Arise commits the mortal sin of boss fights not actually applying any of the cool stuff you can normally do with the combo system so that was an immediate strike for me. (Xillia 1 does the same thing)
Enemies get ludicrously tanky late game too to the point that the "best" way to handle fights is just wholesale abusing Alphen's character mechanic which also ended up being really boring. Story is a disaster big picture but that first half-ish does have a lot of really excellent stuff going on.
Bottom tier Tales for me for all of the above plus the skits being pretty handily the worst. Later game especially the skits literally just recap the most recent cutscenes, but even before then the ones that add legitimate character depth or even humor are quite sparse.
Let the voice of love take you higher,
With this gathering power, go beyond even time!