a Detective working on a missing persons case who gets mixed up in some supernatural shenanigans. There’s a story, of sorts, that unfolds as you progress, but it’s only told in letters – there’s no voice acting or characters with whom you interact.

Visually, Dark Matter is very impressive. It’s easily one of the best looking and immersive VR games I’ve played, but it’s also very restrictive – there’s no free movement within the environments, you can only teleport from one puzzle node to the next.

The opening level serves as a short tutorial that introduces you to the basic mechanics. The bulk of the content, however, is found in the next 3 levels which offer completely different environments and puzzles to solve – a museum basement full of ancient Egyptian artefacts, an old church with a crusader motif, and a . . . witch’s hut, which seems weirdly out of place but I can’t fault the variety.

The last level, which I thought would be a lengthy, elaborate environment that combined the various puzzle mechanics of the previous levels, is a major disappointment. It’s short and there’s no real puzzles to solve.

So all you really get with Dark Matter is 3 ‘full’ puzzle rooms to solve. It’s a game you can easily finish in under 4 hours – maybe 3, depending on how easily you solve each room. The quality of the puzzles is decent, but nothing special, and some of them are only tricky to solve because it’s not always clear what pieces of the environment you can interact with and what you can’t.

The controls can prove a little fiddly at times – there was one puzzle that I just couldn’t seem to solve. I was sure I knew what I had to do, but I couldn’t seem to get an item to turn in the way that I wanted. I then realised that I was right with my solution, but I just wasn’t holding my controller at the precise angle I needed.

Overall, I’m a little disappointed by a Dark Matter. Given the impressive visuals and production quality, I expected a more lengthy and elaborate game than what I got. It’s still a VR game I’d recommend – but only on sale. It’s another game that’s a good ‘entry’ kind of VR experience for people new to the platform.

6/10

Halo Infinite: First Impressions

Because I’ve not played Halo 5 or Halo Wars 1 & 2 I made sure to watch a recap video before jumping in to Halo Infinite. I’m glad I did because without doing so, the opening of Infinite would have been even more confusing. It kind of just drops you into the action with little explanation of where you are or why. It does reveal these important things as you progress, but I’d say it’s better to go in prepared, despite seeing some reviews say you can go in entirely blind.

The first few levels of Infinite play out more like the structured, linear levels of past games. But once you clear these you’ll arrive in the semi-open world of Infinite. I say ‘semi-open’ because the map is essentially split between multiple ‘islands’ each of which you’ll unlock and gain access to as you progress through the game.

The islands aren’t massive, which I’m actually quite pleased about. They’re big enough for what they need to be and the game doesn’t flood the player with pointless filler objectives or collectibles. In fact, you can ignore the ‘open’ nature of the game if you prefer and just focus on moving from one main mission to the next. But to do so, I think, will miss what makes Infinite special and how it offers a unique experience compared to previous Halo games.

Halo Infinite is like someone looked at the iconic ‘Halo’ level from the original game and decided it would be neat to make an entire game that reflected that experience. You can traverse the map, rescuing squads of marines, securing operating bases (which act as fast travel points) and destroying enemy installations.

Exploring each island is fun and there’s lots of cool little things to find. And the side content really does reward the player by unlocking new skill points to upgrade your equipment and new weapons and vehicles you can access at each operating base. And I love how, thanks to the grapple shot, you really can go pretty much anywhere you can see. This lets you approach missions in any way that you want.

You might prefer to find a high point and snipe the enemy from above. Or you might prefer to go in fast, using the grapple to stay mobile, swinging and sliding through an enemy facility like you’re playing Titanfall. Or, if you’re heavily outnumbered, you might want to round up some friendly marines from a couple of bases, load them into a warthog and attack in numbers.

Halo has always been a series that has leaned heavily on the ‘sandbox’ nature of combat – no scripted sequences, just pure, physics led chaos directed by the actions of the player and the – as you’d also expect from Halo – clever enemy AI. The gameplay is superb, but I already knew that having sunk a lot of time into the MP beta. The movement, shooting, weapons, vehicles and equipment all combine to create one of the most enjoyable, satisfying and tactical shooters you can play.

Technically, the game could certainly be better – without the not-too noticeable adaptive resolution option, I wouldn’t be able to maintain 60FPS, even on medium settings. And although the game does look good thanks to its colourful and clean art style, it’s not exactly a visual powerhouse that should prove as taxing on my system as it currently does.

I’ve not progressed far enough in the story to comment on that, only to say that the ‘weapon’ is cute as f**k. Oh, and the ‘boss’ fights I’ve had so far have also been pretty fun and much better than similar attempts in previous Halo games. I’ll wrap this post up here because I’m still just getting started with Halo Infinite and it’s a game I want to take my time with. My first impressions are very positive, but don’t expect a final review until early next year.

Blade & Sorcery: The Dungeons Update (VR)

My last post on Blade & Sorcery was last July with the release of Update 8, AKA The Sorcery Update. At the end of that post I speculated about how B&S could expand in the future – ‘There’s a lot it can do, and that’s before we even consider the possible inclusion of some kind of campaign. I’m not expecting much, but I can totally see some kind of randomised ‘dungeon’ mode in which you progress, level up and earn loot to buy new weapons or abilities.’ And as you can probably guess by the title of the latest major update, that’s exactly the direction B&S is moving in.

But it’s important to note that this update is really just a first step. B&S, let’s not forget, is being developed by a very small team. Updates may take time, but they’re certainly worth the wait when they arrive. B&S has improved considerably in pretty much every aspect since I first picked it up and reviewed it back in January 2020.

The visuals have had some impressive overhauls – environmental and character. The inclusion of new armour types. The expanded range of spells and their various applications within combat. There’s been a lot of good stuff added, expanded and improved. But through it all, B&S has still always been just a ‘sandbox’ experience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that – B&S certainly has a decent range of maps to play on and a generous number of sandbox modes to choose from.

But as fun as the sandbox is to mess about in, it doesn’t really keep you playing. There’s no structure to the game. No sense of progression. And B&S doesn’t necessarily need these things – I’d still recommend it without. But when the combat is this enjoyable, it’s a shame there’s not more.

The Dungeons Update is the first step to changing that. Right now, it’s still basically just a sandbox. From the new player home you can pick a new map which loads you into the ‘Dungeon’ – a semi-procedurally generated environment, randomly stitched together from 50 pre-set ‘rooms’.

That sounds like it could result in a ‘dungeon’ that’s something of a mess in terms of environmental design, but it actually works remarkably well and combines the various pieces in a way that almost feels handcrafted. And there’s a great deal of detail put into every piece and a consistent style to their design.

As I said though, it’s still basically just a sandbox. You pick your weapons, enter the map and progress through slaughtering enemies. There is now a ‘stealth’ system of sorts that can let you sneak up and kill them, and some enemies will follow basic patrol paths, but there’s not much more to it.

But there will be, and that’s the exciting thing. There’s now scope to expand the game with some kind of structured progression. Once again, I’m not expecting a massively in-depth, narrative driven campaign, but some kind of level system in which you unlock new weapons and spells as you progress through increasingly complex and difficult randomised dungeons, maybe with a ‘boss’ enemy to fight at the end of each?

That said, what might be the most exciting part of this update is actually . . . a chicken. Why? Because it’s the first non-humanoid model added into B&S and opens the door to a lot more both officially and through mods. In other words, enemy types that aren’t just human in nature. This is a fantasy game, after all, so why not trolls, goblins or even dragons? It’s probably best not to get too carried away, but that little chicken represents a lot of potential going forward.

If you own a VR set then B&S is what I consider a must-have title. It can be demanding if you crank up the enemy count, and you will need some space to play in, but if your system can hack it and you have the room, then be sure to pick it up and give it a spin. It’s already worth the cost, and it’s only going to get better.

Now Playing: Forza Horizon 5

My initial impressions of Forza Horizon 5 were very positive and, after putting another 40 or so hours into the game, that opinion hasn’t really changed. I’ve seen some criticism of FH5 from long term fans of the series in the sense that it’s largely the same game as the last one, only with a new map – and I’m not going to dismiss that criticism. Given what I’ve seen of FH4, they’re probably right.

But as I said in my FI post, I’m new to this series. I didn’t play FH4. Forza Horizon 5 is my first Forza game so all of this is new and fresh to me. And I think that’s an important context to frame before I get stuck into this review.

Forza Horizon 5 has been great and is easily one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s visually impressive and all the more impressive considering how smoothly it runs on my old hardware. It’s a game absolutely packed with content and none of it feels like filler. There’s a massive variety of things to keep you busy – different race types, ‘story’ missions, open world challenges relating to speed, drifting and stunt jumps, multiplayer party games, co-op and pvp racing, seasonal events, community created content and even a kind of silly but fun battle royale mode.

And that’s without even mentioning the custom car tuning and cosmetic customisation which, after getting the hang of, I must have spent hours just fiddling with parts and various settings to get my cars looking and handling exactly how I want. Even after more than 40 hours of play, there’s still so much for me to do and explore.

It’s honestly hard to find much to fault in FH5. I still think there should be a little more guidance for new players – as I said in my FI post, the game doesn’t always explain certain features or modes very well. The multiplayer can take a long time to set up a game leaving you wondering if it’s actually working – but be patient, because it does eventually start.

There’s a great range of options that allow you to set up as many or as few driving aids as you want, in addition to several bot difficulty levels and the harder you make things, the greater your rewards. FH5 lets you play and progress how you want, doing the things you enjoy at whatever difficulty you feel comfortable with. It’s a game that’s extremely accessible to everyone.

Fun is really at the heart of FH5. It’s always rewarding you, even when you crash and roll your car down a volcano. It just wants you to relax and have fun. But don’t get the wrong idea – there’s real challenge here if you want it, too.

I don’t really have much more to say about Forza Horizon 5. I’ve had and continue to have a real blast with the game and I don’t see myself moving on from it anytime soon. There’s still so much for me to do and even once I do finish all the core content, those seasonal challenges will likely have me coming back for more.

Overall, if you’re like me and you’ve never played a Forza game before then I think you’ll probably enjoy this just as much as I did. If you’re a long term fan of the series I can understand why you might find FH5 a little derivative, but even then, it’s hard to deny just how impressive this game is from a visual, audio and technical point of view.

As someone who doesn’t play many racing / driving games these days, Forza Horizon 5 is perfect for me. It’s a welcome change of pace and a refreshingly positive experience.

9/10

Halo Infinite: Multiplayer (BETA)

If you’ve read any of my Halo reviews as I worked my way through the Master Chief Collection you’ll know that I’ve never really been very interested in the multiplayer side of the series. So although I was excited to play the Halo Infinite campaign, I didn’t really have any expectations of or intention to play the MP. No, I expected the MP game I’d really be getting stuck into this Christmas to be Battlefield 2042 . . . and we all know how that turned out.

So with the MP for Halo Infinite releasing in open beta prior to the campaign release, I figured I might as well give it a try. I mean, it couldn’t be any worse than the 2042 beta, right? Well, it’s not. Far from it. I’d actually say this ‘beta’ is more technically polished than many games I’ve played at release. That’s not to say it doesn’t have any issues from a technical / bug / stability point, but they’re pretty minimal and I’m confident the majority of them can be ironed out before the official release.

And, more importantly, unlike 2042, Halo Infinite MP doesn’t have any major or . . . even really minor issues when it comes to the core gameplay. This game feels so good to play. The movement, the shooting, the map and weapon balance. Everything about the gameplay feels so sublime, so carefully considered and deliberate and – most importantly – fun. And maybe that’s because HI: MP takes us back to the basics.

There’s an elegant simplicity to this game. It’s a pure arena shooter that doesn’t rely on spectacle or gimmicks or marketing slogans – BATTLEFIELD MOMENTS! There’s no fancy visual effects. The game doesn’t flood your screen with needless clutter. Everything is so . . . clean and crisp, so easy to read. Maybe it will feel . . . dated, I guess? At least for some players. And I can see people more accustomed to the rapid TTK of games like CoD to absolutely hate it – because Halo has always favoured more precise, tactical play.

Purely in terms of the general game design, I think they’ve really f***king nailed it. It always feels good to play and the more I play, the more I feel I’m improving – learning the maps, learning the weapon spawns, learning how many shots to drop a shield, learning the ideal range for melee – the core might be elegant simplicity, but there’s a lot of depth here, too.

There are a few problems though I do want to mention. Melee connection can, on occasion, feel a little 50 / 50 so that’s something they really need to look at. I tend to prefer ranked play to regular ‘quick’ matches because people do tend to play the objective more – and this is a very objective focused game. However, ranked play has the problem of players either dropping out or getting disconnected at the start of a match and then not being replaced, leading to games that are entirely one sided.

And I have had a few issues with games taking forever to load, only to disconnect at the last moment, or times in a match when there’s a sudden lag spike, totally throwing me off my game. I’m not going to pretend there’s no frustrating little bugs here that need to be worked on but, on the whole, especially compared to that awful 2042 beta, this is still very polished and stable with no obvious, serious issues to resolve.

The game has a decent tutorial and an excellent training mode that lets you fight bots of various skill levels and test / train on any weapon, equipment or map that you want. There’s even a fun series of weapon challenges to play in order to get a feel for how each of them handle. Once your training is out of the way, your first stop will probably be ‘bot boot camp’ which will match you with other players against some mid-level bots.

These matches are a good introduction into the MP and can also be useful as a way to warm up or to knock out some Battle Pass challenges. Then we have Quick Matches which are a 4v4 unranked rotation of Slayer, Capture the Flag, Domination, Oddball and the kind-of-crap One Flag. Ranked play can be set to open input and cross-play, or a solo / duo queue set to either controller or KBM. And finally we have the wonderfully chaotic clusterf**k that is Big Team Battle.

Is Halo Infinite Multiplayer a little thin on the ground in terms of modes and maps? That’s what I’ve seen some people say, but I can’t say I agree. What’s here in this beta is a pretty good start for the game although I do wish there was a way to select what kind of Quick Play matches you’re looking for – a dedicated playlist for each mode would be good.

So let’s talk about the one thing I think pretty much everyone agrees is kind of bad – the Battle Pass. Well, in terms of value and the content you can unlock, I’d say it’s actually pretty decent, and I’d even consider picking it up if the BP progression wasn’t so damn slow. At the time of writing I’ve put 17 hours into this game but I’ve only reached level 9 / 100 in the BP.

Here’s what I think we need – a flat rate of xp for playing a match (they have now added this in, so that’s good) an xp bonus for winning a match, and an xp bonus for coming top of your team – say, 50xp each. This would mean in any given match you would be guaranteed at least 50xp, but could earn 150xp depending upon how you and your team played.

And then we have the challenges. There’s nothing really wrong with the challenge system and I don’t think it needs to be scrapped but what it needs to do is to let me choose what 3 challenges I want active. That way, I can play the modes and matches that I want and enjoy and still level up. Challenges could still give more or less xp depending upon their difficulty, but this way you wouldn’t be stuck with one.

I guess if they did that then they couldn’t sell ‘challenge swaps’ but maybe they could then be used to open a new list of challenges to choose from? I don’t think the system is broken but it does need tweaking. I understand they don’t want people to race through the BP too quickly, but there needs to be a balance and there needs to be some way for the player to progress in the way they prefer, not whatever challenges the game randomly decides to throw at them.

Overall though I’ve been having a lot of fun with the Halo Infinite MP beta. I don’t know for how long it will hold my attention, but I’m glad I’ve played it and given how good the combat feels, I’m even more excited to play the campaign.

Now Playing: The Last Autumn & On The Edge (DLC)

I really did enjoy playing Frostpunk when I claimed a free copy through the Epic Store earlier this year. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that I decided to pick up the complete edition when it went on sale recently on Steam. If you’ve read my original review you’ll know that, despite liking the main A New Home scenario, I felt the following scenarios – The Arks, The Refugees and The Fall of Winterhome – stretched the gameplay mechanics to the limit.

I said that – ‘The game was clearly designed around the main scenario and everything else feels kind of stuck rigidly around that, and not in a way that entirely works. It’s like a small game trying to be bigger and more expansive than the mechanics really allow.’

Of the additional scenarios, The Fall of Winterhome is by far the most interesting to play, but it does still rely upon the same mechanics and system of progression that you’re already very familiar with. So I was very curious about the two paid DLC scenarios – The Last Autumn and On The Edge. Do they provide a new twist on the Frostpunk formula, or are they just more of the same?

The Last Autumn serves as a prequel to the New Home scenario. Set before the Great Frost, you’re tasked with building a generator that will one day be used to support a city. Initially, the cold isn’t a concern, although the temperature does drop dramatically during the latter stages of the scenario. So it’s not heat that you need to manage in order to progress and survive – but safety.

Yes, safety. You’re essentially a workplace safety officer trying to build the generator before the Great Frost arrives but in a way that doesn’t kill half your workers. Well . . . that’s actually up to you. You can endanger your workers if you like, exposing them to the risks of fire, structural collapse and toxic gas all so you can build the generator faster, or . . .

You can invest in safety equipment, construct ventilators to improve air quality and sign laws to enable shorter working shifts so your people aren’t pushed quite so hard. It is, of course, a balancing act. You have a limited time to construct the generator and ‘acceptable losses’ may be required to get the job done.

But here’s where this scenario gets more interesting – your workers and your engineers will have their own opinion on how to proceed and how valuable they are to the project. Workers might go on strike, forcing you to negotiate with them, offering them increased rations or even a day off. Of course, you can just crack down on them hard and start executing one every day until they learn their lesson and get back to work.

Like the New Home scenario, The Last Autumn is all about making hard choices in order to survive. It’s about putting you in a position where there aren’t always clearly right or wrong decisions. There’s new technologies to research, new buildings to construct, new laws to pass and a new map to explore.

And then we have On The Edge which serves as a sequel scenario to A New Home. You’ve been sent to set up an outpost at an old military facility in order to transfer resources (steel and steam cores) back to New London. But New London begins to make increasingly unpopular demands of you and your people so you decide to go it alone.

The problem is, you have no generator, no source of food and only a limited source of wood. And this is where the new settlements system comes into play. By sending out scouts and construction teams you can contact and build trading outposts within three other settlements, each of which are willing to provide you with coal, wood, workers and raw food.

These resources don’t come for free as each settlement has its own needs and a list of ‘upgrades’ you can help them construct in order to increase their output. Eventually, you’ll build a ‘safe’ route between your outpost and theirs, enabling them to send a regular shipment of their primary resource.

Eventually, New London contacts you asking for your help and you can either choose to save them – with the help of your new allies – or to let them fall. If your allies do help it will be dependent upon how ‘loyal’ they are to you – in other words, how much you’ve invested in upgrading their camps.

This all might sound like quite a new way to play but I can’t say it’s actually very interesting. Once you’ve got trade established, it’s really just a game of transferring one resource from one settlement to another based upon what you and they need. Your own settlement won’t really expand or evolve much because . . . it doesn’t really need to. It also physically can’t because of how limited the play area is – you’re literally On The Edge of a cliff.

Aside from the settlement stuff which is pretty limited and simple, there’s not really anything new in On The Edge and it’s probably not something you’ll play more than once or twice. Out of these two paid scenarios, The Last Autumn is easily the more engaging to play although it does unfortunately suffer from the same problem A New Home does.

Like A New Home, The Last Autumn plays out more like a puzzle that you need to solve. It’s fun as you figure things out and the game throws unexpected challenges at you, but once you’ve gone through it once, there’s not really any more surprises. You know what to do and how to do it and it’s really just a matter of finding a more efficient way of doing things.

Overall, I’m glad I picked up this complete version of Frostpunk. The extra scenarios, whilst not amazing, are still a good addition and provide their own unique variations on the core mechanics. I think if you’ve played the base game, they’re certainly worth getting on sale. And if you don’t already own Frostpunk, I’d certainly recommend picking up the complete version. There’s plenty here to keep you busy.

The Last Autumn – 7/10 On The Edge – 5/10

Forza Horizon 5: First Impressions

Forza Horizon 5 is the first Forza game I’ve played so, as you can probably guess, I’m not the best person to tell you if it’s a good one or not – at least in comparison to previous games in the series. I’m also not really a big fan of racing games in general. I used to play them a lot more when I was younger, but I don’t think I’ve played more than a handful in the last decade or so which means that I’m also not the best person to review this one – at least in comparison to other contemporary racers.

So why did I even buy it? I guess I had an itch for a racing game and everything I’d seen about Forza Horizon 5 looked pretty good. I jumped in blind, more or less, not even sure if I’d really like it or not but I’m pleased to say my initial impressions are very positive.

Calling Forza Horizon 5 a ‘racing game’ doesn’t quite feel appropriate. I guess ‘driving game’ might be the more suitable label because although there’s a lot of racing in FH5, there’s also a lot of other stuff too.

Before I get stuck into talking about the game, I really want to touch upon the performance. I’m playing Forza on what is now a 9 year old system which, although I’ve made a few upgrades down the years, isn’t exactly cutting edge. Despite that, I’ve been playing FH5 on Ultra settings at a crisp 60FPS. Granted, that’s at 1080p, but I’m still pretty impressed.

Visually, FH5 looks fantastic. The environment and cars, as you’d expect, look great. The only weak aspect when it comes to the visuals are the character models, although I guess they’re not exactly important – but they do look kind of bad compared to everything else.

The game has an impressive opening as you quickly switch between different cars in different parts of the open world map to showcase the variety of environments, vehicles and driving styles. Once that’s out of the way and you’ve finished a couple of ‘story’ based missions, the game opens up and drops a lot of content on you – so much, it’s almost overwhelming.

You’ve got the ‘story’ missions which have a basic kind of narrative to them and these unlock different ‘outposts’ which in turn unlock even more open world stuff to get stuck into – all the different race types, open world activities and collectibles. As you play you’ll earn experience to level up and cash to spend on new cars or upgrades. You also have skill points you can invest in your favourite rides to further boost their experience gain from performing various feats.

You can tune and customise cars to an impressive degree and that’s something I’ve only messed around with a little because I really have no clue what the f**k I’m doing. There’s ‘seasonal’ objectives you can complete for points to earn more cars. There’s a system for building your own custom tracks and sharing them with others. There’s a fun photo mode. There’s a range of multiplayer options ranging from standard races to party games to a battle royale style mode. There’s lots of stuff, so much stuff that it takes a little time to figure out the best way to tackle it all.

And I’m really enjoying it. The variety is great. The challenges are fun. There’s a lot of options to customise your difficulty which in turns boosts the experience you can earn – I’m currently playing on ‘above average’ for AI settings, but there’s about 5 more levels beyond that. There’s always something new to see and do and unlock. It’s been great.

My main criticism of FH5 so far would be that there’s no proper kind of ‘driving school’ tutorial system that really breaks down the different car types, or lets you practice drifting, or explains how to tune your cars to make them better for one kind of race or another. It also doesn’t explain certain features very well – the first time I tried the battle royale mode, I really had no clue what the f**k I was supposed to be doing.

FH5 is a game I’ve had to regularly Alt-Tab out of to check out a guide or a video to explain something and that’s not really ideal. I also can’t say I’ve enjoyed any of the online races I’ve tried yet because even at release I’m coming up against players over level 100 with their own custom tuned cars whilst I’m stuck with a stock rental. Even when I race well in a car I’ve not driven before, half the time I get a DNF because they’re so f**king far ahead.

I’m sure as I progress and unlock new cars and get accustomed to tuning them I’ll be able to enter these races and be more competitive, but right now it just feels like a waste of time.

Despite that, I really hooked on FH5 right now and it’s honestly hard to pull myself away. It’s engaging and addictive and there’s so much fun stuff to get stuck into – I can see myself putting a lot more time into this.

Now Playing: Tales of Arise

Because I can’t remember if I actually played Tales of Symphonia or not, I’m going to say that Tales of Arise is the first Tales game I’ve played and as such, I’m not really the best person to say if it’s a good ‘Tales’ game or not. I can’t compare it to other games in the series. I can’t say what it does better or worse. All I can can do is review what I played, and what I played I really enjoyed.

Tales of Arise begins with a mysterious masked slave living in the harsh realm of Calaglia. ‘Iron Mask’ doesn’t remember anything about his past, at least not until he encounters Shionne, a Renan woman on the run from her own kind. The Renans have enslaved the people of Dahna for 300 years, harvesting their astral energy as part of a contest to determine their next Sovereign.

The Renans come from the artificial moon of Lenegis, and they divided Dahna into five realms, each controlled by a Lord tasked within harvesting astral energy of a certain elemental type – fire, water, earth, wind and light. Iron Mask, who we later come to know as Alphen, decides to join the local resistance against the Lord of Calaglia, aided by Shionne.

As you can probably guess, the Lord is defeated, but then Alphen sets his sights on liberating all of Dahna, which means travelling to four other realms and defeating four other Lords, each with an affinity for a particular type of astral energy. Shionne has her own reasons for fighting against her own people, reasons that become more clear as you progress.

As far as setting up the plot goes, it seems fairly obvious how the rest of the game will play out. The first region is ‘fire’ based, so most of the enemies you’ll fight will have a weakness to water based attacks. The next is a region blanketed by snow so – you guessed it – fire is now your friend. As you progress through each realm you’ll encounter new characters who will join your party and your fight against the Renans.

It might sound fairly by the numbers but the game does eventually go in a direction that you might not expect. Liberating all of the realms isn’t the end of the story – far from it. There’s a lot more to the game and the story beyond this that I’m not going to spoil. And the story can get surprisingly dark at times, exploring themes like slavery, exploitation and genocide.

Overall, I really liked the story and the characters and the direction the game takes. I do have my issues with various aspects of it and I’d probably be dead of alcohol poisoning if I took a shot every time Alphen says ‘Shionne . . .’ in his concerned voice but overall, I liked it. If I had one major criticism of the story, it’s the pacing once you finish the fifth realm.

There’s a section beyond this where you feel like you’re just running from one cut-scene to another for a couple of hours. It’s just an endless series of info dumps and exposition scenes to set up the third and final act. The game also, for some bizarre reason, unlocks a lot of post-game content at this stage, but because there’s no indication for what a quest’s recommended level is, you’ll waste a lot of time travelling to these quests, only to discover they’re intended to be played post-game when you’re 10-20 levels higher.

Tales of Arise isn’t open world, more a series of smaller, interconnected levels which works quite well. It is a fairly linear path through each environment, but there are times where that path will branch, offering alternative ways forward, or optional enemies to fight in exchange for various rewards. And the environments, it must be said, look fantastic. The game uses this lovely ‘watercolour’ style and because each level is fairly small, they’re all well designed and highly detailed.

The character models are anime-as-fuck and they all look good, but I do wish there was a lot more costume / armour variations. The vast majority of armour you’ll buy or discover won’t actually have a visual model – they’re purely stat based. In fact, even by the end of the game you won’t have a great deal of choice when it comes to your character’s appearance. I do like that you can set their visual appearance separately to their equipped gear, but the range of gear that actually has a distinct visual appearance (and isn’t just a differently coloured reskin) is disappointingly small.

The enemies you’ll fight are all pretty cool, although there are a lot of reskins here too. As you might guess, you get elemental variations of a lot of the basic enemy types – the fire bird, the ice bird etc. But there are a good selection of unique enemies – Gigant Zeugles – to fight beyond the story based boss characters too.

In terms of side content, there are 70 side quests to work through which mostly just involve collecting various items (which you’ll probably already have if you harvested the previous area thoroughly) or killing specific enemies. There’s an arena based ‘training ground’ where you can engage in solo challenges for each one of your six party members, or a series of group fights. These are worth doing if you want to unlock more cosmetic customisation options for your characters and also for experimenting with each party member and their unique skills.

There’s also a lot of really enjoyable post-game content to work through and I’m pleased to say, none of it feels like a grind. I finished the main quest around level 60, but the game has a level cap of 100. I was worried the post-game content would just be one long grind but you actually have a series of fairly short but enjoyable dungeons to work through and you’ll level up to around 90 or so without the need to repeat any content or grind any enemies.

The only time I needed to grind a little was right at the very end when I was level 95 and I’d completed absolutely everything else – I just had to fight the final ‘secret’ boss 3-4 times to push me up to the level cap. And I’m not someone who typically bothers too much with post-game stuff. But I liked Tales of Arise enough to do everything – even the fishing. And I think that’s because Arise didn’t waste my time.

It always gave me new content to explore appropriate for my level from beginning to end. It didn’t require me to grind for experience, gear or items. It gave me a generous amount of fast travel points on each map so I didn’t have to waste time backtracking through previous areas. Even the fishing mini-game accommodates the player by telling them exactly what kind of fish are in each location and marking each type off as you catch them so you’re never struggling to recall what you need or where.

What really keeps you playing Arise though is the combat. You begin with just Alphen to control, but by the time you reach the fourth realm you’ll have a party of 6. You can switch between characters at will during a fight in order to utilise each character’s specific skills to their best effect. You have a basic combo move and you can set 3 different ‘artes’ for ground based attacks, and 3 for air. Later, you’ll unlock the ability to have a second set you can switch to on the fly for a total of 12 possible active artes per character, per battle.

The artes are your primary way to deal damage and chaining them together builds up your combo. They come in the elemental variations that you’d expect, so utilising the right kind of arte against the right kind of enemy is important – and you can switch them in and out mid-battle as much as you want. As you attack enemies each member of your party will build their ‘boost’ meter and once that’s full you can trigger a special attack. Boost moves aren’t just about dealing damage though as each character has a boost attack for a very specific purpose – one is used for breaking armour, another to interrupt enemy spell casting – so you need to use them at the right time targeting the right enemy for them to be effective.

Your artes cost ‘AG’ points to use and when you run out you’ll have to resort to regular attacks to recharge them – but you’ll likely also lose your combo. However, activating a boost attack at just the right time can immediately restore your AG, letting you keep pummelling away.

When you attack an enemy and whittle away at its health you’ll build a separate combo bar which, when full, will let you activate a ‘tag’ special move in which two of your characters (somewhat randomised, based on who you initially choose) will unleash a devastating attack. Your party can also enter an ‘overlimit’ mode in which artes no longer cost AG points to use, and by performing a combo combining a certain number of different artes, you can perform another special, very damaging attack.

As you can guess, it’s quite a lot to keep track of and when all of these various artes are popping off all over your screen at once, it can get a little crazy. But the game does ease you into all of this madness by starting you off with only Alphen and a limited number of skills. Of course, Alphen himself has some unique abilities in combat, with the ability to utilise the ‘blazing sword’ which can massively increase his damage output at the cost of his health.

Alphen is, more or less, the main guy you’ll play as because a) his boost ability to immediately down pretty much any enemy is by far the most valuable and b) his blazing sword is by far the fastest way to inflict heavy damage. That said, there will be fights and particular enemy types where it’s actually much easier and more efficient to switch to one of the other characters, or switch between them as the fight progresses. This will, however, depend upon your chosen difficulty.

Difficulty doesn’t really impact anything in Arise – I think you earn a little more level experience / sp points (used to unlock skills) per fight, but the difference is negligible. So you really can play on whatever you find comfortable but I’d actually recommend playing Arise on the Hard difficulty because that’s where, I think, the combat becomes a lot more interesting. On lower difficulties you can pretty much just button mash your way through fights. It’ll look cool, no doubt, thanks to the flashy animations, but it’s not much of a challenge.

On hard though, that’s when you really do need to think about how to approach each fight – which character will be most effective to control, who to switch to as the fight progresses, the timing of boost attacks and ensuring you have the right artes equipped based on the enemy’s elemental weakness. It’s also more important to set up your party tactics – specifically when to use certain items or healing spells based on the percentage of damage you’ve taken. You have a limited pool of ‘CP’ points in a fight you can draw from for healing spells, so you need to use them carefully.

Oh, I almost forgot! There’s also a perfect dodge mechanic in Arise which, if performed correctly, can trigger a damaging counter-attack. I knew I was forgetting something.

Party AI, when you’re not controlling them, is . . . okay. It’s not amazing, but it does the job. They don’t tend to prioritise artes with an elemental focus against an enemy weak to that type of damage, so that’s why it’s important to manually turn artes on and off for them when you’re not controlling them directly. They can also be really bad at the aforementioned dodging.

And this is why, even though I’d recommend playing on Hard, don’t be ashamed to knock it back down to Normal if a fight feels like too much of a grind. I had to for a couple of the Lord fights when they kept unleashing devastating AoE attacks that would totally wipe the other members of my party because rather than dodging, they’d just stand there and . . . die. You can only babysit them so much before it gets kind of annoying.

Overall, the combat has a lot of components, and it might sound kind of confusing, but the game does ease you into things, one step at a time, and by the time you reach the end of the game, you’ll be managing all of this stuff without any trouble. There’s a ‘flow’ to combat, a groove that you just kind of slip into – switching between characters, chaining together a combo, activating boost attacks, triggering a counter before finishing an enemy with a special before switching targets and moving onto the next. It’s great.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with Tales of Arise. I liked the world, the story, the characters, the visuals, the music and – most importantly – the combat. My only real issues are the lack of cosmetic armour options and those few hours of what feel like endless cut-scenes following the fifth realm that totally kills the pace. Oh, and don’t be put off by all the DLC shit. The level boosts and gold packs really aren’t necessary at all so don’t worry about that. I can’t say if Tales of Arise is a good Tales game or not compared to others in the series, but I can say I really enjoyed it and would recommend it.

8/10