Tales of X Games

Oglemi

Borf
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So I fucking love this series of games, and I noticed there wasn't a thread for it yet so here it is. I know Kevin Garrett Ditto and Layell play a lot (and we lost our social group with the change to XF ;-;)

For the unaware, there is a whole collection of games under the heading "Tales of" that are massive RPGs that take place in similar worlds with similar plotlines, but vastly different characters and personalities that make the games worth playing over and over again.

The major thing that sets these games apart from any other imo is the Battle system. Unlike other RPGs that are generally turn-based, the Tales series features a kind of live-action battling system that makes the battles exciting and more skill based. As far as the adventure part goes, there are a shit ton of side quests and hidden side quests available in each game (with backtracking!!!) and hundreds of items that make 100% completing it a collector freak's dream.

Unfortunately, not every Tales game that has been created and released in Japan has been released in America, but there's still a large collection that have. I personally still haven't played all the ones that have been released, but I'm slowly working on it.

Here is a list of the Tales games that have been released in America:

Early Tales: (I haven't played any of these personally)
Tales of Phantasia - GBA
Tales of Destiny - PS1
Tales of Eternia - PS1 and PSP
Tales of Destiny 2 - PS2

Modern Tales for America: (where I started)

Tales of Symphonia - Gamecube
Tales of Legendia - PS2
Tales of the Abyss - PS2 and 3DS
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology - PSP
Tales of Vesperia - XBox360
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World - Wii
Tales of Hearts - PSVita
Tales of Graces - PS3
Tales of Xillia - PS3
Tales of Xillia 2 - PS3
Tales of Symphonia: Chronicles - PS3

If you are into Japanese there are like literally 3x more games for you to play but ya.

From the list above, I've played all but Legendia, Hearts, and Xillia 2, and am currently playing through Abyss on the 3DS and will be playing Xillia 2 asap (no spoilers plz for this one ;-;).

My favorite so far has been Symphonia. It's probably the largest game from the list above (it was a 2 disc game for the Gamecube, ~60 hours for first playthrough), has some pretty difficult puzzles, some awesome decisions that matter in the game, and the characters and playstyles are some of my favorite (#Presea4lyfe).

Vesperia, Graces, and Xillia were all extremely well done as well and look fucking beautiful, though Vesperia was a little weak compared to the others with their character fighting styles (and has probably one of the most annoying characters in the main cast but it makes up for it by having my favorite Lead character so w/e). Graces has a fantastic battling system and probably the least annoying overall cast but one of the weaker stories. Xillia was a triumph so far imo on all fronts, but I felt like I didn't really connect with the Lead characters as much as I have with some of the others (Jude is so bland oml).

Anyway, geek out here please! I love hearing what others have to say about the games, good or bad (trust me I know their faults but love em anyway).
 
I've only played Symphonia and Phantasia, the latter I gave up on close to the endgame because there was this awful boss in mook's clothing enemy in the dungeon that annihilated my team. Got so buttfrustrated that I quit it (which I think, to date, makes it the only game I've actively quit).

Zelos remains one of the most standout characters in any game, ever, for me, and actually had a big impact on me when I was a teenager because I was a bit conservative. Learning to slowly open up with campy and fun humour was really refreshing for me. Definitely a cool guy. The battle system in Symphonia is also great, though I wish it had the free movement system that later Tales games adapted.
 
Freaking love the Tales series. Symphonia easily was my favorite, since the themes in the game really helped me a lot during the time I was in when I heard about it. Collete being useless game wise is my only complaint.
 

Layell

Alas poor Yorick!
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I am such a large Tales fan, of all the RPG series I have played it is by far the greatest(need to finish Xenoblade and get into Xenosaga games but whatevs). People can give the Final Fantasy series props for new cool worlds/innovation on the battle systems but that is all simple compared to the masterpiece of the Tales games. It is not afraid to innovate the established rules. Lets take a few examples:

Battle system: Some great stuff all around but each game has its own twist on Overlimit or super mode, or just the giant combination attacks. Symphonia is the worst because you can't tell when you go OL, although Unison is fantastic and I would love to see it again. Abyss overlimit is broken as hell once you start a boss and go OL with everyone. Graces/Vesperia/Xillia are balanced and fun.

Skill Customization/options: Graces is the big one, Vepseria, then Xillia, then most of the others. In Graces I was about level 20 and already I had hundreds of available skills to learn through its excellent title system. Vesperia really makes you want to craft every dang weapon and use low weapons sometimes just for the skills they can have. Creates a really high replay value

New Game +: Want to carry over all your gear, get 10x exp, all those other little missable things? You can and geez will you want to. I've sunk a ton of time into these games and I want to go back with a friend and play through them all again.
 

Oglemi

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Ya I forgot to mention that the replay quality of these games is insane and you WILL want to go through them again. Xillia was especially potent about this with the split story line, and Symphonia's choices will make you want to do so as well. I will say that while Symphonia 2 was overall probably the worst out of the bunch so far storywise, characters, and battle system, it's replay value was pretty high because you want to unlock all of the monsters cuz they look fucking amazing and are hilarious when you replay through the game with 10x exp and carryover monster levels.

Also, I made a tier list of the characters of the games I've played so far based on playstyle, personality, and voice acting.

S Rank:

Malik
Pascal
Presea
Rita
Yuri

A Rank:

Alvin
Anise
Elize (Teepo)
Genis
Kratos
Raine
Raven
Regal
Sheena
Zelos

B Rank:

Estelle
Guy
Judith
Lloyd
Luke
Milla
Natalia
Rowen
Sophie

C Rank:

Cheria
Elize (sans Teepo)
Flynn
Hubert
Jade
Leia
Tear

D Rank:

Asbel
Asch
Jude
Marta
Repede
Richard

F Rank:

Colette
Emil
Karol
 
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Layell

Alas poor Yorick!
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Hows about I also go through what charaters my bro and I played with, I'll just use this in regards to the battle system. Also special mention for worst character to play

Symphinia
My Main: Llloyd
Bro's Main: Sheena
Worst Main: Presea/Raine

I tend to gravitate towards those melee main characters, Lloyd will always be the absolute best in that regard. Strike artes are all wonderful and you just feel really fast and powerful with everything that you have. My bro went Kratos then Sheena once she came in. I did some play with Kratos/Zelos as well but Lloyd is just too good. It helps both of them have a number of required boss battles you need them for. Presea is slow and sucks, and Raine is necessary often but isn't fun to play because they hadn't figured out how to make healers fun yet.

Abyss
My Main: Guy with some Luke
Bro's Main: Didn't play 3DS lol
Worst Main: Natalia

Luke works, and is really powerful but Guy just has the right amount of speed to get the job done. Really it depended on who I needed to use FoF abuse. Natalia has the single use healing artes which are really the worst kind, and never cared much for her. I never played Anise much either but she didn't seem to have much going for her when I played. Abyss probably had the most static team party overall cause of the party size and how much Tear/Jade are necessary for FoF abuse.

Vesperia
My Main: Yuri
Bro's Main: Raven
Worst Main: Karol

Of all the slow and crappy powerful characters Karol stands short among them all as the worst. Worst yet he has a solo required boss battle at one point. There is no redeeming Karol, at least Presea had the good sense to not have a personality to also be obnoxious with. Vesperia's battle system I also felt rewarded combo's the best and Yuri can abuse combo's like crazy. This is also the first game where healers and mages become more fun to play because of Overlimit abuse with Rita, Estelle is also not too bad with actual attacks. I at least would not complain if I was held up on healer duty. My bro went Repede for a while who is probably faster than Yuri but lacks the range. He stuck with Raven in the end for the good mix of range, spells and a healing arte, he is probably the most wacky mage knight out there.

Graces
My Main: Asbel, later Sophie and even Richard
Bro's Main: Hubert
Worst Main: There is no worst but it might be Pascal

Graces is by far the best of the battle systems, which helps because the story is balls. The basic philosophy here is that your A and B attacks (think smash) work in two separate styles that are meant to be blended together in combat. At first I wasn't so sure about this whole idea since I liked one style before, but they took some risk and it paid off. The system works well and it never feels like you are playing two versions of one character. Heck let me go through every damn character.
Asbel: What an addictive character, switching from B to A healing you slightly promotes this great flow once you figure out how to use it, play through your B combo's, then end with an A, abuse A some more if you need to string SE hits. It's crazy how many attacks this guy has and the potential to go from quick graceful hits to heavier B artes. It's just addicting to string combos together in this game already and with Asbel the game gives you free health for doing it right.

Sophie:She punches things with A, her B is healing and more Kung-Fu... not exactly completely separate but whatever works. She is fun to play and for a group healer that is unique in the Tales franchise. She is quick enough to go from healing at the back to front fighting, and with the combo = faster spell I don't even have to always run away to just go and heal everyone.

Cheria: A more traditional back healer, with her A artes being throwing knives. Also packs a few nice spells, more healer oriented but still really good, because Graces understands that Healers don't want to be Orange Gel drains the entire fight and not be able to get enough hits in.

Malik: Long distance boomerang with spells, for such a buff guy he really likes to let kids do all the hard lifting. Has good spells, and he is the more traditional spellcaster of the two available for most of the game.

Pascal: Easily the weirdest of all fighters in the entire series, and it had to have been by design too. Who thinks of long distance A artes and close AoE spells? A bit of a learning curve with this one but I think she is still loads of fun and shows why the style concept of this game can work so well.

Hubert: What a beast, what a damn beast. There is no stopping this kid. To be fair any Mage Knight would be broken in this game but Hubert goes one step beyond all that. His close range A artes would be something you give a dedicated melee fighter in any other game, and he has a ton of useful B gunshots. But wait what the hell is this you have Healing Wind and Antidote just in case you need to. His spells are mid level at best but Cross Mirage works well at a distance and Gravity Blast works well at close range. Then we have the most broken move of the game Rolling Thunderbolt, which he has no right to have. This attack makes him basically a killing machine jumping and blasting everyone to shreds below him, he shouldn't even have a close range B arte, but he does. It has the Nova attribute as well, which ends up being a required trait to have against certain bosses. Hubert is broken, nerf please.

Richard: Guest character in the original Wii version becomes 6th Ranger in the PS3 postgame, doesn't matter he is still awesome, they obviously gave him a few bland attacks he borrows from everyone else (why Antidote though whyyyy), but it doesn't matter because unlike everyone else Richard doesn't need a ton of moves, all of his are useful. Shooting Stars is comparable to Malik's best spells and with his Excel and combo potential he can actually pull it out every so often and use it while being on the front lines. Close range A, and spells for B is bland but who cares Richard has a damn kingdom to run. I actually played a lot of Richard in postgame and it was worth it for the change he brings.


Xillia
My Main: Leia
Bro's Main: Jude
Worst Main: Probably Elize

I stopped my Milla run, but I've been maining her there (don't have PS3 atm). Leia is fun because while Elize can function as a great healer on her own Leia has some nice boosting spells and her staff personal ability can be situational but useful. Jude in this game is just OP broken with tons of killer attacks and healing, Milla is also a fantastically balanced Mage Knight because she has no healing, and still has a great variety of spells and combos. I hear that changes in Xillia 2 which is a shame but if they figured out how to not make Jude OP this would have been a great roster.

Symphonia 2
My Main: Emil
Bro's Main: Marta
Worst Main: Guest characters who cannot level up

I mean it's not like you can play as the OP monsters right???
 

Oglemi

Borf
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I always found Presea a lot of fun to play with, and once she got Glory it was just hilarious. She ran through TP like nobody's business, but idk I always thought it was fun.

Overall, Malik and Alvin were my favorites to play as. Malik just had some amazing combo actions and his magic was overthetop awesome (and quick/instant casting thanks to his skills). Alvin was a lot like Presea but had a ton of combo and juggling options thanks to his pistol. I literally beat the Colosseum at a low level by just standing on the opposite side of the stage and shooting Milla and Jude to death (along with his standard B shot).

The worst ones to play as were Raine, Karol and Estelle. Raine just didn't have anything fun apart from Photon and Ray, Karol was just a terrible version of Presea, and Estelle was just a slightly better version of Raine (though her Shield spell is basically Glory at a high level which is neat). Colette was pretty terrible too, but that was mostly due to her low combo options and extremely long casting time for Angel spells. Marta was probably the most well-done White Mage but was still rather poor. Cheria was pretty obnoxiously bad too but her Over Limit attacks were hilarious.

I actually found Elize/Teepo a ton of fun to play with as far as the White Mages have gone, she had some neat combo options and fucking amazing Over Limit attacks.

Genis still tops the charts as far as Black Mages go, but Rita was only just behind. Fucking Genis's Spread was nigh-instantaneous at a high level and Gravity Well was fantastic, as was Rita's Fire Ball and Over Limit Tidal Wave. Pascal was super hard to use but her Over Limit attacks were bar none the best ever conceived (I fucking died the first time I saw the Efreet one). Rowen could have been amazing if he wasn't so goddamn slow apart from casting.

The main Sword/Brace users are just so boring to play as in my opinion. Yuri was redeemable since he took a slightly different spin on it, and Milla at least offered some magic / crazy aerial options on the level of Judith, but like Asbel, Richard, Emil, Guy, Lloyd, Kratos, Zelos, Luke, Jude, and Sophie were just blah

I really wish they could make the Bow users more natural to use. I fucking love the concept, but it's been pretty poorly executed thus far, and I think that it's due to a concern of making them overpowered otherwise (ie. increasing accuracy on flying enemies, making distance a non-issue if the directionality/angle is used correctly). Raven in particular was a really cool character and had some nice distance/close coverage options, but he was just hard to use.
 
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Lemonade

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Acklow

unfortunately I don't really have the systems to play a lot of theses but Radiant Mythology was really fun. The biggest thing about these games I like is the combat system because I get super bored with non TRPG turn based stuff (Bravely Default literally unplayable). I am working through Tales of Abyss 3D but I busy D:
 
after over 5 years of trying, I finally got around to getting the Vesperia Master achievement/trophy for 100%'ing Tales of Vesperia.

for those not in the know, you have to complete a load of bullshit to get this achievement, including:

- scan every monster with the Magic Lens (over 300, only obtainable over multiple playthroughs)
- obtain every item (over 1000, many of which are obtained by synthesis and some that are on split paths where you only get 1 item during the playthrough)
- obtain every title, including: clear 200 man melee with each character, master every cooking recipe with 1 character, 100 fatal strikes with each character, beat all secret missions in one playthrough, finish Repede's dog map, complete the monster/item quests involving filling the monster/item books, learn 100+ skills with Raven, heal 15,000,000 health with Estelle, do 20,000,000 damage with Rita, among others
- find every treasure chest
- use every save point
- beat the game in <15 hours (basically requires 10x exp from the grade shop)
- beat the first major boss (the pirate guy) at <level 15 (requires 1/2x exp from the grade shop)
- complete all 23 secret missions, many of which require difficult timing (and for a title, do them all in one playthrough as well)
- complete the EX dungeon (only possible on 2nd+ playthrough)

I'd say it took me about 4.5 playthroughs to get this achievement, because I fucked up on my 10x playthrough and forgot to actually obtain the collector's book (so even though I obtained every item in the book and got the Item Nerd achievement, I didn't trigger the quest for the book and thus couldn't complete the quest for the title) leading to another playthrough of carrying the book information over so I could complete the quest towards the end of the game. Add to that a separate playthrough for the Speedster achievement, a separate playthrough for the Low Level Challenger achievement, and the playthrough where I took the time to do all the secret missions, and I easily put several hundred hours into this game for some silly fake achievement points.

Vesperia isn't even my favorite Tales games, Symphonia is GOAT and anyone who can't admit that has been spoiled by free run.


I only recently got a PS3, and played Xillia instead of Graces because I couldn't find the latter. Xillia was fun, but it really felt like it was missing something (nospoilers, but right before the end of the game they made it seem like there was a lot of places left to explore, which they then kind of just shoot down by having the game end <3 hours later). Still looking forward to Xillia 2 eventually, but I think I'd rather play Graces first once I finally buy it off the internet.

Does anyone know what the differences/additions to Symphonia Chronicles are?
 

Acklow

I am always tired. Don't bother me.
This forum is too buggy for me to c/p or even upload pictures from my iPad (new iOS sux and this is all I have here in Thailand).

In any event if you look for the PS3 thread you'll notice that I bought the collectors edition of Xillia 2, I'll be playing it when I get back to the states.

I own Abyss, Graces f, Xillia 1 & 2, and Symphonia 1 & 2 (Chronicles). I have yet to touch Symphonia too, but I enjoyed Xillia so much I want to jump to its sequel right away.

Of the games, Abyss was my favorite, story wise. Out of gameplay options, Graces f was the best with awesome mechanics to abuse. Xillia 1 was plain easy (iirc I played normal mode though, so can't say much there).

In any event, Tales of Zestria was announced at the Japanese Game Show, so


HYPEHYPEHYPEHYPEHYPE!!!!!
 
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Relados

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I'm always the second player when my brother plays through these. In Symphonia I spammed Kratos (and eventually Zelos) and in Xillia I used Milla. The mixed mages/attackers are amazing.

I really wish the dedicated mages were more usable. I tried using Genis in Symphonia 2 but holy crap the magic in that game was awful. When Milla was removed from the party during a lot of times in Xillia I was forced to use Rowen and he was absolutely terrible. I plan on trying Rita in Vesperia, she's supposedly better than the rest of them.
 
I hadn't heard about the Zestiria news, but here's some videos. Sounds like it's coming with a new form of Over Limit, and the linking system has either been replaced or improved with some sort of fusion mechanism.

Xillia 1 was plain easy (iirc I played normal mode though, so can't say much there.
This is coming from someone who almost never ever grinds, but Xillia 1 was incredibly easy on normal and incredibly difficult on Hard. The difficulty spikes for each boss is kind of absurd, and way larger than the other games in the series. To counteract this, most bosses have elemental attacks, and the leveling system gives you resistances if you're patient enough to level your characters ahead of time for the bosses. Naturally, for a first playthrough, I had no idea what was coming and got my ass kicked way more than the other games in the series.

Honestly, since "unkillable bosses" are kind of a trope in the Tales series, at least once or twice I intentionally let myself be killed by a boss in Xillia because I thought he was supposed to be unbeatable, but it turns out that I was just really underleveled/bad :x
 

Oglemi

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I'm always the second player when my brother plays through these. In Symphonia I spammed Kratos (and eventually Zelos) and in Xillia I used Milla. The mixed mages/attackers are amazing.

I really wish the dedicated mages were more usable. I tried using Genis in Symphonia 2 but holy crap the magic in that game was awful. When Milla was removed from the party during a lot of times in Xillia I was forced to use Rowen and he was absolutely terrible. I plan on trying Rita in Vesperia, she's supposedly better than the rest of them.
Rita is definitely the most "usable" dedicated mage for a single player playthrough because her Fireball becomes a ridiculous volley/melee attack after a lot of uses, and in OverLimit she's fucking insane. That and the other team members are almost all close combat fighters so they're usually able to keep the enemies from flinching her most matches.
 
I don't really like playing games in general but an exception to that was two tales games. Tales of symphonia and vesperia (we don't own PS systems) provided hours of entertainment with their easy to adapt to combat mechanics (I hate fighting games) and humorous/interesting story. The majority of the characters were very likable and cutely designed. As a nongamer for the most part and pokemon doesn't count since it sucks, I was surprised at the amount of depth I went into with maxing out stats, grabbing the best weapons, and having proper move/equipment/skill combos, basically doing more than just playing the game and trying to get through it quickly. Yet it wasn't insanely complicated to the point where I would get lost in the mechanics and number of options. Overall my perfect game style.

Tales of Symphonia:
Main playing character-Lloyd (really the only character you can combo with and having the CPU play him is such a waste, otherwise I'd play Colette as my main)
Favorite character-Colette
Least favorite character-Sheena (garbage)

Tales of Vesperia:
Main playing character-Judith (fun aerial combos, once I started doing this stuff I was not changing characters (3:28 is my favorite sequence that I use)
Favorite character-Estelle
Least favorite character-Karol (total garbage)

Fun times. Wish they'd have more xbox tales games.
 

Oglemi

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UGH peachy how could you stand Colette??? omg, after the 1,000th I'M SORRY i wanted to literally strangle her, I wanted her to die a horrible, horrible death
 

Layell

Alas poor Yorick!
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Man what I would do to play a 4 player Tales run with some of you folks.

Interesting to hear your opinion on some of the characters I don't use Oglemi, I do have to think though that if any sword user is boring it is probably Luke, but luckily we had Guy in Abyss for all the joy he brings.

Killah I too have been prepping the final stages of a 100% Vesperia, which seems to be every summer but I have some progress made on the last items on my completed run, then just
-Do a quick run using the unlock all skits power and completing all secret missions, picking up the final miss-able weapons/monsters (screw that one time Mansion in the port)
-Do the low level run

I might be biting off more than I can chew with the first one there but a third run won't be too bad. On my 2nd playthough I did every single side missions, and just this past year I completed the Dog Map. In the mean time I've just been farming the last monsters/items/skills and I do believe I'm nearly done on that.

Graces I'm almost 100% too. I think I'm just a few percents away from the 97% items title which would be the last one (not even sure I need all, but might who knows). Request missions were a pain (especially the ones you can miss arghh), as well as top level gems takes wayyy too much money to do. But once I get back the PS3 and if I don't have Xillia 2 I swear this one will be mine.
 
Fucking love these games. ;____; As it stands though, you can call me a pretty new Tales player. Here are the ones that I've played so far:

  • Tales of Symphonia (GCN)
  • Tales of the Abyss
  • Tales of Graces f
  • Tales of Xilla
  • Tales of Xilla 2 (here's one I'm currently on)
Each Tales game that I play is literally more and more amazing, and even the beginning of Xilla 2 had me slightly upset (but that's just me, not spoiling anything nope).

My fav characters from each series:

Symphonia: Colette forever. Idk she's just adorable, and while I don't really remember a whole lot of the game, I do remember that the general premise had something to do with artificial angels and she was a significant part of it (someone pls elaborate on this for me, if possible), and Colette got infinitely cuter with her wings so.

Tales of the Abyss: Anise ❤ Idk I feel like I have a lot in common with her. Second favourite would have to go to Arietta. I'm pissed about how she turned out actually later in the game (not spoiling anything for those who haven't played Abyss) and I wish to this day it didn't have to turn out that way, but whatever, she really is that stubborn. But it shows a side that she's dedicated to him, so.

Tales of Graces f: This game is pretty strange, because compared to the others, to me, it seems rather flat. But that's detracting from the point...at any rate, sad to say, Sophie is only really my second favourite here. While she has left a huge impact on me, her really slow character development kind of put a halt to any actual interest that I might've had in her in the beginning.

Like, the fighting scenes between her and Richard kept me interested in her character, but that's just about it. Pascal is my favourite here because she has so much personality, and plus she's smart as fuck to go along with it.

Tales of Xilla: Elize is the best. Literally, her darkness attacks are ridiculous and you can actually beef up her marital artes so they'll dish out a pretty reasonable amount of damage! Teepo Squash is definitely something I've used in battles whereas there are hordes of enemies and they're all grouped together and Teepo Roar is an attack that I've used in pretty much every boss battle. You have no idea how easy it is to buy time with this; an extra few seconds by knocking out the enemy temporarily is all you would need for Jude to come to the rescue and heal you and the rest of the party. I'd say this is the most important move by far aside from Negative Gate.

Also fwiw Alvin is a VERY well-developed character and I like him a lot, too.

Tales of Xilla 2: Still going through this game currently, no actual thoughts yet. Making some very slow progress because I'm currently stuck on a boss that I have no idea how to beat, so.

Also, can anyone tell me their first-hand experiences with Symphonia 2? I've heard a LOT of negative things about it, but is it really that bad of a game?
 
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Oglemi

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Still playing through Abyss at the moment and Anise has gone from a stereotypical, uninteresting, anime crush-ruled girl to a significantly fleshed out, sassy and confident character and I fucking love it. Plus her fighting style is hilarious and her Mystic Arte is probably my favorite out of the others. Takunaga <3

That said, I'm playing more and more with Natalia and loving getting a hang of the Bow. Now that I got a super weapon from the Exchange Shop her Attack skyrocketed and she does more damage than basically all the other characters. Plus I love the character development they're throwing in for her.

Currently about 20 hours in, no clue how much further I've got to go but I haven't unlocked like 10% of the character's Skills yet so I hope I'm not close.
 
btw Oglemi what are your thoughts on Luke so far, as well as his fighting style? Honestly the only reason I use him is because his mystic art is cool-looking, but definitely doesn't match up to Guy's Blazing Phoenix (I think that's what it's called?), and Anise's Mystic Arte. I don't remember much of the others, because all I've used as my main fighting party was Anise/Tear/Luke/Guy usually. Natalia is kinda left behind. :c
 

Oglemi

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Luke is blah compared to Guy fighting-wise. I don't normally play the Sword users because they're all the same fighting style, and ya Guy's Razing Phoenix is great. Character-wise Luke is so far my second favorite after Yuri for Lead Character. His story and character development have been great and the voice acting is good. Plus Mieu is adorbs, albeit annoying too.
 
Why do you people like Anise fuck Anise. :|

Guy is really the most comfortable to play in the entire game, I'm currently playing an unknown run (I'm at when you first see St. Binah so I haven't play Guy that much in this run, but I've played this game 3 times before so) but he's very fast and comboey and actually reminded me a lot of Lloyd from ToS playstyle wise.
 

Layell

Alas poor Yorick!
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Here are my thoughts on Symphonia 2: if you want the tl;dr this game is so bad they forgot to include an overworld

The game is completely average for a typical RPG, and it is easily the worst Tales games. I was not impressed by the Pokemon catching mechanic for monsters, who are not playable (but incredibly OP if you level them right). Emil and Marta are really the only two playable human characters you will always have. Everyone else is a Guest character that cannot level up... yes all the old cast members are there (except for one obvious one if you played Symphonia you will know why, not like he matters). So playing with the other cast members is nice but you'll end up losing them relatively quickly and they don't gain anything new until the next opportunity they join your party. At least Emil and Marta are very decent playable characters, they don't have any huge flaws and work well enough with whatever bland monsters you have.

Now onto the plot, which starts with Lloyd Irving destroying Palmacosta of all places, and the betrayal doesn't even end there. The idiot ball is shared a plenty between everyone who never believes Emil that this is something Lloyd would do, and the explanation at the end for how this all occurs is a huge joke, and I feel doesn't do Lloyd justice in the end. Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality is something you will hear a lot of in this damn game, in fact just watch as it is said, and the original moment they say it gets flashbacked to the first time you hear it. Even 5 minutes into the game it flashes back to that first moment. It's that bad. Emil and Marta have a really bad romance and it doesn't help that their personalities are as thin as paper. At least we have Tenebrae to be a smart-ass for the entire game.

Now it should be said that Symphonia is a prequel to Phantasia, and I'm not sure the Symphonia 2 team knew this though because the way they shoehorn Ratatosk into the world makes me wonder. They try to explain the whole monsters and mana thing but really it wasn't something that needed to be said. Also the ending is really bad, and I knew going in to unlock the 'true ending' you need to do several really really weird and trivial points. So once I knew that I picked up the old guidebook that told me exactly what to do and did it. You would seriously never figure out how to unlock the true ending to this game unless it was dumb luck.

It is far from the direct sequel that Symphonia needed. Which is sad because the direct aftermath of Symphonia had a a lot of potential, which this game doesn't even completely touch on (exspheres and the like ughhh, makes me really mad).

Also it should be said that Symphonia Chronicles on PS3 is 30 FPS for the first game compared to 60 on Gamecubs (it uses the crappy 30 FPS from the PS2 port). This may or may not affect too many people but for a combat RPG it's rather sad. I would say if you really don't have any other Tales games to play or 100%, then sure play Symphonia 2.
 

Kevin Garrett

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Tales has been my favorite RPG series for a long time. The only localized mothership titles I haven't played are the Destiny titles. I find many aspects of the series appealing, but the biggest reasons are the battle system, customization, story and character development, which is almost always accompanied by a fitting soundtrack. The series isn't without its faults, but the developers always make an initiative to make each game feel refreshingly different from the previous ones despite copying the core formula for each title.

Out of the entire series, I rank Tales of the Abyss and Symphonia at the top of my rankings. The reason is simple and highlights one of the common pitfalls the series has that prevents it from being as highly acclaimed as other RPG series; the characters, world, and story are completely fleshed out. Not only are they the longest stories, but the pace and direction of intrigue in the stories rises at a regular pace until they max at the conclusions of both games. This flaw is most apparent in Vesperia, which had arguable the most intriguing plot line through the halfway point of the game, only to come to a crashing down by a rushed closing act.

The latest release in the series, Xillia, suffered from that same fate and that is unfortunate because it didn't capture my interest nearly as much as Vesperia did in the early going. The main difference between Xillia and Vesperia is that the former throws you a curveball near the end of the game that helps to give the story depth. I find the Jude storyline to be more appealing because it follows the standard formula of learning about the plot as the events unfold. The moments that are exclusive to Milla's story only work to spoil the plot or fail to fill in the gaps of what occurs in Jude's side of the story.

There is Xillia 2, which sort of makes up for the last part of Xillia being so weak. I like to view the two as a collective title since even the developers admitted to leaving content out of the original game in order to meet the deadline for their anniversary release. Xillia 2 is refreshing because the story is much darker than the standard Tales titles (it goes well beyond some of the moments in Vesperia). My biggest gripe with Xillia 2 is that it requires patience to work through the debt system to get to all of the great moments in the game. It follows the opposite trend as most of the recent games by capturing your imagination most at the end (and that never felt greater before when a few key decisions will decide the outcome of the story). There is also a good reason why the main character is a mute, though Ludger has more spoken lines in the localized version than in the original Japanese version.

It is a good time to be a Tales fan with Bandai Namco's commitment to localizing more titles and without waiting several years in the future (the West will see Zestiria only 6 months after its released in Japan). Not only is the series returning to its traditional roots by making the setting in a high fantasy world, but it also debuts a new open world map with seamless battle interactions. Characters are being designed by each and every character designer the series has had in its 20 year run, along with Motoi Sakuraba collaborating with Go Shiina on the soundtrack. If you aren't familiar with Go Shiina, he was the composer for Legendia's acclaimed soundtrack.

Fun fact: Abyssion is not my most difficult boss battle. The distinction was taken by Little Queen.
 
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I'm always the second player when my brother plays through these. In Symphonia I spammed Kratos (and eventually Zelos) and in Xillia I used Milla. The mixed mages/attackers are amazing.

I really wish the dedicated mages were more usable. I tried using Genis in Symphonia 2 but holy crap the magic in that game was awful. When Milla was removed from the party during a lot of times in Xillia I was forced to use Rowen and he was absolutely terrible. I plan on trying Rita in Vesperia, she's supposedly better than the rest of them.
Well yeah, when you can just go "blah blah blah TIDAL WAVE" for a whole battle.

I still wonder if we'll ever get the PS3 version of Vesperia. Surely Namco has something up their sleeve (ToV - Anniv edition or something).
 

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