I mean, on the surface, Tales of Arise is good.

About an hour or so ago, I told Victoria that other than the fact that there’s too much redundant dialogue and skits, there’s not much in ToA that I really have to complain about.  The battle system is good, leveling isn’t a chore, the music is unremarkable but alright, the characters are mostly fine, etc…

…the game itself is fine…

…the issue that I have is that ToA writes a lot of checks and while I imagine plenty of folks disagree with me, ToA never cashes them.  Of the Tales series, I’ve played Symphonia, Abyss, Phantasia, Vesperia, Zesteria, Berseria, and now Arise.  Arise has plenty of references to one of these in particular and I was left really wanting more in regards to this history by the time the credits were rolling.

I’ve created my own headcannon for what happened between these games, but it’d be nice if there was something more concrete to work off of.  I’m not demanding an exposition dump or anything, but there were so many visual clues (and one audio clue that blew my mind) that the connection is more than just in my mind and it needs some kind of elaboration.

I want to say more, but…

…spoilers.