Pumpkin's Tales Marathon

[Pumpkin]

Okay so this is a big one! I am almost done my Suikoden marathon (although I forgot to update ) and I'm almost done Tales of Zestiria, so this might be a bit late, but I want to do a Tales marathon for the games I do (or will) own. It'll be a very long one though.

Games to play (in no order):

(Finish) Tales of Zestiria
Tales of Xillia
Tales of Xillia 2
Tales of the Abyss
Tales of Legendia
Tales of Symphonia
Tales of Symphonia 2 (to buy)
Tales of Phantasia
Tales of Vesperia
Tales of Hearts R
Tales of Graces f

So I will do my best to keep this thread updated and I hope we can have some fun . Also feel free to request which Tales game I play next once I finish one. And don't expect this to go by quickly because there are like 11 games there!

About spoilers: I will do my best to keep spoilers in spoiler tags so those who want to play can still play and follow this. Characters will be spoiled though. If you want to discuss because you have played the games, please spoiler as well! I will mostly be posting generalized tidbits that don't ruin the whole thing and I will expand on them in the spoilers

Enjoy

[Pumpkin]

FIRST UPDATE!

Played some Tales of Zestiria. Going to finish it up soon, just a few more sidequesties and the Alicia DLC~

Started Tales of Xillia again. Could have waited but I wanted to get the idol master DLC while I could remember. It changes the battle music, it's pretty funny



I'm also super pumped to play Xillia again because it was the first Tales game I ever played and I have played EIGHT more Tales games since. I also really loved it. I'm going to finish up Zestiria before I go further, but I did Jude's storyline this time because I did Milla's last time and I also much prefer Jude as a character anyway.

Didn't get too far, just accepted my first quest. Current characters:
Jude: Med student
Milla: Lord of Spirita
Alvin: Mercenary dude

Tales of Zestiria I have the whole cast, just did the Edna's brother sidequest, and wrapping up a few more loose ends before DA FINAL BOSS(ES?) and Alicia DLC~

[Fynn]

Cool, I've always wanted to try the Tales series! Could you also list the platform every game's on when you talk about them?

[Pumpkin]

Sure, I can actually do that for you now. Not including the Japan only versions

Tales of Zestiria - PS3, PS4, Steam
Tales of Xillia - PS3
Tales of Xillia 2 - PS3
Tales of the Abyss - PS2, 3DS (Europe only marked for 3DS so may not be available there on PS2)
Tales of Legendia -PlayStation 2 (Doesn't say European release, so not sure about this one :/)
Tales of Symphonia - Gamecube, PS3, Steam next year
Tales of Symphonia 2 -Wii, PS3
Tales of Phantasia - GBA (I think the PS1 version is Japan only?)
Tales of Vesperia - Xbox 360
Tales of Hearts R - Vita
Tales of Graces f - PS3

[Shauna]

Tales of Legendia was not released EU-side, and if you want to play Abyss you do need to do so on the 3DS.

[Madame Adequate]

That's a lot of Tales games to play! Best of luck!

[Formalhaut]

What is the recurring theme of the series? Are they linked in any particular way? If I wanted to play them, which one should you start with?

[Fynn]

I heard a lot of them attempt to deconstruct typical JRPG tropes. But that's all I know about the series

[Pumpkin]

What is the recurring theme of the series? Are they linked in any particular way? If I wanted to play them, which one should you start with?

They are not linked, it's kind of like Final Fantasy, except for ones that are direct sequels (like Xillia 2 and Symphonia 2). There are some loose connections between Phantasia and Symphonia, but by loose I mean very loose, kind of like FFVII and X. You don't need to play one to understand the other and it's more just a fun fact than anything.

The general theme is exploring common RPG tropes and, in some cases, deconstructing them. It does play a lot of them pretty straight, but the series loves to throw twists in the middle of it to change things up a bit.

Abyss, for example, explores the "destiny" trope. You know where everything is governed by fate and all of that. It does this by basically turning it up to eleven and having some people trying to subvert it. They basically have things that tell them how the future will play out, and common citizens use it to ask what to have for dinner and stuff, for example. Symphonia explores the whole 'Chosen One' trope, by showing just how much of a burden that would be on the chosen ones. In other ways it plays certain tropes completely straight like 'racism is bad'.

So in essence they're very classic RPG, they have a lot of common RPG elements to them, but they have some fun with it sometimes by exploring the issues a bit more or from a different perspective than a lot of RPG's.

As far as which one you should start with, its hard to say because while a lot of them are similar, like the FF series, you can get a variety of things that suit different people. Symphonia and Hearts are my favourites but I don't know that I would say they're objectively the best. Symphonia is kind of the starting point for modern day Tales games and it brought the series to where it is today, but because it's the starting point, it's pretty rough around the edges. So it really depends on what you're looking for and what aspects are important to you. I'll PM you with some further details about each so we can see if we can match you up with a good one for you

[Colonel Angus]

Will you play Talespin as well?

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[Pumpkin]

Alrighty so today I beat Tales of Zestiria! The last dungeon was whoo boy. Less confusing than it looks though. (SPOILER)Symonne ended up being much more of a sympathetic villain than I expected. Like my heart went out to her. Especially when she was just laying there crying and you just have to walk away. Geez

The ending was pretty good, although it felt a bit lacking. Not bad, just kind of shorter than I was expecting. Might be because there's a playable epilogue in the form of the Alisha DLC.

Which I started! I was missing my characters at first but there was a bit of a reunion and I am happy. (SPOILER)Rose started acting a bit... funky, but overall it has been good. It's kind of understandable why she's acting that way, she's been through a lot by this point.

I'll have a full review of the game up when I finish the Alisha DLC. She is also now sporting quite a fancy outfit

[Jiro]

Zestiria was the least enjoyable Tales experience I've had. The characters were largely uninteresting, the concepts underpinning the plot were inconsistent, and the changes to the battle system rendered my input pointless. The writing was occasionally charming, but occasionally does not stack up against the vast array of terrific games I have played or could otherwise be playing. Competent is not nearly enough. Additional thoughts if you're interested.

[Pumpkin]

I really liked it and I found the characters pretty strong. To each their own

[Pumpkin]

Today I played most of Alisha's DLC and I should be able to finish it up on Tuesday and get my review written. But I needed a bit of a break, so I started back up on Xillia. Met Elize but she isn't playable yet and I just fought the big crab thing. Still fairly early on, but my shops and everything are progressing nicely so far!

Xillia looks pretty polished and has some absolutely gorgeous areas. Last time I played it was on a small screen so it's nice to play it on a TV with which I can see the details more clearly. The skits are pretty charming and I already really like Jude. It's also interesting to see the story when I know some of the spoilery things

[Pumpkin]

Okay so today I finished up Tales of Zestiria and the review is in my Video Game journal in Gen gaming if you're interested! In short, I really enjoyed it and I loved the characters, but the dialogue was too vague sometimes, which made some story aspects hard to follow. Overall the story was good, the gameplay was fun, and the world was good.

Last night I played some more Xillia and I finally got!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Elize: A shy young girl with strong magical abilities

I forgot how precious she is, I love her!!

That was after I went to Milla's home, and now I am in the forest! Will play more later but that is the update from last night~