Social Link Shortcuts - Tales of Arise 

Your combined skills of attaining these insights and then explaining them is tremendous.

Ya know, I felt something kinda "off" about the skits in Arise but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. For awhile, I thought it was due to the writing quality not being up to snuff compared to previous entries, and while I do think that's still true to an extent, I do think you make a very good point that by shifting the presentation in this way, it feels less intimate. By simply having character portraits dancing around and expressing the emotions of the characters in cartoonish yet minimalistic ways, this did well in separating the skits more from the cutscenes in the main story. The contrast isn't as strong in Arise, therefore the skits don't feel as personal.

Oh, so that's the reason I didn't like Arise (or Star Ocean The Divine Force, for that matter) that much, while I loved Berseria so much. Do you think this change might be enough to make good characters bad? See, I always thought Berseria was so good because it had a bad ass story and great characters, but I felt Arise was bland in both accounts. Could this subversion of skits style be enough for that? Or is Arise actually bland? I also felt the addition of a jump button made the game worse, specifically in combat, and I feel Star Ocean TDF feels very close to Arise, including bland characters. Or.should I blame Yakuza Like a Dragon, which I consider the best turn based RPG.