Monday, March 4, 2024

Cloud Monday - Tales of Arise - Part 2 - A Good RPG To Stream From The Cloud


This week's Cloud Monday video is part 2 of playing the PS4 version of Tales of Arise via the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service to my Japanese launch model PlayStation 4.

In Part 1,https://youtu.be/9O7-F5v3kF0, we quickly learned about the auto save and how quickly we were able to manual save. 2 important pluses for a service that can give you a 20 second warning before it disconnects you. In Part 2, we learn at the beginning that the game keeps 2 autosaves! This is a big win for people using the PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming platform as it provides comfort as if you're unable to save before you're disconnected, there's a high chance the game has saved itself.

Playing the game itself also continued to be fun. i do enjoy how the game uses different methods to tell it's story. after this part, i felt i liked the comic book style method more than in Part 1. A nice little touch was that the game makes it clear when you have or haven't talked to someone. Plus, you're able to stack side quests. so you can chat with everyone in a village, collect all their sidequests, and set out and do them all. This also works for a cloud game. For example, if you're playing during a stable period you can collect all the sidequests and talk with everyone, save, and now it doesn't matter as much if you're disconnected when compared with tackling each quest at a time.

Like Part 1, there were very brief moments of Stream Tearing, where grey appears on screen most likely due to a frame of video arriving incomplete. the controls also felt sharp and i couldn't feel any lag from them. If anything was holding the game back it's the fact this is the PS4 version of the game. there was texture pop-in, loading, and the world and characters just lacked the finer detail.

Tales of Arise is not only an RPG i would recommend people play via PlayStation Plus Cloud Streaming Service, it's also just a good game to play. it does look great on PS4 and the loading doesn't feel too bad. So i imagine it'll be better on PS4 Pro or PS5. Whilst playing it, i noted how it reminded me of Final Fantasy X in a positive way. I'm personally curious about the story and the rest of the game so i may continue it in my own time.