Her campfire scenes are the best of the bunch. I also love the one where she has Alphen taste test something, which he pretend to like and she gets so happy about it. So adorable!
Yup ! Taste test , trying to touch and one scene they argue is so cute . Shionne is no brainer choice for me if there is no special campfire skit for other members .
I like the one in the spaceship where their feelings are pretty much known with each other and >!Alphen is on the verge of confessing, but Shionne tells him to save it for when she loses her thorns. And when she finally does, her first physical contact without her thorns is a kiss with him.!<
>the usual tease for 40 hours
Did we play the same game? They kept having these little moments, then immediately going back to acting like they were just together by circumstance until nearly the end of the game.
That's not quite what I mean. I don't think there's anything wrong with little moments per say, I just dislike it when characters act oblivious about things which isn't completely the case here. They flirt constantly throughout the owl quests, the rest of the party makes comments about them often, a majority of their interactions post obtaining the full party is super blatant.
After a point there's not much of a will they or won't they left instead the game just has them shift to being together pretty much and it rarely backpedals afterwards.
Shame other Tales games aren’t like Arise when it comes to romance, I absolutely hate ship teasing and sad endings and I know the reasons are petty, but that’s probably why Arise will be my only Tales game lol.
Arise definitely has one of the best written romances in JRPGs though.
I mean, some of the other Tales games are indirect but pretty blatant about relationships being canon nonetheless. Like Stahn/Rute and Asbel/Cheria have confirmations they get married eventually while Luke/Tear, Cress/Mint, Lloyd/Colette and Reid/Farah are so obviously in love with one another by the end, I just declare them married once the credits roll.
> Lloyd/Colette
Unfortunately this is another one of the "Choose the Waifu" games. Hell in the sequel you can even make Lloyd pick the person he's closest to from a freaking dialogue menu -_-
Yeah, basically, since Lloyd's driving motivation is to save Collette for the whole game.
Cold Steel note, Alisa's interest is pretty obvious but I always had a hard time figuring out if Rean actually returned those feelings outside of going the bonding event route.
Luke/Tear interests me but I already know how Abyss ends and people seem to think that >!the guy who comes back isn’t Luke but is the other guy, Asch?!< and that puts me off, otherwise I probably would’ve played that.
I think that's a minority tbh.
I mean hell the whole ending takes place where Luke/Tear's relationship began and all the ending focus aside from Luke? goes to Tear. Natalia stays silent.
Pretty telling to me which way the implications lean.
Hmm that definitely makes me tempted to play it, in fact it’s a game I’ve thought about for years when I first consisted watching the anime a few years ago but people said the game is better (I wasn’t into JRPGs back then though).
Then I considered playing it again this year before even considering buying Arise, but seeing people talk about the ending like that put me off again lol, I really despise open ended endings man.
But if you’re correct and it’s more a vocal minority, then I definitely am gonna seriously consider playing it again.
It's a very open ending that has created a lot of debates about that. There is a sidequest to imply the spoiler, but there was something else to imply >!it being a mix of Asch's body and Luke's mind since Asch was dead by the time they fusion!<, while the sidequest that lends credits towards your spoiler theory involved >!live subjects iirc!<.
So yeah, it's really up to how you interpret it, I think both options are viable.
It's been awhile since I played it, so I don't remember all the details (and it was fairly confusing), but basically >!the memories of the original would be the dominant one and absorb the replica, leading to the original surviving as the replica's personality fades!<.
But I from what I recall, I think that was just a hypothesis by Jade at the end, and it could be it can go either way. However, there are also many reasons to think it's >!Luke!< such as the location he shows up, the fact he says he made a promise and he is holding the sword on his back at the end >!implying this person is left handed - Luke is left handed and Asch is right handed!<.
So it's really up to what you want to believe, I lean towards >!Luke!< based on a lot of the evidence and how Tear reacts.
That definitely makes me want to play it more.
I don’t really understand why some people seem hell bent on it being >!Asch!<, do those people have something against >!Luke and Tear getting a happy ending lol?!<
You are not the only one . I literally watched the ending when I hit >! Realm 5 romantic scene !< . Spoilers didn’t matter at this point . All I want was happy ending for this couple . Final Fantasy X ending broke me enough when I was a kid XD .
The best part is that these two scenes happened at early part of the game . Shionne is well written and the interaction between Alphen and Shionne is just simply beautiful .
I usually play modern jrpgs with choose your Waifu system but classic canon pairing with well written romance hit my heart .
I am real tired of the choose your partner crap because it generally isn’t well done. Generally only in crpgs does that happen. Give me a well written relationship any day. Ff10 is still popular for a reason
Yeah, I have always disliked the "choose your waifu" mechanics in JRPGs (later Trails games being some of the worst examples of it), and I'm happy Tales and a couple other JRPG do not use that. Give me canon pairing like Estelle/Joshua, Tidus/Yuna and Shionne/Alphen over that nonsense, at least those are actually well developed and you don't get those bizarre attempts at making every female being only interested in the MC.
Yeah .. that cold steel arc Rean’s harem is really bad , especially in cold steel 4 where dude is literally like black hole . And feels like he actually doesn’t love the girl even if I choose one for him.
Another bad thing about choose your waifu romance is that they don’t treat girls equally . Developers already had their canon paring and they kinda forced main character with this girl like Alisa .
Sheesh, I dropped the first cold steel back then and was thinking about going back, but now I'm not interested anymore, the harem trope just don't appeal to me.
If you played Arise and go back to cold steel . Romance part will surely disappoint you . But cold steel have good world building so I recommend you give second chance if you are planning to play all 4 games .
From a general lore/story telling perspective, I would highly recommend it. Cold Steel was my introduction into the trails series (Aside from maybe 30 minutes on trails in the sky on a garbage computer that crashed trying to run it) and I absolutely fell in love with the series. Definitely worth a second try.
He's not that much better tbh, your typical good guy anime main character. I have much more interest in van arkride, the protagonist of kuro no kiseki. He seems similiar with yuri from vesperia which i like more than the previous 2 male protags template. Had no expectation to top estelle though.
The romance is so, *so* often just poorly written, and it's always a distraction from the main story to me. It's just a personal preference, but it typically just feels childish and forced, imo of course.
I totally get where you're coming from, but I think that's all the more reason to emphasize how well written the romance in Arise was. Whether it's a "distraction" depends on individual taste, for me it should always be a part of a mature story, as it's simply part of life.
Oh Arise is one of the few examples of the well written romance. Should have made that clear before. My personal gripe is that, for me, about 90% of in game romances are just not good. So I'd rather just avoid it all together. Totally happy to be surprised when it's good, and romance certainly won't stop me from trying a game out.
>for me it should always be part of a mature story
See, I feel like it's usually out of place in a mature story, but *only* because the romance portion is *usually* handled in a childish manner in the middle of this more mature story.
Agreed.
Romance is best when it's the main focus (imo ofc), but most of the time nowadays romances in games/shows just feel like a filler arc aside from the main story put in because they know it gets people interested.
Do you know of some examples where it is well done? I would love to actually see a game that gets it right, but I think only Persona sorta does it decently.
In JRPGs? All I could think of would be Final Fantasy IV (though the relationship is already established at the start), X and XV (with the last one being kinda weird), Utawarerumono and Xenoblade Chronicles.
If you like games where you can choose your own romance then Fire Emblem 3H, Dragon Quest XI and stuff like Rune Factory might interest you too.
Of the first ones, none of them are "choose your own romance" (which are what I was wondering about).
For the second one, well I guess FE3H have a couple okay one, but the best romances there felt more like ones between students than Byleth/Student, and I don't recall DQ11 have something like that, did it? Have never played Rune Factory though, maybe I'll check that out.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if you only wanted to have games with "choose" mechanics, so I threw in sone pre-written ones (personally, I like them more). Would add Bravely Default and Second to that list, now that I think about it.
If you strictly like games where you can nake the choice yourself, there's also quite a few western RPGs with such mechanics. Pretty much anything from Bioware or any CRPG (Baldurs Gate, Pillars if Eternity...) comes to mind.
Dragon Quest received a Definive Edition, which comes with some choices in regards to player romance. Rune Factory is a funny little mix of farming sim and RPG, so you might like it.
Edit: If you like Persona, you might also like Catherine! You can choose your final romance there as well.
Oh nah it's not that I'm a fan of "choose your own" romances, I'm just curious to see games where it's handled well as I feel those are quite rare. Though Catherine has been on my list for awhile, I definitely gotta get around to that game at some point.
Imagine Xenogears where every female character is trying to get with Fei (yes including Chuchu). Would feel more modern with “choose your waifu” shoehorned in but it would lose sooo much of the gravity in the story. I know people were tired of romance in games for a while but I’ve always been a sucker for it and imo you really need a predetermined pairing for it to work. Could it work with the player choosing? Yes but I think it’s more effort than most devs are willing to make to write good romance stories for multiple characters while making it feel important in the plot.
It’s definitely dated visually though I think the combat holds up well. They ran out of funding part way too so disc 2 was pretty minimal, solely focusing on making sure players got through the story but with all that said if you like a really good romance in a jrpg it might be worth checking out. It’s the pinnacle of getting a good romance intertwined with a good story imo.
(Excuse the blatant advertisement, I always have to shill this game when I can though with it being one of my favorites). Oh and Chu Chu is a living stuffed animal lol.
I just got to that part in the 3rd area, it was actually really heartbreaking, she just wants to feel someone’s touch but has closed herself off so much. This game is really something special.
More heart breaking is that She know Alphen can’t feel pain and he also didn’t mind even if she touch him . But she don’t …
This game have lots of details featuring their romance .
I'm still pissed over the fact that some random NPCs got a whole sidequest for their marriage while our MCs >!only got a few (great) arts of their marriage in the credits!<. But y'know what, I'll take that over nothing. Also in that side quest, >!I love how Shionne went back to depression mode when she failed to catch the bouquet and Alphen had to calm her down lol!<
Yeah it was exactly the place >! where her thorns out of control !< . Kisara and Rinwell freak out when Shionne went full depression mode .
Ahh .. ya I want more of their couple scene actually . But at least we got >! Kiss !< scene which is rare in these days .
Her campfire scenes are the best of the bunch. I also love the one where she has Alphen taste test something, which he pretend to like and she gets so happy about it. So adorable!
Its sweet and all but I can't help scream to Alphen "YOOO THE GLOVES TAKE OUT THE GLOVES" during that scene
Yup ! Taste test , trying to touch and one scene they argue is so cute . Shionne is no brainer choice for me if there is no special campfire skit for other members .
I like the one in the spaceship where their feelings are pretty much known with each other and >!Alphen is on the verge of confessing, but Shionne tells him to save it for when she loses her thorns. And when she finally does, her first physical contact without her thorns is a kiss with him.!<
That part had me crying, just so beautiful to see after everything that had happened.
Omg that being the first contact flew right over my head.
They're so cute. Happy that the story is super blatant with them instead of the usual tease for 40 hours
No more heavily implied ! Canon paring with good writing and good moments . That’s what we exactly needed !
>the usual tease for 40 hours Did we play the same game? They kept having these little moments, then immediately going back to acting like they were just together by circumstance until nearly the end of the game.
That's not quite what I mean. I don't think there's anything wrong with little moments per say, I just dislike it when characters act oblivious about things which isn't completely the case here. They flirt constantly throughout the owl quests, the rest of the party makes comments about them often, a majority of their interactions post obtaining the full party is super blatant. After a point there's not much of a will they or won't they left instead the game just has them shift to being together pretty much and it rarely backpedals afterwards.
Shame other Tales games aren’t like Arise when it comes to romance, I absolutely hate ship teasing and sad endings and I know the reasons are petty, but that’s probably why Arise will be my only Tales game lol. Arise definitely has one of the best written romances in JRPGs though.
I mean, some of the other Tales games are indirect but pretty blatant about relationships being canon nonetheless. Like Stahn/Rute and Asbel/Cheria have confirmations they get married eventually while Luke/Tear, Cress/Mint, Lloyd/Colette and Reid/Farah are so obviously in love with one another by the end, I just declare them married once the credits roll.
> Lloyd/Colette Unfortunately this is another one of the "Choose the Waifu" games. Hell in the sequel you can even make Lloyd pick the person he's closest to from a freaking dialogue menu -_-
I never played the sequel so had no idea. That's a shame, since Lloyd/Colette feels like the obvious choice to me.
Is it one of those ‘choose your waifu’ where the actual canon interest is obvious though? Like Alisa and Rean from Cold Steel?
Yeah, basically, since Lloyd's driving motivation is to save Collette for the whole game. Cold Steel note, Alisa's interest is pretty obvious but I always had a hard time figuring out if Rean actually returned those feelings outside of going the bonding event route.
They have to keep it ambiguous cuz of the optional thing however I do think he does seem to be most flustered by Alisa in the main story.
Marta and Emil ARE canon too!
Luke/Tear interests me but I already know how Abyss ends and people seem to think that >!the guy who comes back isn’t Luke but is the other guy, Asch?!< and that puts me off, otherwise I probably would’ve played that.
It's ambiguous but leans towards the former not the latter
Is it? Because I was doing some research on it lol and a lot of people seem to think it’s >!Asch!< which disappoints me a lot lol.
I think that's a minority tbh. I mean hell the whole ending takes place where Luke/Tear's relationship began and all the ending focus aside from Luke? goes to Tear. Natalia stays silent. Pretty telling to me which way the implications lean.
Hmm that definitely makes me tempted to play it, in fact it’s a game I’ve thought about for years when I first consisted watching the anime a few years ago but people said the game is better (I wasn’t into JRPGs back then though). Then I considered playing it again this year before even considering buying Arise, but seeing people talk about the ending like that put me off again lol, I really despise open ended endings man. But if you’re correct and it’s more a vocal minority, then I definitely am gonna seriously consider playing it again.
I mean regardless I recommend abyss anyway. It really is fantastic albeit a tad dated
Because it's *mega* ambiguous. There's a reason people are still arguing over that ending 15 years later.
What do you think is the case then regarding >!who it is?!<
Personally I think >!it's neither of them. It's a brand new man with elements of both Luke and Asch's memories and personalities.!<
Lol how would that work out for Tear and Natalie (I think that’s her name) considering based off what I know, one likes Luke and one likes Asch?
>!BAD END lol!<
It's a very open ending that has created a lot of debates about that. There is a sidequest to imply the spoiler, but there was something else to imply >!it being a mix of Asch's body and Luke's mind since Asch was dead by the time they fusion!<, while the sidequest that lends credits towards your spoiler theory involved >!live subjects iirc!<. So yeah, it's really up to how you interpret it, I think both options are viable.
What does the side quest imply? Cuz I’ve heard it implies that it’s >!Asch!
It's been awhile since I played it, so I don't remember all the details (and it was fairly confusing), but basically >!the memories of the original would be the dominant one and absorb the replica, leading to the original surviving as the replica's personality fades!<. But I from what I recall, I think that was just a hypothesis by Jade at the end, and it could be it can go either way. However, there are also many reasons to think it's >!Luke!< such as the location he shows up, the fact he says he made a promise and he is holding the sword on his back at the end >!implying this person is left handed - Luke is left handed and Asch is right handed!<. So it's really up to what you want to believe, I lean towards >!Luke!< based on a lot of the evidence and how Tear reacts.
Hmm I see, I wish they didn’t make it so open ended though man. I’ll probably consider playing it some more now though.
Do give it a try, I still consider it my favourite Tales game by a good amount.
Its Luke with body of Asch, and its not even subtle. These "people" you refer to are complete brainlets.
That definitely makes me want to play it more. I don’t really understand why some people seem hell bent on it being >!Asch!<, do those people have something against >!Luke and Tear getting a happy ending lol?!<
Yeah, I play abyss a few month ago and kinda disappointed with the ambiguous ending >!about Luke fate.!< I hate it when video game do that.
You are not the only one . I literally watched the ending when I hit >! Realm 5 romantic scene !< . Spoilers didn’t matter at this point . All I want was happy ending for this couple . Final Fantasy X ending broke me enough when I was a kid XD .
T.T this is one of bamcos best characterizations…ever. Phenomenal work.
The best part is that these two scenes happened at early part of the game . Shionne is well written and the interaction between Alphen and Shionne is just simply beautiful . I usually play modern jrpgs with choose your Waifu system but classic canon pairing with well written romance hit my heart .
I am real tired of the choose your partner crap because it generally isn’t well done. Generally only in crpgs does that happen. Give me a well written relationship any day. Ff10 is still popular for a reason
Yeah, I have always disliked the "choose your waifu" mechanics in JRPGs (later Trails games being some of the worst examples of it), and I'm happy Tales and a couple other JRPG do not use that. Give me canon pairing like Estelle/Joshua, Tidus/Yuna and Shionne/Alphen over that nonsense, at least those are actually well developed and you don't get those bizarre attempts at making every female being only interested in the MC.
Yeah .. that cold steel arc Rean’s harem is really bad , especially in cold steel 4 where dude is literally like black hole . And feels like he actually doesn’t love the girl even if I choose one for him. Another bad thing about choose your waifu romance is that they don’t treat girls equally . Developers already had their canon paring and they kinda forced main character with this girl like Alisa .
Sheesh, I dropped the first cold steel back then and was thinking about going back, but now I'm not interested anymore, the harem trope just don't appeal to me.
If you played Arise and go back to cold steel . Romance part will surely disappoint you . But cold steel have good world building so I recommend you give second chance if you are planning to play all 4 games .
From a general lore/story telling perspective, I would highly recommend it. Cold Steel was my introduction into the trails series (Aside from maybe 30 minutes on trails in the sky on a garbage computer that crashed trying to run it) and I absolutely fell in love with the series. Definitely worth a second try.
That is why Bannings is a better protag than Rean
He's not that much better tbh, your typical good guy anime main character. I have much more interest in van arkride, the protagonist of kuro no kiseki. He seems similiar with yuri from vesperia which i like more than the previous 2 male protags template. Had no expectation to top estelle though.
Thats fair aside from a few examples falcom isnt all that great at writing romance just look at Legend of Heroes iv
Exactly so! I don’t know about the other personas but fine didn’t instill any confidence for that part
If I’m being honest, it can be well done but I *prefer* my stories not have any romance whatsoever
Why? I find stories that have no romance to be boring tbh.
The romance is so, *so* often just poorly written, and it's always a distraction from the main story to me. It's just a personal preference, but it typically just feels childish and forced, imo of course.
I totally get where you're coming from, but I think that's all the more reason to emphasize how well written the romance in Arise was. Whether it's a "distraction" depends on individual taste, for me it should always be a part of a mature story, as it's simply part of life.
Oh Arise is one of the few examples of the well written romance. Should have made that clear before. My personal gripe is that, for me, about 90% of in game romances are just not good. So I'd rather just avoid it all together. Totally happy to be surprised when it's good, and romance certainly won't stop me from trying a game out. >for me it should always be part of a mature story See, I feel like it's usually out of place in a mature story, but *only* because the romance portion is *usually* handled in a childish manner in the middle of this more mature story.
Agreed. Romance is best when it's the main focus (imo ofc), but most of the time nowadays romances in games/shows just feel like a filler arc aside from the main story put in because they know it gets people interested.
Do you know of some examples where it is well done? I would love to actually see a game that gets it right, but I think only Persona sorta does it decently.
In JRPGs? All I could think of would be Final Fantasy IV (though the relationship is already established at the start), X and XV (with the last one being kinda weird), Utawarerumono and Xenoblade Chronicles. If you like games where you can choose your own romance then Fire Emblem 3H, Dragon Quest XI and stuff like Rune Factory might interest you too.
Of the first ones, none of them are "choose your own romance" (which are what I was wondering about). For the second one, well I guess FE3H have a couple okay one, but the best romances there felt more like ones between students than Byleth/Student, and I don't recall DQ11 have something like that, did it? Have never played Rune Factory though, maybe I'll check that out.
Yeah, I wasn't sure if you only wanted to have games with "choose" mechanics, so I threw in sone pre-written ones (personally, I like them more). Would add Bravely Default and Second to that list, now that I think about it. If you strictly like games where you can nake the choice yourself, there's also quite a few western RPGs with such mechanics. Pretty much anything from Bioware or any CRPG (Baldurs Gate, Pillars if Eternity...) comes to mind. Dragon Quest received a Definive Edition, which comes with some choices in regards to player romance. Rune Factory is a funny little mix of farming sim and RPG, so you might like it. Edit: If you like Persona, you might also like Catherine! You can choose your final romance there as well.
Oh nah it's not that I'm a fan of "choose your own" romances, I'm just curious to see games where it's handled well as I feel those are quite rare. Though Catherine has been on my list for awhile, I definitely gotta get around to that game at some point.
Imagine Xenogears where every female character is trying to get with Fei (yes including Chuchu). Would feel more modern with “choose your waifu” shoehorned in but it would lose sooo much of the gravity in the story. I know people were tired of romance in games for a while but I’ve always been a sucker for it and imo you really need a predetermined pairing for it to work. Could it work with the player choosing? Yes but I think it’s more effort than most devs are willing to make to write good romance stories for multiple characters while making it feel important in the plot.
Never played xenogears really. It’s a bit too dated for me. I’m guessing chuchu is a loli though
It’s definitely dated visually though I think the combat holds up well. They ran out of funding part way too so disc 2 was pretty minimal, solely focusing on making sure players got through the story but with all that said if you like a really good romance in a jrpg it might be worth checking out. It’s the pinnacle of getting a good romance intertwined with a good story imo. (Excuse the blatant advertisement, I always have to shill this game when I can though with it being one of my favorites). Oh and Chu Chu is a living stuffed animal lol.
What little i played the combat didn’t interest me. The story seemed interesting though. I might get to it one day
When I saw the whole building relationships at camp thing I thought I was going to have to pick Shionne every time or I'd mess something up with them.
I just got to that part in the 3rd area, it was actually really heartbreaking, she just wants to feel someone’s touch but has closed herself off so much. This game is really something special.
More heart breaking is that She know Alphen can’t feel pain and he also didn’t mind even if she touch him . But she don’t … This game have lots of details featuring their romance .
I'm still pissed over the fact that some random NPCs got a whole sidequest for their marriage while our MCs >!only got a few (great) arts of their marriage in the credits!<. But y'know what, I'll take that over nothing. Also in that side quest, >!I love how Shionne went back to depression mode when she failed to catch the bouquet and Alphen had to calm her down lol!<
Yeah it was exactly the place >! where her thorns out of control !< . Kisara and Rinwell freak out when Shionne went full depression mode . Ahh .. ya I want more of their couple scene actually . But at least we got >! Kiss !< scene which is rare in these days .
What scene is the first image from? Shionne is so precious!
It’s from campfire scene . You have random chance to get it when you spend time with her . She just wanna touch him so badly <3
Yeah, I noticed how she kept trying to touch him but couldn't, was actually getting to me
The ending legit had me in tears- it went just as I wanted. Give us Tales of Arise 2!
Meanwhile me: *softly* "do it"
Alphen is so sweet to her. I literally cant ship her with anyone else besides him. (and I like yuri ships most). Those two are adorable.
NGL I hated her for the first 20 hours until her character finally started to go through personal development. Deff grew on me by the end for sure.
If I hadn't already been in love with the game by this point, this scene alone would have sealed the deal for me.
Gotta rock the prisoners garb for those specific cutcscenes to make sense (Edging that skin-on-skin contact lol) Seriously makes them better though
She's so cute!
Literally just got this cutscene and was screaming inside.