Yeah, I dropped it 25-30 hours in. Graphics were great but that was it. The story and characters were really weak. Combat was really good…..like every Tales game for me. Music…existed. What they did to skits was a travesty and I pray to every deity ever conceived that the next game goes back to the standard skits. I was really let down by this one.
For me (mind you, I’ve not played Legendia or the earlier 2D entries), I find Abyss, Berseria, Vesperia, and Symphonia (in that order) to be the true excellent Tales games. Xillia was really good but unremarkable. Graces F had possibly the best combat of the series but the story was meh and the cast was of mixed quality (Pascal was awesome, most everyone else was okay, and Cheria can fuck off for all eternity). Zesteria was a mixed bag all over that it was overall fine but oof did some shit need fixing in that game in all areas. And Xillia 2 was a lazy cash grab whose locations were just 90% directly ripped from the first game, only thing good about it was it did develop the cast more (though way to fail in doing a silent lead, they should have taken real notes on how Persona does it) but I was too bored revisiting every damn area to care.
Arise wasn’t awful by any means, but I’ve had better experiences with virtually every entry I’ve played. I can only hope they listen to criticisms people have and do better with future entries. This was not impressive for what some were claiming was going to be the “comeback of the series” (which I disagree with anyway, Berseria kicked ass!)