*Edit: There are few people confused by my explanation. The 3D Models aren't converted into 2D assets in advance. It is a real-time, in-engine rendering technique. The 3D models (as they exist at that moment in-game) are rendered onto a fixed-perspective 2D plane which essentially turns them into cardboard cutouts of themselves. Using different lighting and effects to the ones used during live gameplay in this process helps give them a stronger stylized look. This is how they're able to reflect alternate outfits, accessories, and weapons in skits while still managing to maintain some of the 2D hand-animated feel. The end result is similar in effect to 2.5D environments but it's just accomplished in-reverse; it is essentially depth-layered 2D.* You can just say "I don't like this new style" or "I prefer true 2D Portraits", nobody is forcing you to like these new skits more than the old ones but you don't need to invent reasons why this new style is objectively wrong or pretend that true 2D portraits don't have their own set of downsides. Having a preference is fine, saying these aren't in the spirit of Tales skits is not fine (because it's a lie). *Preorder Tales of Arise here (Launching September 10th for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC)* USA: amzn.to/3gcVNWY | UK: amzn.to/2SXRyXo | AU: amzn.to/3fPVT7M | DE: amzn.to/3pljArU
I didn't start to like them much until I got to hear English ones. Being able to understand the interactions helps, and I think maybe they'd have benefited from showing them off in both languages for the first time.
I can't help but feel like Scarlet Nexus and Tales of Arise are using this 3D still system as a shortcut to giving us actual cutscenes. Considering they're just standing around talking half the time anyway, I would have rather seen these scenes play out in real time, using the basic cutscene style seen in Berseria's more conversational moments. The only reason the 2D was any good to begin with was because the portraits were really nice. On the plus side, at least these are skits, and not the primary form of cutscene in the entire game like it was for Nexus. I'm totally ready to buy this game on PS5 (unless the Playstation version gets censored), but now I'm stuck asking myself how I should buy it. Do you know if costumes like the swimsuits will be available for purchase separately on the store, so I can buy them for use with a physical edition, or do I really have to forgo having a nice disc so I can preorder the digital deluxe? I hate how they're going about this lately. I would have bought the physical limited edition day one if I could confirm I'm not missing anything.
This presentation is only being used for skits in Arise so I don't really see it as being a shortcut, the bulk of the game uses actual cutscenes (plus the approach is different in Arise than it is in Scarlet Nexus, there aren't any snapshots/stills). I don't know *for sure* whether all the costumes will be available for separate purchase but I'm 99% sure they will be, they have been every other time. I also assume there will be a "Digital Deluxe Upgrade" DLC option for physical version owners. I will try and get confirmation on that but I probably won't get confirmation until closer to launch.
@@JRPGGaming They definitely didn't offer anything like that for Scarlet Nexus's digital exclusive content. I highly suspect Namco Bandai is trying to encourage players to opt out of physical buying since it saves them money on production. Hopefully the PS5 will be able to play games off portable storage soon, since 1TB really isn't much for how large these PS5 games are becomming.
Damn this was a good video Jay, I used to have doubts about it but your vid wiped out all the doubts I had, it's looking awesome right now and even more hyped for Arise.
All those people crying are gonna rewatch the skits with their entire party in swimsuits, and be saying this was the greatest change ever in a few months.
Don't care for swimwear, but if I can make everybody Wingul again, that would be funny. XD (Though, swimwear would be funny in that scene where Law punches Alphen's armor and hurts his hand, since it would make no sense.)
nope, that's not the reason. it's because those 2d skit was usually handcrafted and well made that fit into cartoonish presentation. the 10 years old skit presentation is better than this dull one. i'm pretty sure that will be significant amount of people would upset by this, because those are die-hard fans.
I kind of preferred how the images in Scarlet Nexus were larger, which highlighted good expressions. I loved a lot of the large background stills in that, and the portraits being at an angle kind of hid the issue with cheek movement while talking, which kind of looks weird in some of the skits here (most notably, the first one they showed off unfortunately.)
@@WobblyAruku : Yeah, though they had different teams for this and SN, so they probably started making this for Arise first, and that's where SN got it, not the other way around.
@@theoaremevano3227 Ohhh thanks. I just thought Scarlet Nexus development on the skits came first because it was released before Arise while Arise is still gonna be released a few months from now.
Honestly this looks like the most effort put behind a skit system in the series. Being able to see costumes and accessories be reflected in them is great, and the manga style setup allows more detail and character animation to be established.
not to mention in some cases there's a bit of movement (not much mind you, mostly movements of hands/chest from breathing or hair waving in the wind...though there is one skit with Hootle flying around like crazy that's a bit more animated....throw a few of those in every 5 or 6 skits (say one skit where you see Law/Alphen actually punch each other or if any romance between party members pops up something a bit more intimate like a hug, kiss, or even a Rean Style Headpat lol) and you really can't call lt lack of effort imo).
I don't care now that costumes and accessories show up in skits is all I care about and that's amazing. Cutscenes where I had every character with a cowboy hat were already hilarious so I'm all for it
I'll happily give it a shot. The reason I liked the 2D portraits is because they look cartoony and different than the rendered 3D models. But I love skits and it's the reason I really got drawn into the series to begin with. And they still have full 2D animation from the looks of things, so I won't be upset.
I'm playing my second Tales game with Xillia right now and love the skits system. While I have a soft spot for 2D anime art, I am insanely hyped to see what Arise does with the capacity to create much more dynamic panels in skits. I'm here to see awesome characters engage with one another in meaningful and memorable ways, so as long as they are able to do that, I'll be ecstatic! I seriously cannot wait for this game to launch!
This game is gonna be a big step up on every aspect from the previous Tales of games, so for me there is nothing to worry about. I know its gonna be awesome in every possible way!
3:46 you said it perfectly my friend. As what Skits really are not only just about aesthetics. They really are meant for character interactions, as well as for funny scenarios and character growth. And yeah while I’m going to miss the 2D ones, the new form of skits for Arise isn’t going to be a dealbreaker for me, and I’m going to likely enjoy them as I play through the game. And yeah, sometimes it is going to be hard for some to accept change, it happens to a lot of media that people are into when they try to add something new. If I had been asked the option for Arise to pick their new form of skits or no skits at all, I would undoubtedly pick the former. If some don’t like them, then they don’t have to like them, but at the expense of attacking others who are fine or even like this change (which I found some people my god) just really is unacceptable
So far this game has literally done NOTHING to disappoint my expectations. On the contrary, all changes and “upgrades” are very welcome! I liked the Berseria skits, would not miss anything if they just decided to forgo them completely and just had regular 3d scenes, but i appreciate the nostalgia theure trying to keep.
This is the only thing I'm not thrilled with, but like, it's seriously the ONLY thing. I do think they should try to keep skits around because it's a good idea. I always felt like they fit better into the game as a way to add little side notes to every scene. If everything was full scenes then it would just feel like the game had too many cutscenes and people would always be asking 'why is this scene optional but this one's not?' The clear distinction is good for clarifying the intent behind the storytelling methods. :)
@@theoaremevano3227 Same. Skits should always be Skits and not just cutscenes imo...especially since they can add far more this way as well and for people wanting to rush through it (not me though...i'll be looking for everything i can find in the game) add in them as cutsenes will just confuse them into thinking they're all mandatory story scenes (granted anyone playing solely for gameplay will skip them and the main quest regardless...don't know why they're playing jrpgs though if they're gonna skip the story). If they keep this 3D like style or go back to completely anime style doesn't matter much to me as long as skits are in.
From a player that has played most of the Tales series games and NEVER watches the skits IRDC lol. I'm just happy the series is still ongoing and that we can enjoy a new Tales game.
My view on it is this: as long as skits continue to help flesh out the characters' personalities and background or world lore i don't particularly care which art style is used and the new 3D like skits do just that so the 'essence' of skits are faithfully kept imo....and nobody can say they don't if they have watched Alphen's Mabou Curry skit they showed off (based off that skit i think Alphen's gonna be one of my favorite characters in the series and likely my favorite MC in the series to date). Also it isn't nearly as big a change as say the shift to arte trees for combat (was a choice i personally disliked cause i like to freely choose my arte rather than have to go through the tree to get to it...one of the things i like about the new system even if there may be less artes cause of it) or the shift to a behind the back view for the camera on field/dungeon maps which, imo, is what lead to fairly lackluster dungeons in most games from Xillia to Berseria and the lackluster field maps of X1 and 2 (Zesty and Bersy improved the field maps drastically...best field maps though were from Graces F with the static camera since the maps were more lively and there were still plenty of puzzles...unlike recent games).
It’s just going to be something I’ll have to get used to. I do like the manga page style with different panels layered all down the screen, but the smoothly animated mouths just looks a tad creepy to me. But like I said, this is just something that’ll take me getting used to. The game is shaping up nicely anyway, to say the least, and I’m hyped :D Also, psyched to hear we’re getting many more 2D cutscenes than before! They were always one of my favorite features. PS: Rinwell best girl
I like what they did for Scarlet Nexus, the cosmetic will be shown in the cutscene is a huge plus for me. Glad that they iterated on that technique here.
I'm just glad skits are still in the game, since they removed multiplayer and that made me worry that they could remove other things. I was a little sad that they aren't 2D artwork, since they make so many new 2D art for the mobile games, but I think your points are valid. Being able to make the characters make much more new poses in the skits and being able to see the costumes and attachments reflected in the skits are both good things.
All I know is Kisara's got probably the best female heavy armor set I've ever seen. Oh, and the skits are good. I don't know how I rank them without playing through a lot of them first-hand, but skits have been evolving for essentially the entire series and this looks like a natural progression to me. Being able to see costumes and such in skits is definitely a major bonus for me, I can honestly say I've wished that was a thing for every single game in the series and it's finally a thing!
This is going to be pretty cool! I liked the 2D art, but I’m more then willing to give these a chance. And yes older skits were very bare bones. I wish Abyss had a more updated skit system.
It's not that I hate them. (BAKA! xD) Don't get me wrong, they look fine and are arranged really well. Might need some time to get used to them. On the other hand, I think I will miss the classic skit portraits. They just had soooooo much charm with the sometimes wild & ridiculous expressions and spontaneous switches from the head-only portraits to a full character pose sometimes. I loved those slightly "over the top" moments, they have done with them. This over exaggeration of facial expressions will not work with this system anymore, which I'm a bit sad about and I will miss the classic ones. But like I said, they are not really bad in a artistic and technical sense, they are just different, which will need some time to get adjusted to, at least for me.
Thank you exactly a lot of people saying it's the other way around some expressions the 3d Flatout can't do so i don't see way all these people saying the new skits has more "expression"
Skits varied quite a bit over the years from Vesperia to Berseria so, I think this will be interesting. Hopefully they're still as funny and characters have good interactions as previous games. I still think back on some of the jokes in Xillia and Graces today XD
The skits are fine for me! It was even better when I watched it in English because I could actually understand what was going on. According to the official Tales of Arise Twitter (JP), not only the clothes and attachments reflect in the new skits but also the background depending on the location you’re at. I like those changes! Anyway, I’m still very excited for the game!
Despite what many people seem to push and believe, not everything needs to "Evolve" to be better , it often leads to disappointment, like the fighting systems in FF12 and FF13 where there tried something new but in the end it was either tedious or boring. Or an either better Example ,the new disgaea 6 were they needlesly inflated the numbers ,got rit of many classes and weapon skills, and put in some auto-fight mode so you could level while being "away" making it more like are cheap mobile game. there is nothing wrong with taking something that already exists and works and just making it better. I admit that i like what i see so far of tales of arise, but i wont judge it until i have actually played it myself.
They look pretty good and will probably allow for some decently dynamic scenes to be portrayed. One thing I fear we'll loose as a tradeoff however is the ability to portray more exaggerated cartoony expressions (think a lot of Magilou in Berseria's funny skits) because those will look weird with the more naturalistic 3d models.
Yeap, there's definitely trade-offs. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, this new style loses some of that overexaggeration and the freedom inherent in drawing 2D images in exchange for being able to offer more variety, more dynamic scenes, and accurate outfit and weapon portrayal. I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.
I'm not a fan of it but I don't hate it either. I do love how many people it upset though because by proxy quite a few of those people were the ones who shit on multiplayer, so I'm glad they're mad lmao
They look really cool, only gripe I have is that in what we were shown, the panels were overwhelmingly used for one character at a time, with a few group panels or one with more than a character. I think doing more multi character panels would help the flow of the skits and make the transition from previous entries to this new style not as jarring
I'm excited for the change, but my reservation is actually as simple as I think the 2D "Anime" stylized portraits of the characters allow for the tone of the conversations to be quite diverse BECAUSE they are so removed from what the in game models look like, more so than the fact that its 2D, its the style as well. I suppose the emotional range of their faces etc in the skits would determine whether I ultimately decide if it was good or not.
I was hoping you'd go over some new details about this. :) My own reaction was more that I was upset about the repercussions of this choice and how people would react to it. I was hoping they'd keep normal anime as a sort of 'anchor feature' to answer the question of "Is this a fitting Tales game?" or that whatever they did would have enough 'wow' factor to make me not care. But this sort of doesn't quite have that, and it opens up a lot of avenues for nay-sayers to make their cases. If someone wants to complain about the characters, their personalities, or the visuals, skits will probably be their go-to visuals for making it look bad. The other thing that bugs me is that, because Scarlet Nexus experimented with a similar technique, lots of rabid morons will probably start pointing fingers at that game and blaming it for a feature it probably got FROM the Arise production process. I was hoping they'd be able to sidestep this being a 'big issue' and I'd finally see a game I love that people wouldn't bitch about all the time, but it sort of does the opposite, and will probably throw a lot of shade at another game (which I legitimately love) that didn't deserve it. :/ As for the technique itself, I think it just needs more work to have that 'wow' factor. At the moment, the mouth movements kind of puff out the cheeks in a weird way when viewed at a forward angle (angled shots are fine) and sometimes the isolated movements look weird instead of charming. I also think the size of the images and the way they filled the frame in Scarlet Nexus helped show it off better than the panels do, since expressions are a main highlight. It also might benefit from more contrast with the normal visuals of the game so that people don't inherently wonder why they didn't just animate the scene instead. Going forward I think a new shader specifically for converting 3D to great anime shots would be the way to go. It's a wild idea, but that's what's needed here I think, something to make anyone not familiar with the games go "HOW?!" Right now I think it has more of a "maybe I'll like this?" feel to it, which is fine for an experimental game like Scarlet Nexus, but a bit too early for a primetime title like Tales. But I never found myself asking "WHY?" because I know why they did this. There's an insatiable market out there for adding alt looks and doodads to existing characters, and this increases the sales value of those extra cosmetic items that rake in extra cash. The problem is that I don't personally use these at all. I made every single cosmetic item in Scarlet Nexus just for the hell of it, but only equipped 3 of them (and if you've completed the game, you know which 3 :) ) I just more or less never alter the appearance of pre-written characters and even in NGS, I don't change my look that often with my own character. I tend to pick a look and stick to it. So in a way, this is a trade-off where the trade doesn't really give ME anything in return. It all comes down to whether or not the skits can sell the idea that the variety in options is another improvement. That said, 2 other things they could do to increase the value of this system are 1: Having enough in-game costumes for people to not feel like it's not just a feature for cosmetics buyers, and 2: Xillia 2's Model changer. If you haven't played that, the post-game gives you access to a cosmetic option that actually changes the model of a character to another one. Including this zany feature would definitely give people something to enjoy in the new skits that they wouldn't otherwise.
Honestly, I had a knee jerk reaction during the gameplay demo where the scenes - small as they were - had that dispickable pseudo-voice acting - the pointless one word or phrase meant to convey emotion. Spoiled as I was with the last - what, maybe five Tales games, that was a little concerning. But that's literally the only thing I'm nervous about. Everything else just looks fantastic. Not a pre-order for me, but depending on how good the story and how much the voice acting, certainly a full price buy for me. As for the topic of this video, I have zero problem with the way the skits look. As long as they are of the same quality - and at least somewhat the same frequency Ive come to expect, I'll be all in. As Good as Scarlot Nexus is, It's really just a place holder for Arise.
I wouldn't be nervous about that if I were you. I haven't seen that demo but I still bet you it was just an old build - as it often so happens to be with gameplay demos. I mean just logically speaking... they pour a shitload of money into this game (for JRPG-standards... excluding Final Fantasy), upgrade and modernize basically everything - graphic, 2d cutscenes, battle system, even skits now - and then they go and do a 180 on the ONE thing Tales has had going for it for a while now, which is full voice acting (not saying it's the only good thing about the series, but it's one standout strength)? After Vesperia I think there barely was any main character dialogue that was not voiced, in fact I think in Zestiria and Berseria there was literally ZERO unvoiced material wherever main characters are concerned. They aren't going to go back on that now. That would be super stupid and the only reason I can see that happening is time constraints, but if that was the case they could just delay the game some more, at this point 2 months or something more doesn't make much of a difference. With all the money they poured into it it would be a waste to ruin something because of time constraints after such a long wait between entries in the franchise (for Tales of standards). So yeah don't worry about that. The characters, even more than the story, has always been Tales' strong suit and at least 75% of their personality is the voice acting. If I trust Bamco on anything it's that they won't screw that up. Tales of had decent voice acting in the early/mid 2000s when Final Fantasy 10 had.... whatever that was. So it's kind of their strength, has always been. No worries.
@@oOPrettywinxOo yes, I agree with all of this. That is why I was so surprised when I saw that. I hope you are correct in that it just has not been fully implemented yet. Oh I’m sure it will be a fantastic game regardless, but for me at least, the voice acting aspect is unfortunately quite necessary. Oh but I really don’t see that happening. Even Scarlet nexus, a new intellectual property by them had nearly full voice acting
Tbh I was surprised to see ppl mixed on this but now I understand. I like the new skits alot tbh, reminds me of Fire Emblem Three Houses supports which was a big change from past FE games but I liked it alot. I love what they're doing with Arise & so far love everything they announced, hopefully the game turns out great 👍
What's interesting about three houses is that the game was still widely praised because all the other aspects like story, music, and gameplay were enjoyable. So the change to 3D for these skits won't matter so much as long as tales of arise is enjoyable overall.
@@RenxyQuad true & I hope the same will be said about Arise. I understand ppl are afraid of all the changes they made in Arise but it could be for the best.
@@ken7007 because it doesn't warrant that reaction lol, same thing happens in games all the time & in FE: 3H there was no reaction about the change. I like it when ppl are open but I understand too that there are ppl who don't like to change anything ig.
So what you're telling me is that since its not actually 3D, it won't scale up to 4k TVs since this was made at lower resolution 2D like a lot of the other assets? I'd rather just have real 3D then.
1. Skits are optional character interactions, they aren't the only thing in the game. 2. No, I'm not saying that and yes it will scale to 4k TVs just fine... This 3D to 2D technique is done by the game in-real-time. The game takes the 3D models (as they appear at that moment in the game) and renders them onto a fixed perspective 2D plane with different lighting and rendering effects.
I had fun with Scarlet Nexus. But I hope this Tales game has animated cutscenes for the main story at least. Not saying rendered stills are lazy but I wanna see some performance. Some dramatic movement. I’ve played Tales of Zestiria, Berseria, bit of Vesperia, God Eater 1-2 and now Scarlet Nexus. I know Bandai Namco can do cutscenes if they want to and now “we have the technology” to make anime games on the level of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I hope we get animated cutscenes more frequently. Stills for skits are fine but the main story needs animated cutscenes.
It's just skits and small things like the cooking sequences that are told using this new skit style. The bulk of the story is told with traditional fully animated cutscenes, and anime sequences by Ufotable. :)
At first, I thought it was kind of strange, just because it's not what I expected. But after watching it a second time, I like this style more. Only because there's more visual context as to what's actually happening in the skit, instead of the old style, which felt more static in my opinion. I honestly found myself skipping about 80% of skits in the past games, so something like this will probably get me to watch more of them.
I would have preferred 2D just because of the artistic depiction of the characters, HOWEVER I can see the value of this. Pretty similar to what they did with Scarlet Nexus. Saves a bit of budget I imagine that can go somewhere else. I think it’s a natural evolution as stated and it’s good they are experimenting in several ways to take steps forward in the series.
@@JRPGGaming That’s interesting. Forgive my ignorance, then. I assumed otherwise since they already have the 3D models at hand, would just apply some filters instead of needing an artist to draw the expressions needed for the skits. I like them anyways, I think they are more detailed than Scarlet Nexus, at least.
Yeah, they're kind of a mash-up of both techniques Scarlet Nexus uses and I do like the implementation of this similar tech here more than in Scarlet Nexus. To elaborate on the costs: true 2D portraits save huge amounts of time and money because they only need to make X number of portraits per character (in some games it's just a handful, in others it's 20-30) then after that the only "animation" work needed is swapping the portraits in and out, and positioning them on screen as needed for each skit. The skits in Arise definitely save time and cost over fully animated cutscenes but there's a lot more work involved at multiple levels compared to their true 2D counterparts. The technique they developed which eventually turns the 3D models and locations into 2D assets is automated but before that happens they need to render the 3D models and the scene to get the poses, positions, etc that they want. After conversion they're left with a series of layered 2D assets which forms the panel, they then hand animate, or keyframe animate, the characters. Basically there's just a lot more animation work involved in these new skits than previous ones, and there are more developers/departments/teams involved in the overall process. It would be quicker on a 1-for-1 basis to do the initial 3D model/scene render vs. drawing a true 2D portrait but where there might have been 20 or 30 true 2D portraits they had to make, there are now potentially hundreds of scenes per character they'll need to render.
Hard agree. As a long-time fan, the most important thing for me is story quality, good combat, and well-developed characters. Little things like this were never really important to me.
Ya i remember seeing tons of complaints saying it looked cheap cause they didn't use more in engine action oriented cutscenes...imo they were aiming for the game to have a manga/comic styled presentation kind of reminiscent of super hero comics/manga (in particular My Hero Academia). There are some aspects of the story i have gripes with such as some scenes not being in at all and time skipped over that i think should've been in (at the start when Yuito/Kasane is told to go to Kaito to supposedly be reprimanded for fighting Others as a cadet, should've shown what happened with Togetsu, should've shown what happened with Kaito after Yuito goes to meet him in late game events (the 2nd to last of Kaito's appearances in the game...should be in Phase 10 or 11 if i'm right, may be some on Kasane's side too but still on her route (phase 8 now)). As for SN it's my current GotY 2021...granted i'm pretty sure (and hope) Arise takes it's place and keeps it.
I think if anyone hates the new skits, it’s just nostalgia speaking. I only recently got into the Tales of series and played Vesperia. The skits in Arise looks infinitely more interesting to me, and the real time outfit rendering won’t break immersion. I feel it’s great Arise is not bound by the past. Love your videos by the way.
i've never played a tales of game. but this looks great. seems stupid that people are complaining about it. some people can't be pleased though. and i say screw them.
I mean I am open to this, the only thing is that it might make the actual animated 2D cutscenes too out of place in the context of the game. Skits with the 2D character models kind of bridged the gap between the in-game graphics and those cutscenes, and I think that will be missing. As long as the skits themselves are still funny and have as much personality as in the past I don't care about the presentation of them in particular. But like I said... that bridge that keeps reminding you the 2D characters exist so the 2D cutscenes don't come out of nowhere will be missing. I hope that won't bother me, but we will see. (Even if it does, it won't make or break the game to me.)
I think the original point in 2d skits was that they were easy to make. Since the skits are more dynamic we may see less of them, but it does look nice.
They said there'd be a lot of them in the game, so I don't think that will be the issue. I think it'll more be people saying 'it looks a lot like the regular look of the game, so why not just make cutscenes?' A more distinctive visual alteration would sell the idea better as "this is stylized storytelling" and avoid the 'They were too lazy to animate their cutscenes' comments.
@@theoaremevano3227 as long as they don't use these instead of cutscenes like in nexus. They used this skit at a few points in nexus where action was taking place and it felt cheap
This was probably the best way to make these skits as efficient as possible. There was no way they were going to animate skits as the same as the main story cutscenes. It was either this style of reuse the same animation over and over like they do in three houses.
Reminds me of when some people were up in arms about Xillia having TWO different characters to choose from. And then some people up in arms about Velvet (a female character) leading the game. Tales Of has been steeped in tradition, but it’s gotta switch it up in some ways to continue to appeal to an ever changing audience.
i just think that 2d images can be more expressive than these 3d models its hard to see emotion done right with 3d models so far these look a bit stiff but thats just my own opinion adn also why are many games going for 3d models nowadays like digaea 6?
I agree that 2D images can be more expressive (because you are only limited by what you can draw and not by how you can manipulate a 3D model) but they also come with their own set of problems which make them less-than-ideal. Until we reach the point where some kind of AI system can hand-draw 2D images in-real-time based on the in-game models we are always going to have some compromises regardless of whether they're 2D, 3D, or 3D-2D.
I always loved the portraits. They went for the scarlet nexus cutscene style and I disliked it...BUT that was because it was used in most cutscenes and story included which I found annoying and lazy. Ofc in arise itll be skits only and seems to be a step up.
awesome video, good message, really appreciate it! i personally never played tales games that much. I played Symphonia for like 2h, but didn't like the combat that much. I played zestiria for like 2-4h but couldn't really get into it. I played Berseria for like 16h but got kinda bored and wanted to play something else rather. I liked the skits i just wised they were all voiced. So that being said, atleast from the look of it, i really like the new skits and it's very cool that you see the customization on your characters.
Meh it's just a vocal minority as always when it comes to minor complains like this one. Most people welcome the change or just don't care as long as the skits ar fun and well written.
I feel like this is going to be similar when Fire emblem three houses first showed 3D models in their supports. Like yeah, there was a minority that didn't like it. But in the end, most people enjoyed game because everything else was really good. As long as the other aspects of tales of arise are enjoyable to people, these 3D skits wouldn't hurt too much.
On first impression the skits presentation style earns a dislike from me. Change in itself isnt a good or bad thing. The goals i imagine they had in mind when deciding for this style would benefit from true cinematic storytelling, using the game engine. Considering the usual amount of skits it would take a lot of work to be done but would it be worth it? absolutely. On another note, what hay mentions in the video is true, They are staying true to the anime/manga influences of the series, something both good and bad. bad because i have been wanting for better storytelling for Tales for a long time and often being stuck to anime clichés and styles is a diservice. It also seems that BandaiNamco is modernizing the series with some influences from other series. I see FF15 and monster hunter influences. anyone else?
Yeah, more or less. People usually use 2.5D as a way to explain 2D environments with added depth to give the illusion of 3D where as this is kind of the opposite, trying to make 3D models look more 2D - the end result is essentially the same though; a kind of depth-layered 2D.
They look stiff and uncomfortable to me. That's what I was afraid of. 2D by definition is stiff so they have decades of knowledge how to make it look good regardless. 3D animation doesn't have a good track record, so... I think I have reason to be hesitant.
Skits look great! I can't wait until it comes out. Now I just wonder who will the cameo characters be? I'm seeing Rappigs from Abyss so I'm hoping for a Tear Cameo.
I’m not that huge a tales fan and I’ve only played berseria for maybe 3 or 4 hours or so but it looks like the skits I have seen thus far at the beginning of berseria but not 2d and I’ve heard there is people who are talking down on these new skits in the new game and honestly I just don’t get it they look fine and not much different than berseria
![ร้อยพ่อพันแม่ - WanMai [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XY2pNYASEbg/mqdefault.jpg)
![ลองสุ่มไอโฟน 990 โกงมั้ย? [ โกงมั้ยครับ ep.101 ] | DOM](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bfsWe0j492k/mqdefault.jpg)
*Edit: There are few people confused by my explanation. The 3D Models aren't converted into 2D assets in advance. It is a real-time, in-engine rendering technique. The 3D models (as they exist at that moment in-game) are rendered onto a fixed-perspective 2D plane which essentially turns them into cardboard cutouts of themselves. Using different lighting and effects to the ones used during live gameplay in this process helps give them a stronger stylized look. This is how they're able to reflect alternate outfits, accessories, and weapons in skits while still managing to maintain some of the 2D hand-animated feel. The end result is similar in effect to 2.5D environments but it's just accomplished in-reverse; it is essentially depth-layered 2D.*
You can just say "I don't like this new style" or "I prefer true 2D Portraits", nobody is forcing you to like these new skits more than the old ones but you don't need to invent reasons why this new style is objectively wrong or pretend that true 2D portraits don't have their own set of downsides. Having a preference is fine, saying these aren't in the spirit of Tales skits is not fine (because it's a lie).
*Preorder Tales of Arise here (Launching September 10th for PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC)*
USA: amzn.to/3gcVNWY | UK: amzn.to/2SXRyXo | AU: amzn.to/3fPVT7M | DE: amzn.to/3pljArU
Made perfect sense to me
As long as they’re well written and voice acted I could really care less how they’re presented. With that said these look pretty cool!
Yeap! They're all fully voice acted as far as I know. :)
I didn't start to like them much until I got to hear English ones. Being able to understand the interactions helps, and I think maybe they'd have benefited from showing them off in both languages for the first time.
too bad it feel too dull from 3d presentation skit. the off-sync lip sync from 3d skit was just too cringe to watch, and it's not funny.
I can't help but feel like Scarlet Nexus and Tales of Arise are using this 3D still system as a shortcut to giving us actual cutscenes. Considering they're just standing around talking half the time anyway, I would have rather seen these scenes play out in real time, using the basic cutscene style seen in Berseria's more conversational moments. The only reason the 2D was any good to begin with was because the portraits were really nice. On the plus side, at least these are skits, and not the primary form of cutscene in the entire game like it was for Nexus.
I'm totally ready to buy this game on PS5 (unless the Playstation version gets censored), but now I'm stuck asking myself how I should buy it. Do you know if costumes like the swimsuits will be available for purchase separately on the store, so I can buy them for use with a physical edition, or do I really have to forgo having a nice disc so I can preorder the digital deluxe? I hate how they're going about this lately. I would have bought the physical limited edition day one if I could confirm I'm not missing anything.
This presentation is only being used for skits in Arise so I don't really see it as being a shortcut, the bulk of the game uses actual cutscenes (plus the approach is different in Arise than it is in Scarlet Nexus, there aren't any snapshots/stills).
I don't know *for sure* whether all the costumes will be available for separate purchase but I'm 99% sure they will be, they have been every other time. I also assume there will be a "Digital Deluxe Upgrade" DLC option for physical version owners. I will try and get confirmation on that but I probably won't get confirmation until closer to launch.
@@JRPGGaming They definitely didn't offer anything like that for Scarlet Nexus's digital exclusive content. I highly suspect Namco Bandai is trying to encourage players to opt out of physical buying since it saves them money on production. Hopefully the PS5 will be able to play games off portable storage soon, since 1TB really isn't much for how large these PS5 games are becomming.
Evolve or die. I'm glad they evolved.
I like the 2D skits, and I think these look good as well. Contrary to many gaming fandoms, more than one type of thing can be good.
W-What? *eyes widen* Y-You mean multiple styles can work? *rages at the sky* WHAT IS THIS INSANITY?!?!?
(That physically hurt to type...)
Damn this was a good video Jay, I used to have doubts about it but your vid wiped out all the doubts I had, it's looking awesome right now and even more hyped for Arise.
I'm just happy skits are still here and it's a natural evolution can't wait.
I think they look great. Seems like a natural next step like they seem to be doing with everything else
I actually kinda like it. Looks kinda like a manga.
Can’t wait, this will be my first of the Tales games 😃
All those people crying are gonna rewatch the skits with their entire party in swimsuits, and be saying this was the greatest change ever in a few months.
Don't care for swimwear, but if I can make everybody Wingul again, that would be funny. XD (Though, swimwear would be funny in that scene where Law punches Alphen's armor and hurts his hand, since it would make no sense.)
@@theoaremevano3227 Alphen got abs of steel XD
Meh that's for certain people kind of niche do people not know cutscenes exist if you wanna see yall memes
@@ken7007 Do people not know what a comma is?
nope, that's not the reason. it's because those 2d skit was usually handcrafted and well made that fit into cartoonish presentation. the 10 years old skit presentation is better than this dull one. i'm pretty sure that will be significant amount of people would upset by this, because those are die-hard fans.
Thank you. While it is not what it was before, I like it and am excited to see how they play out. Thanks for saying what needed to be said.
Looks like what they did with Scarlett Nexus only better.
Edit : you just talked about that too
I kind of preferred how the images in Scarlet Nexus were larger, which highlighted good expressions. I loved a lot of the large background stills in that, and the portraits being at an angle kind of hid the issue with cheek movement while talking, which kind of looks weird in some of the skits here (most notably, the first one they showed off unfortunately.)
Nexus was far more stylish. Stop it. Bamco is lazy.
Wasnt Scarlet Nexus's developer a Tales series veteran?
@@WobblyAruku : Yeah, though they had different teams for this and SN, so they probably started making this for Arise first, and that's where SN got it, not the other way around.
@@theoaremevano3227 Ohhh thanks. I just thought Scarlet Nexus development on the skits came first because it was released before Arise while Arise is still gonna be released a few months from now.
Honestly this looks like the most effort put behind a skit system in the series. Being able to see costumes and accessories be reflected in them is great, and the manga style setup allows more detail and character animation to be established.
not to mention in some cases there's a bit of movement (not much mind you, mostly movements of hands/chest from breathing or hair waving in the wind...though there is one skit with Hootle flying around like crazy that's a bit more animated....throw a few of those in every 5 or 6 skits (say one skit where you see Law/Alphen actually punch each other or if any romance between party members pops up something a bit more intimate like a hug, kiss, or even a Rean Style Headpat lol) and you really can't call lt lack of effort imo).
I don't care now that costumes and accessories show up in skits is all I care about and that's amazing. Cutscenes where I had every character with a cowboy hat were already hilarious so I'm all for it
I am so excited for this game! I don’t know what to say about the skits till I play the game but I can’t say I’m not excited about the possibilities!
I'll happily give it a shot.
The reason I liked the 2D portraits is because they look cartoony and different than the rendered 3D models. But I love skits and it's the reason I really got drawn into the series to begin with. And they still have full 2D animation from the looks of things, so I won't be upset.
I'm playing my second Tales game with Xillia right now and love the skits system. While I have a soft spot for 2D anime art, I am insanely hyped to see what Arise does with the capacity to create much more dynamic panels in skits. I'm here to see awesome characters engage with one another in meaningful and memorable ways, so as long as they are able to do that, I'll be ecstatic!
I seriously cannot wait for this game to launch!
I like how the skits look 3D comic although I’m going to miss the 2d sprite skits
sprite skit was WAY better than this dull one.
This game is gonna be a big step up on every aspect from the previous Tales of games, so for me there is nothing to worry about. I know its gonna be awesome in every possible way!
Looks great tbh. Can't wait to see all of them.
I think they look great!:)
3:46 you said it perfectly my friend. As what Skits really are not only just about aesthetics. They really are meant for character interactions, as well as for funny scenarios and character growth. And yeah while I’m going to miss the 2D ones, the new form of skits for Arise isn’t going to be a dealbreaker for me, and I’m going to likely enjoy them as I play through the game. And yeah, sometimes it is going to be hard for some to accept change, it happens to a lot of media that people are into when they try to add something new. If I had been asked the option for Arise to pick their new form of skits or no skits at all, I would undoubtedly pick the former. If some don’t like them, then they don’t have to like them, but at the expense of attacking others who are fine or even like this change (which I found some people my god) just really is unacceptable
Looks awesome!
I think the new style looks phenomenal.
So far this game has literally done NOTHING to disappoint my expectations. On the contrary, all changes and “upgrades” are very welcome! I liked the Berseria skits, would not miss anything if they just decided to forgo them completely and just had regular 3d scenes, but i appreciate the nostalgia theure trying to keep.
This is the only thing I'm not thrilled with, but like, it's seriously the ONLY thing. I do think they should try to keep skits around because it's a good idea. I always felt like they fit better into the game as a way to add little side notes to every scene. If everything was full scenes then it would just feel like the game had too many cutscenes and people would always be asking 'why is this scene optional but this one's not?' The clear distinction is good for clarifying the intent behind the storytelling methods. :)
@@theoaremevano3227 Same. Skits should always be Skits and not just cutscenes imo...especially since they can add far more this way as well and for people wanting to rush through it (not me though...i'll be looking for everything i can find in the game) add in them as cutsenes will just confuse them into thinking they're all mandatory story scenes (granted anyone playing solely for gameplay will skip them and the main quest regardless...don't know why they're playing jrpgs though if they're gonna skip the story). If they keep this 3D like style or go back to completely anime style doesn't matter much to me as long as skits are in.
From a player that has played most of the Tales series games and NEVER watches the skits IRDC lol. I'm just happy the series is still ongoing and that we can enjoy a new Tales game.
Did you see Takanashi Kiaras interview with Tales of Arise Producer Tomizawa Yusuke?
My view on it is this: as long as skits continue to help flesh out the characters' personalities and background or world lore i don't particularly care which art style is used and the new 3D like skits do just that so the 'essence' of skits are faithfully kept imo....and nobody can say they don't if they have watched Alphen's Mabou Curry skit they showed off (based off that skit i think Alphen's gonna be one of my favorite characters in the series and likely my favorite MC in the series to date).
Also it isn't nearly as big a change as say the shift to arte trees for combat (was a choice i personally disliked cause i like to freely choose my arte rather than have to go through the tree to get to it...one of the things i like about the new system even if there may be less artes cause of it) or the shift to a behind the back view for the camera on field/dungeon maps which, imo, is what lead to fairly lackluster dungeons in most games from Xillia to Berseria and the lackluster field maps of X1 and 2 (Zesty and Bersy improved the field maps drastically...best field maps though were from Graces F with the static camera since the maps were more lively and there were still plenty of puzzles...unlike recent games).
Caught my interest because it reminds me of how Valkyria Chronicles 4 handles it's scenes. Just with much more life here. Looks great.
I think it is cool. Cutscenes in Scarlet Nexus was pretty cool.
I am hyped for this Arise, the most hyped I ever was for a Tales game.
Ok, several valid points were made at the end. 👏🏽
The skits look great
I think people forget that change is inevitable in a long standing series like Tales Of. I welcome the change either way.
Changing the skit artstyle was unnecessary at best though
Seems interesting, Gonna need to upgrade my build if I wanna play this when it comes out though lol.
Great work! Keep it up.
I can't wait to start re-watching these skits with mods in the future ;D
I actually love these skits!
They still look good and fun
It’s just going to be something I’ll have to get used to. I do like the manga page style with different panels layered all down the screen, but the smoothly animated mouths just looks a tad creepy to me. But like I said, this is just something that’ll take me getting used to. The game is shaping up nicely anyway, to say the least, and I’m hyped :D
Also, psyched to hear we’re getting many more 2D cutscenes than before! They were always one of my favorite features.
PS: Rinwell best girl
I like what they did for Scarlet Nexus, the cosmetic will be shown in the cutscene is a huge plus for me.
Glad that they iterated on that technique here.
I don't think it's worth the lack of expressions
I for one can't wait to play Arise, the graphics look sharp, the gameplay so far is sick, hopefully the story will be great too.
I'm just glad skits are still in the game, since they removed multiplayer and that made me worry that they could remove other things. I was a little sad that they aren't 2D artwork, since they make so many new 2D art for the mobile games, but I think your points are valid. Being able to make the characters make much more new poses in the skits and being able to see the costumes and attachments reflected in the skits are both good things.
Even with the models used in Arise moving in skits the 2d skit art in the previous games are more expressive than the in game models here.
Yep good luck getting even half the expressions from Berseria with this artsytle
All I know is Kisara's got probably the best female heavy armor set I've ever seen.
Oh, and the skits are good. I don't know how I rank them without playing through a lot of them first-hand, but skits have been evolving for essentially the entire series and this looks like a natural progression to me. Being able to see costumes and such in skits is definitely a major bonus for me, I can honestly say I've wished that was a thing for every single game in the series and it's finally a thing!
Looks really good. Can't wait.
This is going to be pretty cool! I liked the 2D art, but I’m more then willing to give these a chance. And yes older skits were very bare bones. I wish Abyss had a more updated skit system.
It's not that I hate them. (BAKA! xD) Don't get me wrong, they look fine and are arranged really well. Might need some time to get used to them.
On the other hand, I think I will miss the classic skit portraits. They just had soooooo much charm with the sometimes wild & ridiculous expressions and spontaneous switches from the head-only portraits to a full character pose sometimes. I loved those slightly "over the top" moments, they have done with them. This over exaggeration of facial expressions will not work with this system anymore, which I'm a bit sad about and I will miss the classic ones.
But like I said, they are not really bad in a artistic and technical sense, they are just different, which will need some time to get adjusted to, at least for me.
Thank you exactly a lot of people saying it's the other way around some expressions the 3d Flatout can't do so i don't see way all these people saying the new skits has more "expression"
Skits varied quite a bit over the years from Vesperia to Berseria so, I think this will be interesting. Hopefully they're still as funny and characters have good interactions as previous games. I still think back on some of the jokes in Xillia and Graces today XD
The skits are fine for me! It was even better when I watched it in English because I could actually understand what was going on. According to the official Tales of Arise Twitter (JP), not only the clothes and attachments reflect in the new skits but also the background depending on the location you’re at. I like those changes! Anyway, I’m still very excited for the game!
And weapons, too!
It should be lots of fun mixing and matching everything to get the funniest skits possible.
I really loved the 2D art skits but as long as the skits are entertaining and creative thats all I care about.
It is a letdown that there's no 2d artwork for the skits, that was the best part about them. Still excitied
It looks like they're comics! I love it!
Despite what many people seem to push and believe, not everything needs to "Evolve" to be better , it often leads to disappointment, like the fighting systems in FF12 and FF13 where there tried something new but in the end it was either tedious or boring. Or an either better Example ,the new disgaea 6 were they needlesly inflated the numbers ,got rit of many classes and weapon skills, and put in some auto-fight mode so you could level while being "away" making it more like are cheap mobile game.
there is nothing wrong with taking something that already exists and works and just making it better.
I admit that i like what i see so far of tales of arise, but i wont judge it until i have actually played it myself.
I could have sworn that said 'skirts' when I clicked on it.
This looks great! Also, hearing chaotic dance from baten kaitos EW&LO made me happy lol
They look pretty good and will probably allow for some decently dynamic scenes to be portrayed. One thing I fear we'll loose as a tradeoff however is the ability to portray more exaggerated cartoony expressions (think a lot of Magilou in Berseria's funny skits) because those will look weird with the more naturalistic 3d models.
Yeap, there's definitely trade-offs. Both approaches have advantages and disadvantages, this new style loses some of that overexaggeration and the freedom inherent in drawing 2D images in exchange for being able to offer more variety, more dynamic scenes, and accurate outfit and weapon portrayal.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.
Do you think this Tales will be really great? I don't want to get hyped but I'm feeling that this game will be good, what you think?
This game is gonna be so much fun!
While I'm not a fan of the lack of victory screens, I'm still quite excited for Arise. It coming out on my Birthday is quite cool too xD
I'm not a fan of it but I don't hate it either. I do love how many people it upset though because by proxy quite a few of those people were the ones who shit on multiplayer, so I'm glad they're mad lmao
I don't think it's works like that lol
They look really cool, only gripe I have is that in what we were shown, the panels were overwhelmingly used for one character at a time, with a few group panels or one with more than a character. I think doing more multi character panels would help the flow of the skits and make the transition from previous entries to this new style not as jarring
Great video. TY!!!
I'm excited for the change, but my reservation is actually as simple as I think the 2D "Anime" stylized portraits of the characters allow for the tone of the conversations to be quite diverse BECAUSE they are so removed from what the in game models look like, more so than the fact that its 2D, its the style as well. I suppose the emotional range of their faces etc in the skits would determine whether I ultimately decide if it was good or not.
I like it even more
This game is one of the only reasons I'mma get the Steam Deck
I like it, has a comic book look
Looks great 👍hopefully they have returned abit more to their roots and learned after there mistakes from the previous few games.
I was hoping you'd go over some new details about this. :)
My own reaction was more that I was upset about the repercussions of this choice and how people would react to it. I was hoping they'd keep normal anime as a sort of 'anchor feature' to answer the question of "Is this a fitting Tales game?" or that whatever they did would have enough 'wow' factor to make me not care. But this sort of doesn't quite have that, and it opens up a lot of avenues for nay-sayers to make their cases. If someone wants to complain about the characters, their personalities, or the visuals, skits will probably be their go-to visuals for making it look bad.
The other thing that bugs me is that, because Scarlet Nexus experimented with a similar technique, lots of rabid morons will probably start pointing fingers at that game and blaming it for a feature it probably got FROM the Arise production process. I was hoping they'd be able to sidestep this being a 'big issue' and I'd finally see a game I love that people wouldn't bitch about all the time, but it sort of does the opposite, and will probably throw a lot of shade at another game (which I legitimately love) that didn't deserve it. :/
As for the technique itself, I think it just needs more work to have that 'wow' factor. At the moment, the mouth movements kind of puff out the cheeks in a weird way when viewed at a forward angle (angled shots are fine) and sometimes the isolated movements look weird instead of charming. I also think the size of the images and the way they filled the frame in Scarlet Nexus helped show it off better than the panels do, since expressions are a main highlight. It also might benefit from more contrast with the normal visuals of the game so that people don't inherently wonder why they didn't just animate the scene instead. Going forward I think a new shader specifically for converting 3D to great anime shots would be the way to go. It's a wild idea, but that's what's needed here I think, something to make anyone not familiar with the games go "HOW?!" Right now I think it has more of a "maybe I'll like this?" feel to it, which is fine for an experimental game like Scarlet Nexus, but a bit too early for a primetime title like Tales.
But I never found myself asking "WHY?" because I know why they did this. There's an insatiable market out there for adding alt looks and doodads to existing characters, and this increases the sales value of those extra cosmetic items that rake in extra cash. The problem is that I don't personally use these at all. I made every single cosmetic item in Scarlet Nexus just for the hell of it, but only equipped 3 of them (and if you've completed the game, you know which 3 :) ) I just more or less never alter the appearance of pre-written characters and even in NGS, I don't change my look that often with my own character. I tend to pick a look and stick to it. So in a way, this is a trade-off where the trade doesn't really give ME anything in return. It all comes down to whether or not the skits can sell the idea that the variety in options is another improvement.
That said, 2 other things they could do to increase the value of this system are 1: Having enough in-game costumes for people to not feel like it's not just a feature for cosmetics buyers, and 2: Xillia 2's Model changer. If you haven't played that, the post-game gives you access to a cosmetic option that actually changes the model of a character to another one. Including this zany feature would definitely give people something to enjoy in the new skits that they wouldn't otherwise.
Honestly, I had a knee jerk reaction during the gameplay demo where the scenes - small as they were - had that dispickable pseudo-voice acting - the pointless one word or phrase meant to convey emotion. Spoiled as I was with the last - what, maybe five Tales games, that was a little concerning. But that's literally the only thing I'm nervous about. Everything else just looks fantastic. Not a pre-order for me, but depending on how good the story and how much the voice acting, certainly a full price buy for me. As for the topic of this video, I have zero problem with the way the skits look. As long as they are of the same quality - and at least somewhat the same frequency Ive come to expect, I'll be all in. As Good as Scarlot Nexus is, It's really just a place holder for Arise.
I wouldn't be nervous about that if I were you. I haven't seen that demo but I still bet you it was just an old build - as it often so happens to be with gameplay demos.
I mean just logically speaking... they pour a shitload of money into this game (for JRPG-standards... excluding Final Fantasy), upgrade and modernize basically everything - graphic, 2d cutscenes, battle system, even skits now - and then they go and do a 180 on the ONE thing Tales has had going for it for a while now, which is full voice acting (not saying it's the only good thing about the series, but it's one standout strength)? After Vesperia I think there barely was any main character dialogue that was not voiced, in fact I think in Zestiria and Berseria there was literally ZERO unvoiced material wherever main characters are concerned. They aren't going to go back on that now. That would be super stupid and the only reason I can see that happening is time constraints, but if that was the case they could just delay the game some more, at this point 2 months or something more doesn't make much of a difference. With all the money they poured into it it would be a waste to ruin something because of time constraints after such a long wait between entries in the franchise (for Tales of standards).
So yeah don't worry about that. The characters, even more than the story, has always been Tales' strong suit and at least 75% of their personality is the voice acting. If I trust Bamco on anything it's that they won't screw that up. Tales of had decent voice acting in the early/mid 2000s when Final Fantasy 10 had.... whatever that was. So it's kind of their strength, has always been. No worries.
@@oOPrettywinxOo yes, I agree with all of this. That is why I was so surprised when I saw that. I hope you are correct in that it just has not been fully implemented yet. Oh I’m sure it will be a fantastic game regardless, but for me at least, the voice acting aspect is unfortunately quite necessary. Oh but I really don’t see that happening. Even Scarlet nexus, a new intellectual property by them had nearly full voice acting
Tbh I was surprised to see ppl mixed on this but now I understand. I like the new skits alot tbh, reminds me of Fire Emblem Three Houses supports which was a big change from past FE games but I liked it alot. I love what they're doing with Arise & so far love everything they announced, hopefully the game turns out great 👍
What's interesting about three houses is that the game was still widely praised because all the other aspects like story, music, and gameplay were enjoyable. So the change to 3D for these skits won't matter so much as long as tales of arise is enjoyable overall.
@@RenxyQuad true & I hope the same will be said about Arise. I understand ppl are afraid of all the changes they made in Arise but it could be for the best.
Why are you surprise lol the series staple future since 97 only have been changed into something else
@@ken7007 because it doesn't warrant that reaction lol, same thing happens in games all the time & in FE: 3H there was no reaction about the change. I like it when ppl are open but I understand too that there are ppl who don't like to change anything ig.
Looks good
2d, 3d... I'm just happy skits are still in the game and it reflects the costumes and accessories.
So what you're telling me is that since its not actually 3D, it won't scale up to 4k TVs since this was made at lower resolution 2D like a lot of the other assets? I'd rather just have real 3D then.
1. Skits are optional character interactions, they aren't the only thing in the game.
2. No, I'm not saying that and yes it will scale to 4k TVs just fine...
This 3D to 2D technique is done by the game in-real-time. The game takes the 3D models (as they appear at that moment in the game) and renders them onto a fixed perspective 2D plane with different lighting and rendering effects.
Do u have any info on artifacts or how new game plus works yet ?
Not yet, hopefully soon.
@@JRPGGaming thanks for the reply. 😊
I had fun with Scarlet Nexus. But I hope this Tales game has animated cutscenes for the main story at least. Not saying rendered stills are lazy but I wanna see some performance. Some dramatic movement.
I’ve played Tales of Zestiria, Berseria, bit of Vesperia, God Eater 1-2 and now Scarlet Nexus. I know Bandai Namco can do cutscenes if they want to and now “we have the technology” to make anime games on the level of Mass Effect and Dragon Age. I hope we get animated cutscenes more frequently.
Stills for skits are fine but the main story needs animated cutscenes.
It's just skits and small things like the cooking sequences that are told using this new skit style. The bulk of the story is told with traditional fully animated cutscenes, and anime sequences by Ufotable. :)
At first, I thought it was kind of strange, just because it's not what I expected. But after watching it a second time, I like this style more. Only because there's more visual context as to what's actually happening in the skit, instead of the old style, which felt more static in my opinion. I honestly found myself skipping about 80% of skits in the past games, so something like this will probably get me to watch more of them.
I would have preferred 2D just because of the artistic depiction of the characters, HOWEVER I can see the value of this. Pretty similar to what they did with Scarlet Nexus. Saves a bit of budget I imagine that can go somewhere else. I think it’s a natural evolution as stated and it’s good they are experimenting in several ways to take steps forward in the series.
This definitely costs more time/money than 2D portraits. 2D portraits were a huge cost/time saving measure to begin with.
@@JRPGGaming That’s interesting. Forgive my ignorance, then. I assumed otherwise since they already have the 3D models at hand, would just apply some filters instead of needing an artist to draw the expressions needed for the skits.
I like them anyways, I think they are more detailed than Scarlet Nexus, at least.
Yeah, they're kind of a mash-up of both techniques Scarlet Nexus uses and I do like the implementation of this similar tech here more than in Scarlet Nexus.
To elaborate on the costs: true 2D portraits save huge amounts of time and money because they only need to make X number of portraits per character (in some games it's just a handful, in others it's 20-30) then after that the only "animation" work needed is swapping the portraits in and out, and positioning them on screen as needed for each skit. The skits in Arise definitely save time and cost over fully animated cutscenes but there's a lot more work involved at multiple levels compared to their true 2D counterparts.
The technique they developed which eventually turns the 3D models and locations into 2D assets is automated but before that happens they need to render the 3D models and the scene to get the poses, positions, etc that they want. After conversion they're left with a series of layered 2D assets which forms the panel, they then hand animate, or keyframe animate, the characters.
Basically there's just a lot more animation work involved in these new skits than previous ones, and there are more developers/departments/teams involved in the overall process. It would be quicker on a 1-for-1 basis to do the initial 3D model/scene render vs. drawing a true 2D portrait but where there might have been 20 or 30 true 2D portraits they had to make, there are now potentially hundreds of scenes per character they'll need to render.
@@JRPGGaming Thanks a lot for the insight!
They look good so idc
So it's like Scarlet Nexus? That's awesome
Hard agree. As a long-time fan, the most important thing for me is story quality, good combat, and well-developed characters. Little things like this were never really important to me.
The way Scarlet Nexus is doing it has really grown on me, so I don't mind that Tales of Arise is doing something similar.
Ya i remember seeing tons of complaints saying it looked cheap cause they didn't use more in engine action oriented cutscenes...imo they were aiming for the game to have a manga/comic styled presentation kind of reminiscent of super hero comics/manga (in particular My Hero Academia). There are some aspects of the story i have gripes with such as some scenes not being in at all and time skipped over that i think should've been in (at the start when Yuito/Kasane is told to go to Kaito to supposedly be reprimanded for fighting Others as a cadet, should've shown what happened with Togetsu, should've shown what happened with Kaito after Yuito goes to meet him in late game events (the 2nd to last of Kaito's appearances in the game...should be in Phase 10 or 11 if i'm right, may be some on Kasane's side too but still on her route (phase 8 now)).
As for SN it's my current GotY 2021...granted i'm pretty sure (and hope) Arise takes it's place and keeps it.
I think if anyone hates the new skits, it’s just nostalgia speaking. I only recently got into the Tales of series and played Vesperia. The skits in Arise looks infinitely more interesting to me, and the real time outfit rendering won’t break immersion. I feel it’s great Arise is not bound by the past. Love your videos by the way.
I don't see it & if anything the outfits is gonna break the immersion
i've never played a tales of game. but this looks great. seems stupid that people are complaining about it.
some people can't be pleased though. and i say screw them.
I mean I am open to this, the only thing is that it might make the actual animated 2D cutscenes too out of place in the context of the game. Skits with the 2D character models kind of bridged the gap between the in-game graphics and those cutscenes, and I think that will be missing.
As long as the skits themselves are still funny and have as much personality as in the past I don't care about the presentation of them in particular. But like I said... that bridge that keeps reminding you the 2D characters exist so the 2D cutscenes don't come out of nowhere will be missing. I hope that won't bother me, but we will see. (Even if it does, it won't make or break the game to me.)
I think the original point in 2d skits was that they were easy to make. Since the skits are more dynamic we may see less of them, but it does look nice.
They said there'd be a lot of them in the game, so I don't think that will be the issue. I think it'll more be people saying 'it looks a lot like the regular look of the game, so why not just make cutscenes?' A more distinctive visual alteration would sell the idea better as "this is stylized storytelling" and avoid the 'They were too lazy to animate their cutscenes' comments.
@@theoaremevano3227 as long as they don't use these instead of cutscenes like in nexus. They used this skit at a few points in nexus where action was taking place and it felt cheap
This was probably the best way to make these skits as efficient as possible. There was no way they were going to animate skits as the same as the main story cutscenes. It was either this style of reuse the same animation over and over like they do in three houses.
Reminds me of when some people were up in arms about Xillia having TWO different characters to choose from. And then some people up in arms about Velvet (a female character) leading the game. Tales Of has been steeped in tradition, but it’s gotta switch it up in some ways to continue to appeal to an ever changing audience.
i just think that 2d images can be more expressive than these 3d models its hard to see emotion done right with 3d models so far these look a bit stiff but thats just my own opinion adn also why are many games going for 3d models nowadays like digaea 6?
Agreed the old skits looked more like a party talking and less like 3d manga panels.
I agree that 2D images can be more expressive (because you are only limited by what you can draw and not by how you can manipulate a 3D model) but they also come with their own set of problems which make them less-than-ideal.
Until we reach the point where some kind of AI system can hand-draw 2D images in-real-time based on the in-game models we are always going to have some compromises regardless of whether they're 2D, 3D, or 3D-2D.
thanks god their eye blink, the demo skit was so creepy i can't get it at all
I always loved the portraits. They went for the scarlet nexus cutscene style and I disliked it...BUT that was because it was used in most cutscenes and story included which I found annoying and lazy. Ofc in arise itll be skits only and seems to be a step up.
awesome video, good message, really appreciate it! i personally never played tales games that much. I played Symphonia for like 2h, but didn't like the combat that much. I played zestiria for like 2-4h but couldn't really get into it. I played Berseria for like 16h but got kinda bored and wanted to play something else rather. I liked the skits i just wised they were all voiced. So that being said, atleast from the look of it, i really like the new skits and it's very cool that you see the customization on your characters.
Meh it's just a vocal minority as always when it comes to minor complains like this one. Most people welcome the change or just don't care as long as the skits ar fun and well written.
I feel like this is going to be similar when Fire emblem three houses first showed 3D models in their supports. Like yeah, there was a minority that didn't like it. But in the end, most people enjoyed game because everything else was really good. As long as the other aspects of tales of arise are enjoyable to people, these 3D skits wouldn't hurt too much.
Definitely not the same lol
I see pros and cons of the new approach. See how it goes. (MP is still the big loss)
On first impression the skits presentation style earns a dislike from me. Change in itself isnt a good or bad thing. The goals i imagine they had in mind when deciding for this style would benefit from true cinematic storytelling, using the game engine. Considering the usual amount of skits it would take a lot of work to be done but would it be worth it? absolutely.
On another note, what hay mentions in the video is true, They are staying true to the anime/manga influences of the series, something both good and bad. bad because i have been wanting for better storytelling for Tales for a long time and often being stuck to anime clichés and styles is a diservice.
It also seems that BandaiNamco is modernizing the series with some influences from other series. I see FF15 and monster hunter influences. anyone else?
So 2.5D?
Yeah, more or less. People usually use 2.5D as a way to explain 2D environments with added depth to give the illusion of 3D where as this is kind of the opposite, trying to make 3D models look more 2D - the end result is essentially the same though; a kind of depth-layered 2D.
Needs more body movements, having boxes with heads in them, regardless of how its made, would be underwhelming
They look stiff and uncomfortable to me. That's what I was afraid of. 2D by definition is stiff so they have decades of knowledge how to make it look good regardless. 3D animation doesn't have a good track record, so... I think I have reason to be hesitant.
Skits look great! I can't wait until it comes out. Now I just wonder who will the cameo characters be? I'm seeing Rappigs from Abyss so I'm hoping for a Tear Cameo.
Still I prefer the old skits. Wasn't a huge fan of the nexus dynamic skits.
Honestly? I hate it. Won't keep me from the game, but good lord
I’m not that huge a tales fan and I’ve only played berseria for maybe 3 or 4 hours or so but it looks like the skits I have seen thus far at the beginning of berseria but not 2d and I’ve heard there is people who are talking down on these new skits in the new game and honestly I just don’t get it they look fine and not much different than berseria