I want to make a thread about the Tales Series because I'd like to know which of the series people enjoyed the most. You can say overall, but I think that some of the games that had weaker stories had some of the better battle systems (Graces is a good example for me). Cast is an interesting point too. I also want to ask people if Zestiria is any good. I know I'm going to have some free time soon and I'm on the fence about picking it up. Better/worse than the others? More of the same? Would be playing on ps3. I don't really care if you want to talk about/make comparisons to other games but please try and at least keep it within JRPGs..
I really enjoyed the character development that took place for the MC in Tales of Abyss, but I'm a giant fanboy of the entire series really. I am currently deployed and Zestiria is sitting in a amazon box at home. T.T
Unlucky. Maybe i'll just bite the bullet and get it next week sometime. There's nothing else I really feel like playing at the moment and I'm guessing it's a reasonable timesink. Not particularly interested in playing Xillia 2.
I played Tales of Symphonia (first and second) , takes of hearts , tales of Graces and tales of Xillia 2. My favourite is both Tales of Symphonia. Love the character interactions and developmebt. The battle system is not the best but still enjoyable. The storyline for me is amazing. I think I replayed the second part at least 3 times. I probably like it so much because it's the first tales series game I played.
MY OPINION, yes this is my opinion Zestiria story and gameplay are worst than xillia/ xillia 2. even grace f better than it maybe im bec i like alisha or i find rose so lame for me the story only great at beginning. then its start getting so so.
The battle system in Xillia 2 is pretty decent since you change your type of weapon while fighting ( sword, gun,hammer). The story line is pretty good too not as good as tales of symphonia (I think). But there's debt system that I don't really like where you have to pay a certain amount of money to continue the main story so you have to complete quests everytime to earn money
Both story and gameplay? I really, really enjoyed the combat in graces f, it's maybe my favourite. The story and characters are obviously a different point, but I can get through it if the combat is fun.
And also the main character hardly speaks which I find frustrating. They frequently make the player choose on what you want and imagine the main character would say.
tales of the world - hmmm tales of innocence - meh tales of phantasia - ok tales of tempest - meh tales of symponia - hmm tales of eternia - ok
Tales of Zestiria has a neat combat system, but the camera can really suck. If you are playing multiplayer, it's designed for 2 players at best, any more just interfere with the system. Also, the camera sucks. Character wise, it is pretty good. I personally only disliked one character, but otherwise they were enjoyable. Oh yeah, the in battle camera sucks. It is the only non-sequel I didn't finish a new game plus run, but that's mostly because I mainly play them with a friend and we kinda got tired of dealing with the camera. We also had a problem with the way Iron Stance was used, mainly since it forced us to drop our combos. Did I mention the battle camera can get pretty bad? As for Tales games I liked, I started on Symphonia, and have played pretty much all of them afterwards. I sadly did not play much Vesperia because of XBOX only (still really enjoyed what I did see). My favorite is hard to say, but probably between Graces (really enjoyed the combat style) and Abyss (FoF really fun). Zestiria wasn't the worst Tales game, but I feel it wasn't near the best either.
As someone who came from early days of RPG and play games since the dawn of 8-bit era, I don't really care for gameplay, even if the gameplay is good but the story is a 'meh', I stop playing, it's a waste of time... The story is really important... Then for a "What the" moments, Tales of Abyss held the record for me... There is so many twist that in the middle of the game I don't know who is to trust, who is enemy, and that is to say the character development is really good (although others may digress). (I even download the undubbed version and it's good as a Japanese (listening) language lesson. Since the amount of event and skit is staggering)
I like the 2 player option. Is the camera better playing with just one person? Is it really that bad? Maybe i'll have to check out a few more videos on youtube and see how bad it really is. Sure it's important, but it's not the end of the world if it's average. I tended to like the FF stories more previously anyway, Tales ones seem to share similar elements quite often.
If it's average then I can still stomach it (after all old RPG's story tends to be average) but if the story is not engaging, I tend to forget about it as I don't have any compulsion to play... (like several obscure old wRPG and jRPG back in the SNES and PSX era...)
I only played a little bit by myself. It still wasn't that good, but since it basically focuses on player 1 and target, it wasn't as bad... I suppose. Also, I probably made it sound worse than it is. It doesn't happen every fight, but it does happen enough to make you wonder why they didn't program it better. Characters are pretty good though, enjoyed most of them. Story wasn't bad, felt it could have been a bit better, but I have no real complaints about it. The game makes use of a fusion system that if you master it, is really strong. If you're lazy like me, it'll barely be seen. I personally found it annoying to work with, but on normal it isn't really needed. The combat system is similar to Graces, though your attacks basically just have elements to them instead of the full on elements and/or anti-mob attribute. This is somewhat annoying as you will encounter many enemies that only resist several elements. Again, it wasn't the worst Tales game, but I do think it could have been better.
I think my only problem with Tales of Hearts R was the stacking weapons which required multiple kills to gain a single attack point. Otherwise it was a pretty good game from what I remember. I mostly played it in bursts, so I'm a bit fuzzy on the details of it. Kinda wish it had a console release so I could play it with my friend.