For 300 years, Rena has ruled over Dahna, pillaging the planet of its resources and stripping people of their dignity and freedom. Our tale begins with two people, born on different worlds, each looking to change their fate and create a new future. Featuring a diverse cast of characters, intuitive and rewarding combat system, and a captivating story set in a lush world worth fighting for, Tales of Arise delivers a first-class JRPG experience.

There are a number of premium DLCs you can purchase to speed up the completion for this game. You can purchase a total of 40 character levels, 400k gald (money), and packs that contain artifacts that will cut down prices in shops, the materials required to craft weapons, etc. None of it is required by any means, but we're also talking somewhere in the range of 5-10 hours less grinding depending on how much you spend. Time is money, as they say. Oh, and nicely the DLC packs work for both the Xbox One and Xbox Series versions of the games independently, so you only need to purchase them once to get the benefit in both achievement lists.

I personally only bought the "Premium Traveler Pack" to get the artifact that lowers all crafting requirements. The others are nice, but in-game artifacts are available to boost SP and XP gains, and you won't be buying much from the general store, so the others are far from necessary. The "Growth Boost Pack" could be helpful in the early game as it doubles CP/XP/SP gains to make the first half of the game easier before you get the in-game artifcats later on.

Your first focus should be to complete the story, which you can do on any difficulty you'd like. There is no long term negative effects from playing on easy, though you will earn more XP/SP on higher difficulties. You will want to collect owls, artifacts, and recipes as you go, and be sure to hit the prompts to initiate skits to get them out of the way during the story, though you can knock them all out at a campfire later if you wish. Complete any subquests you can, as the extra money and SP will help for crafting weapons and leveling your characters. Also keep the requirements for unlocking the skill panels/titles in the back of your mind as well, as completing each panels give a permanent stat boost.

The game gives you a bit of leeway to miss some things for the final completion, but not a lot. You don't need 100% on the skits, recipes, skills, enemies, or crafting for instance - but still nearly 90% or more for each, so be thorough. You can mop up the remainder of anything missed in the next step. Thankfully nothing in the game is permanently missable!

Once you have completed the main story, more subquests will unlock to complete. You can now finish getting to Level 100, completing all side content, finding the rest of the collectibles, and crafting any remaining weapons. The rest of the skits will unlock doing these tasks, and you should get to 300 just by finishing the rest of the achievement list. Some of the skits are unrelated to achievements, so you can see the solution below for some more tips on ways to unlock them if it doesn't come naturally.

It feels good to play a Tales game again! This franchise has been dormant on Xbox since Tales of Vesperia in 2008, though we got to enjoy that a second time when it was remastered. This is just as good if not better, combining the incredible story-telling, fantastic characters, and tight combat. What is definitely does better is the achievement list. While it has most of the same requirements, they are much more lenient and much less is missable. The time investment will still be there for the most part, though instead of requiring 100+ hours easily, this one can clock in a bit lower. There is a stackable version on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles, so if you enjoy it you'll be able to knock a second completion out even more quickly if you skip the story on the second go around.