Tales Of... series

[Spirit]

I've been playing Tales of Xillia recently and although I'm a Nintendo fangirl i think Xillia is one game that I've had the most fun with outside of Nintendo (its up there with Shadow of the Colossus).

So I'm wondering if anyone here is a fan of the Tales series, maybe there's a Tales/Zelda correlation with fans. =]

 

[Hanyou]

I like to think of Tales of Symphonia as my first real JRPG apart from Pokemon. While it took about 20 hours for me to even start to appreciate it, by that point I'd fallen in love with the world, the characters, the visuals, and the music. The gameplay was also fantastic.

Vesperia is the only other one I've finished. It's better than Symphonia in some respects; combat has been refined, the visuals are a solid evolution of what came before, and most interestingly, the characters are far more relatable. Yuri in particular goes down as quite possibly my favorite protagonist in the history of RPGs. Rita and Raven are also well-written. I've never minded tropes, so Estelle, the naive noble, and Karol, the resident Ash Ketchum, never bothered me, though I understand many people had problems with them.

It's been some 10 years since I last played Symphonia, so I'm not sure how Vesperia stacks up relative to that one. I do recall that Symphonia had a better story, but I like Vesperia's characters more.

I've played Abyss and Phantasia but finished neither. Phantasia I should certainly get around to finishing. As for Abyss, I found the protagonist insufferable. I might give it another go, but the characters all failed to connect with me.

I'm not sure I've played enough to call myself a fan of the series, but Vesperia, Symphonia, and Phantasia are all solid games.

 

[Azure Sage]

Tales of the Abyss is the only game of the Tales of series I've played, but I wouldn't mind playing more if they're anything like that one. I really loved it. I didn't like being restricted from going certain places after progressing past a certain point, since I hate anything that I can't go back to later, but I enjoyed the story a lot and I loved the music and dungeons and gameplay. The characters were really good, too. Luke had great character development. I didn't like him at first, but later in the game he grew on me a lot.

 

[misskitten]

I've played a little Tales of Xillia, and so far I think it's okay, but it hasn't really pulled me in yet.

 

[Snow Queen]

The Tales games are pretty bad. They're just really lazy and poorly written.

 

[Hanyou]

The Tales games are pretty bad. They're just really lazy and poorly written.

Which ones have you played, and by what rubric are they poorly-written?

 

[Snow Queen]

Which ones have you played, and by what rubric are they poorly-written?

http://puu.sh/gpwFD/fff8b8ea6b.png

symphonia

 

[selicyc]

I've been a fan of the Tales series for several years, with Tales of Graces f being my introduction to the series. It's a great series, but it's riddled with age old anime tropes. Thankfully, many of those tropes tend to get flipped on their heads as the game progresses. Well, maybe except for Xillia 2 and its hot springs ending. GOOD LORD, I WAS NOT EXPECTING THAT AT ALL.

Tales of the Abyss definitely had the best plot and character development of them all -- Luke Fon Fabre was easily the most ungrateful, whiny bastard I had the displeasure of playing, and a huge part of me just wanted to punch this hoser in the teeth...

... Until he does the really big freaking spoiler in Azkeriuth. After those events, he beings changing for the better, and learning how to cope with who he actually is and realizes the world doesn't revolve around him. It made playing the first half of the game all the better.

 

[Wolf Sage]

I've played Tales of Legendia and Tales of Xillia. Big into the series overall, and I've read up a ton about most of the games. I intend to play every game that has reached stateside, and those that haven't if possible, sometime in the coming years. Jay is cool.