Topic: Who Here Likes the Tales series?

Do you like the Tales series? If so, what's your favorite aspect about it? What's your favorite game in the series? Why is that particular game your favorite? What's your least favorite game in the series (if you have one) and why? Anything else you wanna say about the series?

I like the Tales series, but I'm fairly new to it. I've played 3 games in total so far, Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Vesperia. My favorite so far is Tales of Phantasia. It had a great story, great characters, and the battle system seemed the least mashy.

My favorite aspect of the series is the battle system. It's so fast and frantic, and mashing buttons will only get you so far. I also like the general tone of the games I've played so far. They're fairly light-hearted, though they are serious when they should be.

My least favorite so far is probably Tales of Symphonia. The characters just didn't interest me, and the story was boring. The battles were as good as ever, and the dubgeon design was great, but I just didn't enjoy the story and characters as much as the others.

I'm really looking forward to playing Tales of Graces F, since I hear the battle system is the best in the series. I'm also looking forward to playing Tales of the Abyss, since I hear the story is the best in the series. (and I swear I've watched the intro on Youtube a zillion times)

I've only played Symphonia and I HATED the story. The combat was fun but it alone can't carry a 30+ hour story based game...I'll probably pick up Graces and the Abyss 3DS port if only to support Bamco making an intelligent decision for once.

Played Phantasia and Symphonia. Though Phantasia got a bit boring part way through, but the characters were hilarious. Loved the part on the ship
I loved Symphonia. I put about 70 hours into it, but I had done pretty much everything by that time. My characters were so overpowered once I got those demon weapons I dug the story and characters though.

Good to know I'm not the only one who disliked Symphona's story. How far in did you get, Popyman?

I loved Symphonia the best. Mainly perhaps because it was my first great big JRPG.
Like with anime characters and such...but that's not the point.

I loved the battle system, and how I got to use all these different characters and give them cool weapons and spells.
The story was probably my most favorite thing about the game, love love loved it.
My least favorite thing...eh...there's not really anything I hate...some frustrating dungeons but that was part of the fun.

Only other tales game I played was Abyss but I didn't get too far...maybe a quarter of the way through. But I plan to actually play and own the game for the first time on 3DS, so that will be exciting.
OH yeah I played Legendia too but I really didn't get into it.

Symphonia was Phantasia with twice the effort and half the results. (DID WE MENTION THERE'S A RACISM THEME IN SYMPHONIA? WELL, DID WE?) I liked it but Phantasia is right up there with SMRPG, Earthbound and Chrono Trigger for JRPGs though.

God, now I wanna play Tales of Phantasia again.

the original SNES version of the soundtrack is also pretty legendary.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=17C4028CA308A557

I like Duck Tales if that counts for anything.

I've only played Tales of Eternia (Tales of Destiny II). I believe it's one of the more overlooked games in the series, but IMO there's something special about the game. It has a deep, compelling story with great characters, beautiful artwork and (of course) a fun battle system. Apart from Phantasia and Symphonia, the other Tales games haven't really sparked my interest for some reason. If I could find Symphonia I would love to play it.

Duck Tales for NES was awesome! ...just writing about Duck Tales has the Moon theme playing in my head.

My girlfriend likes the Tales series, she's big on Symphonia. She said she prefers the cartoony looking ones, I personally haven't played any yet besides ToP.

I own pretty much every Tales of... game and I've always loved them. Tales of the Abyss is by far and away my favorite, but I do love Symphonia as well. I've always loved the storyline and the unique combat systems. I can't wait for Tales of the Abyss to hit 3DS here in the states.

I haven't really played a Tales title for more than an hour yet. _{Mostly due to my unwillingness / unability to delve into most traditional RPG's.} As i understand it the series mixes your typical JRPG with more Action RPG like battles. So i've got a question to all fans here.
Do you have to do much level grinding in the Tales games ? If so i guess these old school, turn based JRPG's appeal more to me. Having to have an awful lot of action / skill oriented fights strangely seems more boring to me than the static, turn based, old school battles.
_{And just to clear that up i've at least played through Dragon Quest IV and Bowsers Inside Story (been close to in Superstar Saga, began all the other Mario RPG's and just dabbled around in some Final Fantasy games), so at least i know a tiny little bit about traditional RPG's.}

Aww, this was my favorite and the initial one that got me into the Tales series. The only others I played so far are the sequel and Tales of Vesperia.

Anyways, Final Fantasy used to be my favorite RPG series but the Tales series has long taken over. I like how the Tales series is more light hearted (even though there's still a lot of serious controversial issues involved) while Final Fantasy tends to feel so serious. The battle system is fun and the amount of side quests along with the grade system gives way to good replay value. When I first played Tales of Vesperia, I REFUSED to look at a walkthrough at the risk of accidentally stumbling onto a spoiler so I just played through it once to get the whole story, then I went back to do everything else along with being super special awesomely powerful, haha.

I also look forward to Tales of Graces and the new Tales of Xillia, although I am bummed that both are on PS3 since it's my brother who owns the PS3 in our house (and the Wii version won't have that extra stuff like the PS3 version ALWAYS has). I did wish they released Tales of Vesperia on PS3 over here. When I played Eternal Sonata on PS3, it was good that we had that version because Serenade became a vital part of my personal team (when I played with my brother, we just chose who we wanted, which worked but we'd argue sometimes ><).

Not really, I mean if you play smart, then your level should naturally be where the game needs you to be. Doing sidequests also help distract you and get you into leveling up even though you're focused on the quest. I will say that the only thing you might actually have to grind for (if you care about being powerful) are abilities. As opposed to other JRPGs, you gain new moves and spells by casting and performing a certain skill a set amount of times.

Like let's say Rita from Tales of Abyss is at the level 16 where she can learn Eruption, she would need to cast Fireball 50 times (over the course of the game) to learn Eruption. But if you know what skill you want to learn, then when it battle, spam these moves (and have your AI spam their moves) so when the time comes, you're already ready.

Ah, good to know that. Thanks a lot abHS4L!
I guess Tales of the Abyss on the 3DS could be my first serious attempt to get into one of these games then.

As some of you may know, in the "Rate that game !" thread (if some of you remember) I was the only person who nominated 2 of the tales of... series, now does that mean that Im a fan of the series ?... not really, but that's because Im not a big fan of RPGs, but I do enjoy playing an RPG every once in awhile.

Now as for the series, I've only played 3 of them, those being (in order in which I've played first):

Tales of legendia: This game is by far my most favorite of them all ! even though fans of the series classify this as the worst of the series, I still think that this game had a great soundtrack, a good story and great characters ! some flaws that I had though is that some of the characters can be obnoxious in the beginning of the game and that the gameplay could've been more better, but still, this game is what got me even more interested in RPGs

Tales of the abyss: This one however... was horrible. Im sorry but I didn't had any fun playing this game, the story was confusing, the gameplay was mediocre, and don't get me started about THAT main character in the game... the only good this I can say about this game is that the opening of the game was really good and that the graphics are great for a tales game... but that's it.
_{...plz don't ban me ! D:}

Tales of symphonia: The only thing I can say about this game is, while not as good as legendia, it is pretty good as it is, the story was very interesting and the soundtrack was really good too ! as for everything else it was just OK (the cast of characters, the graphics, the gameplay, etc.)

I would like to play the other games in the series, but seeing that it's very difficult to do that in my current condition, I guess I will stick with these 3 from now.

I think we should ban Jnes4.

I've played only a few Tales of...games but I've enjoyed them. Well at least I enjoyed Tales of Symphonia and even though I haven't played Tales of Phantasia through, I enjoyed it.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World on the other hand was a huge let down. I don't want to ever again hear emo-Emil's voice. All the other voice acting was also terrible and the fact that you couldn't change the equipment of the old team (Lloyd, Sheena, Genis and the others) was just disgraceful. The old teams level cap was also 50 which was terrible.

Only played Both Tales of Symphonia and I liked both for its awesome gameplay and coperative.