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Tales Of ... series - Vesperia out on Steam

StaticSpine

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Any of them worth playing?

I've only seen some videos of Tales Of Xillia, there is some remake coming soon(Tales Of Symphonia) and Tales Of Xillia 2...and there were a lot of other games in the series. So what are they similar to, how's the gameplay etc. I couldn't understand it from the vids.
 

DragoFireheart

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You know, as amusing as the combat system can be, I FUCKING HATE Tales of ___ games. Every single character is annoying as fuck and I want to punch them in the face.
 

80Maxwell08

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Well if you aren't above emulation and have a strong computer you could try Tales of Symphonia on Dolphin. Honestly it was my favorite gamecube game when I was a young teenager but now I don't want to try it again or else it might destroy my childhood memories like .hack did. Also what the native american raptor said. I stopped playing the entire series after Tales of the Abyss because I hated everyone so much.
 

ghostdog

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I liked the first (?) one, tales of fantasia, in snes. It's the only one I've played.
 

abnaxus

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I only watched Tales of the Abyss animu. Didn't know it was based on a game series.
 

Amn Nom

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I've liked the few that I've tried. A quick opinion on each:

Tales of the Abyss: Combat was OK, but I really liked the story and cast (especially Luke past a certain point).

Tales of Xillia: The combat was good, and I liked where the story went. A lot of cut and paste going on here though.

Tales of Graces F: Easily the best combat system of the three I've played, but the story is something akin to Kingdom Hearts. Too much talk of friendship, but the characters are interesting enough to keep that part of the game from sucking.

The games themselves are basically the action RPG answer to Final Fantasy. The PS2 ones (Symphonia/Abyss) have you going through a quest with the open world and all that stuff, but the enemies show on the map and you go into instanced fights like in FF. The later ones (Graces and Xillia) ditch the open world part for a linear path, or a menu-driven map, and aren't much different otherwise.
 

Damned Registrations

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Tales of Destiny was probably my favourite. Being able to swap the swords around to change people's skills, learning sacred skills, lots of little secrets, the tower of druaga, decent variety in party members... lots of good stuff.
 

Jasede

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The first one was /insanely/ ahead of its time. Technical SNES perfection if you ask me.

 

Damned Registrations

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Star Ocean looked pretty amazing as well. All the best (in terms of utilizing the system anyways) SNES games never got brought over because by the time they'd have been localized, the next system would be out already. Same thing happened with the NES.
 

SuicideBunny

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Star Ocean looked pretty amazing as well. All the best (in terms of utilizing the system anyways) SNES games never got brought over because by the time they'd have been localized, the next system would be out already. Same thing happened with the NES.
well, the star oceans at least got enhanced psp remakes that did make it over, so it's good. no such luck with tales, though.
 

Murk

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Tales of Phantasia had a PS1 remake (not much of one but I guess it's improved over SNES); it's been translated to English as far as I'm aware.

I played the SNES ToP and the two on PS1 (tales of Destiny 1 and 2). It's... meh, the storyline is mostly blah but I guess the combat can be interesting. Of them I'd recommend ToP 1 or ToD 2 but even then, not really.

I am told that cboyardee likes the games so much that the argued with his buddies to have their dev name be Tales of Game's for that specific reason; his undying love.
 

Admiral jimbob

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Well if you aren't above emulation and have a strong computer you could try Tales of Symphonia on Dolphin. Honestly it was my favorite gamecube game when I was a young teenager but now I don't want to try it again or else it might destroy my childhood memories like .hack did.
Same, except I tried it and it will. Just remember it with bizarre and misplaced fondness. I guess it did something right to have stuck with me for so long despite me really not liking JRPGs in general much. Fuck if I know what it was, but I'm glad I played it, I guess. Never really played any of the other ones except Phantasia, which was interesting but didn't really inspire me to try the others.
 

felipepepe

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Tales of the Abyss is great if you're a story-fag that has no problem with jRPG stories.

Also, it looks absolutely gorgeous emulated:

aH7AXcl.png
 

yes plz

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They're probably the closest you'll ever get to 'playing an anime', which comes with all the bad you can expect from that sort of thing -- usually very black and white morality, romances that they constantly shove in your face but do nothing with, characters generally defined by one big trait, generic stories, cookie-cutter fantasy settings, etc.

That said, I've mostly enjoyed the series. The combat is generally pretty funny, being based mostly around stringing together attacks, waiting for moments of opportunity, and dodging. One of the PS2 entries, Tales of Legendia, was actually developed by Namco's Soul Calibur team. They're also usually incredibly large games, offering up 40+ hours for the main storyline alone, and seem to be some of the last JRPGs to still offer up a ton of optional content.

Of the ones I've played:

Phantasia - A fairly light but fun game, though its gameplay is somewhat archaic now, having been the first entry into the series and all. It's seen a ridiculous amount of translations, both official and fan-made. The original SNES version still holds up pretty well today, then there's the PSX version which got two fan translations. Tales-Cless' translation of it is probably the most well polished of the two, having been in development for literally a decade, but Absolute Zero's probably has the better localization and is the one I prefer. The PSX version is a full-on remake, adding in new content and a new battle-system.

There's also a crappy GBA version and a recently released iOS one, both of which are in English and the only two officially translated. There's currently a fan translation in progress for the PSP version (Phantasia X), which is the newest and largest version of the game. Who knows when that'll be done, though.

Destiny - The second entry into the series (I think predating even the PSX Phantasia) and as such also pretty archaic and dated, with its biggest problem probably being the high random encounter rate. Probably one of my favourites, though. The story and cast is similarly light like Phantasia's, but it fleshes its characters out a lot more and they're not quite as generic, with Stahn probably being my favourite 'Tales of' lead. The game also has quite a bit of optional content, especially towards the end where you can pick up (I think) two of four optional characters.

The original PSX version is the only one currently translated and from what I remember, the localization was pretty decent (especially for the time). There's a full PS2 remake but it was never released in English, though there's currently a fan translation in the works but, again, who the fuck knows when that'll be done. This was also the first title to get a direct sequel but it never got an English release, but is currently getting a fan translation.

Eternia - This tends to be a lot of people's favourite entry in the series but I personally found it to be really bland. The battle-system gets a pretty large update here (it followed Destiny), making it more fluid and fun, but it's dragged down by its very bland cast and story. They tried to make it more somber but it just doesn't work, and your party is mostly made up of a bunch of boring characters.

Sympohnia - Probably thee fan-favourite of the series. It moves the series into full 3D, making its battles take place on a fully realized three dimensional field, allowing for greater mobility and a better range of tactics. It's a fairly meaty game, with it having taken me somewhere around 60 hours to complete my first time through, and I ended up missing a bunch of side content. It has an okay story for the series, generally managing to hit a balance between the lightness of Phantasia and the somewhat more somber tone of Eternia. Its cast is hit-and-miss, with Lloyd probably being one of my least favourite Tales protagonists but it has some good characters, like Kratos and Regal.

The GameCube version is the only one currently available in English. It got a PS2 port with added content but it never saw an English release. However, it is currently getting a HD PS3 release with the PS2 content plus some new stuff, bundled with its sequel, Dawn of the New World, though I never played that but it seems to be almost universally disliked.

Legendia - Made by Namco's Soul Calibur team, this one probably plays more like a fighting game than the others. One of the biggest changes is that it goes back to the more linear two-dimensional battle field, which is fairly limiting compared to Symphonia but I had fun with it. The story is fairly generic and not all that great but the cast is mostly good, with the game going for an almost comedic tone a lot of the time.

It was officially localized for the PS2 and they did a pretty good job with it. That said, there is one major fuck up. The game is split into two halves - the first being the main story and then the second being a series of smaller stories based on one particular party member. For some reason the localization team thought that second half was some sort of bonus content and thus didn't bother to record any voice acting for any of it, making the second half almost entirely silent.

Abyss - Going back to the three dimensional field of Symphonia, this one easily has one of the best battle-systems of the English released entries. They don't really change much compared to Symphonia but they do improve and fine-tune it, making it much more fluid and easy to use. The story is actually fairly decent this time around and even interesting at certain parts, complimented with a pretty good cast. There is one part near the middle that annoyed the shit outta me but it's fairly spoilerly.

It was released on the PS2 and later the 3DS, though I don't believe they added any content to it.

Graces - Whereas all the previous titles basically used MP for special attacks, this one uses more of a gauge that refills itself naturally throughout the battle, allowing you to use special attacks with much more frequency. The gauge refills depending on how well you fight, with doing stuff like dodging at the last moment and hitting a weakness refilling the gauge. The other big change is how the game utilizes 'titles'. Before in the series, a character would get a new title during a certain story event and it'd usually be mostly cosmetic, with no real effect on gameplay. This time, though, titles are the main way of unlocking attacks and add permanent bonuses to stats, as well as other passive bonuses. The titles then level-up as you fight, each having four passives to unlock.

The story is... okay, though it hits on the friendship theme way too hard and way too often. The cast ranges from bland to interesting, with my two favourites being Sophie and Pascal. They manage to flesh out the party fairly well, establishing a decent web of relationships between them, and all the characters get a decent amount of screen time throughout the entirety of the game.

The game was first released on the Wii but then re-released on the PS3 with more content, which is the version that got localized into English. The English voice cast is decent, though some of them take a while to get into character.

****

The others that have been released in English that I haven't played are:

Vesperia - This one seems to be universally loved. It originally came out on the 360, with that one being released into English, but then was re-released on the PS3 with bonus content. There were rumours going around of it getting an English release but it never did, though a fan-translation is in the works.

Innocence - Released on the DS, it was never officially localized but got a fan translation. I actually played this one for a bit but didn't get too far into it. It seemed decent enough, though instead of the usual party of four characters it got cut down to three, though beyond that it was fairly similar to Abyss.

Dawn of the New World - A direct sequel to Symphonia. It seems to have gotten mostly middling to negative reviews. There's apparently only two real party members, as one of the biggest changes is a sort of Pokemon-esque system where you can capture monsters and use them in battle.

Xillia - Reception for it seems mixed. As far as I know, it had a fairly short development cycle and it apparently shows, with a few reviews mentioning that its very linear. The game is kinda split into two as you get to choose which of the two main characters at the start is the lead, with some stuff playing out differently depending on who you choose. I've heard that not a whole lot changes between the two, with it mostly having been a cheap way of increasing the game's length.

Tempest - An entry into the series so shitty that Namco axed it from the main line up and now considers it to be some sort of odd spin-off. I really haven't heard anything good about it. It was translated as some sort of April Fool's joke, though how wasting two years translating a game you know to be shitty is supposed to be a prank is beyond me.

****

There's a couple of entries that haven't seen any sort of English release, those being: Destiny 2, Rebirth, and Hearts. Haven't really looked into any of them to comment but I do know each one of them currently has a fan translation in progress.
 

Murk

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Llike a poor man's street fighter. Think of a 2d star ocean.

Later games made it more actiony, earlier games were more like simplistic.

Donno I think a game like Legend of Mana does the whole "action jrpg" thing better than the Tales of Games. And it's neat to look at.
 

vulva

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Llike a poor man's street fighter. Think of a 2d star ocean.

Later games made it more actiony, earlier games were more like simplistic.

Donno I think a game like Legend of Mana does the whole "action jrpg" thing better than the Tales of Games. And it's neat to look at.
That game sounds like trash. I trust your opinion here.
 

Jasede

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Insert Title Here RPG Wokedex Codex Year of the Donut I'm very into cock and ball torture
ME TOO OMG
 

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