Tales Series

[NastyNate]

Where is the best place to start? I am thinking about going with tales of symphonia for the gamecube. What is your favorite of the tales games? How will does the couch co op work?

[reeoyuy]

I just started playing Tales of Innocence on DS now. I've played Destiny, Eternia (Destiny 2 in US), Legendia, and Abyss. Not much, but not many Tales series translated in my PS/PS2 gaming era back then. I'd say my favorite is Eternia but that's because it's my first Tales ever. IMO Legendia has great music and Abyss has good story. I heard good things about Symphonia but never had a chance to play it.

[Rob DS Zeta]

Symphonia's my favorite, but it's been a while since I played it. Abyss is good, and Vesperia is as well. If you ask me what the best one is, though, I'll tell that it's Phantasia.

I started with Symphonia, but it's quite the departure from today's games. I've never done the co-op, but I've heard it works pretty well in battles.

[Destiny_Gundam]

I've only played Phantasia, then Abyss, then Vesperia (haven't beaten it yet) and now I'm playing Tales of the World Radiant Mythology. I've seen the first arc of the Symphonia OVA as well.

Phantasia is for the SNES so it's old school. You move around in battle but only on a 2D plane. The other three have real time battle systems that allow you to freely run around during battles. I like this kind of system then turn based stuff.

Abyss was great and I definitely recommend it. Vesperia is pretty good too but like I said I haven't beaten it. World is a franchise crossover so don't go for that until you've played some of the other games.

[Seraphic]

I've played Symphonia and Abyss.

Symphonia is definitely good and I really enjoyed it. I think my friend and I beat the game like 7 times together. I was slightly annoyed by the skill system and title system though. You can only move in 2 dimensions which can make evasion very difficult, and you may be blocking a lot.

The co-op battles are good if your 2nd player learns how to stay in camera, but this can make things difficult sometimes. And this will sound very weird, but while your controls only work in 2 dimensions, sometimes on the battlefield your 2nd player can be knocked onto a different third axis and his/her 2D controls will be difficult to use.

For example, player 1 can only run right and left, but player 2 gets knocked away by a large attack, and suddenly can only run towards and away from the screen.

I really, really loved Abyss. It's a near perfect game in my opinion, and does away with all the difficulties I had with Symphonia. You can move in 3 dimensions, and the EX skill system is very nice and adaptable. I forgot what the system is called, but the fonic artes you can use on the field inside the elemental circles was a really cool addition.

Abyss had a really nice story and one of the best main characters in an RPG I've seen. Luke is very emotive and has excellent character development. The rest of the cast is interesting and enjoyable, though sometimes they fall flat in their development. I definitely recommend getting to Abyss sometime.

As for co-op, you just have to make sure your extra players are entertained outside the battles. Make sure you know what you're doing so you don't run around getting lost for hours.

[iKhaotic]

Tales is a great series, best known for their action oriented battle system. You'll find it very fun if you like more action in battles than your typical JRPG. You have full control over your character it plays very well.

I've played Symphonia, Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, Legendia, and Vesperia so far. Out of those three, I definitely enjoyed Symphonia the most. The story is amazing, characters are very deep and likeable, and the music is very memorable (at least for me). Symphonia is a good place to start since IMO.

Symphonia's sequel, Dawn of the New World, is a pretty big letdown. Play it for the story if you want, but there's not much to care about.

Legendia is also good, nice characters, decent story (although a bit confusing at times), and also decent music. The one problem I have about this game though is the decision to use CG graphics instead of cel shaded.

Vesperia is hands down, my favorite 360 JRPG at the moment. It's a phenomenal game with great characters, story, music, and the battles felt a lot more fast paced than the other Tales games I've played.

[Seraphic]

You've probably gotten into your playthrough already, but one thing to keep in mind about co-op is that the beginning of games can be slightly slow and your friend may not have a good character to use at the get-go.

For instance, when I was playing Symphonia with my friend, I was stuck as Genis, who was extremely un-fun and difficult to use as a caster. Thank god for when Kratos joined the party.

Spoiler

Let me say here and now how fucked up it was when Kratos left the party and I was thrust into the scariest boss fight of my life as fucking Genis AGAIN!! I didn't even have time to prepare!!

Then in Abyss, it wasn't until after the first section that Guy joined the party for my friend to use. Though this isn't as big of a deal since both Luke and Tear are available at start and are both quite fun to use.

Anyway, tell us how it's going. I'm quite curious.

Also, super stoked for Tales of Xillia:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAmBth3GpjQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQ6aBwHsTvU

[quasadra]

Also, super stoked for Tales of Xillia

i will only stoked if there is a English release.

side note: seraphic, how come you are a laser while i am being retconned for going up a rank?

[iKhaotic]

I'm so envious of the people who got their hands on the limited edition Tales of Xillia PS3 It's soooo sexy.

[Seraphic]

side note: seraphic, how come you are a laser while i am being retconned for going up a rank?

As far as I know, sometimes people's post counts go down when the forum gets cleaned up and threads are deleted. My posts go down once in a while, but I tend not to post in threads that get deleted, and post rarely so my posts are distributed into a lot of different areas.

Feel like playing Abyss again, but I have no time for it, really. =/

[quasadra]

i see. so thats whats going on. i thought it was kinda strange. thx.

[Shinji103]

I'm so envious of the people who got their hands on the limited edition Tales of Xillia PS3 It's soooo sexy.

It's not out yet, you know. (Sept. 8 )

http://www.play-asia.com/paOScore/19-71 ... 43-99.html

I for one don't feel like dropping $200+ on a game just for special edition benefits, unless there were some serious items in there like whole other games. ^^b

[iKhaotic]

I'm so envious of the people who got their hands on the limited edition Tales of Xillia PS3 It's soooo sexy.

It's not out yet, you know. (Sept. 8 )

http://www.play-asia.com/paOScore/19-71 ... 43-99.html

I for one don't feel like dropping $200+ on a game just for special edition benefits, unless there were some serious items in there like whole other games. ^^b

Lol I meant the people who are getting it. I just don't have the money to throw down for that

[Shinji103]

Asking a question in this old thread instead of making a new thread just for the question.

What ever happened with the 15th Anniversary edition releases back in early August of last year?

http://www.girlgamersuk.com/2011/07/tal ... ollection/

I've looked around, and a lot of people say the online stores never got any stock of them?

[Flame-X]

^ No idea.

Has anyone played Tales of Grace F yet? It's been out for a couple months now.

[yazi88]

I have, its a great game with a good battle system and even a after story epilogue that is a little more than 1/2 the length of the original story.

[Shinji103]

I've had ToG f ever since the JP PS3 release. I love this game, and it easily has one of the (if not the) best battle systems in the Tales franchise yet. Easily my favorite Tales game.
One of the only problems I have is that it's really tedious to get some of the titles, which are a critical part of developing your characters; you get permanent stat boosts by leveling up your titles with SP, and each title has its own bonuses from equipping it, ranging from basic stat parameter boosts to enhancing your Eleth Gauge.

[NastyNate]

I not to long ago got graces as well. Been getting through slowly as I am doing two play through s at once. One by myself and one with two friends in co op.

[iKhaotic]

I picked up Graces f on release day and beat it shortly after. The game is divided into 2 arcs (3 if you count the 1-2 hour "Childhood" prologue arc), the main game which consists of approximately 30 hours, and the "f arc" (future arc), which is an epilogue arc, that lasts about 15 hours. I was just around 45 hours when I finished all the way through to the end, with minimal sidequesting.

Graces f is a solid solid game, hands down my favorite JRPG of this generation (Tales of Vesperia use to be my number 1). The battle system is deep and very addicting, deepest Tales battle system I've seen yet. A must have for any JRPG fans.

[Destiny_Gundam]

I know I'm rather late to the party, but I just beat Tales of Graces f tonight.

I love this game quite a bit. The battle system is different from what I'm used to so it was an interesting experience. Having CC instead of TP had me abusing my healing spells more (I rarely stayed at inns), but being unable to attack continuously had me guarding and evading more than I usually do (read: hardly ever). I'll be sure to carry these skills over when I start on Xillia (I also have Abyss 3D to play and I need to start over on Vesperia because my brother's friend erased my save data).

I also spent quite a bit of time doing sidequests, another thing I don't do too often. My biggest achievement was probably beating all 3 dragons despite only being in my 60s (thank you All-Divide). The fire dragon took me almost an hour to beat. I still have Zhonecage to do, though.

The thing that surprise me most were the relationships. I went into this game pretty much blind (never heard anyone talk about it, compared to Xillia), so I didn't know how things would develop. But a few hours in my genre savviness had me rolling my eyes at the inevitable.

Spoiler

With Sophie set up as the main heroine you'd think she would end up with Asbel, while Cheria would suffer the same fate as most childhood friends before her.

I'm getting real sick of this sort of thing and it lowers my enthusiasm (glances at Xillia). Boy was I happy I was wrong in this case.

Spoiler

Sophie very much stayed the child of the group and Asbel took a fathery role towards her (which is kinda funny when you remember Asbel met her when he was 11). It was a nice change of pace, which allowed Cheria to get with Asbel and for all of them to live happily ever after.

All the characters were fun and played off each other well. I'm sure I'll return to it someday. But for now I need a break from Tales and finally dive into Metal Gear Solid 4.