@@Londoniusthe3rd sorry I'm a little bit late to this discussion but I just wanted to add my two cents to this I feel like the concept of the main villain having a lot in common with the main hero with the exception of not having any friends to keep them on the moral path, it is a very played out concept but it can be done extremely well at times I just feel like he should have been more reoccurring more than just three encounters before his two bosses Also if the game actually went into his perspective showing his backstory potentially it would have made him monumentally better If they actually showed his backstory showing the warped mirrored origin story similar to alphen but without anyone to turn to, showing his gradual fall into nihilism and madness, he would have bar none been the best villain easily overtaking Heldalph, duke, kronos, and artorius, But the fact that they didn't go the extra mile and they kept most of his backstory ambiguous it leads to him only being around a 7 out of 10 villain at most which is disappointing because there's so much potential
Yeah. This game did the whole 'victory lap' thing much better than Tales of Zestiria did, in my opinion. And I really like what they did with the second phase of the battle and how you get free, unlimited use of all of Alphen's Blazing Sword artes.
@@jsh020 I agree. Even Heldalf was fleshed out more; we actually got to see his backstory. However, even though Vholran felt more like a Final Fantasy villain than a Tales villain, that doesn't mean he isn't badass.
@@jsh020 You may be wrong there though, he absolutely has a lot as a character, though its never explicitily shown in the game. He's said to resemble Alphen, and if you look closely it's not wrong, him as a character is the antithesis of Alphen. Both harbored rage within their hearts, but while Alphen got to met friends that would change his life, Vholran was totally alone. Alphen mentions this during their final confrontation, how Vholran life could have been different had he a friend there to him. when Alphen was being experimented upon to become a Sovereign, he had Naori. When Vhorlan was being experimented upon he had no one. Alphen had Naori and later Shionne as his Maidens, while Vholran had a cold machine. Vholran never let go of his anger, of his rage, and his solitude only amplified those feelings within him, turning him into a monster. Alphen also mentions this, how solitude can make a monster out of anyone, not even himself was excluded from this, since he says that he may have ended like Vholran had he not meet Shionne and the rest. the final fight is a confrontation of ideologies, remember what Zephyr said about being a slave not only being a state of living but also a state of mind? that's exactly what this battle was, Vholran was a slave to his ideologies, to his pain, anger and solitude and refused to change, while Alphen had attained true freedom, and despite hating Vholran, he was willing to forgive him if it meant ending the perpetual cycle of hate that kept Vholran a slave. Vholran was a victim to the circumstances, he left one kind of slavery to fall into another, he never stopped being a slave... he was evil, there's no denial, but it's kinda sad isn't? knowing how different his outcome could have been if he hadn't been totally alone in his worst moments... he resents the Renans for all they did to him as a slave, he remember all his suffering, all the times he was whipped for not doing his job properly, all the punishment he received, but when he obtained power, he also started to resent the Dahnans for not having the will to fight back and rather selling their compatriots to save their own skin (He tells this to Alphen during their final confrontation), he got drunk on his power, and while his goals aligned with that of our heroes, his methods were twisted, and his final objective was to dominate rather than liberate. Alphen and him were different sides of the same coin.
@@eliasacevedo5711 I'm not saying that they didn't try to give him some sort of depth. They revealed his motives and gave him humanity of some kind during the finaI battle, but to me that felt kinda rushed. I prefer villains who get fleshed out gradually over the course of an entire story.
He really was. After both times he "died," my reaction was being thoroughly convinced that he wasn't dead yet. Mostly because I felt he had too much value as a thematic foil/counter to Alphen for them to kill him off halfway through the game
@@8-bitsarda747 My thing was that hes a sephiroth clone and killing him early would be like killing sephiroth in midgar. Anticlimactic. And im pretty sure he in the trailer
@@jonathanzimmer725 just because he has a long-ass sword doesn't mean he's a Sephiroth clone. that's like saying Gaius from Tales of Xillia is a Sephiroth clone.
Just finished the game and the first thing I did was look up the ost this gave me chills listening to this while fighting ducking and dodging man this game is something else
Finally, i was dying to hear this track in the best quality possible, thank you so much... This is by far the best final boss theme in the whole franchise
Holy shit that was fast. :D I'm very nitpicky about audio quality so that evening I spent disassembling the game was definitely worth it. Really big fan of the OST in general too.
@@AleXwern I was searching for the ost and your videos happened to be on top, i got super excited when i saw that they were gamerips, i love the ost of this game, but it has been really hard finding it in a good quality, since most of them are just recorded from the game, and as you may imagine, they don't have the best quality. Are you gonna keep uploading these? If so, could you upload the one that plays when you fight Law and the one that plays when you fight Kisara?
@@AleXwern : Going back over the OST, I'm surprised how hard some of these songs shred. :D What I'm not surprised by is the peaceful/story related stuff being good. Sakuraba's work with harmony has always been an underappreciated quality in his work I feel.
Wow when I heard this final battle omg after a incredible journey it all leads up to this fucking fantastic final boss fight it makes you use all the skills and knowledge you have learned to beat the shit outta the final boss this one is one of the best tales games in my opinion 👐💯🔥
On top of that it’s an actual happy ending! Not a downer or a bittersweet ending, but a actual happy ending. The Tales series havent had one in a while.
I remember my first time I fight against Vholran, he moved so quickly like I cannot hit him. Yesterday I bet the game, and I noticed I can move the same way, I feel like the truly Alphen's habilitt
Vholran isnt the best tales villain he is maybe only alittle higher then Heldalf. but he makes up for it by being the most over the tope edge lord i have ever seen.
It's not bad, the problem is that you can barely hear it in game since it's so muffled and the sound effects/voices are much louder which makes it even harder to hear
@@leandrogonzalez3552 : Man, glad I adjusted the audio the minute I started up the game I guess. I always do that, especially with English voices on since they're often not recorded as loud as the JP ones. But I noticed even in the demo, the sound effects were a bit higher than I wanted.
@@1stokedmonkey : Apparently the game doesn't play the full bass channels for the music, so adjusting the levels doesn't quite fix it. I don't know if the full audio data is in there and just being passed through a filter, but given that this video series exists I'm guessing that's the case and these are pulled directly from the audio files.
The first time I went up against this mans, was when I knew that this was how the game ends. I’m so happy I got to beat the ever living daylights out of Vholran. Felt so good! Just beat it not half an hour ago as of this comment.
I cannot deny, I am pretty happy that there's a tiny chance Vholran survived. He should be obliterated by the explosion of the Renas Alma, but considered he survived a deadly stab AND a fire, why not now?
@@eliasacevedo5711 At least you were able to learn about Duke's motivations throughout the game and saw that he made that decision because of the events unfolding within it. He shouldn't have been the final boss and yes, he randomly summoned a doomsday device dungeon out of nowhere while simultaneously denying the players the completion of some side quests, but it felt like character development, albeit an extremely shallow one. Vholran, on the other hand, spent the entire game being like this: "I wanna rule, I hate you because you hurt me, also I'm mentally unstable" and randomly appears in the last second just for some spectacle. In that regard he's similar to that one irrelevant minor antagonist from Vesperia who also randomly appears for the last time inside the final dungeon just because he hates Yuri. But that's just my opinion.
@@silly5905 During the final fight, Alphen tells Vholran "You control others to keep from being controlled", based on what we learn about him by that point, we know that he has never been the master of his own destiny. When he was a slave, the Renans controlled him. When he became a Sovereign, the Helganquil controlled him. He was sick of it, that's why he manifests so much anger toward the red woman in the Forbbiden Zone and tells her to tell his master that he was coming for them... you also have the fact that he had a great amount of power that he had no use for, that title and power went to his head and in his delusions he convinced himself that since he was a Sovereign, he should rule over all (Remember his mystic arte line? "I'm the true sovereign, all others shall be banished"), that can also explain why he starts to hate Alphen so much... when Alphen manifested some of the sovereign powers in their first fight, he got visible angry and said "How could, a wretched like you" or something along those lines, someone was threatening his position and power, and that someone had the same title and powers as him. He also seemed visible shocked when Dohalim told him that the title of Sovereign meant nothing. His reasons to rule was extremelly shallow, when Vholran tells Alphen, he was shocked and calls him pathetic for it. His final fight works more as a clash of ideologies, between Alphen and Vholran than anything... i mean, he wasn't even hard and at one point they even make you invencible. Ah, one more thing, early in the game, Zephyr told Alphen about how they can free the slaves, but not change the way they think so easily, since slavery was not only a state of living, but also a state of mind (i don't remember the exact words), this is exactly what Vholran was, a Slave... a slave to his own hatred and pride, he refused any notion of friendship and love, not because they were "for the weak" (well, more or less) but because he believed none of those things existed. Now, i'm not talking out of my ass, this is mostly a character analysis, i hope based on this you can see Vholran in a better light and never compare him to that piece of annoying shit that was Zaggi. And yeah, i firmly believe that there was no better way to end this game than this fight. The Reason why Vholran was wasted is entirely on the devs, they didn't give him nearly the amount of screentime he needed and deserved.
Vholran is how Alphen would've turned out if he didn't had friends to support him, he says as much on Lenegis when he finds out how the renans reengignered him, that he had a great rage bubbling inside of him and he didn't know how to express it, he feared he would give a face to direct it right when his friends pulled him back, Vholran had noone to pull him back. That is also the reason why Alphen didn't want to finish him since he saw himself in his position. Oh btw the face towards who Vholran directed his hatred and rage was Alphen since his existence made his life meaningless in his mind, so yeah I would say that compared to Duke who just babyraged Vholran had a reason as flawed as it can be
4:07
That's all that you need to know, trust me.
since 3:14 for me
*_I am the true sovereign_*
Vholran The Best Tales Antagonist.
@@Londoniusthe3rd
For Me Vholran Better than Artorios,Heldalf and Duke.
@@plusgtr1st124 i think he is a sephiroth but with more dialog
bad villain
@@Londoniusthe3rd sorry I'm a little bit late to this discussion but I just wanted to add my two cents to this
I feel like the concept of the main villain having a lot in common with the main hero with the exception of not having any friends to keep them on the moral path, it is a very played out concept but it can be done extremely well at times
I just feel like he should have been more reoccurring more than just three encounters before his two bosses
Also if the game actually went into his perspective showing his backstory potentially it would have made him monumentally better
If they actually showed his backstory showing the warped mirrored origin story similar to alphen but without anyone to turn to, showing his gradual fall into nihilism and madness, he would have bar none been the best villain easily overtaking Heldalph, duke, kronos, and artorius,
But the fact that they didn't go the extra mile and they kept most of his backstory ambiguous it leads to him only being around a 7 out of 10 villain at most which is disappointing because there's so much potential
The second half of the Vholran fight gave me Ven vs Vanitas BBS feels
This phase is a victory lap, but it really doesn't feel like one. It was a really cool and fun battle!
Yeah. This game did the whole 'victory lap' thing much better than Tales of Zestiria did, in my opinion. And I really like what they did with the second phase of the battle and how you get free, unlimited use of all of Alphen's Blazing Sword artes.
@@warriorofdawn876 yeah that was epic, I abused the 2 artes that accompanied me through the whole game lol
@@nicogalax was one of them Explosive Ring
@@Andrewking-cu4yb yup, on the second half of the game
The OST is finally out and it's now confirmed this song is called "One Strike, One Beat."
When Vholran jumped out of that ship my serotonin levels skyrocketed.
Hes such a weird villain to me, cause he kind of has absolutly nothing to him as a character but hes also super fucking hype everytime he appears
@@jsh020 I agree. Even Heldalf was fleshed out more; we actually got to see his backstory. However, even though Vholran felt more like a Final Fantasy villain than a Tales villain, that doesn't mean he isn't badass.
@@jsh020 You may be wrong there though, he absolutely has a lot as a character, though its never explicitily shown in the game.
He's said to resemble Alphen, and if you look closely it's not wrong, him as a character is the antithesis of Alphen.
Both harbored rage within their hearts, but while Alphen got to met friends that would change his life, Vholran was totally alone. Alphen mentions this during their final confrontation, how Vholran life could have been different had he a friend there to him.
when Alphen was being experimented upon to become a Sovereign, he had Naori. When Vhorlan was being experimented upon he had no one.
Alphen had Naori and later Shionne as his Maidens, while Vholran had a cold machine.
Vholran never let go of his anger, of his rage, and his solitude only amplified those feelings within him, turning him into a monster. Alphen also mentions this, how solitude can make a monster out of anyone, not even himself was excluded from this, since he says that he may have ended like Vholran had he not meet Shionne and the rest.
the final fight is a confrontation of ideologies, remember what Zephyr said about being a slave not only being a state of living but also a state of mind? that's exactly what this battle was, Vholran was a slave to his ideologies, to his pain, anger and solitude and refused to change, while Alphen had attained true freedom, and despite hating Vholran, he was willing to forgive him if it meant ending the perpetual cycle of hate that kept Vholran a slave.
Vholran was a victim to the circumstances, he left one kind of slavery to fall into another, he never stopped being a slave... he was evil, there's no denial, but it's kinda sad isn't? knowing how different his outcome could have been if he hadn't been totally alone in his worst moments... he resents the Renans for all they did to him as a slave, he remember all his suffering, all the times he was whipped for not doing his job properly, all the punishment he received, but when he obtained power, he also started to resent the Dahnans for not having the will to fight back and rather selling their compatriots to save their own skin (He tells this to Alphen during their final confrontation), he got drunk on his power, and while his goals aligned with that of our heroes, his methods were twisted, and his final objective was to dominate rather than liberate.
Alphen and him were different sides of the same coin.
@@TT-px6mp His design is absolutely incredible, honestly one of the most well designed villains in all of the Tales franchise.
@@eliasacevedo5711 I'm not saying that they didn't try to give him some sort of depth. They revealed his motives and gave him humanity of some kind during the finaI battle, but to me that felt kinda rushed. I prefer villains who get fleshed out gradually over the course of an entire story.
Just finished Asrise yesterday, fucking Motoi Sakuraba outdid himself on this track.
Vholram was the man too angry to die
He really was. After both times he "died," my reaction was being thoroughly convinced that he wasn't dead yet. Mostly because I felt he had too much value as a thematic foil/counter to Alphen for them to kill him off halfway through the game
@@8-bitsarda747 My thing was that hes a sephiroth clone and killing him early would be like killing sephiroth in midgar. Anticlimactic. And im pretty sure he in the trailer
@@jonathanzimmer725 just because he has a long-ass sword doesn't mean he's a Sephiroth clone.
that's like saying Gaius from Tales of Xillia is a Sephiroth clone.
Badly Injured Man Not Done Partying Yet
i thought he died when the room exploded. nope he just got blood on his face and went after you like he said he would.
"I'll show you...The results of your SOLITUDE!!"
This shit was so hype.
@@wesleytaylor6290 I think you're right. Lol Still hype though.
Alphen had said limits, but still got the gist of it
“I’ll show you the limits of your solitude!!!”
I was laughing so hard when Vholram stole the final bosses thunder
Boss's, not bosses.
Vholram: we never did have the one on one rival fight Alphen. "smirks."
Guess he stole Zeus thunder
Just finished the game and the first thing I did was look up the ost this gave me chills listening to this while fighting ducking and dodging man this game is something else
With this soundtrack at the background he never had a chance, so epic
Finally, i was dying to hear this track in the best quality possible, thank you so much...
This is by far the best final boss theme in the whole franchise
Holy shit that was fast. :D
I'm very nitpicky about audio quality so that evening I spent disassembling the game was definitely worth it. Really big fan of the OST in general too.
@@AleXwern I was searching for the ost and your videos happened to be on top, i got super excited when i saw that they were gamerips, i love the ost of this game, but it has been really hard finding it in a good quality, since most of them are just recorded from the game, and as you may imagine, they don't have the best quality.
Are you gonna keep uploading these? If so, could you upload the one that plays when you fight Law and the one that plays when you fight Kisara?
@@eliasacevedo5711 I have those ready but I'm at upload cap atm, unfortunately. I will upload everything as soon as I can.
@@AleXwern : Going back over the OST, I'm surprised how hard some of these songs shred. :D What I'm not surprised by is the peaceful/story related stuff being good. Sakuraba's work with harmony has always been an underappreciated quality in his work I feel.
Imo its final destination from Symphonia
Wow when I heard this final battle omg after a incredible journey it all leads up to this fucking fantastic final boss fight it makes you use all the skills and knowledge you have learned to beat the shit outta the final boss this one is one of the best tales games in my opinion 👐💯🔥
On top of that it’s an actual happy ending! Not a downer or a bittersweet ending, but a actual happy ending. The Tales series havent had one in a while.
Who would have thought that the final battle would be a one-on-one
It's not something you see often in a Tales game. So this was definitely a surprise.
Technically there’s also the Heldalf duel in Zestiria.
@@Londoniusthe3rd you mean the scripted duel?
granted the final half of Arise's final battle is also scripted.
@@GiordanDiodato I would disagree. You throw the punches. You determine the anime protag flow 😈
@@That_One_Annoying_Splinter you literally walk up to him and stab him
Listening to this makes me want to play the game all over again. What a journey.
I remember my first time I fight against Vholran, he moved so quickly like I cannot hit him. Yesterday I bet the game, and I noticed I can move the same way, I feel like the truly Alphen's habilitt
I swear the main part of this song is a more triumphant version of the normal battle theme.
Vholran isnt the best tales villain he is maybe only alittle higher then Heldalf.
but he makes up for it by being the most over the tope edge lord i have ever seen.
4:05 ここから戦闘開始
in this game volran like ardyn he create for purpose like pupet so he doesn care with god he just dont want to become slave by GOD
i love this game
"I don't care" is like this guy's motto. XD
Vholran was such a badass, and so is this OST!
Sovereign Vholran theme is so dark and epic, love it.
Serious Question: Why do people claim that Tales of Arise's music is "Bad"?
Musically, it's some of Motoi Sakuraba's finest work in a long while.
It's not bad, the problem is that you can barely hear it in game since it's so muffled and the sound effects/voices are much louder which makes it even harder to hear
@@leandrogonzalez3552 : Man, glad I adjusted the audio the minute I started up the game I guess. I always do that, especially with English voices on since they're often not recorded as loud as the JP ones. But I noticed even in the demo, the sound effects were a bit higher than I wanted.
Except the overworld themes, all songs are good
cant you adjust the effect and voice volume levels....
@@1stokedmonkey : Apparently the game doesn't play the full bass channels for the music, so adjusting the levels doesn't quite fix it. I don't know if the full audio data is in there and just being passed through a filter, but given that this video series exists I'm guessing that's the case and these are pulled directly from the audio files.
Thank You brother
It is recommended to press the "4" key.
アルフェン「哀れな奴だ・・・。」
ヴォルラーン「そういう貴様はどうだ？」
ヴォルラーン「300年前の過去から蘇った亡霊が
哀れでなければなんだという？」
アルフェン「そうだ
確かに オレも そう感じたこともあった」
アルフェン「今のオレには・・・・
この時代に「護るべきもの」がある」
アルフェン「それを・・・」
((（（（（ お前に奪わせはしないッッ！！！ ））））))
The way I beat the hell out of this man... I was changing up my sets mid-battle (intermediate). The whole field was ablaze.
_I am the true sovereign_
_All others shall be banished_
[[ *Finis Aeternam* ]]
The Blazing Sword! With the power Shionne has bestowed upon me, I'll take you down!
**Try Harder Intensifies**
@@sephelutis "This one's all mine!"
The first time I went up against this mans, was when I knew that this was how the game ends. I’m so happy I got to beat the ever living daylights out of Vholran. Felt so good!
Just beat it not half an hour ago as of this comment.
I cannot deny, I am pretty happy that there's a tiny chance Vholran survived. He should be obliterated by the explosion of the Renas Alma, but considered he survived a deadly stab AND a fire, why not now?
Spoilers for Vesperia
This guy had even less reason to be the final boss than Duke... but he definitely saved the final boss encounter.
Nah, Vholran definitely had more reasons to be Final Boss than Duke that came out of nowhere wanting to exterminate humanity to save the planet.
@@eliasacevedo5711 At least you were able to learn about Duke's motivations throughout the game and saw that he made that decision because of the events unfolding within it.
He shouldn't have been the final boss and yes, he randomly summoned a doomsday device dungeon out of nowhere while simultaneously denying the players the completion of some side quests, but it felt like character development, albeit an extremely shallow one.
Vholran, on the other hand, spent the entire game being like this: "I wanna rule, I hate you because you hurt me, also I'm mentally unstable" and randomly appears in the last second just for some spectacle. In that regard he's similar to that one irrelevant minor antagonist from Vesperia who also randomly appears for the last time inside the final dungeon just because he hates Yuri. But that's just my opinion.
@@silly5905 During the final fight, Alphen tells Vholran "You control others to keep from being controlled", based on what we learn about him by that point, we know that he has never been the master of his own destiny.
When he was a slave, the Renans controlled him.
When he became a Sovereign, the Helganquil controlled him.
He was sick of it, that's why he manifests so much anger toward the red woman in the Forbbiden Zone and tells her to tell his master that he was coming for them... you also have the fact that he had a great amount of power that he had no use for, that title and power went to his head and in his delusions he convinced himself that since he was a Sovereign, he should rule over all (Remember his mystic arte line? "I'm the true sovereign, all others shall be banished"), that can also explain why he starts to hate Alphen so much... when Alphen manifested some of the sovereign powers in their first fight, he got visible angry and said "How could, a wretched like you" or something along those lines, someone was threatening his position and power, and that someone had the same title and powers as him. He also seemed visible shocked when Dohalim told him that the title of Sovereign meant nothing.
His reasons to rule was extremelly shallow, when Vholran tells Alphen, he was shocked and calls him pathetic for it. His final fight works more as a clash of ideologies, between Alphen and Vholran than anything... i mean, he wasn't even hard and at one point they even make you invencible.
Ah, one more thing, early in the game, Zephyr told Alphen about how they can free the slaves, but not change the way they think so easily, since slavery was not only a state of living, but also a state of mind (i don't remember the exact words), this is exactly what Vholran was, a Slave... a slave to his own hatred and pride, he refused any notion of friendship and love, not because they were "for the weak" (well, more or less) but because he believed none of those things existed.
Now, i'm not talking out of my ass, this is mostly a character analysis, i hope based on this you can see Vholran in a better light and never compare him to that piece of annoying shit that was Zaggi.
And yeah, i firmly believe that there was no better way to end this game than this fight.
The Reason why Vholran was wasted is entirely on the devs, they didn't give him nearly the amount of screentime he needed and deserved.
Vholran is how Alphen would've turned out if he didn't had friends to support him, he says as much on Lenegis when he finds out how the renans reengignered him, that he had a great rage bubbling inside of him and he didn't know how to express it, he feared he would give a face to direct it right when his friends pulled him back, Vholran had noone to pull him back. That is also the reason why Alphen didn't want to finish him since he saw himself in his position. Oh btw the face towards who Vholran directed his hatred and rage was Alphen since his existence made his life meaningless in his mind, so yeah I would say that compared to Duke who just babyraged Vholran had a reason as flawed as it can be
Being able to fight the Great Spirit is like how the final battle of Tales of Vesperia should have been.
孤独の限界を知れ！！（ちくちく言葉）
Anybody else get the Wilderness of Sadness feel to this theme?
From ToS 2? I agree
I didn't really get that. I got an End of Thought vibe. But this game had MANY ToS1 vibes.
>は 一人ッ──────！！
他はすべて消えろ・・・ハッハッハッハッハッハ！！
I see Square-Enix was taking notes from Namco-Bandai!
This theme is pretty epic, alright =^,^=
"GENKAI NO CHIREEEEE!"
What is the ost that plays when you first encounter Kisara in the caves
4:05
4:05
Ernatal sonata? Yes
🔥 4:05 ❄️
How tf is this the same guy who did the berseria soundtrack
i play through the whole game and never listen any music like this one lol
2:55
4:00
Listening to this makes me want to play the game all over again. What a journey.
L
@@buttertoast1146found the guy who couldn’t beat Ganabelt