The story is a simple black-and-white tale of a righteous prince using his magical ring to defeat an evil overlord. The exiled prince Alain will lead his Liberation Army in a campaign across the the five realms of Fevrith, freeing captured towns to gain access to shops, taverns, and unit upgrades. The massive cast of characters all have distinct personalities and managed to stand apart visually from one another. There are a number of slice-of-life support conversations that open up by having units fight together on the battlefield or dine together at a tavern. These character stories were compelling enough, but none stood out as particularly surprising or unexpected. The ones I remember the best are Amalia's (demonic?) possession and Auch's desire for approval from his late mother. At various points you can choose to execute or recruit a former enemy, but as far as I can tell there is no reason not to recruit every single time, as there are no negative consequences for it and execution will lock-out side quests. I did like that every member of the Liberation Army felt like they had a good reason for being there, be it ties to the royal family or for personal gain.
There is a great diversity of races, consisting of humans, elves, winged celestials, and various beast races.
Units move in real-time across an overworld map, capturing command posts and dealing with concealed enemy units and choke points. Siege weapons and traps may also be employed. When two units meet it will initiate a battle that plays out automatically in real-time without input from the player. The skirmish lasts until one side is depleted of people or until points used to perform actions are exhausted on both sides. Before deployment, teams (units) of up to five characters are arranged in a 2x3 grid. The order they will attack in is determined by their 'initiative' value. Arrangement also matters. Some classes are better at guarding (themselves and other units) and are best positioned in front of or next to long range classes. Items that increase speed, damage, and defense can also be used in advance.
Unicorn Overlord is a decent strategy game that almost anyone of any skill level can get into. Its gameplay mechanics are easy to grasp and just complex enough to keep them engaging.
The Monster Hunter franchise alternates between mainline releases with big budgets and more experimental spin-off titles such as Rise. And a lot has changed. Farming has been meshed with the Argosy (trading ship), Tailraider Safaris are now the Mewcenaries, and the lizard mounts have been replaced by a palamute (dog) that the player can customize and ride. This makes getting around Rise's surprisingly vertical maps a breeze. The downside is that there isn't much of a reason to move vertically because most of the fights happen at ground level. A new 'wirebug' mechanic can be used to zip through the air and to take direct control of weakened monsters in order to puppet them into fights with other monsters. For some reason players now start every mission with a chunk of their health and stamina bar locked out. The only way to access this missing section is to collect glowing spirit-birds in the environment, which isn't so bad at first but becomes tedious over time, especially as the monsters get tougher.
Rise made me miss the boisterous energy around meals big enough to feed a family of eight. The Hunter and their dog now only eat dango; a sweet, usually vegetarian food. I hope they don't get diabetes.
In many ways Rise feels like a regression from World due to the large number of cut features: the sling, mantles, stealth bushes, destructible environments, scoutflies, and investigations are gone. Different aggro ranges, idle animations, and turf wars for the monsters have either been reduced or are gone completely. Breaking monster parts no longer seems to impact their movement or ability to inflict status ailments, and a lot of returning monsters have been given their old move-sets back. Players that got their start with World are sure to be shocked by how aggressive the original barroth was. The hit boxes are also some of the worst I have encountered yet in a Monster Hunter title. It doesn't matter how far out of reach I am or even if I am up high on a cliff, an invisible force field is sure to find me and I am not alone in this: video 1 and video 2.
The Switch's hardware limitations restrict how luxuriant the maps can be, so none of them are as vivid or alive as World. Two maps from the third game (Tri) - the Sandy Plains and the Flooded Forest - were recreated in Rise's style with their battle-zones intact and the loading screens removed. The results are quite good and didn't feel gimmicky at all. Players still engage with the staple gameplay loop of hunting massive monsters to craft better gear in order to take down even more powerful animals, but it's easier than before. Part breaks and shiny drops are more plentiful, and gear requires fewer resources to craft. It's very friendly to new players and the lower part costs allow for more experimentation with different weapons, unlike in the mainline games where you kinda needed to pick your 'main' early and stick with it because the cost of switching later was detrimentally high.
The weapon designs in general are much better than Worlds which used a "slap-on" design - the same bone or metal weapon base would have skin or feathers tacked on. Rise by comparison has fewer weapon upgrades but greater stat increases and visual variety. There is also better animal variety than World; wyverns still dominate in numbers, but there is an almost equal number of leviathans and fanged beasts, and at least one invertebrate. I also finally got the chance to fight a chameleos (an old monster that hasn't had many appearances) and learned to use the hunting horn - one of the series least played weapons - thanks to Rise re-working the weapon to be more user friendly. I had been curious about this weapon since my first Monster Hunter game, but never got into it due to the learning curve.
The Monster Hunter series has always had a tradition of setting the flagship monster up as a rival to the Hunter by having them make a surprise appearance in quests or disrupting the ecosystem and village life in some tangible way, but magnamalo just kinda appears without much fanfare. I mistakenly completed the 'hub quests' (multiplayer) first, instead of the 'village quests' (single player / low rank), so my first time even hearing about magnamalo was in the quest to defeat him. Had I completed the village quests first there still wouldn't have been any build-up, rivalry, or special gameplay interactions for this monster. At most he gets mentioned twice by NPCs and appears once in a cut-scene, so the mystery behind the hordes of monsters rampaging through the village ends up overshadowing him.
I also miss when the flagship monster could just be a regular animal that fit ecologically into the game, like lagiacrus and nargacuga. I can tell you what habitats they prefer, what their roles in the environment are, what their daily habits are, and how they function on a physiological level, but I can't do that with magnamalo. From in-game text I know that his "digestive gases" are expelled through vents on his arms, back, face, and rear. But I don't get how he manages to throw this fart gas like a projectile, or why it is explosive in nature and purple in color (the same as poison). Visually magnamalo has the presence of an Elder Dragon - essentially a force of nature with special powers. In battle he can leap straight across the arena 2 or 3 times in a row, moves in erratic ways, has gigantic hit boxes, and uses multiple area of effect attacks in addition to having a special ailment (hellfire; aka blastblight) unique only to him. But he somehow isn't classified as an elder dragon. Someone just as confused as me actually made a silly cartoon that summarizes my feelings on magnamalo pretty well.
They left out mythology-based monsters like kirin but included rajang, which is powered up by kirin. Odogaron was also left out (presumably for the lack of suitable environments) in favor of izuchi, an entirely new monster based on the same yōkai (Kamaitachi) as Odogaron. One of the NPCs is also sitting on a young (stunted?) tetsucabra, but the Hunter never actually gets to fight one in-game. The opening cutscene of a 'wind serpent' in the clouds I thought for sure was going to be an amatsu, but nope. The monster selection isn't bad by any means, just a bit odd.
The main story is also a bit weird. For some reason the end-game boss monster can "resonate" with two twins in the village - essentially possessing them to use as mouthpieces. The story never actually does anything with this or bothers to explain it properly, so it is hard to quantify exactly what "resonance" can do and what its limits are. The twins only really talk to each other when in their possessed state and not to anyone else, so the telepathy could be accidental. By the end of the game I still had no idea why "resonance" effected the twins and no one else, or what its purpose was. Is it unique to wyverians or can it effect humans as well? Why were none of the other Wyverians in the village effected? Why were the twins only possessed and not enraged like the monster hordes? In the context of the Monster Hunter universe it is highly unusual to include something so supernatural. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't be out of place in a more anime type game like God Eater 3, which actually featured monster resonance quite heavily in its plot.
Bishaten was my favorite new monster. I enjoyed the uniqueness of his fruit mechanic and the idea that a simian-type monster would be smart enough to use basic tools/items (such as flashpods) against the Hunter.
Rise is ultimately fine for what it is, especially as a side entry and I am glad the development team has a place where they can experiment with new stuff that may or may not make its way into the mainline games. Rampages, which are essentially tower defense, were a flop and likley won't return. Likewise the telepathy, vegetarian diets, and faster pace of fights just didn't feel like a Monster Hunter game to me. I have heard that the Sunbreak expansion corrects many of the base game's shortcomings, but I don't own it and I have no desire to. I have gotten my fill of Rise and am looking forward to what the next entry - Wilds, has to offer.
The gameplay is real-time strategy with pause (RTwP), although you only really 'pause' when selecting unit paths or rolling back an action. The deployable unit size is abnormally small at just four main units, each with its own backup member that can be swapped out a set number of times per battle. This limits what you can do strategically, and besides deciding what order to target enemies in and sometimes what direction to approach them from, there isn't any real tactical depth. There are no terrain hindrances or elevation to consider, no shortcuts to open up. Every mission has optional goals that are almost always to keep every unit alive and to finish in 6 or 8 minutes. The actual main mission goals are equally static, being to kill all enemies or on rare occasions to guard a barricade or protect a wagon.
On the battlefield units auto-attack and will do additional 'ambush' damage when positioned behind an enemy, but this can be hard to control as the game may think that you are at the 'side' of an enemy rather than the 'rear'. Your units move around and clump together as well, making it hard to select the one you want. Their auto-attacks are supplemented by powerful weapon skills that can heal units, inflict status ailments on enemies, hit multiple targets, and disrupt heavy attacks. Each skill uses a set amount of EP (mana) and if you run out of it that's it. You can drink a potion to recover EP but you are limited to carrying only 3. EP management is further complicated by the fact that new enemies regularly spawn on maps, so you never know exactly how many enemies you will face. You also have no way of knowing what those enemies will be: human, animal, mini-boss. This makes it easy to burn through all your EP and potentially end up in an unwinnable situation.
From what I have heard this game was extremely easy until an update over-corrected by nerfing a lot of the stats and so much of this game relies on raw stats over strategy. I started out by playing on normal and found it decently challenging until around chapter 3 and the "Reclaim Teggaria" mission which had a massive spike in difficulty that forced me to turn the difficulty down from normal to casual. Even then I still got slaughtered despite being over-leveled with the best gear available. From then onwards certain missions would be relatively easy while others in the same chapter would wreck me despite being above the minimum recommended level. At some point I just gave up on trying to keep all of my units relevant and benched everyone except for my main four, which I stuck with until the very end. This greatly over-leveled them to where the game felt balanced by chapters 6 and 7.
Whenever a mission is replayed you have to watch the cutscenes and dialogue again.
Story:
The story is centered around the Blue Fox mercenary group and their involvement with various employers on the island of DioField, which is ruled over by the Kingdom of Alletain. The Kingdom is currently at war with the invading Trovelt-Schoevian Empire and maintains an uneasy peace with the Rowetale Alliance. The Blue Fox base acts as the player's hub area in-between missions where Andrias (the protagonist) can shop, upgrade, and replay old missions for experience and cash. It is also where Andrias can talk to members of the team who are all varied in personalty but don't have much going on beyond that. They do not interact with each other outside of missions and they do not have any Fire Emblem type supports. Naturally, this made it hard to get attached to any of them, and their deaths were likewise inconsequential on a personal-level but important in terms of how they impacted the power balance of the nations and their conflicts.
Whenever internal conflicts between party members with opposing views did arise, those themes were never explored or resolved in any meaningful way. Major story events were equally vague or hand-waved away as all the important events are told through a narrated summary rather than being shown. For example: alliance talks break down, invaders seize land, pro-democracy advocates upset the ruling class, and the church is caught harming orphans. All this happens off-screen with few details given. It is a type of storytelling that left me feeling detached from the conflict, possibly by design. You see, the story isn't quite as shallow as it initially appears; there is actually a lot of interesting stuff going on behind the scenes, but you never get to see the setup to most of it. To really understand what is going on you need to beat the game and then read the library codex entries. Considering less than half of the people who purchase a game are likely to beat it (according to trophy / achievement statistics), how many of those gamers will then choose to read optional text after the credits have rolled? It is a really odd design choice, and I wish these story elements had been incorporated into the actual gameplay instead of being relegated to text.
For those curious, here are the details you only get by reading the character profiles after beating the game (highlight to reveal):
Andrias, Umarida, and Duke Hende are Empire spies.
Andrias was likley neutral on the war because he wants people who are altruistic and capable in power - no matter the nation. Neither 'rightful heir' to the Alletain Kingdom was ideal, so Andrias had Fredret, who seemed virtuous, pose as the deceased fourth-child Levantia Shaytham. And regardless of the outcome, Andrias was likley going to slay the Empire's ruthless general Zevatian no matter what.
How Fredret faked the divine mark is never explained, but Princess Hezeliah knew he was a fraud from the start. She went along with the scheme anyway in order to be freed from her captivity.
When the power went to Fredret's head, Andrias had to put him down in order to hand the Kingdom over to the Empire or allow the remaining heir Hezeliah to take over; likley as someone's puppet given how easily she is pushed around and manipulated.
After leaving the Blue Foxes, Iscarion is killed by a thief or possibly an assassin sent by Andrias. Yulzim's killer in chapter 2 is also never identified, but could possibly have been Umarida acting on Duke Hende or Andrias' orders as they were all working together by that point in time and had the most to gain from his death.
Conclusion:
While the balancing is an ongoing issue for DioField Chronicle, the foundation for a better sequel is here. The gameplay is easy to grasp, there is great artistic direction and some interesting ideas. It just needs fine adjustments. I really like where they went with the ending and would be curious to see where a sequel goes with it.
This is an annual list of my personal disappointing games of the year. To clarify, these are not the "worst" games of the year. They are titles I was let-down by based on my own preferences and expectations. Most of the titles on this list are not even what I would consider to be bad games. They just weren't for me, or were not what I was expecting.
All the games on this list are the launch version or later, and I have either played them to completion or abandoned them. The list is ordered based on my overall enjoyment (one being the best) of games I played in 2025. Most of the games listed here will not be brand new 2025 releases. They are games I played in 2025 that were new to me.
Arise takes place in a setting divided between the medieval world of Dahna and the technologically advanced world of Rena. Three centuries ago the Renans invaded and conquered Dahna, enslaving the population and dividing the land into five isolated realms. Each realm is ruled over by a Renan Lord. Periodically, the "Crown Contest" - a competition between Lords - is held to determine which of the five Lords will become the next Renan sovereign. A masked Dahnan slave with no memories of his past, nicknamed "Iron Mask" (real name Alphen), gets himself involved with a rebel group called the "Crimson Crows" when they rescue a Renan girl called Shionne. Shionne is afflicted with a curse that hurts anyone who touches her. Unable to feel pain, Iron Mask is the only one who can touch Shionne and use a special blazing sword in her possession. Together they form an alliance to take down the five Lords.
The premise is simple but strong. You start out with a clear goal and two protagonists with mysterious backgrounds to unravel. Things take a nosedive in the second half however, when the whole slave uprising narrative gets sidelined for unrelated and poorly explained science-fiction elements. The conclusion is basically a checklist of recurring elements and narrative beats from the Tales series, so I knew exactly where the ending was headed long before it got there and none it felt like the natural conclusion to things.
For better context, here is a complete plot summary (highlight to reveal):
"Astral Energy" is a mana-like substance that exists in all living things as one of the six element types: Fire, Wind, Water and Earth are found on the planets of Dahna and Rena, while Light only exists on Dahna and Darkness exists only on Rena. Astral energy is regularly siphoned from Dahnan slaves and stored in one of five Master Cores (essentially batteries) possessed by the five Renan Lords. The Master Cores are used by the Renan Slave Lords to compete in an event called "The Crown Contest" which determines their next Sovereign.
In truth, the real native race of the planet Rena are metallic alien-like beings called "Helganquil". The astral energy of their planet gained sentience and gluttonously devoured all the energy present, nearly driving all life on Rena into extinction. To combat this, the Helganquil abducted Dahnan Mages and experimented on them on the space colony of Lenegis, turning them into the "Rena" seen throughout most of the game. The Crown Contest was a ruse to get the fake-Renans on Lenegis to harvest large quantities of energy from the Dahnan slaves.
When all six Master Cores are combined they form the "Renas Alma" which is used in a spirit channeling ceremony to transfer energy from the planet Dahna to the planet Rena. The ceremony is performed by a "Sovereign" who is always a Dahnan with equal affinity for every astral element (rare and usually only achieved through unnatural means) and a "Maiden" who is always a Renan that can supplement the dark astral energy Dahna lack in order to maintain stability. Why the first ceremony from 300 years ago failed is never properly explained, but Naomi (a Maiden) likley sensed that something bad (the extinction of Dahna) would happen and so tried to stop it. This resulted in Alphen losing control, causing destruction to Lenegis, and Naori internalizing part of Rena's astral-spirit as the "thorns" (curse).
The planets Dahna and Rena were always meant to be one - at least according to Rena - but somehow ended up as separate entities (how or why is never explained). Both planets are eventually merged into one through magical means and the practice of slavery presumably ends.
There are so many little inconsistencies in the story that add up over time and make subsequent play-throughs difficult. This 11 hour deep dive covers them all.
By the time the credits rolled it was clear that the overarching message the writers were trying to convey was that slavery, racism, and bigotry are not limited to any one race or location. Alphen straight up mentions that the Dahnans were enslaving other Dahnans long before the Renans arrived. The Renans were unknowingly enslaved by the Helganquil (aliens), who were themselves enslaved to the will of a sentient planet. You also have characters like Rinwell who are mistreated by the Dahnans for having magic like a Renan. And Rinwell hates the Renans for a good chunk of the story, unaware that the Renans are descended from Dahnan mages like herself. But as the player, you hop from one liberated location to another without ever delving into the ramifications of slavery and what life is like afterwards. Instead everyone is made out to be a victim, so no one is ever held accountable. The main cast even advocates for forgiving the slavers because they were only human and hating them won't solve anything (or something along those lines), which just completely sidesteps all moral questions Arise raises up to that point. I could understand making an argument for moving on if this was something that happened long ago, to where the victims and perpetrators are all long dead and none of the current generation was involved with what occurred. But that isn't the case.
The Renan slave masters don't even react at all to the protagonist staging a successful rebellion and setting the slaves free for the first time in 300 years. After the first two kingdoms were liberated the other three Lords would have surely tried to recapture the other two realms, either separately or through an alliance. More slaves would have given each of them an advantage in the Crown Contest. Instead they wait patiently for the protagonist to challenge their respective realms. Nobody in the player's party ever asks how the Crown Contest works, who the current sovereign is or was supposed to be, or why every single Renan is from Lenegis rather than Rena itself. It all feels detached.
There are sections that seem to be unfinished as well, such as the large empty spaces of Lenegis, which are designed like the other towns and dungeons but without any of the content. There were numerous times when it felt as if remnants of an earlier story draft had been left in, such as when Almeidrea (fourth Lord) calls Vholran (fifth Lord) her "Lord" and seems to regard him as a superior despite both of them being competitors. She also displays an interest in the Dahnan mages in her secret forest laboratory, which implies that she may have been more aware of the true history/lore of Dahna than the other Lords, but this is never expanded upon.
The character party contains a variety of personalities that are all compelling and likable enough, although none of them truly stand out as remarkable. In the past, skits (field conversations) were used to convey comedy, information, and friendships or rivalries forming in the group. In Arise the skits don't add to the party dynamic, they instead rehash the same redundant questions that have already been covered by the main storyline. The antagonists aren't given much screen-time either and are pretty weak writing-wise as a result. They hardly acknowledge each other's existence and the NPCs likewise don't get much development. Any that could be memorable die early. There are a handful of side quests that are all the standard 'kill X monster' or 'fetch X item' type fair. At least one odd quest at the start of the game requires the player to wait for an NPC to decide what he wants to wear. It takes until the end of the game for him to finally pick something, but by that point the rewards are hardly worth it; perhaps this was intended as some kind of joke.
Gameplay:
None of the dungeons were too complicated or overstayed their welcome, aside from the final one. Enemies were spread out well, so they never felt like a chore to get through, although the same ones are re-colored and recycled a lot. During combat you can freely move around an arena. Using Artes (attack moves) and dodging will build up an overdrive meter that will prevent attacks from using energy and grant the use of a Mystic Arte (finishing move). The combat system is fast, flashy, and Boost Strikes are powerful looking special attacks. It is easy to learn and gets the job done.
The soundtrack is the same way. It mostly plays in the background without any recurring melodies or character themes. The water-color aesthetics are where Arise truly shines. A lot of work was put into updating the visuals, so every area looks fresh and unique from the one that came before it while sporting quite the lovely color palette. It's honestly a shame that there isn't a photo mode.
Conclusion:
Arise has an interesting premise with a lackluster ending. Plothooks are resolved in the least satisfying ways possible. The villains have virtually no presence and very weak motivations. Every subject Tales of Arise covers is something that another Tales game has already done and done better: slavery / racism (Symphonia), two worlds at odds (Xillia), amnesia / engineered humanoids (Graces), justice / killing (Vesperia). It is a perfectly below average game with great visuals and servicable combat. Just be aware that the best parts of the story are in first half.
