Forum - View topicA Beginner's Guide to Tales RPGs
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Greed1914
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This article, and the discussions, have been quite helpful. The Zesteria anime had me curious about the games, which is obviously the point, but then it got kind of confusing when it dropped in episodes for Bersaria part way, so I didn't know if I was even supposed to know why the show suddenly shifted to something else entirely.
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Veroniku
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@Spiked Terra
^I agree about Milla's voice actress in English (Tales of Xillia), but she gets better by the end of the game. They clearly recorded everything chronologically, and had forgotten to coach her and teach her how to voice act at the beginning (she's an actress, not a voice actress), so I wouldn't blame her too much. My favorite is Xillia, and while I see not many rank it as high as I do, I think it's for the fact that you really had to read between the lines to get the depth of the story and world, and most fans probably didn't bother. You have to basically put yourself in some of the characters' shoes to understand their motivations and how they're feeling, because they never outright throw it in your face the way they did in Abyss or Symphonia. I started with Jude side, and it was only in my second playthrough in Milla's side that I realized it. It's in its subtleties that it makes me appreciate that cast of characters best. One might argue it got so subtle because the game was rushed tho. Also my fave battle system (Graces was real fun but asked for a lot of effort). Symphonia was my favorite before Xillia happened, and it's obviously because of its great plot (deceiving the audience with the same lies that the in-game world has believed for centuries, and changing its perception at the same time as the characters change theirs, only to change it again, haha), but also because I'm a sucker for idealistic main characters. Also it was my first Tales. Vesperia is a really close third for me, since I love every single party member (Xbox version at least haha). This game shouldn't really be played for the plot, but for the character development and interactions. While some might argue that they just breeze through the problems all throughout, I believe each one of them grew tremendously by the end of the game, even Yuri. I love their friendship as well, they stick with each other because they want to (not your usual "I joined the party so it's forever" kind of SNES RPG thinking). They never want to leave one of their own behind. I know people who'd argue that Graces is even more about friendship and that it's what makes it great, but personally I can't give an opinion, since I couldn't stand playing the game more than three hours, despite the fighting system being awesome... And like many, I disliked Zestiria and gave up after 20 hours (I really tried). I'll watch the anime once all of it is out. Xillia 2 and Symphonia 2 are games that should only be played if you played and loved their first title, since they're more like a long post-story sidequest with lovable new lead characters (yes I love Emil, Marta, Ludger and Elle) Might notice that Abyss is missing from this wall-of-text, but it's because I have the unpopular opinion of the game being bad haha. Disliked the characters, the gameplay, the story, the ending... |
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glitteringloke
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I'll tell everyone here what I tell those people in my Tales of Panels when I run them at cons (years ago, Otakon. recently, AnimeNEXT). Start with the game you have the most accessibility for. not everyone is going to like every game, but if you want to give it a try, don't stain yourself to spend $150 for a ps1 version of Tales of Destiny, but get what you can find. It will give you a basic idea of the tales games as a whole with certain recurring features (cooking, katz, etc). have a ps4? Get ToZ, but use side step to fix the camera angles (and try to avoid corner battles since that's where it's worst). ps3? you have a lot to choose from, so I'd go with ToS chronicles to start. ToS-ratatosk isn't all that bad if you can figure out how to evolve your monsters (Fenia is beautiful and deadly. raise a harpy.)
since I've played all of them minus eternia online and the original tales of mobile (I'm only a few hours into Berseria, atm), here are my favorites. 1. Tales of Phantasia - I play this again every few years. PSP full voice edition was the best version (Narikiri x version had a really stupid insert character that was to make dhaos seem kinder or something, but if you pay attention, everyone else knows he's not completely psycho... just cless) 2. Tales of Rebirth - the one with the battle system everyone hates. still the most powerful speeches in any game that I've played and it all revolves around peach pie. 3. Tales of Eternia/Tales of Graces - not sure which I like more, probably depends on my mood of the day. Graces had the best balanced battle system so far (verdict is out on Berseria atm since it is still new to me) and for the first time there wasn't a character I didn't absolutely adore. Eternia was fairly solid through and through and being able to play Whis was always a great time killer. my least fav: 1. Tales of Vesperia - my hatred for Yuri as a character pretty much sums up why I can't stand this game. and Estelle. bleh. it's hard to get through something when you loathe the main characters with a fiery passion. 2. Tales of Destiny 2 - many say this was the most fun battle system but somehow I never seemed to be able to get it to work in my favor and ended up losing so much grade every time. frustrating, to say the least. plus, most of the characters weren't all that interesting to me, so it doesn't really hold a spot like other games do. and shout out to ToL, the unloved baby with the best music of any tales game. character quests MADE that game and while I never got to it in English, it's a shame they didn't voice any of that :/ and someone mentioned dice adventure - that game shut down a few years back. sucks because I loved it a LOT. but Tales of asteria (mobile) is a lot of fun. |
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belvadeer
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Minae Noji has been a VA since early 2000, so she isn't just an actress. Anime style voice acting was a new field for her at the time she started doing it (2012), so she's only gotten better at it. As someone who has gone through the Tales motions for years thanks to word of mouth and videos from holystar's old website, I've experienced quite a bit of the Tales series myself. My list of played titles includes: *Phantasia Full Voice Edition (full voice acting with old school Tales battles) *Eternia (this one is a flatter title since the cast isn't too amazing and neither is the story) *Abyss (both the PS2 and 3DS versions) *Legendia (great cast and plot, not so wow on gameplay features) *Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (makes you wish we got the other two) *Dawn of the New World (the monster system is what kept me interested in it) *Vesperia (an incredible game that's loads of fun to play and the cast is great) *Graces f (battle system and various combat styles make for a lot of fun variations) *Xillia (between this and its sequel, I prefer this one for its story management) *Xillia 2 (polishes what Xillia did, but the story gets bloated as a result) *Zestiria (unfortunately, my least liked Tales game to date due to too many ideas that don't mesh well in addition to a story that was clearly rushed in its second half) I also own a copy of Hearts R, but haven't gotten around to playing it yet. In my experience, the best advice I can give is to try as many titles in the series as possible and see what appeals to you in it. Each Tales is vastly different in scope. Over the years, they've been adding more to each title to make battles more entertaining than the last and it really shows when you try out all the features offered. The cast of characters is also what people play these games for, and Abyss is considered the best written out of all the titles in terms of the party, the story and its themes. With so many different entries, you're bound to find one or two you'll really enjoy. |
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tintor2
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I think I am one of the few who liked Luke. He was specifically written to be unlikable at first (although he had some soft spots) but spoiler[after he discovers he messes up something bad and discovers he is a replica of Asch, the character tries really hard have a redemption. Even his attempts at being a nicer person leaves his friends in shock. Also, while he recognizes his master never cared for him, in the end he doesn't feel like hating and even says it was an honor to meet him. His romantical relationship with Tear was really touching as the two share similar situations in the same story. If you try checking Luke's diary before the final battles, you'll find Luke tried confessing his feelings to Tear but it felt for him selfish since he knew his lifespan became really shorter.]
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CaRoss
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I've been a Tales fan for years, so I'm pretty biased when I say that I enjoy almost all of the games in the franchise in some way or another, but that doesn't change the fact that I've got some pretty strong opinions on the games.
For starters, I've got to throw my hat into the "Tales of the Abyss is the best" ring. It was a wonderful mix of character development, fantastic world building, and great gameplay that defines the series at its best. It also starred one of the few legitimately left handed protagonists, rather than the trope's usual "left = villain" mentality, so that was exciting for someone who is left handed themselves 
Tales of Graces F would probably be my second favourite game. Bearing the best gameplay in the series, its somewhat weaker story compared to other entries is easily forgivable in the wake of such awesome combat and fun characters. My third favourite entry in the series is definitely Tales of Vesperia. Despite some flaws that plague this one, the most grievous being an awkward control scheme for my tastes, the Guild vs. Empire conflict and great cast of characters - particularly Flynn, Karol and Rita - really made the game a blast to play through. Other than my three favourites, which other people have talked about as well, there are plenty of games in the series to enjoy. I'm currently enjoying my time in Tales of Hearts R and Tales of Zestiria currently, despite the fact that both suffer from some issues that make them slightly frustrating (Hearts has a weird pacing at the start, and Zestiria suffers from some serious gameplay issues - mostly revolving around its camera). Honestly, I agree with everyone who calls this comfort food and tropey, but oftentimes the Tales series has managed to put out engaging games that sit up there with some of the more "popcorn fluff" anime, movies and books that I enjoy. |
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redcar
 Posts: 172 Location: Texas |
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More than anything, the responses in this thread are making me wonder: how many people usually play the games by themselves, versus how many people usually play them as a group? Both types seem to be fairly common, but it can greatly affect what you get out of a particular game. For example, I have to imagine those who liked Legendia/Xillia1&2/Zestiria the most probably play alone, since the former has no multiplayer and the latter three make it difficult with their systems. I'd be interested in seeing some kind of poll about that conducted among fans.
Hahha oh man, I cannot BELIEVE someone other than me still remembers that site. I used to watch those combo videos all the time! hi5  /
I felt that Yuri's reaction to killing was appropriate, even if (as you said) it didn't really go anywhere important. This is actually related to one of the lesser issues I had with Zestiria: spoiler[Rose has utterly no remorse for murdering people, but it's ok because "it's her job". The party barely seems to notice that she's a sociopath since she's doing it in the name of vigilantism and she's "a good person". Where it was a heavy burden for Yuri and those around him in Vesperia, it doesn't really seem to bother anyone overly much in Zestiria and that was bizarre to me]. With regards to Luke, I still think this is the most succinct analysis of his character that I've seen. And as someone who also personally struggles with too much self-blame at times, I found his later attitude completely understandable, even if it was a bit annoying. It's better to be overly-aware of your faults than unaware, I suppose. |
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Dessa
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Uhh, how are Xillia/Zesty difficult? Xillia's system is MADE for multiplayer, with the partner system. And Zesty is a lot more fun with a second person, too. |
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belvadeer
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I know right? They were the best and I even submitted something that got put up there (not Tales-related, but it was still high numbers combo-worthy for his site). Glad to meet someone else who's been influenced by holystar's uploads. The site was abandoned long ago sadly, but it's thanks to him I got into the Tales series like I did. I hope he's doing well with whatever he's pursuing now. |
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redcar
Posts: 172 Location: Texas |
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Yeah man, pretty sure that site is part of the reason I got into jrpgs as an adult. I still have most of those videos cached somewhere, and of course they pop up from time to time on Youtube. Though it wasn't actually a combo video, I think this one was my favorite at the time just because of how the music was used. It just kinda blew my mind with how cool it was.
Perhaps I should have been more clear in that I was referring to 3 or 4 players when I said "multiplayer". Xillia 1&2 are fine with 2 players, but once you add a 3rd or 4th you run into problems: any time you link up with another character, if that character was being controlled by a human, it is instead taken over by the AI. This means that only one person can link when you have 3 players and nobody can link when you have 4 players. Zestiria is even worse on this front, as it seems to have been programmed with the expectation of 1-2 people playing only the human characters. When I tried to play it together with my wife and brother-in-law, we had these problems: 1. Similar to Xillia, any time you armatize with a player-controlled character that player is basically taken out of combat. 2. Any time you only have one human character due to plot reasons, you can only have two players total playing the game, period. You can only use the human character and one attached seraphim. 3. The camera is a little buggy but manageable in single-player (from what I hear). In multiplayer it's a severe annoyance: not only do you have the strange clipping issues in small areas, but it's quite difficult to get it to look at things other than the main character's target without making the effort to zoom way out every battle. This leads to a lot of scenarios where the offscreen players have to just spam buttons and hope they hit something, or switch to the main target. 4. The system has little respect for players using specific seraphim. I played the game as Lailah attached to Sorey, while my wife mained Rose attached to Mikleo. After almost every single cutscene, Mikleo would arbitrarily be put back on Sorey while Lailah was switched to Rose. As this was a problem due to item #1, we constantly had to go through the process of [wife switches to a third seraphim] > [I switch to Lailah] > [wife switches to Mikleo]. 5. We also had an absurd scenario once where I just could not control any characters. I don't remember the exact details, but it involved switching to Mikleo and some number of characters being dead. Basically, any time we revived Sorey he would instantly armatize and make it to where I couldn't change over no matter what I did. I was only able to fix it by spamming the character switch command to 1P whenever we revived him, in the <1s before he decided to armatize again. Now don't get me wrong, Lailah was still a blast to play in this system and I had more fun with her than with many other characters I've played over the years. The combo quickcast was incredible as far as playing a caster goes, and they should bring it back for more games. But the fun I had was definitely in spite of the battle system's issues. They put a lot of work into it, but it just feels like they didn't do quite enough. |
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tintor2
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Talk about Mikleo being best waifu. The anime even made them closer. |
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Generations
 Posts: 204 |
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Yeah, Zestiria's battle camera is terrible, and I'm pretty sure that has to do with the 'battle takes place in the field and not a separate instance' thing. They didn't realize how much that ONE thing would change everything, since it now has to rely on the surroundings of the general field instead of a separate combat field. And if that field is full of walls, may God have mercy on you.
That said, I fully enjoyed Zestiria's combat system and am glad they chose Graces' combat system as a base. It makes learning to time attacks and defend more of a requirement than a suggestion and definitely makes for some fantastic high-level play at harder difficulties. It also gives crappy status effects more power (I'm rarely threatened by burn or poison in the other games, but in this game you really have to watch out). My one complaint is that I wish there were more defensive spells that give like stat buffs and at least one revival spell. I also LOVE Zestiria's equipment system. I know most people hate it (including my siblings, who have to watch me for an hour having too much fun tinkering with the various equips), but I love the freedom it gives to create specific builds for characters which completely changes gameplay styles. You can make a purely physical-tank Lailah or a glass-canon Sorey or an unbreakable-casting Edna that never runs out of CC! It makes replay playthroughs more fun since you can change up your builds (making a Sorey-tank now).
I never liked Rose. Her happy-go-lucky not-affected-by-anything shtick was fun at first, but after a while it just made her boring and predictable. She only had two good bits of good characterization (one of them in the DLC) but overall Alisha was just the better female lead. As for Yuri, it would have made more sense to have focused on that as part of the main story (since the tagline was about 'enforcing justice') and talked about the good and ill of what his actions had accomplished. But instead,Vesperia's main plot is all over the place. It didn't help that most of the characters had drive-by motivations and character arcs and Estelle is SUCH AN UNLIKEABLE CHARACTER. Also she's a terrible combat healer, and when I have to rely on Raven to heal my party or even freaking Karol's weak healing, you know you suck. |
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Paiprince
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People hating on Zestiria, Xillia or Graces and claiming they're the lowest of the series need to look back and check out Tales of the Tempest. Now THAT is legitimate bad. Everything about it was a mistake, with a criminally short main storyline (Tales of 10 hours), unfun and flawed 3 Line Motion Battle System, the smallest number and most forgettable cast etc. etc. The list goes on. It was such an embarrassment it lost its place as a flagship title.
The best Tales in my opinion is another game that never left Japan: Innocence. The story, in the grand scheme of things, isn't really any different and Luca himself is a milquetoast (but better than Luke), but there's just something about it that draws me to it more than the other games. It helps that it's regarded as the best portable Tales prior to the Remakes. |
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Shenl742
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Kind of sad Tales of Hearts R isn't mentioned. Compared to other games in the series it doesn't do anything really outstanding, but I think it does everything well. The most "balanced" Tales games I've played, I guess I should say. Or the "least bad?"
The skill system and combat are pretty great. Not too many games in the franchise let you just knock enemies through the air like volleyballs. And I guess I stand alone in thinking that the english translation was perfectly fine. My lying ears/eyes. Honestly reminded me of FFV Advanced in it's zippyness. And the worst Tales has to be Legendia, hands down. Such an ugly, plodding mess. Sad that we ended up getting that in the west instead of Rebirth... |
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belvadeer
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@redcar: Yeah, the unlocalized Tales titles like Destiny 2 and Rebirth seemed to have some of the best combo videos with sweet music from their respective soundtracks (which is what got me to purchase both Destiny 2 and Rebirth's OSTs incidentally).
That's an unfair comparison, Paiprince. It's an old story from nearly a decade ago, but Tempest was shopped out to Dimps, who clearly knew nothing about the Tales series, and it showed. I don't know why a studio mostly known for handling Sonic titles would get handed off such a difference in genre as a project, but it was a mistake I'm sure Baba will never repeat again. Speaking of that blue hedgehog, in a major bit of palpable irony, Tempest is considered the Sonic 2006 of the Tales series due to how poorly made it was in every area except music (and to be even meaner, it was released in 2006). In any case, I think saying Tempest is the lowest of the series is like saying Chaos Wars is the most laughable crossover RPG because of its idiotic English dub (doesn't mean the game is any less fun to play). Funny thing is, Tempest is slowly approaching its 10th anniversary (released October 26, 2006) and it's amazing they still haven't greenlit Tempest R for development. They really should get on that so they can fix every mistake Dimps made with Tempest. I guess maybe they don't want to remind fans who bought the title years ago the embarrassment that came with its existence. If we're talking the main Tales series titles, people often cite Legendia as the worst since it didn't bring anything new to the table after Rebirth's three-line battle system (as well as no Mystic Artes, no truly unique battle features other than Climax Mode, tedious combat, Shirley being considered the worst heroine ever, and so on). |
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