Have You Played Any Tales Games?

[Vyk]

That's pretty much what my girlfriend and I are doing. As well as trying to fill out our PS2 JRPG collection since I missed out on goodies like Persona 3 & 4 (which we now have), and the other interesting Shin Megami PS2 games, the other Grandia installments, other Wild Arms installments, Shadow Hearts, and lots of others... now if we can get her PS2 to stop throwing tantrums lol

Speaking of which. Definitely adding Tales of Abyss during that

[Sephex]

I have played a couple Tales games.

[Rez09]

That's pretty much what my girlfriend and I are doing. As well as trying to fill out our PS2 JRPG collection since I missed out on goodies like Persona 3 & 4 (which we now have), and the other interesting Shin Megami PS2 games, the other Grandia installments, other Wild Arms installments, Shadow Hearts, and lots of others... now if we can get her PS2 to stop throwing tantrums lol

Speaking of which. Definitely adding Tales of Abyss during that

If you don't mind doing a little bit of work with your playthrough, you might consider looking into the Tales of Destiny remake on the PS2 as well. There isn't a patch out for it yet, although one is being worked on, but there's a very good translation guide you can use with it, which is what I did. The combat uses a CC system like Xillia used, so as long as you have stocks you can keep attacking, and it has multiple characters that are worth playing as in combat, Mary and Kongman being my favorite two. There's also a pretty spiffy gem system, as I recall, that lets you customize a piece of gear for different effects.

[Pumpkin]

Played Tales of Symphonia while the forums were down


LOVED IT

[Dat Matt]

I may have mentioned it, but we played Tales of Symphonia recently. I nostalgia'd pretty hard about it, and then remember how much I loved the game.

Then we played it and I remembered how much I hated the late game dungeons/Most Characters xD.

It's a smashing game, but with the exception of Raine, I dislike pretty much all of the Slyvarant cast.

[Pumpkin]

I like almost all of the characters


Except Raine, yeah

[Vyk]

I just got Tales of Heart R :3 Haven't really test drove it much since its for my VitaTV. The girlfriend is on her third playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition, and first playthrough of that game on the PS4. I don't get much time with that TV. But Xenoblade has been keeping me company as of late. And even though they can be few and far between, every time a story point happens I remember I love that game. Just have to remember not to get too distracted with item nabbing and gem crafting and other boring/addictive stuff that slows the pace too much. Though it's a great substitute for a Tales fan, being real-time action and free-roaming and whatnot

[Rez09]

I remember . . . really liking Sheena in Symphonia. She had a design I instantly loved, and her ill-fated, yet fully determined, early attempts to assassinate Colette amused me to no end. I especially appreciated that, despite the humor surrounding her at first, she wasn't a tag-along joke character once she joined, and her story segments once you hit Tethe'alla were probably my favorite character specific ones in the game. That said, I was fairly disappointed with her in combat though, especially after playing as the other Fujibayashi in the series, but, then again, I guess some ninjas get to summon Volt and Ifrit while others get to summon super cute fire breathing frogs and throw flaming ninja stars, and you gotta roll with what the game deals you. I totally got robbed, though.

Regarding Tales of Hearts R, I have a friend who is greatly enjoying the game right now (in fact he brings it up most of the time we talk), and it seems like a pretty awesome upgrade from everything he's said. I played the original when it came out and wasn't especially fond of it, but I'll probably have to borrow the remake from him at some point and give it a try.

[Polnareff]

I finally got Tales of Graces F (English version). I'd only played the JP version before. Now, after getting a pretty decent amount of the way in, I can say that the battle system is definitely in my top three favorites, along with Rebirth and Destiny 2 (PS2). It has the CC (chain capacity) system like ToD2 does, where you don't use MP for magic and such, and the points recharge really fast. Makes it easier to play as mages and you don't have to manage your MP since there isn't any!

I also got Tales of Xillia, which is a solid fourth for me in terms of the battle system. The narrative makes very little sense, though, and I oftentimes just want to punch Jude in the face. I don't care if he's the coolest hand-to-hand fighter Tales has had since Senel, I wanna just punch his life in the face!

[Vyk]

I forget her name, Hermina or something, from Innocence is a pretty awesome hand-to-hand fighter, especially for a console like the DS

But yeah. I liked Jude a lot, but I also wanted to strangle him a lot lol

Could not get into Graces as much. Though playing as Sophia is really fun (speaking of hand combatants), the dungeons were really poorly designed to me. I couldn't get into too many of the early game characters. Though(SPOILER) the one chance I got to play as the adult brother was pretty ballin

[Fox]

Yeah I wasn't keen on Graces battle system at all. I think Zesteria is going to be using a CC thing similar to it, so hopefully it's a bit more fun for me. I don't think it was bad, you just started out with very few CC, and it took ages until you had enough to really be fun and put together interesting combos.

Xillia's link system though. Suteki! There was so much interesting variety to it from really early on. Although I spent most of the game linking with Jude (I played as Milla) everyone had some really great combinations. I really enjoyed Leia's fighting style a lot, she linked p with Jude really nicely.

Not sure which is my favourite Tales game, Xillia or Vesperia. Xillia certainly has the best game design by a country mile, and I think the better story. But Vesperia has Yuri and Rita - the best characters in pretty much anything ever. ^^

[Rez09]

Yuri probably the main character I appreciate the most so far in the series, and I really like his conflict with Flynn. It's too bad the PS3 version never came out in the US and made Flynn a fully playable character, though.

My only complaint about Xillia is how abusable the link system felt -- it was almost Field of Fonons bad. My strategy was little more than link Jude with Rowan for magic immunity, fill the combo gauge, and enjoy basic invulnerability for 10 seconds while spamming skills. I didn't even know a few of the bosses had Mystic Artes until I watched an exhibition video, and I was playing on hard. :/

[Polnareff]

I always tend to forget that Sophie can fight hand-to-hand, since I'm too busy using her for healing xD