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[Vic_Viper]

What is the best Tales game for a first timer? Between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss, which one is recommended for a first timer to the series?

I like what I've seen of both but the older cast in the Abyss is causing me to lean more toward it.

I'm looking for the one that has the best story 1st, and great gameplay 2nd.

I really want to play Vesperia but I don't own a 360 and don't plan on buying an XBone until the Scorpio. I've also thought about playing Xillia first since I have a PS3 but I've heard much better things about the other 2.

 

[aitakute]

What is the best Tales game for a first timer? Between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss, which one is recommended for a first timer to the series?

I like what I've seen of both but the older cast in the Abyss is causing me to lean more toward it.

I'm looking for the one that has the best story 1st, and great gameplay 2nd.

I really want to play Vesperia but I don't own a 360 and don't plan on buying an XBone until the Scorpio. I've also thought about playing Xillia first since I have a PS3 but I've heard much better things about the other 2.

Buy Berseria

 

[BassForever]

What is the best Tales game for a first timer? Between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss, which one is recommended for a first timer to the series?

I like what I've seen of both but the older cast in the Abyss is causing me to lean more toward it.

I'm looking for the one that has the best story 1st, and great gameplay 2nd.

I really want to play Vesperia but I don't own a 360 and don't plan on buying an XBone until the Scorpio. I've also thought about playing Xillia first since I have a PS3 but I've heard much better things about the other 2.

Of those choices abyss

 

[DalikSkywing]

What is the best Tales game for a first timer? Between Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss, which one is recommended for a first timer to the series?

I like what I've seen of both but the older cast in the Abyss is causing me to lean more toward it.

I'm looking for the one that has the best story 1st, and great gameplay 2nd.

I really want to play Vesperia but I don't own a 360 and don't plan on buying an XBone until the Scorpio. I've also thought about playing Xillia first since I have a PS3 but I've heard much better things about the other 2.

Berseria is the best tales game. Buy on PC if you can, port is great and you can install community fix which improves framerate and overall fluidity.

 

[clay_ghost]

How does tales fans feels about Baba being confirmed gone for good? I wonder how much of the fault of The recent tales after TOV/G and before TOB is his.

 

[Datschge]

How does tales fans feels about Baba being confirmed gone for good? I wonder how much of the fault of The recent tales after TOV/G and before TOB is his.

Well, first he is not gone for good, he's still the series producer (like Yoshidumi used to be from Destiny 2 until Vesperia). That said it was overdue that he split some duties with others like it was done before all responsibilities were centralized to him. He's likely not personally at fault for everything that happened after Vesperia, but as he was the main contact between publishing/budgeting and developing side and the latter suffered on constant management and reorganization changes in his time the seeming lack of strong representation for it does reflect badly on him. Though I prefer talking about how much a better fit a development producer coming from the QA dept is (as Fukaya is) than the usual ones coming from marketing depts.

Edit: Hah, only just now read Baba defected to Square Enix. Well, that's glorious, then I don't need to defend him anymore. =D

 

[straylize]

How does tales fans feels about Baba being confirmed gone for good? I wonder how much of the fault of The recent tales after TOV/G and before TOB is his.

"Bye." I've long since had pretty sour feelings about his handling of the franchise and the shift with Fukuya for Berseria has clearly breathed life into the series and brought it much closer to its roots while keeping it a bit fresh.

 

[aravuus]

I don't really follow the development of any Tales games, all I know is that as soon as Baba became less involved we got the best Tales game in years.

So bye bye, Baba.

 

[Rainy]

When should we be hearing about the next Tales? I imagine soon right?

 

[Jucksalbe]

When should we be hearing about the next Tales? I imagine soon right?

Tales of Festival is in June. So I guess they might announce it there.

 

[Datschge]

When should we be hearing about the next Tales? I imagine soon right?

I wouldn't expect the next mothership Tales game before end of next year, even if the series is lambasted as having yearly releases development time is actually north of two years and they have less than one team atm. If this year's Tales of Festival reveals anything I doubt it's more than a few teaser concept arts like they did with Xillia.

 

[Rainy]

I wouldn't expect the next mothership Tales game before end of next year, even if the series is lambasted as having yearly releases development time is actually north of two years and they have less than one team atm. If this year's Tales of Festival reveals anything I doubt it's more than a few teaser concept arts like they did with Xillia.

I think I forgot that Berseria only came out in August in Japan. Felt like it came out much longer ago. Makes sense.

 

[Rainy]

Double post but if anyone is bored, RPGLimitBreak are hosting a Tales speedrun marathon. They're currently doing Xillia 2. After that they're doing Eternia, the bad end of Xillia 2, Graces F, Symphonia, and Berseria.

https://www.twitch.tv/rpglimitbreak

 

[clay_ghost]

Thread is so dead. Been playing TOB, so far ists better than TOZ and TOX2. It's still missing the old tales like feeling though....

 

[Cornbread78]

Thread is so dead. Been playing TOB, so far ists better than TOZ and TOX2. It's still missing the old tales like feeling though....

Playing as a bunch of assholes sure is fun though.

 

[clay_ghost]

Playing as a bunch of assholes sure is fun though.

Reaching end game and I have warmed up to the cast. It's been a while since a decent tales games, I guess Baba is really a bad influence lol.

Spoiler

Lloyd and Cless really only delay all the inevitable if this plus TOZ is set in the same world. Still want to play a game set during the ragnarok war. Also wonder what happened to the elves and the world for it to become what it is like in TOB and TOZ...

 

[Evolved1]

Struggling with ToS on PS3... the combat isn't really doing it for me, but it's the story and excruciatingly slow pace of cutscenes (long anime-like camera pans where nothing is happening) and dialogue (especially the pauses and tempo) that's killing me. And the dialogue itself is really awkward... it seems like this game is aimed at little kids.

I might have to skip this one, idk. I want to appreciate the combat systems and how the games evolved over time, but this isn't really appealing to me on any level.

 

[Fou-Lu]

Been playing Tales of Berseria with a friend while he visits from across country, we are coming up on the end and he leaves tomorrow, so hopefully we finish it. Definitely the best game I have played in the series since Graces. The loot system is absolutely awful though, and the areas still suffer from the Zesteria issue of being pointlessly big with nothing to find. Characters, story and combat are al great and more than make up for it.

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

Hey guys,

I bought Zestiria and Berseria on sale and I played a bit of Zestiria before stopping as I read the game isn't that good.

I played :
Symphonia (beat it and loved it, my first one and favourite)
Dawn of the New World (same)
The Abyss (liked it)
Vesperia (one of my favourites)
Legendia (didn't like it)
Graces f (didn't like it)
Xillia (played for about 30h but didn't beat it. I liked it though)


Any chance I'll like Zestiria before playing Berseria ? Thanks !

 

[Jucksalbe]

Any chance I'll like Zestiria before playing Berseria ? Thanks !

If you already bought it anyway, why not play it for a bit and see for yourself?

 

[Tribes of Trusty]

If you already bought it anyway, why not play it for a bit and see for yourself?

My time is more valuable than my money

 

[Datschge]

Any chance I'll like Zestiria before playing Berseria ? Thanks !

You can play the better Berseria first, the references and connections may make Zestiria more interesting to play for you.

 

[allenpergallon]

I'd say play Zestiria first. A few minor things (and one major-ish thing) in Berseria lose their punch without former knowledge of Zestiria, and it's pretty rewarding seeing some of the logic and loose ends behind things in Zest after the fact, even if Berseria is pretty heavy-handed with how it goes about doling out information.

Zestiria isn't really bad, just very uneven compared to other titles including Berseria.

 

[Datschge]

Berseria does a good job (very good for a Tales game) making the player care about the story and characters, and Zestiria profits of that as well while doing a very bad job of that on its own.

 

[Cornbread78]

You can play the better Berseria first, the references and connections may make Zestiria more interesting to play for you.

This is true. I wish I had played them in chronological order...

 

[allenpergallon]

Looks like Go Shiina will be departing from Bandai Namco soon? As someone who found his music a big captivating factor that originally pulled me into the series hard with Legendia, and grew to really love his style across games both before and after that title, this is a real bummer.

On the upside though, perhaps this could be an opportunity for other composers should the Tales series ever try another composer besides Sakuraba for big releases again.

 

[Datschge]

Can't say I'm surprised seeing how Shiina was curiously active in anime series unrelated to Bandai Namco.