EPTIts an RPG series that sets itself part in two ways. The most major way is its battle system. Unlike something like [most] Final Fantasy games, Tales games are a real time, action RPG. You don't have a battle timer, where you wait till its a character's turn, and then select what to do via menu. You move your character around the field in real time, and attack like any normal action game. And the rest of your party does this at the same time, controlled by AI (or a friend). Its a fun system, and it gets spiced up by each game bringing its own flavor to it.
The other distinguishing factor is that the games are really "anime" like. From character design to plot, its all very much like playing an anime. Which can be either a positive for some people, or a negative. I imagine this is the reason why its niche in the West. Each game has these events referred to as "Skits", where when you are traveling or walking around, you can get prompted to start a short little cut-scene, where the characters will talk to each other about various things. These skits are often times used to discuss whats going on in the plot, drive character development, or often just be silly/funny.
I've been playing through these games with a friend for a while. We have played, and beaten, most of the "Modern" Tales games that have been released in the US. This blog is for me to compile my thoughts on each title, and maybe give people who are looking for some good JRPGs something to consider. I'll break down each game we played by when it was released, rather than the order we played them.
Tales of Symphonia
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Tales of Symphonia is the first "modern" Tales game. It was the first 3D one visually, and the first one to start branching out into 3D environments for its battles as well. Just to let you guys know, Symphonia was both the first Tales game I played, and its also the oldest Tales game I've played. So unfortunately, I can't really comment at all on the older 2D ones, or what this one brings to the table over them.
Symphonia first came out on Gamecube in 2003 for Japan, and 2004 for the US. It also had an upgraded PS2 version, but that never came out in the West. I played the GC version way back then, and I think I liked it at the time, but as the years went on, I found myself looking down on the title. Until recently, I barely remembered anything about the game, other than the terrible english voice acting. In fact, the most memorable thing from my first playthrough was when a character in the game lost the ability to speak, thus resulting in me celebrating not having to listen to her talk anymore.
But very recently, Symphonia was re-released in 'Tales of Symphonia Chronicles', which is an HD re-release of the PS2 version of Symphonia, and its sequel, "Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World". The PS2 version of Symphonia offers some extras, a better Multiplayer camera (which is very good, considering the GC version is practically unplayable multiplayer due to camera), and the option to use Japanese Audio for voices (with subtitles).
The story follows Llyod Irving, a guy who ends up accompanying his friend Collete on a Journey to "Regenerate the World", and save it from its decline. You travel between two different worlds, with 9 different playable characters. The plot is... okay. Its not great, but I've definitely encountered worse. It has a lot to do with one World trying to sacrifice the other, and lots of really trite stuff with racism against 'Half-Elves'. Also lots of stuff to do with Ex-Spheres, which are a technology/magic thing. These type things are a very common thing in Tales game, and each has their own version, which is important to the plot of each. Anyway, I think the main drag on the game is a lack of an interesting and/or likable cast.
With that in mind, I'll talk a bit about the cast here. Llyod is just a god, he goes around and dunks things. Hes a generic, "gotta save everyone" lead. Hes really OP in combat, and probably the only "polished" character to actually play. Collete, the "Chosen of Regeneration", is a clumsy girl who eventually is reduced to just a damsel in distress. Shes real boring to play. A shit. Sheena is probably the only character who I liked after beating the game. And despite being a side character, shes actually one of the most important characters to the plot, even moreso than the female lead. Shes okay to play. A good [in the story]. You have Genis, who is your main casting mage. Hes a huge shit as the character, next to irrelevant in the plot at best, harmful at worst, and sucks to play. I guess he has some strong spells, but IMO fuck this guy. You have Raine next as your main healer. Shes Genis' older sister, and is okay as a character. Shes one of the few sensible characters, but pretty irrelevant as far as the plot goes. You have Kratos and Xellos next. They are two different characters, but gameplay wise, they are the same, and you can only have one or the other. Kratos is a mercenary who actually is spoilersspoilersspoilers. Xellos is a stuck up womanizer who is the "Chosen" of the other world. They are playable. Without spoiling too much stuff, Tales games generally have someone in your party who is actually a backstabbing cunt, and these two guys fill that role. Then you have Regal and Presea but no one uses them and they are boring.
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Japanese Voice acting was decent in this game. Unless its one of my favorites, I'm pretty bad with actually naming Voice Actors, but I can at least identify them based on other characters they have voiced in anime. Llyod is voiced by Kamina from TTGL. Collete is voiced by Mizuki Nana, and its nothing like any other Nana role I've ever heard before. Kratos is voiced by the guy who did Gendo Ikari from Evangelion, which is hilarious and fitting at times. Sheena is voiced by the girl who does Nami in One Piece. I can't really place the others by voice.
The game looks really aged now, but it looked good for its time. This game existed before the invention of "Free Run". So while battlefields are 3D, you can only move across them in a 3D manner by changing targets. So basically, you can only move in a straight line between your character, and your enemy. But you can change your enemy. It feels strange now, but back then it worked. The game had its difficult moments in the beginning, but overall it was pretty easy. On Normal, at least.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World
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I always call this one "Symphonia 2". Its a direct sequel, taking place 2 years after the first game. This game first got released on the Wii, and then was packaged in with Symphonia Chronicles. And this game sucks. Real bad.
The cast from Symphonia returns, but they somehow made them worse. Sheena and Collete are just used for comic relief and are shitters now, and Llyod is the only one worth a shit. The new characters, Emil and Marta, are annoying at best. The battle system is at least modern, and most characters are more playable than they were, but only Emil and Llyod are any good.
My friend commented that the plot of this game seemed like it was some fan fiction sequel written by a 12 year old. They throw in a new Summon Spirit, who apparently is the only Summon Spirit worth a shit (despite everything that happened in the first game), and you have to try to wake him up, to re-save the world because you didn't fully save it in the first game. The plot revolves around Emil, who has a split personality because reasons. Hes either a whiny little bitch, or an edgy "OMG I WANNA KILL STUFF" angryboy. Marta is a girl who has the hots for Emil, and is real annoying. She also sucks dick in combat. The game tries to be grimderp, suggesting that Llyod went crazy and now goes around burning down cities, and slaughtering innocents. I'm being serious. And since its fucking Llyod, obviously something is up, but the game handles this stuff hilariously poorly.
The Battle System is modern, but they make a ton of really stupid gameplay decisions. For starters, Player 1 MUST play either Emil or Marta. So lol if you want to play someone else. Player 2 can, if you are playing Co-op. IDK why they restrict player 1 like that. Next, they level lock and gear lock all returning cast from the first game. They won't level up, ever, and you can't change their gear, ever. Which means you only have to buy stuff for 2 people, meaning you will be rich as fuck all game. And since the other guys are level locked at 50 in the end of the game, they all suck other than Llyod, who is good just because hes really really OP. Oh, but that isn't all. This game incorporates Pokemon. You have to go out there, and catch enemy monsters, to add to your party. Its really tacky and unpolished. You can't even play your monsters, they are always AI controlled. And most of them suck. Or they could randomly be really good. We had one wolf guy we caught and kept hanging around most of the game. He eventually evolved to his highest level (Yeah, they evolve like Pokemon too), and we were like "Hey, why is this monster level 80 while everyone else is level 40?" So we put him in, and he demolished the rest of the game. He would run in and do like 4x the damage Emil would do. It was stupid. Finally, there are like no side quests in this game. And its short... Although, considering how bad it is, being short is a good thing I guess.
The game is piss easy on normal. There was literally only 1 challenging battle in the entire game, and that was only challenging because you only had Emil/Marta/2 monsters, and Marta sucks.
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As far as voice acting goes, I didn't like Emil's voice. Marta is voiced by Rie Kugimiya, and its her normal, grating voice.
Tales of Rebirth would be next, but it wasn't released in the US. Then Tales of Legendia, but it was actually the only Modern Tales game released in the West that we didn't play, because it sucks (apparently). So...
Tales of the Abyss
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Tales of the Abyss came out in 2006 in the US on PS2. We played it on PS2, except we played the "undub" version. So we had Japanese Audio when playing. The standard PS2 release was no dual audio, however.
Abyss was the first game with a functional multiplayer camera. It also marks birth of "Free run", allowing you to actually run around the battlefield in 3 dimensions. This game also has a cast where more people other than just the MC are good to play. In fact they go overboard, making the main character kinda bad, with the other characters better and more fun.
The game's story is okay, definitely better than Symphonia's. The game makes real good use of in-game cutscenes. Its cast is overall pretty good as well. The premise of the story is that you have two countries, who had been at war, are now at Peace. The world makes use of "Fonons", which is the important technomagic in this game. The World is basically run by "The Score", which is a set of prophecies that guide the whole world. It basically predicts everything. In this world, you have Luke von Fabre, a noble, who is prophecized to lead his country to prosperity. When a woman raids his parent's villa, Luke and the assilant are teleported to the other side of the world. Thus he begins a journey back, being a stuck up cunt. Throw in a group who want to get rid of/break the Score, and an approaching apocalypse, and you have Tales of the Abyss. Lots of stuff with prophecy, the world's Church, two nations going at it, and the approaching end of the world.
Character wise, as said, Luke is a cunt, at least initially. Eventually you get to a certain part of the game, where big spoilers + Show Spoiler +
Van, his mentor, tricks him into dropping an entire city into the Abyss where practically all of them die slow painful deaths in poison.
I don't have many proper complaints about the game. There is one really annoying part, where you have to try and sneak through some area, but have to do it with really shitty camera angles, but thats just a small part. Difficulty wise, it started out decent on Normal, but we made the "mistake" of trying really hard, and spent a long time trying to beat this secret boss early on, who ended up giving us a million EXP and made us over-leveled for the remainder of the game.
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Voice actor section again. Japanese Voice acting was decent, although I couldn't place most of the voices. Tear is voiced by the person who did C.C. in Code Geass, and Van (the big bad) is voiced by the guy who does Kotomine Kirei in FSN/FZ. Which is very fitting.
Next flagship title would be Tales of Innocence, but no US release. So, we come to...
Tales of Vesperia
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Tales of Vesperia was released in 2008 on the Xbox 360. And of the Tales games I've played, Vesperia is #2. Its real good, and I highly suggest giving it a try.
This game has a "Skills" system, which the game uses to allow for greater character customization. Each weapon you equip has a "Skill" on it, that your character can learn. A skill might be anything from +5% Strength, +1 additional attack to your basic combo, the ability to link certain Artes into other Artes, and many others. And they work pretty well, and help for you to make your characters how you want. Beyond that, its the same standard combat system you had in Abyss, except more polished.
Vesperia is a world that makes use of Blastia, the resident important technomagic. Blastia are used for a ton of different things, like street lights, fountains, or most importantly, "Barrier Blastia", that protect cities from monster attacks. Because of this, most people live in cities, and everything outside them are places only for the most badass of people. The World is divided between the Empire and the Guilds. Basically security vs freedom. In the midst of this, we have Yuri Lowell, who lives in the Lower Quarter of the Imperial Capitol. Someone steals the Blastia from the Fountain in the Lower Quarter, and since the Knights don't give a fuck, Yuri goes off to recover it. He ends up meeting a Noble named Estelle, and the end up traveling together. And this journey becomes one of finding what he wants to do in life, getting tangled up between the Empire and Guilds, forming their own Guild, and ultimately a quest to save the world from an ancient problem related to Blastia.
This game's main strength is Yuri, the main character. Hes a huge badass. Easily the best Tales character I've encountered. Yuri isn't your typical young, idealistic hero. Hes an adult who does what he wants to do, and tries to do the right thing, even if the Law gets in the way. He didn't like the social divide between Rich and Poor in the Empire, and corruption within the Knights. Yuri is sensible, strong, confident, and a strong sense of independence. When it comes to his encounters with Villains, Yuri does the things you WANT the idealist in other games to do, but never do. Yuri also facilitates the growth of your other party members, so it makes everyone else better too. And gameplay wise, hes real fun, and strong.
Yuri was so good, he got his own paragraph, so I'll do the others here. Estelle is a noble, who doesn't really know what do with her life, but finds her way thanks to Yuri being bestcharacter. Shes mostly a spell caster, but can fight with a sword, sorta. Your main healer. Yuri's Dog, Repede, is also playable. Hes a real bro of a dog, and smokes a pipe, and fights with a knife. He earns the title "Sinful Sidekick" later on, to show what sort of role he plays. Hes really fast, and pretty fun to play. Rita is your main spell caster. Shes a genius girl, a well done "tsundere" character, who is in charge of plotdevices as the plot requires them. Shes also the single most OP character I've ever see in a Tales game... Next is Karol, who is a little kid who wants to run his own Guild, but is a little shitter coward. However, thanks to Yuri being a bro tutor, eventually gets set on track to being a man. Hes a real slow fighter, and I didn't like him. Judith is a mysterious "Kritya", aka blue haired elf aka Ahb girl. She was on a quest with her flying dragon to destroy certain Blastia. When this comes out into the open, her character and Rita's gets played against each other for good effect. Shes a spear fighter, who specializes in dunking people in the air. Shes fun, but goes through TP really really fast. Finally you have Raven, who is the 30 year old "old man" of the party, who is also really shady and suspected Scumbag. Hes like some archer character, I never played him.
Me and my friend actually played through this twice. Once on normal, and then once on Unknown Mode (the hardest difficulty). Nothing to mention about Normal mode, but Unknown mode is so hard you really have only a few options to beat the game. Not only do enemies get stronger, but I'm pretty sure their AI gets improved too. They will ignore all your frontline guys, for example, and just rush your squishy casters in the rear, and 1-2 shot them. So, you can either have 4 people who are really good play, or you can have someone play Rita, and blahblahblah the game. And this is how Rita is so good: When she goes into Over-limit, it makes her spell casting time instant. Thus, while in over-limit, and while she has TP, she can indefinitely combo every enemy on the screen. So what you can do, is set your other characters to just sit there and taunt. Taunting builds Overlimit bar, and builds it faster than you can use it. This makes the last obstacle for infiniting combo everything TP. Well, you can get skills that will randomly restore all of her TP. You can keep refilling her TP with items. You can get skills to reduce TP cost of spells, and items to even further do it. Which results in this:
Unknown mode is too hard otherwise.
My only real complaints about this game are not liking Karol and Raven, there are lots of places in the world that seem like should have something there, but are empty, and the world itself is like half empty. The game is really long too. Lots of side quests, and the game feels like it is going to end like 5 times but then keeps going. But despite that, its a real good game, and I highly recommend it.
This game only has English audio for its US release, so no Voice Actor section here. But apparently Nakahara Mai voices Estelle.
Tales of Hearts was the next one, but wasn't released in the US (but I think it will be soon?) So that brings us to...
Tales of Graces
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Tales of Graces is the best Tales game I've played. In terms of gameplay, its a big step above all the others. Its really fun, and very polished. The version released in the US was Tales of Graces F, which is a rebalanced version of the Wii version, with a "Future arc" that takes place after the original ending.
Graces was made by a different team in Namco, and not their normal Tales team. It has a slightly different battle system. Since most Tales games have pretty much the same system, I haven't bothered talking about how they actually play all that much, but since Graces is a bit different, I will here. Normally you have your normal attack, and you can set different moves/artes to your "B" button. So its normally pretty basic. However, in Graces, you have your "A Artes" and "B Artes". A Artes are similar to your traditional normal attacks, except it branches off into different trees of moves, depending on what you want to do. So your normal attacks have a ton of variety in them. And your B Artes are like normal. But the freedom of your A Artes gives so much flexibility in battle that its crazy how much better it makes everything. Additionally, rather than having your combos be limited at a preset number that you can +1 with skills, and having TP for your Artes, you have "CC", which is collectively used for both. And it regenerates over the course of battle. So basically, TP is replaced with something that both A and B buttons use, and the stronger you get (ie higher level you are), the more moves you can use, and the longer your combos can be. Finally, for customization, you have Titles, which you can equip, and they function similar to Skills.
In the Future Arc, you get additional abilities and a separate special bar, to allow each member to do a unique cool thing. Like one person might be able to freeze time, or another might just get really OP.
The story of Graces starts off when the MC, Asbel, son of the Lord of Lhant is just a little boy. He meets a mysterious girl, Sophie. She doesn't know where she came from, or who she is. Asbel and his childhood friends try to find out who she is, and eventually meet Prince Richard, a boy near Asbel's age. He seems stuck up, but eventually he, Asbel, and Sophie become friends. And at the end of this childhood prologue, while trying to sneak into Richard's castle to visit him, shit goes down, and some crazy monster comes out to attack them. Sophie goes berserk, fights the monster, and apparently dies in the encounter. Asbel is deeply affected by this, and goes off to join the Knights. Years later, when War comes to his home town, he returns, and in the middle of it, encounters a girl like Sophie... Almost exactly like Sophie. She has no memories, doesn't know who she is, and looks exactly like the dead girl from his childhood. Stuff happens, Asbel and Neo Sophie reunite with Richard, and they follow him to War. But Richard is goin crazy. As Richard goes crazier and crazier, its up to them to try and save Richard from himself, and eventually the world.
Character wise, the cast is okay to good. Asbel is a mostly standard protagonist, and eventually Understands the fuck out of everyone. Hes OP and fun. Sophie is a deadpan/naive girl, who spends much of the game trying to find out who she is, and when she does, deal with the repercussions. If Yuri is my favorite Tales guy, Sophie is my favorite Tales girl. Shes real fast, beats things with her fists, is real fun, and + Show Spoiler +
is technically a robot
So a common theme of the characters is that "everyone is fun to play". Probably the best thing about the cast, gameplay aside, is their chemistry together. They work well together, stick together for good reasons, and are all important enough to the plot in their own way. The World is fleshed out as well, and also marks the first game where there isn't zoomed out overworld map that you travel through. To get from one city to the next, you have to walk there, through actual stages and levels. It was a nice touch, makes the world feel both big, and populated.
Like Vesperia, we played through this game twice, on Normal mode and Chaos mode (the hardest difficulty). Normal mode offers plenty of challenges, especially in various boss fights, some of which are pretty infamous. Chaos mode makes it even more challenging, and while not as impossible as Rita-less-Vesperia-Unknown-Mode, still very difficult. Its very hard, but possible, which is the best thing, so you don't have to resort to cheesing like Vesperia.
Like Vesperia, no Japanese Audio here, either. All I know is that Nagisama's waifu voices Sophie, and Kana Ueda voices Pascal (which is kinda weird).
tl;dr if you have a PS3 go buy Tales of Graces F
Tales of Xillia
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(there is a Milla version too)
Xillia is the most recent Tales game to be released in the US, not counting Symphonia Chronciles. It was the 15th Year Anniversary Tales game, so had a lot of hype around it when it came out. It didn't deliver, but its not necessarily a bad game.
Xillia takes a step back from Graces, and basically goes back to how Vesperia played, with one new addition: Linked Artes. You can "link" two characters together, which makes the AI follow your guy around, and team up with you against enemies, and allows for Linked Artes, which are strong combo attacks you can do, depending on who you are linked with. These aren't very conductive towards multiplayer, and are really OP (in a bad way). It does do what Graces did with the World, in terms of no overworld map, and actually walking from city to city. The problem with how Xillia does it, is that every area is reallly huge and open, and full of like a million enemies. And if you want to have enough money to buy stuff, you are going to have to fight them all. So its actually very tedious. But on the plus side, Xillia is the first Tales game to incorporate elevation, so maps are made a bit more interesting by scaling between different levels, up cliffs and stuff.
The story of Xillia is pretty similar to Symphonia's, in terms of emphasis on Summon Spirits. The world of Reize Maxia is a world where people and spirits live in harmony, people give Spirits mana, and Spirits let people use Artes. But something threatens to disrupt this balance, something that kills spirits to let anyone use whatever Arte with just a push of a button, called Spyrix. Thus, the Lord of Spirits born in human form, Milla Maxwell, sets out with the Four Great Spirits to destroy that something. During this, a 15 year old medical student, Jude Mathis, happens upon her, and gets dragged into the whole thing when Milla raids a Government research lab. Jude is really impressed/attracted to Milla, and follows her on her quest. Their quest will have them getting entangled between the two major hostile countries of the world, and people behind the scenes going after Milla's life/trying to use Spyrix for some alterior motive.
One key strength to its presentation is that a lot of cut scenes in the game are done by Ufotable, and they look really good. And there are a decent number of them.
The game uses two main characters, both Jude and Milla. So at the beginning, you pick which route you want, and they become your main. Most of the game is the same between two routes, but sometimes they are separated, and when that happens, it follows your chosen MC. Jude's route is more "complete", though. Milla's route misses some crucial story events, so is better for a second playthrough.
Character wise, you have Jude, the 15 year old Med student, who doesn't really know what he wants to be in life. Hes a follower, to a fault. He sees Milla as an inspiration, and from her example, grows to be his own man. He plays like Sophie, and since Sophie was fun, so is Jude. Hes a doctor that punches things really hard, and can dodge things to teleport behind the enemy, and own them. Milla is technically not Human, since shes a Spirit. She is abnormally driven to accomplish her goals, no matter what. She lived her life with the 4 Great Spirits, so never really had to deal with "human" problems. From her journey with Jude, she becomes more "human" over time. I played a bit of her, and she is fun, but weird. Shes a mix between a swordsman and a spell caster, and can sorta do both. Next is Alvin, who makes the game hard to be taken seriously. Where Yuri makes everyone else better, Alvin makes everyone else worse. This guy is like the biggest swagger backstabbing scumbag I've ever seen in a Tales game. Its incredibly obvious hes shady as hell, and he outright backstabs the party like a million times, and they are always surprised by it, and always let him join back up shortly after. Gameplay wise, hes swordsman with a gun, and is okay. If you link him, he keeps saying stuff like "Time for break?" and "No breaks?" Next you have Elize, and her doll Teepo. Teepo looks kinda horrifying to me, but Elize and Teepo hate Alvin, so its OK. One scene has Alvin like "Everyone hates me, so I came here to be by myself", and Teepos just like "Well thats because you are a lying scumbag" in a real consoling voice. #1, 10/10. Shes your only real healer, and also your best spell caster. I didn't actually play her, but shes real good. IDK how fun she is. Next you have Rowen, an old butler. Hes actually a retired general, and real famous, but despite all this, he is absolutely terrible in a battle. Maybe if Elize didn't exist he could function as a spell caster, but Elize is better, and can heal. Rowen a shit. Finally, you have Leia, Jude's childhood friend. Shes real energetic, but I have no idea why she even tagged along. Shes there, and participating in the story, but has like nothing to do with anything. Gameplay wise, shes like Judith from Vesperia, and is fun.
In a vacuum, the characters and plot are okay... As long as you don't consider Alvin. He almost ruins the game. Its so comical how shady he is, and so frustrating how stupid everyone other than Elize is towards him. If Alvin was in Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, every time he shows up on the screen, he would have those "menacing" characters floating around him. If Alvin was in Vesperia, Yuri would have killed him real early into the game.
We figured out the optimal way to play Xillia. Instead of fighting the billions of enemies crowding every map, we decided fuck that and just avoided like 90% of all enemies, since they are slow and easily dodgable. This resulted in us being very poor and underleveled. So we actually had challenge in battles, which is a good thing. And this allowed us to beat the game in under 30 hours. But the game felt really incomplete, there really aren't any meaningful side quests, no cameo battles, and the second world you go to is really short and barely anything is there.
Again, no Japanese voices in the US release, and I have no clue who voices who. Milla's english voice actress talks with a lisp, which is real annoying since there is no reason for a lisp, and the actress herself doesn't even have a lisp normally.
Tales of Xillia 2 is out in Japan, and a US release is planned in like a month. And apparently, that fixed some of Xillia's problems. We will see, its supposedly better.
All this said, it has the same bare bones skeleton as Vesperia, and when you pretend Alvin doesn't exist, the characters/story is okay. But Xillia has its fair share of problems, so be warned if you want to play it. But you probably should play it if you want to play Xillia 2.
