The Short Version:
(+)Animation is good, really good.
(+)The battles are great.
(+)The story stacked up on itself little by little.
(-)Nothing in the sound design stands out.
(-)Most of the characters are there to serve a single purpose and nothing else.
The Story (7/10): The story doesn’t introduce itself right off the bat, rather going through a couple different plot lines that evenly add up to the overarching story of the movie. If you want a very general outline of what the story is about, the characters are there to defend a town from monsters. That’s literally it. They hint towards the end what you’ll do in the game. Within the story itself there’s not a lot I really liked that much, the construction of the entire story and how they handled it was great it’s just that the story didn’t really get me invested. This is probably a lot of background regarding how magic works in this world that goes unexplained. I feel like if they explained it a little better I would’ve been just a bit more into the story. That being said I’m pretty dumb so if you decide to watch this movie you’ll probably pick it up right away and be fine.
The Characters (6/10): The characters in this movie, for the most part, are background props, even some of the ones that get a name are there for one scene at most, but the main troupe of characters have a purpose (duh that’s why they’re the main troupe Richard.) I’ll argue that two of the main characters could’ve disappeared and the story wouldn’t have been impacted that much, but anyway TO THE MAIN CHARACTERS!
Yuri Lowell: Resident protagonist and cynical bastard.
Flynn Scifo: Childhood friend to Yuri and the more military of the two.
Niren Fedrok: Guard Captain and at times the comedy relief character.
Hisca Aiheap: The quieter half of the twins and the one doesn’t get throw around like a rag doll.
Chastel Aiheap: The ‘bigger’ half of the twins and the one that does get thrown around.
The rest of the characters aren’t really worth mentioned because they’re really underdeveloped, but I will say this. Best little dog side character ever.
Art & Sound (8/10) & (5/10): The art is exactly what I expected from a movie adaptation, the characters move fluidly whenever they need to, the 3D manoeuvring is more than satisfactory and the CG doesn’t look that out of place when it’s used apart from one scene where the characters running looked like they were on ice, but as a whole the animation was well solid.
The sound is (for me) the weakest part of this entire movie, the OP & ED weren’t great, the OST didn’t grab me and the side characters voice acting was…. Not great. The main cast and the battle SFX were the best part, but they weren’t good enough to pull up the stack from the rest of the department.
What do you think of this anime?
It managed to kill 2 hours of the day and was pretty to look at.
Would you recommend this anime?
Yeah. If you’ve got some time to waste or want to watch a movie with your friends go ahead, if you’re a fan of the Tales games even more so. However you probably shouldn’t watch it if you’re expecting the next big thing, because this isn’t it.
Goodbye my brethren, see you in the next one.
