orpheusx9

UPDATE - The show gets substantially better in the last two episodes. But I'm disappointed I had to watch the whole thing before it got better.

TL;DR - They had the chance to expand into story and animate some great stuff from the game. They didn't. It's boring, it skips around too much, it moves too quickly, and none of the charm, the excitement, or the beauty from the game transferred to the anime. Also, why the hell did we suddenly devote two episodes in the middle of this to Berseria, when it didn't do anything to educate viewers on Zestiria's background?

Story (2.5/5)

So much of the good stuff, including drama from evil characters from the game are just not present here. They're trivialized, and it's almost as if the entire plot itself was dumbed down because they couldn't figure out how to turn this thing into an anime. As mentioned in summary, story skipped some pretty major (in my opinion) events, and even if you ignore that, it progresses too quickly without making much sense to a non-Tales-knowledgeable person.

Animation (3/5)

Animation was pretty in some parts. As usual, ufotable makes some very attractive and visually appealing characters. But there wasn't anything outstanding or spectacular. Some of the hellions looked kind of weird, like they switched from awesome anime to sub-par CG and then back to anime. Blegh. At least in the game, all of the parts that were anime were *only* anime.

Sound (4/5)

One of the few things I highly enjoyed about the anime is the good quality voice-acting and music. Sound effects were fine too. Pretty good, although the game is still better.

Characters (1/5)

What the hell happened here? The only characters that maintained 100% of their personality from the game were Sorey and Rose. Mikleo isn't as sassy as he is in game (he's hilarious), they went and turned Alisha from tomboy knight to damsel-in-distress, and Lailah also doesn't retain any of her super awkward, but cute quirkiness from the game. They went and completely toned down the "evilness" of the lord guy in Ladylake fighting to kill Alisha, and at no point in the anime do you ever feel the desperation of the people facing the "Age of Chaos" that you do in the game.

Overall, just super disappointed. It pains me because I'm 100% a massive Tales fan - every time a new game comes out I throw my wallet at them like I'm a crack-addict. The anime just doesn't cut it for me.