Thoughts on the Tales games?

[Aoyi]

I loved Tales of Symphonia when it came out, but I haven’t played anything since then from the series.

[Cosmic Janitor]

I like them to a degree, but someof them are awfully preachy (zestria). They are also very formulaic and repetitive, but that is JRPGs in a nutshell.

[stellvia]

I like them to a degree, but someof them are awfully preachy (zestria). They are also very formulaic and repetitive, but that is JRPGs in a nutshell.

Not to cut you down but, as compared to what? The vast majority of western RPGs also involve slogging through tons of repetitive busywork. Same donkey, different dress.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Not to cut you down but, as compared to what? The vast majority of western RPGs also involve slogging through tons of repetitive busywork. Same donkey, different dress.

JRPG combat with it's often more minimalistic attack selections (to work on consoles) just bore me quicker. Even in the more active systems that aren't turn based like the tales games I end up spamming the same attacks over and over. Every time you leave a town you either have to run past the endless cascade of instantly respawned garbage or you kill them again.. and again.. and again. Most JRPGs also have more or less hard level checks that often require grinding. I can't remember the last time I thought I was grinding in a western RPG.

Edit: An actual RPG of course. None of that mmo garbage.

[Velshin]

It's my absolute favorite JRPG series with Symphonia and Berseria fighting each other at the top of my list of favorite games of all time.

So far I've had great fun with almost all of the entries that I've played. But there has been low points for various reasons, mostly because of the way I played at the time.

Symphonia, Abyss, and Berseria are all wonderful.

Zestiria I burned myself out on by the end since I was far too excited to play a new Tales game since it came to PC. Thus I became very tired and grumpy by the end which influenced my opinion of it. Looking forward to re-visiting that one relatively soon.

Legendia is my least favorite of the 5 games I've completed. A good game still but definitely didn't feel on the same level as the above.

Then I've played some of Phantasia, Eternia, Graces, and Xillia but haven't gotten far due to lack of time, and in the case of Eternia I felt like I was entirely bad at the fighting but maybe my heart just wasn't fully in it at the time.

Also played Symphonia 2 now that I let my mind go beyond the mothership titles. Not sure where I'd place that since it's related to Symphonia, my previously uncontested favorite game of all time, but at the same time there's a bunch of somewhat meh points too...

Either way, I adore the Tales series and look forward to eventually sit down and focus my attention completely on each game one by one in the form of Let's Playing! ^_^

Daaaamn you missed a lot !!!! Xillia is my second favorite after the Abyss and Symphonia being my top favorite of the series and Berseria is pretty close as well!


One of my favorite JRPG of all time. What I love about this series that it didn't degraded and devolved like how FF series did I remember I used to love FF series so much but after FFXII it kinda went downhill imo of course.

[Wishblade]

Daaaamn you missed a lot !!!! Xillia is my second favorite after the Abyss and Symphonia being my top favorite of the series and Berseria is pretty close as well!


One of my favorite JRPG of all time. What I love about this series that it didn't degraded and devolved like how FF series did I remember I used to love FF series so much but after FFXII it kinda went downhill imo of course.

I know right?! It's mostly because I had a break from consoles for some reason, guess I got busy with life and WoW instead.

I got my Wii in 2006 on release day and since then I didn't get a new console until this year when I finally got a PS3 because I really really wanted to eventually play Xillia, its sequel, and a few other random games. Just sitting behind me, waiting for me to have the time, but my current downtime game is Horizon Zero Dawn, so probably once that's done I'll get on with Xillia for real! ^_^

And I agree with Final Fantasy, although I did get into that pretty late. X and before then were mostly great but I didn't really enjoy XII at all, and with how much "love" XIII has had, I'm unlikely to ever touch that game, while XV just seemed like too much for me, along with being the same 4 dudes for the most part, all in dark "realistic" clothing...

Just looks boring and un-fantasy to me unlike the craziness you get off the bat in, say Berseria! XP

[Karamaru]

I remember playing the fan translation of phantasia for the snes at the time wich was an "intresting" game at the time but when I played Symphonia I really became hooked, so far Vesperia,Xillia and Berseria are my favourites.

[Aux]

Symphonia was the first game in the series I played. Had a lot of fun with it!

Sadly I haven't played another Tales game since, WoW pushed everything aside. I'm thinking about picking up Berseria next time it goes on sale though (I recently quit playing WoW)

[Graeham]

I've only played Berseria. I thought it was a solid JRPG - most of the protagonists and antagonists were pretty interesting. Great music, too.

[Shaiandra]

I remember playing the fan translation of phantasia for the snes at the time wich was an "intresting" game at the time but when I played Symphonia I really became hooked, so far Vesperia,Xillia and Berseria are my favourites.

That's exactly how I started too! ToP was decent, then I didn't have the original PlayStation so I didn't play the ToD or ToE games, but then ToS hooked me for good. Though I've only played the 4-player ones since, so I didn't play Legendia or any of the handheld ones (unless you count the mobile Tales of the Rays or even Tales of Link, which I do play).

Berseria, Abyss, and Graces are my personal favourites, then Vesperia, Symphonia, and Xillia I still liked a lot. Zestiria and Symphonia 2 were the least favourite that I've finished, and I didn't get very far into ToX2. While I might've tolerated it if it were on its own, playing it after Xillia just made it feel like many steps back in all ways...

[Kyanion]

That's exactly how I started too! ToP was decent, then I didn't have the original PlayStation so I didn't play the ToD or ToE games, but then ToS hooked me for good. Though I've only played the 4-player ones since, so I didn't play Legendia or any of the handheld ones (unless you count the mobile Tales of the Rays or even Tales of Link, which I do play).

Berseria, Abyss, and Graces are my personal favourites, then Vesperia, Symphonia, and Xillia I still liked a lot. Zestiria and Symphonia 2 were the least favourite that I've finished, and I didn't get very far into ToX2. While I might've tolerated it if it were on its own, playing it after Xillia just made it feel like many steps back in all ways...

Xillia 1 always felt unfinished to me, like it was missing a large chunk of combat options. Xillia 2 did a much better job while also fleshing out the story more. I just didn't enjoy the dreary world.

The one I really loved was Vesperia, and the Japanese director's cut version that added a character and TONS more content is still the best RPG I've ever seen as far as how much you could do in that game (for its time). I just wish I had a modded Ps3 to play it, though I still played through the Japanese version with a Let's Play.

And Symphonia 2...dear god the worst in the series by far to me. Even worse than Zestiria to me.

[Shaiandra]

Xillia 1 always felt unfinished to me, like it was missing a large chunk of combat options. Xillia 2 did a much better job while also fleshing out the story more. I just didn't enjoy the dreary world.

The one I really loved was Vesperia, and the Japanese director's cut version that added a character and TONS more content is still the best RPG I've ever seen as far as how much you could do in that game (for its time). I just wish I had a modded Ps3 to play it, though I still played through the Japanese version with a Let's Play.

And Symphonia 2...dear god the worst in the series by far to me. Even worse than Zestiria to me.

I will admit that Xillia 2 did improve a bit on ToX's combat, and Tales combat is generally a large draw to me... but everything else in ToX2 I was so against. The quiet protagonist who had more combat options than the others and was forced in the party (and you can't switch characters on the fly), the debt gating and forced grinding, recycled areas with no Aifread's Treasures to find so there was even less incentive to explore... So to me it just felt like they took Xillia, then went two steps forward and ten steps back, and sold it as a new game. I probably would have played it if I hadn't just played Xillia before it, but as is...

Vesperia's in an odd spot for me. The thing is I love basically everything about Vesperia, except the combat pretty much never felt challenging, aside from one early game boss (the wolf Gattuso). Overlimit was definitely overpowered, but I think even without Yuri or Rita abusing it, we had almost no trouble going through our first playthrough on Hard.

Or well, honestly I guess some parts did become rough until I realized how much better a tanky setup worked (as Judith), then everything became easy.. which is pretty similar to my Tales of Berseria experience, where we had some pretty smooth sailing once I outfitted a character to extremely tanky. Though a few end-game/post-game ToB bosses were still brutal.

Anyway, I kinda wish I had played the PS3 version of ToV largely for the 4-player coliseum and such, but I also don't have a modded PS3 nor do I know Japanese.

ToS2 we don't need to talk about. And Zestiria I kiinda want to like since I like some of the characters, but well, everything it did, either Graces or Xillia did better. Gameplaywise it pretty much brought nothing of value to the Tales series. And its combat camera has to be the worst camera I've seen in any game ever. ;p

[Kyanion]

snip

Yeah the combat has always been the big draw for me with Tales games, the only knock on Vesperia is some of the characters aren't that fun to play but Judith/Yuri/Repede make up for that quite a bit. I do believe the Japanese version has better combat or at least more difficulties available so combat can be more punishing on combo mistakes. The downside to many of the Tales games is eventually you get to a point where you are just too good at the system and once you hit that point combat gets a bit too easy. I think Graces had the best sweet spot for me for a good challenge and not too game breaking because the way the system was designed to make you take small breaks in combos to recharge.

While I didn't love the story in Berseria I DID enjoy some of the conversations (mostly ones sans Velvet) and I really liked Eizen though I do understand not everyone is a big fan of his heh. I have high hopes for the next tales game after the bad aftertaste of Zesteria.

[Shaiandra]

Heh, yep. I mained Tear in Abyss and I thought I could try to like Estelle in Vesperia... but after getting Judith I mained her and never looked back. While I haven't played Yuri much myself, I love his character. One of my favourite Tales main protagonists, with Velvet being the only other contender.

I liked a lot of Berseria, and personally like all the characters quite a bit and it had great skits. Especially Magilou, whom I can see as someone that people either love or hate, but she's now one of my favourite Tales characters (second to Judith). I also think the way they handled Souls in combat as a managed resource was more interesting than Graces' CC or the other games' TP (and Xillia's AC) or whatnot, although spamming one move was usually overly effective with little incentive to chain different artes... And as someone who plays through the Tales games with friends, I'm glad it had no linking or armatization effects that removed players from participating. I'm with you, it pleased me and I really look forward to the next, after personally disliking Xillia 2 and Zestiria.

[EbonBehelit]

The only Tales game I've played all the way through is Symphonia. Excellent game.

The sequel was a real disappointment, though.

I've watched Berserk. It's okay but not really to my taste in a lot of ways.

The 1997 adaptation was a flawed gem, and certainly not to everyone's taste. Unbelievably good music though - so good, in fact, that it's almost impossible to imagine anything else for Berserk's score. It makes sense, too, since Susumu Hirasawa's music was one of Berserk's chief inspirations in the first place.

On the other hand, the modern remake is a total tyre-fire, and should be avoided at all costs.

Honestly, the only true Berserk experience is the masterpiece that is the manga. Berserk may never get the proper anime treatment it so sorely deserves.

[Danner]

This is a popular JRPG series that gameplay-wise never innovates itself unlike Final Fantasy that does so every new game, but people don't seem to mind this so much because it's a case of don't fix what isn't broken. On the other hand, the fact it's so stagnant also garners hatred.

I frankly can't believe this series still exists in today's market but it is still around so wondering if anyone has any opinions.

I've played almost all of the series, and I will say this:

The tales games were never much serious games like the FF franchise. The tales games are mainly fun romps through some fantasy setting, featuring a cast of plucky teenagers going up against some big bad. It's the kind of game you buy and play for their gameplay rather than their story; and the gameplay mostly being super smooth combat with multiplayer option and a bit of exploration though various colorful maps. There will be fun dialogue, some drama, and some tension - but most of all, it's just an excuse to have some fun monster smashing. And that's the appeal of the games in my book.

That's not to say all of the tales games had forgettable stories. Far from it. Some of the games have overarching themes and writing shaming some of the final fantasies. I particularly enjoyed Tales of Graces F, but Symphonia, Abyss, Phantasia and Berseria are also fine specimens. However, there are tales games that aren't quite up to snuff as well - Zestiria and Xillia 1/2 comes to mind. They're all fun to play; just not very memorable otherwise.

If you finished your serious JRPG, and just want a casual game focusing on fun rather than gameplay - the tales series is there for you. I'll take that over Final Fantasy 13 any day.

[tehealadin]

I like them, really enjoyed the last one.