Tales of Zestiria the Cross: Saiyaku no Jidai

Tales of Zestiria, the franchise based on the game. To be clear, the prologue is literally the special that apparently takes place before the main series. Dubbed also as “Tales of Zestiria the X Prologue: The Age of Chaos”, it stars protagonist Alisha as she investigates a strange phenomena that has hit the kingdom of Hyland.

For those unfamiliar with the game, I think it’s safe to venture into watching this without a decent knowledge. Although judging on the setting, it’s probably a good idea to get familiarized with the world fiction as the show has high fantasy elements. The special episode contains elements of ... fantasy that portrays peculiar characters such as Lunarre and weapons that you’ll easily find in fantasy genre games.

Meanwhile, the special episode can also be rather confusing to watch as events unfold from the start. One of the main characters, Clemm gets caught into a violent catastrophe that puts her life in danger. Furthermore, Alisha and her crew runs into a strange female character with dark magic-like abilities. For it’s worth, the episode pretty much feels like it drops the story into the middle of nowhere for viewers. What I would recommend is watch the 44-minute special episode OVA (Tales of Zestiria: Doushi no Yoake) to get familiar with the franchise. It’s also noticeable that Sorey (the main male protagonist) is absent from this special. As such, Alisha is the main focus and her character is already established as a courageous heroine who puts others’ lives above her own.

However, the story itself appears to be more of an abbreviated version of the franchise. It’s more of an attempt to hook people into watching for the main series. In particular, we can easily recognize the stellar production quality by studio ufotable. Similarly, the music produced by Sakuraba Motoi shows his talent with the high quality OST. There’s also some bits of world building although it’s far more likely that the main series will expand more into that. In addition, the episode makes it clear that there’s mysterious forces at works. So should you watch this? On paper, it definitely looks great in terms of production quality but the plot itself can see rather confusing. For a prologue though, it does a fair job at establishing the attention for viewers starving for more.

*This Ova is a prequel of the main anime that will be aired the 10 july *

The point of this prequel is to make us familiarize with the setting of the anime (medieval, with dragons, knights, beast, magicians,...).

I've discovered that there is an other prequel called: Tales of Zestiria: Doushi no Yoake(2014) which I raccomend not to watch since it will ruin you the surpries of the main serie.

Story(8):
This is similar of the most common fantasy/medieval anime, to summon is a sort of King Artù, we can clearly see that there is a sword on the stone, and the rest... well yea magicians, dragons,...

Art(10):
Just one ... episode, but yes, if all the main serie will adopt this kind of art I will only love more the anime. The art is superb, clear and very appealing, detailed and....well if you watch the scene of the dragon you will understand everything :)

Sound(8): well used, nothing to say, the ending was good but I've heard better song which suited better for the setting we are in.

Character(-):
Cant really say a lot, 1 episode isnt enough, some might have played the game so they know more about it, but I realized that the guy on the cover isnt in this ova, that means that one of the main characters isnt there.

Enyoment(8.5):
Like I said before I really like this types of settings with magic, beasts,...
so it's only natural that I rated 9 this Ova, but the major factor that make me rate 9 this ova is the art, like I said before amazing.

Overall 9. Enjoy!

Just an introduction episode to set up the story. The poster boy wasn't in it and we are really only introduced to the princess. There seems to be some political strife, ongoing natural disasters (which don't seem to be natural at all), some mysterious runes, and some magic stuff (which kind of just inserted at the end). The narrative was a bit confusing because it kept jumping around but the art and animation were pretty good. There is the sword in the stone reference to King Arthur. Not familiar with the source material but I'll give the main show a try but we'll see.