"Tales of..." Games for PC - Worth Playing?

[Ausdoerrt]

Which, if any, of the "Tales" games are worth playing on the PC? Steam's got decent sales going on, so wondering if I should spend time with any of them.

Thanks!

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Which, if any, of the "Tales" games are worth playing on the PC? Steam's got decent sales going on, so wondering if I should spend time with any of them.

Thanks!

I'm currently playing Tales of Berseria. I am about 15 hours in. Visually, it looks great. Performs well too on my PC. The story is well paced although I'm not completely sold on it, and some characters are very annoying. Combat is real time, mashing buttons (like a beat 'em up, you can do many different combos for effect but you don't need to really think about it).

As a typical JRPG it plays quite well, but I have been spoiled by the Trails series which does everything perfectly (including writing, characters, story and combat) so playing Berseria feels like a step down.

I also have Symphonia but I haven't really got into it. I hear Berseria and Symphonia are the best two games available on PC right now. Fans say Zesteria is a bit of a let down.

 

[kalganoat]

Don't bother.

Tales series are 7/10 games at best. I'm playing Vesperia right now which according to many is the second best Tales game. 20 hours in and plot is boring is fuck, main guy Yuri is prettyy cool though I'm only playing it for him.

Tried Abyss on 3DS a while ago, couldn't stand the main character so I put it down.

 

[Somberlain]

Berseria is pretty gud.

 

[Raghar]

Grab emulator. And play all of them.

 

[Wayward Son]

Trails series which does everything perfectly (including writing, characters, story and combat)

Am playing the first one right now and couldn't agree more

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I might grab Symphonia since it's cheap as dirt atm, and skip on the rest for now.

I'm still halfway through Trails 2, just thinking of future backups in case I need another JRPG fix

 

[frajaq]

If you play Tales of Berseria and learn how the combos work please let me know

I'm so unused to JRPGs, sometimes I'm not sure if I'm supposed to be grinding random encounters non-stop

 

[Somberlain]

If you play Tales of Berseria and learn how the combos work please let me know

What's weird about them? It's a pretty simple system. Though Zestiria and Berseria use this new 4-step combo system that is different from the older games, so it might be off-putting to older fans at first.

 

[frajaq]

nevermind I didn't realize the difference between the total soul numbers and the SG cost of each move (and also the number of souls limiting how long the combo chain can go initially)

 

[aweigh]

you should go play classic jrpgs that u may have missed due to being too young for this shit instead of trying to find entertainment in these tales of turds games

have u played earthbound, final fantasy 6, dragon quest 7, vagrant story, xenogears, FF tactics, dragon force, shining force 2, lufia 1, landstalker, genesis shadowrun, Phantasy star IV, romancing saga 2, saga frontier 1, secret of mana, etc

etc, etc. I am 100% sure are lots of JRPG hall-of-famers you've never played that you will love to death if you play them now inmstead of wasting time on a shit series like TALES

...but if you want a TALES rec then mine is tale sof PHANTASIA it is the only good tales game and they also know it too because it's the one with the most remakes.

 

[frajaq]

I'm interested in what makes Tales of series shit, I'm still early in the game but enjoying it a bit more now that I realize how the combat system works

 

[Irxy]

Tried Zestiria and Berseria, dropped both after about 15-20 hours. Boring gameplay, bad combat, subpar plot. Berseria's plot is better, but still not engaging enough.
Also played Tales of Destiny (ps1) long ago, dropped it because the main characters were the mentally challenged weirdos.

 

[ghostdog]

Tried some of the newer ones but got bored fast. That full anime style didn't help either. I still like the first snes game, Tales of Phantasia, the most. Try that if you haven't played it.

 

[Nirvash]

Symphonia is a old classic.

Zestiria got very garbage story/chara.

Berseria is... ok but childlish edgy.

Play phantasia.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

you should go play classic jrpgs that u may have missed due to being too young for this shit instead of trying to find entertainment in these tales of turds games

have u played earthbound, final fantasy 6, dragon quest 7, vagrant story, xenogears, FF tactics, dragon force, shining force 2, lufia 1, landstalker, genesis shadowrun, Phantasy star IV, romancing saga 2, saga frontier 1, secret of mana, etc

etc, etc. I am 100% sure are lots of JRPG hall-of-famers you've never played that you will love to death if you play them now inmstead of wasting time on a shit series like TALES

...but if you want a TALES rec then mine is tale sof PHANTASIA it is the only good tales game and they also know it too because it's the one with the most remakes.

Now don't get me wrong - I LOVE older games, including SNES and PSX, and I did replay quite a few since I didn't have the console growing up. That said, I don't think older universally means better - I've tried about half of the games on your list, but only liked a handful.

Some of the classics are still excellent games, but it's all subject to personal taste. The style of JRPG has changed significantly over the years, and while I love games like FFIX, Chrono Trigger or Valkyrie Profile, there are also a handful of modern JRPGs I enjoyed no less than the SNES / PSX era classics.

 

[Rahdulan]

I'm playing Zestiria at the moment and it's mind-boggling just how much optimizing potential game has that's entirely unnecessary on normal difficulty. It's a min-maxer's wet dream, but honestly just makes me yearn for when "character progression" in JRPGs simply meant getting skills with level ups. I never thought a JRPG could suffer from shortage of buttons during combat and yet with Armatization, Blast Gauges, etc I've found myself needing some acclimatization to the game having taken multiple breaks from it just to remember what does what.

 

[Gearmos]

Berseria and Vesperia are good. Symphonia is a classic, though since I played it as a kid on the GameCube I don't know how well it will have aged. I found the story of Zestiria very boring, I didn't care about the characters and almost quit halfway through.

 

[Kaivokz]

There are two times to play Tales games:

(1) when drinking lots of alcohol and trying to recapture innocent childhood joy

(2) with your gf/wife or with younger siblings or with your children, they are actually pretty fun co-op and a good entry point into RPGs/a good way to have fun with someone else

actually there are cheat codes for shining force 1 and 2 that let player two control the enemies. When I have a kid, I’m going to make them play against me in those games until they can win so that they can learn proper combat strategy and patience.

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

The story of Zesteria for some unknown reason was changed mid-production, or rather I should say butchered mid-production.

Berseria is probably the best of the bunch, but mostly because of the framing and how Velvet gives absolutely zero fucks about the trail of destruction she is leaving behind her.

 

[karoliner]

Only Berseria is worth playing.

 

[Reality]

Tbh I think you should go with the post 2010 games if you play these at all.

I feel like a huge problem with the old games in the series (worst of all in Phantasia) is that their is that enemies have almost no I-frames and you can stun lock them way too easily by juggling them by getting up close and mashing out sword attacks --- You CAN do partial juggles in later games... but once you "drop it" and let them actually land on the ground, at least they'll have a safe "fighting game style wakeup" or even a few seconds of super armor in the case of bosses. --- I think getting stunlocks "for free button mashing" compared to putting at least the amount of effort to keep them airborne/etc for the entire combo is absolutely neccesary for this kind of game.

You might justify playing the PS2 era games if it's for "drunk multiplayer" purposes, although imo the non-melee charathers are mostly boring to assume direct player control of.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

My personal favorites are probably Abyss (although this was mostly due to playing it co-op, and learning how to exploit field of fonons with complimentary skills was a lot of fun), Symphonia and oddly enough Eternia. Eternia I only tried in the past few years or so, but it felt almost Street Fighter 2-ish in its combat. Equipping a halberd, jumping in with a jump-attack and then starting a combo really had a oldschool 2-d fighter feel to it.

I used to like Phantasia, but when I tried to play it recently it felt kinda spastic. Your character keeps running back and forth along the length of the battlefield, and the long pauses of action whenever a spell is cast grates after awhile. There is some PSP remake that revamps the combat system, but unfortunately it's untranslated as far as I know.

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

Symphonia is genuine trash. Do not trust the Tales fanbase, they are like 12 year olds who discovered anime.

Try Xilia, you can emulate.

 

[Humanity has risen!]

All Tales games suck