Tales of Arise boss fights are some of the best battles in any JRPG game out there and part of what makes them so memorable is how many layers there are to them. Without going into spoiler territory, Ganabelt is one of the more intriguing foes you’ll find early on in Tales of Arise and he presents one of the most maddening and clever boss fights in recent memory. There is a ton going on in this fight and you have to be on your toes and lightning-fast with your reflexes in order to take him out. The idea of this fight is that it’s a race against the clock and you will need to be well prepared to survive.
How To Beat Ganabelt
Preparation
First off, we are going to need to prepare for this fight. When you approach the boss battle, you will get a warning that you are about to face a Lord, and you are given the option to turn back at this point. This disclaimer isn’t just for fun, it’s a serious suggestion that you might not be ready for what is behind this door. In order to prepare for the fight, we are either going to grind our asses off in lands before Cyslonia, or we’re going to be doing some side quests. The result of these will be leveling up as well as collecting money.
If you’ve accumulated a lot of money to this point, then get over to the nearest Merchant and buy 15 Apple Gels and 15 Life Bottles. If you happen to have any Orange Gels, these are crucial as well, but the Merchant does not sell these so you will have to find them on your own. The rest of our money is going to be spent on upgrading equipment. Law especially comes in with lesser than ideal equipment, so you’re going to have to fight for the materials needed to upgrade him and have a decent amount of money on hand as well.
Alphen and Shionne should be toting top gear at this point, but if not make sure they have the best weapons available. Rinwell isn’t the most powerful character, but she comes in handy in this fight so at the very least, upgrade her armor because you will need her alive. In addition to the top armor and weapons, you’re going to want to craft some accessories here that increase your elemental damage resistance and defense. Ganabelt assaults you with spells throughout and you want to be as prepared as possible for that.
Choosing Your Character
This fight is nuts and the last thing you want to do is have to be switching all over the place between characters when you don’t have to. The best bet here is to stick with Law if he’s upgraded properly. Law has some lightning-quick attacks and can buff himself and other party members provided you have enough CP to do so and he has the most important attack in the entire fight. See, Law has the ability to break down enemy shields with his Boost Attack and it just so happens that Ganabelt has just that.
While you can play as other characters, the pure insanity of this fight might mean you could miss when Law is ready to unleash his Boost Attack and that’s simply not something you can afford to miss here. Along with this, Law’s Boost Attack triggers a small cutscene where Law loses his mind and obliterates Ganabelt’s shield. At this point, you can go nuts as Ganabelt will be completely unguarded for a small amount of time. Law also seems to be one of the toughest to hit characters as he is so fast with his movements and Artes that you can deliver some punishment and duck out of harm’s way before taking any big damage. His defense is not that great though, so be wary of this and use some accessories if you can afford it.
Strategy
Whether it’s before or during the fight, you are going to want to visit the strategy screen and make it so that you are using up all of your items before going to CP-based Artes. The reason for this is that your items fire off far faster than Shionne’s Resurrection Arte for example and speed is the name of the game here as Ganabelt is essentially a time bomb waiting to go off.
Ganabelt will pelt you with a variety of Astral Artes, so I hope you’re up on your dodging game as these can wreck you in a hurry if they make contact. You’re going to want to hit on your Boost Attacks as much as possible here and aside from Law, Rinwell’s is the most useful as she can cancel out Ganabelt’s most damaging Astral Artes. He can also hit you with a variety of very quick physical attacks, though these are easier to see coming and far easier to dodge than his Artes.
Around midway through the point, Ganabelt will split into 4 versions of himself. At this point, you know you’re about to have a bad time and sure enough, if you don’t manage to kill off all four of his copies in time, he unleashes Indignation. Indignation simply murders most of your party and leaves the remaining members with a slim amount of HP at best.
When this happens, abandon all attacking and heal immediately because those copies of Ganabelt aren’t going anywhere until you defeat them and things just got a little bit more hectic on-screen to keep track of. Now, if you are playing on lower difficulties, it is possible to defeat all the Ganabelt copies before he launces Indignation and the damage is far less than on Moderate and up, but considering how easy the game is on Normal, I’d advise giving the more challenging options a try.
After Indignation makes your jaw drop and you’ve healed up, it’s time to get back into the fight. Ganabelt should only have about half of his health bar left, and the more you take it down, the more dangerous he gets. If you are playing as Law, focus on building your Arte combos as fast as possible so you can continually use your Boost Attack and cause Ganabelt to break.
If you happen to lose Law at some point and your items have run dry, switch to Shionne until you can heal everyone back to normal. If you set the strategy correctly. You should have a healthy pool of CP available at this time to revive and heal anyone you need to. Get Law back up and running and cast his Steel Arte to buff all of your characters. You’re going to need this because guess what? Ganabelt is going to go out with a bang and when he’s near death, he will charge Indignation one more time. This is almost always an instant death for your whole party and only one time did I see it end otherwise.
With Law’s buffs on everyone, it’s time to switch to Alphen. The reason we’re doing this is because Alphen is the tank of the group and can deal the most damage in the quickest amount of time. Hopefully, you have unlocked his ability to charge the Blazing Sword at this point, because we’re going to need him to essentially destroy himself in order to keep Ganabelt from unleashing Indignation again.
The best bet here is to use Infernal Torrent and charge until you have no health left and let loose. If this doesn’t take him out, have Shionne heal you one more time and repeat the move. This will be doing massive damage each time and combined with your other characters attacking, should be enough to take Ganabelt down once and for all. If you happen to run out of items too early, make sure you switch your strategy back to having your characters heal you using CP as they will not heal you unless you do so.
Tales of Arise has some absolutely crazy encounters and the one with Ganabelt is easily one of the toughest and craziest of them all. It might take a few tries, but by following this guide, the Lord of Cyslonia, Ganabelt, should fall in no time.
Tales of Arise is available now for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
