Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn Edition on Switch 2 delivers a competent but not perfect handheld experience

Tales of Arise is launching on Nintendo Switch 2 later this week as Tales of Arise - Beyond the Dawn Edition. Ahead of its launch, I've been playing the Switch 2 port and revisiting Tales of Arise itself on PS5, PS5 Pro, PS4, and Steam Deck. I was curious to see how the Switch 2 port would end up because Bandai Namco's Tales of Switch ports have ranged from decent to quite bad. I even have a dedicated feature covering Tales of games on Switch 2. So where does Tales of Arise end up on that scale? It is solid in many ways, but lacking in others. I'm going to cover how it feels compared with the PlayStation and PC versions.

Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn Edition on Switch 2 includes Tales of Arise and the Beyond the Dawn expansion in the base purchase. It also includes some cosmetic DLC, but not all. A Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn Edition Premium Edition bundle is also available with additional cosmetic and consumable DLC included for $20 more. You can upgrade from the base game by purchasing the Tales of Arise Premium Upgrade Pack for $24.99. Beyond the edition differences, Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn Edition on Switch 2 has the same content as the other versions, but now ported to Switch 2 by Software.Advanced.Research Co., Ltd. according to the in-game credits.

Tales of Arise is in my top three Tales of games alongside Graces f and Berseria. I enjoyed it enough to buy it on Xbox and PC after playing it on PS5 at launch. While it does suffer towards the end in its narrative, I enjoyed the world, combat, music, and aesthetic quite a bit. The Beyond the Dawn Expansion was a confusing release that I didn't care for much. Following its debut in 2021, I hadn't really replayed Tales of Arise until getting a Steam Deck and testing it for portable play. It was a solid experience there, but I never put much time into it beyond loading some of my older save files. Tales of Arise on Switch 2 would be the first console release that is natively playable on a handheld and I was hoping the port was better than Bandai Namco's recent Tales of Switch 1 ports. Thankfully, this port is good, but it is a few patches away from being great when it comes to portable play.

Before getting to Tales of Arise's performance and visuals on Switch 2, I need to give you some context for how Tales of Arise ran on other platforms. Tales of Arise on basically every console had an uncapped frame rate with the PS5 and Xbox Series versions also offering a 60fps performance mode. The quality mode on PS5 and Xbox Series X was uncapped while the PS4 and Xbox One versions just had a single mode with an uncapped frame rate that usually was in the 30s. The Xbox Series X quality mode was the closest to being good with VRR, but it wasn't great without it. The PS5 quality mode felt quite bad back when I first played it. The Quality mode was a native 4K on both PS5 and Xbox Series X with performance mode being 1620p according to Digital Foundry.

I don't have my base PS4 console to test on there, but when I tested Tales of Arise on my PS4 Pro, the resolution was lower than the PS5 performance mode, but higher than 1080p. The PS5 and Xbox Series X performance modes held up well, but the PS4 Pro version never felt good with its uncapped frame rate in the 30s. I also tested Tales of Arise on PS5 Pro. It doesn't have any native PS5 Pro enhancements so it just runs via boost mode and the quality mode with a 4K target is now mostly a perfect 60fps locked making it the best console to play Tales of Arise on by far. 

All versions of Tales of Arise suffered from poor quality shadows around characters and level of detail issues causing foliage and other objects in the environment to fade in and popin. This was more of an issue on PS4 and Xbox One systems, but it is present even on PC unless you mod the game and also both current consoles. 

When Tales of Arise was announced for Switch 2, the technical specifications mentioned it would target 1080p 30fps during gameplay and most scenes both handheld and docked while there would be some cut-scenes or movies running at 1080p 60fps. Bandai Namco's spec sheets posted on the Japanese websites aren't always the full story though. Some Tales games have had uncapped frame rates despite mentioning 30fps while others that say 30fps drop below.

Having now put in about seven hours into Tales of Arise Beyond the Dawn Edition on Switch 2, it is a solid handheld experience held back by some frame pacing and hitching issues, but a lacking docked experience compared to the PS5 and Xbox Series X versions. 

Note: For the comparison above, I used 4K capture taken through my capture card from all platforms and modes mentioned above. The images were then cropped to show the differences. I recommend viewing the image in fullscreen and making sure it is the PNG file to see the resolution cuts going from PS5 to Switch 2.

Tales of Arise Switch 2 vs PS5 and PS4

Tales of Arise on Switch 2 is closer to the base PS4 than PS4 Pro let alone PS5 right now. It loads faster than the PS4 Pro version, but not by much sadly. It feels like the developers prioritized delivering the handheld experience over improving upon it much for docked play given how much more the Switch 2 is capable of when docked. I prefer the frame rate on Switch 2 compared to the PS4 Pro and PS4 versions though, but it is a far cry from the smooth 60fps experience in the performance mode on base PS5. If you own a PS5 Pro, you can even get a full 4K 60fps experience with the quality mode, but I digress. 

As for visuals, Tales of Arise on Switch 2 sees cuts in textures and draw distance compared to the PS5 version in addition to running at a much lower resolution docked compared to even the framerate mode on PS5. As for PS4 Pro, there are cuts to resolution and also environmental detail and some textures. 

Tales of Arise Switch 2 vs Steam Deck 

Comparing Tales of Arise on Switch 2 with the PC version on Steam Deck has been interesting. Neither comes close to delivering a 60fps experience, but the framerate is more stable and can be pushed to 40fps on Steam Deck. When comparing both handheld, the Switch 2 version appears crisper, but it has many settings cut back compared to the default preset on Steam Deck. This is most noticeable in foliage in the open areas. The draw distance issues are present on both, but I'm a bit confused as to why the developers didn't opt for a 40fps at 120hz target handheld given how it runs on Steam Deck with higher settings.

Note: For the comparison above, I used the Switch 2's screenshot functionality to capture handheld since there is no other way to get a handheld screenshot right now. On Steam Deck, I used Steam's own screenshot functionality. I cropped both images to show the difference. 

Tales of Arise load times on Switch 2, PS5, PS4, and Steam Deck

When testing load times, I measured the time taken to get to the game title screen from the platform's dashboard, the time to load an early game save in the same location, and the time taken to load a skit. I mashed A/X/Confirm to speed up the process on all platforms. For these tests, I installed Tales of Arise's PS5 version on my PS5 and PS5 Pro internal storage, the Switch 2 version on the Switch 2 internal storage, the PC version on the internal storage on Steam Deck, and the PS4 version on the PS4 Pro hard drive. The results below are in seconds.

While I've been enjoying this Tales of Arise replay via Switch 2 handheld mode, the load times are definitely too long compared to current platforms. Given the speed of the internal storage on Switch 2, this port should load faster and not be comparable to the PS4 Pro's slow mechanical hard drive. 

If you skipped Tales of Arise's initial release and have been hoping for a competent handheld experience, the Switch 2 port delivers on that front with the caveat of some performance issues. It isn't awful like Persona 3 Reload's launch version handheld and is not a blurry mess like some other Switch 2 ports, but it should've been better considering this is also on base PS4 and Xbox One. As for playing on TV or docked, Tales of Arise on Switch 2 leaves a lot to be desired in image quality. The developers should've at least pushed for 1440p given the 30fps target. Hopefully the frame pacing issues and load times can be improved in patches. I recommend getting this if you mainly want to play Tales of Arise portably.