Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn Review (̵̰̳̓͊ ̶l̸|̴|̷̵̰̓͊)
Suppressors were on in the making of this DLC
This is an okay DLC, however the bad outweigh the good (sadly, because I am a fan of Tales).
Summary
This DLC does not add to your main playthrough in any way, it is a SEPARATE playthrough alltogether!
1. You cannot use your original save file and progression
2. You start from level 65 but have to unlock your artes and skills again for each character
3. Limited access to the world's areas and zones
4. You play on railtracks with very little side content to do
5. Little to no exploration
6. The DLC playthrough lasts for about 3-5 hours, mostly due to walking and dialogue
It also pulls out every spoiler of the main story that there is (it does warn you about that), so you are required to have finished the main game to understand anything that's going on.
While that is OK, it again raises the question of "why was this made as separate playthrough?"
What would have been better?
They simply should have added this DLC to the end of the main game playthrough, not as a separate playthrough and it would have saved it for the most part.
It should have become available through a quest after finishing the main story, just like the super boss rush also becomes available post game. It would have made more sense in every way since the encounter balancing in the DLC leads to the same point where you would be at the end of the main game anyway, in terms of party composition and strength.
It makes no sense to have people grind it out again just for the extra encounters and the little story that there is.
Additionally, you cannot fight any of the big bosses in this DLC again. They did not add the super boss rush as there is in the main game. So the only fight you will be able to repeat after completing the DLC is the final boss.
Is there anything good?
I do think the encounters (bosses) are good. The story is okay, it does not blow your socks off and is even cheesier than the main story. I think the combat shines the most again. The humor is still good as expected. Visuals and soundtrack are just as good as the main game. Sadly not much else comes out of this DLC.
Recommended?
Only to real fans of ToA and only when on sale (at least 50% off).
It's not worth the full price by all means and it's not worth to someone who didn't like ToA in the first place.
I hope they learn from this for their next Tales game, because the way this was technically implemented is really not good and pales to the quality of the main playthrough of Tales of Arise.
Mistakes like these hurt the very niche franchise a lot, so I hope they don't repeat these mistakes in the future.
DLC is fine for Tales games, but implement it properly.