Tell me about the Tales series

Tell me about the Tales series.
Should I play all these games in their release order, or would you recommend playing only specific titles? Also, I'm sure these games were remade several times. Are there any bad remakes I should avoid? I usually go for the newest iterations.

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Vesperia

Play Symphonia first. If you like it, play Abyss, if you like that, play Phantasia, and after that, if you are still interested, and feel like forking over the cash for a 360, just to play Vesperia, then you won't be disappointed I assure you. After that, just play whatever man.

Play Abyss and Vesperia. Avoid the rest. Don't listen to talesfags.

Play Phantasia, Eternia, Symphonia, Vesperia in that order.
If you want more after that play Destiny and Abyss

Most recent of each is fine.

It's the same as FF. None of them are related to each other except for the very rare few (Phantasia and Symphonia).
Any order is fine.

>I usually go for the newest iterations.
Make sure to not start with Zestiria, that one was pretty bad.
You can't go wrong with starting with Vesperia and then working your way through the others.
If you insist on playing modern Tales then wait for Berseria, it releases on ps4 and steam next year spring.

>Should I play all these games in their release order
You are already on the wrong path. Every game is disappointing in some form. The older games are almost unplayable, due to the outdated gameplay and horrible stories.

The best are Eternia, Destiny DC, Destiny 2(gameplay only), Abyss, Vesperia, Graces and Berseria

People who say Symphonia are just blinded by nostalgia, it's not worth it nowadays especially for a first time player

Or just wait for Berseria in a few months, it's the best game in the series anyways

Abyss is something you should only play if you are an established Tales fan. It's darker tone, dysfunctional cast, and annoying main character may turn people off from the game, which may in turn; turn them off from the franchise as a whole.

My uncle was turned off from the entire Final Fantasy franchise because in 2003, he decided to play the latest game for his new PS2, which just happened to be X-2, and after that, he thought every game was going to be a mission based JRPG with nothing but women, dress up, and a soundtrack that is half porn and half J-Pop.

One of the weakest or most polarizing games in the series can really affect how people view a franchise as a whole, if it's their first game in the series.

Phantasia (possibly the remake on PSX), Symphonia and Vesperia are the only good tales game

Destiny is a clunky badly translated psx game that it's not really worth playing (although i heard it has an amazing only ps2 remake)
Eternia is an ok game if a little cliche
Legendia is the shittiest tales game of the bunch
most people seems to like Abyss as a sequel to Symphonia but personaly i found the unsufferable cast too much for me to digest
speaking of symphonia sequel, Symphonia 2 is spinoff trash that should be absolutely avoided
Graces and Xillia were the last two tales of games i played and honestly i got bored through both halfway of them, graces in particular felt terrible with all the backtracking

Symphonia, Abyss and Vesperia

If you really liked those you could try Xillia because it's cheap as fuck

>People who say Symphonia are just blinded by nostalgia, it's not worth it nowadays especially for a first time player

And yet it's still the only fucking game in the series to contain a soul mate/best friend system where the main character can end up paired with anyone based on your choices instead of being shoehorned.

>And yet it's still the only fucking game in the series to contain a soul mate/best friend system where the main character can end up paired with anyone based on your choices instead of being shoehorned.
That's supposed to be a good thing?
Go play Persona then

The only real must plays are Eternia, Abyss and Vesperia.
Ignore symphoniafags, they have nostalgia goggles superglued on.
Avoid Tempest and Zestiria.

shit combat

Doesn't matter in which order you play them. You'll miss out on the cameo secret bosses but other than that, all entries are like in FF games.

Story is almost always the same shit. And I mean literally shit. Just don't play them for the story because they fucking suck.

Battle systems are the meat of the series but even though they can be very similar, when looked closely you can find small and not so small differences that break them apart. This is also why most of the fanbase hates each other because there is no consensus to which system is the best.

I'd recommend starting with Xillia and moving to Xillia 2. Then you can probably try out any other game in the series.

If you want to play the latest entry, that would be Zestiria, and soon Berseria. But Berseria is a prequel to Zestiria so you want to play that first.

If you wan the "classic", play Symphonia. I hate it but there are tons of people who think of it as the second coming of Christ.

Or if you want the over the top flashiest combat, try Graces f.

I know many people will say Vesperia but I haven't finished it yet so I won't comment on it.

>If you don't mind enjoyable if cliched stories try Symphonia Eternia or Phantasia
>If you want goat gameplay try Graces Xilia 2 or Vesperia
>If you want to hate yourself try Symphonia 2, Legendia or Abyss
>If you want to kill yourself play Xilia
>If you want to kill yourself and tarnish your soul forever try Zestiria
>あなたが話す場合日本はテイルズオブベルセリアしてみてください

Pick whatever sounds best my man

Oh no, the game throws waifufags a bone, surely it will excuse a huge heap of problems like horrendous pacing or horrible, dumb MC.

Coming from someone who really likes Abyss, I can tell you right now that the backtracking can make the game very boring and make you wanna drop it or pause halfway through. My third play through was a straight shot, but my first two were just that, first on the PS2, and then the 3DS.

All the games are good or better. Avoid Phantasia iOS because it is pay 2 win (enemies made harder, savepoints removed to make you buy party revives at the end of dungeons)

>Play Abyss and Vesperia. Avoid the rest. Don't listen to talesfags.

>But Berseria is a prequel to Zestiria so you want to play that first.
There's zero reason to play Zestiria anymore since the anime improves on everything and will be finished by the time Bearsy releases so one can just go and watch that for the plot background.

>surely it will excuse a huge heap of problems like horrendous pacing or horrible, dumb MC.

you sure you aren't thinking of abyss?

Dude, the Multi-Line Linear Motion Battle System in Symphonia was the best. It was similar to the 2D games in that you ran from left to right, but each monster and character could exist on a different line or plane in a fully 3D landscape. I see no point in the free run, because if your reflexes are good enough, you can dodge attacks without suffering from a scratch. You just gotta get good. man.

I don't think so. He would have included horrendous load times if he was.

Symphonia is incredibly overrated but its still a solid game, but not for this reason. Having a bare-bones and lackluster relationship system isn't what made the game enjoyable. The only relationships that matter are the Kratos/Zelos interactions.

It was slow and most characters played like shit, if I want to play a Tales with a good battle system I would play Destiny 2, Rebirth, Vesperia or Graces

My first game was Abyss, played it on 3DS about two years ago. I actually really liked it a lot, I read a fair amount of people saying that the main character is a douche and while that's true at first it's mostly so he can grow and change over the course of the adventure. Is he and the rest of the cast still kind of annoying at times? Sure, but not nearly as bad as some people claim. I mean it's not much of a hero's journey if the main character is already a cool guy

My second game was Xillia, I beat that game but man what a waste of time

Thanks for all the answers, guys. I'm making a matrix of all of your recommendations to base my play order on.

Meanwhile, what can you tell me about anime series based on Tales games? Are they worthwhile? Should I watch some of these anime series instead of playing the games they are based on?

Why did it take them so many fucking years to get 3D movement right in combat?

For instance with the Free Run in Abyss, it's like they didn't do a single thing to their enemy AI to account for it.
As a result you can win fights by running in literal circles around enemies while they go full retard.

Yeah, on the PS2. Get it on the 3DS. Sure you have downresed textures and a drop to 30 FPS in battle, but that touch screen makes casting multiple spells at once a breeze, there are no load times, and it's a fucking portable 60 hour console JRPG.

Tales is literally the okayest series ever. None of the games are necessarely good but they're all fun.

the free run in most game pre-Vesperia (and counting it since you can abuse it a lot in it) is pretty shit

The only one you should watch is Zestiria since the game is horrible to the point of physical pain.

>and while that's true at first it's mostly so he can grow and change over the course of the adventure

His first personality is superior to his later personality though.
He goes from being 100% sure about helping people, just in the doucheyist way possible, to being a limp-wristed faggot who can't make a decision and would apologize for sneezing

I know what you mean dude. Cress, Lloyd, Yuri, you name it, they're all generic MCs, and never change. They carry the same personalities, world views, ideologies ect, from start to finish. Luke is the only character who was allowed to evolve and grow in a very dynamic way. He's the most human MC in any JRPG that I can think of.

Fucking this. Nothing else matters

>enjoying a playthrough of Berseria
>characters are animu as fuck but still enjoyable
>game gets "edgy" but largely justified
>get to the scene with the bipedal cat spirits
GOD DAMN IT JAPAN BE SERIOUS BE CUTE NOT BOTH

Very inclined to get it still. Is the combat as stiff as it looks or does it become more fluid later on?

Well Abyss got a standard fare 26 episode anime which is essentially the game word for word. Other than that, I know that Vesperia's animation is actually a prequel movie to the game. It only focuses on Yuri and Flynn, with the rest of the cast only receiving cameos.

Anything but Zestiria

This.

What's wrong with Zillia?

Start with Xillia, it's semi modern, cheap, enjoyable and just a pretty good game in general.

Yeah that's kinda what I think ultimately. Luke isn't the BEST protagonist ever, but I totally understood where he was coming from when he made the decisions he made. Like you said I found him very human, flawed yet understandable.

I do have to kind of agree with you though, as much as I like his journey and stuff near the end Luke kind of becomes a little too apologetic. I was hoping he would get over that and kind of act like a combination of both Lukes as it were, but yeah I can absolutely see what you mean

I see nobody mentioned Tales of Hearts. How's that one?

Also, is Tales of Symphonia Chronicles worth getting for Dawn of the New World, or should I ignore the sequel and get the PC version of Symphonia on Steam?

>BE SERIOUS BE CUTE NOT BOTH
Better prepare yourself, Velvet is a 10/10 cutie patootie pie when she's not in KILL ARTORIUS mode.

The combat isn't stiff at all and extremely customizable, the guy who is doing the playthrough you are watching probably just suck hard.

Also you only saw the first 10% if you saw the first nekonin spirit, they are a staple of the series now anyways and were in Zesty so of course they are there.

Berseria has the best cast and the best story in a Tales game, don't ruin it with a badly translated let's play shit, just wait for the official release and experience it yourself, believe me you saw nothing yet

I just found Xillia to be largely bland. The combat system was the best part but the characters and story were just not that great. That and it seemed like they stripped a lot of stuff out of the series by this point like the world map and extra costumes.

Not that costume stuff was completely lacking, I remember having hats and sunglasses on every party member for a while and it never failed to make me laugh

The problem with xillia 1 is that it doesnt work really well, it gives you zero gun out of combo because everything just breaks out of them, the overlimit system is not that great, and there is not much content to do anyways. Xillia 2 fixes all this problems but starts a big one called area restrictions by money, but xillia 2 has some of the best gameplay of the series

>Velvet is a 10/10 cutie patootie pie when she's not in KILL ARTORIUS mode
Thats what makes her great.

Symphonia 2 had it's overworld scrapped thanks to a time crunch, which in turn made the entire game feel incredibly linear. It has a monster catching system which can be difficult to understand in the beginning, but is pretty satisfying when you have two giant ice tortoises on your side. You only get two permanent characters, and either rely on your monsters or the temporary characters that join from time to time, which are always recurring characters from the original game.

Lloyd got a new voice actor, and he sounds awful, and there is a mission system now, but it gets tedious and boring when you complete various missions in the same locations over and over again. Also the main character and his "Ratatosk mode" is literally one of the cringiest things I've ever witnessed.

Also courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality.

I guess Tales of Hearts on the DS is supposed to be super good, and it was Hideo Baba's favorite game in the franchise. I have the Vita remake, and I like it, but I hear it's vastly different from the original, which I have not played.

Want to know why Xillia sucked? That ending.

Man what a disappointing dry hump of an ending that was. I think it would have been better if the game just said "The End?" after you kill the last boss

>I guess Tales of Hearts on the DS is supposed to be super good
They aren't that different, the story is largely the same though the vita remake scrapped an area.
Gameplay-wise Hearts DS has the cameo summon that are pretty amusing but it's pretty broken otherwise you can basically infinite into an infinite.

Both version are pretty much equal, the story in the DS version is presented better and feel more complete but the vita version has better gameplay and is fully voiced

Just play Symphonia or Abyss, whichever one is more convenient. If you like them you can try to get into the other ones, but be aware most of the series is shit.

Play Symphonia if you just want babby's first jrpg and don't mind horrific gameplay and flat characters. Do not ever play the sequel unless you hate yourself.
Abyss if you want something character focused with actual depth and don't mind mediocre gameplay and story progression forcing you to go in circles.
Vesperia if you want an overall balanced package with fairly good gameplay.

None of the others are good starting points desu.

I don't mind her being sweet, I'm talking about outright kawaii uggu mewscue bullshit that cat was spewing.

Do the characters have a cooldown period after attacking? Many times he'd just stand there after a combo. Also is there a parry and counter system?

Alright, based on all your recommendations, I've come up with this order:
The First Trike (anime prequel) + Vesperia -> Symphonia -> Abyss -> Phantasia -> Xillia + Xillia 2 -> Berseria + Zestiria's anime series

If I'll still want more:
Eternia -> Destiny + Destiny 2 -> Hearts

If the above is still not enough:
Legendia -> Graces

Would you approve of this? What changes would you make?

it's like Graces, there is a cooldown based on the number of attacks you do and their cost but you can reduce it to nothing if you hit weakness, evade or if you use their soul break that reset the limit, there is a lot of way to go around it so this guy probably just suck hard and play it like a button mashing game.

Rokurou has a parry, all the characters play vastly differently due to their unique soul break

Alright. One final question, is there dual audio? Thanks in advance.

Berseria should definitely be on a "play when it releases" priority list depending on how long it takes you to finish the others if you don't mind paying full price for it.

You dont need the anime prequel of vesperia i would recommend you to watch it later

Playing Symphonia after Vesperia is an extremely bad idea.
Either play Symphonia first or don't play it at all

And Graces is good, worth more than the Xillias

It was announced I think

That is one hell of a list dude
I think you're all set minus the Vesperia movie, that is for if you end up liking the game

If you don't mind playing games in Japanese the PS3 version of Vesperia is vastly superior.

It have a very good translation guide.

hyouta.com/vesperia/

...

Wow, I've never seen a translation guide.
Are you supposed to keep it opened next to you as you play the Japanese version? Doesn't sound too comfortable.

Yeah pretty much.

Why is everybody so sure that Beseria will be so damn good? Several posters noted that. How can you know?

I played it

Alright, I'll watch the prequel movie after playing the game.

>Playing Symphonia after Vesperia is an extremely bad idea.
Can you extrapolate?

Oh, so it's out already?

You see everything that vesperia does its like a better version of symphonia so it makes symphonia look a little outdated and not that good so thats why you should play symph first

Berseria is out in japan and there is a japanese demo on ps4 if you are interested create a japanese account to do it

Symphonia IS outdated and not that good.

The battle system in Symphonia is so clunky relative to any game that came after it that you will feel very uncomfortable after having played Vesperia.

It's really not that bad. Once you get Lloyd's sword rains and sanic spin tempests I was having a blast.

That's just a general problem with tales early-game, 3-4 basic attacks and maybe a demon fang makes for not much excitement.

Vesperia is like this for the first 15 hours too, especially since Estelle and Karol are shit to play as so you are stuck with Yuri for a long time