What ever happened to the Tales of franchise?

SantaC

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The Tales of franchise used to be my favorite JRPGs back in the day and it always delivered games on a consistent basis. I loved the humorous skits and the realtime battle system. When Final Fantasy failed, you could always fall back on a good Tales game. Sadly, Bamco doesn't seem to know what to do with the franchise anymore. Tales of Arise had beautiful graphics, a pretty good battle system, but was subpar in everything else. Skits were shitty and the story a real lowpoint imo. I was hoping for a more improved sequel with the same type of graphics, but it's been four years now and only radio silence from Bamcos side. Yes we get some remasters and little now and then, but the future for new installments seems pretty bleak. It's seems that it kinda died with Hideo Baba leaving.
 
Berseria was the last good one

Now games seem to take a million years to release, and we're lucky if we get a single entry per console generation.

They're also focusing on re-mastering and re-releasing the old ones.

Series definitely seems like it's on life support moving forward.
 
Wait, Tales of Arise has sat in my backlog long enough for people to start trashing it now?
It got all kinds of praise which is why I got it eventually to start with.
 
Wait, Tales of Arise has sat in my backlog long enough for people to start trashing it now?
It got all kinds of praise which is why I got it eventually to start with.
It's generally not favored by the Tales community for obvious reasons.

Arise starts good then it degrades in everything significantly.
I am thinking Covid had a role in this.

I only played Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube. Which should I play?

Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Graces F and Tales of Vesperia.
 
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I started Tales of Arise on Gamepass and liked it but it was up against too many other things.
I didn't realise it wasn't highly thought of.
Although you can get it dirt cheap, which maybe tells a story.
 
I tried tales of berseria and did not like it.

-Here's an area, we filled out the map for you. Enjoy not exploring.
- annoying million weapon type weapons system ranging from plus one fart to plus 0.1 stink damage.
-coming from tales of eternia, removing basic attacks and replacing them all with skills is kinda ass. Making combos feel really clunky but maybe I hadn't adjusted well enough yet.
-story was pretty interesting but that's never enough to solely carry a game.

I think there's more but it's been quite a while already. After that I kinda skipped on tales games, but they do look great. Is arise the same?
 
It's not been that long side Arise, and as far as I know Bandai doesn't have an exclusive "Tales Of" team, so it's likely they've been busy on other projects.
I hope we see another one this gen.

As for Arise, it was ok. The visuals were a nice upgrade for the franchise and the core of the combat was solid, but the story and characters were some of the weakest in all of the Tales Of games I've played, the boss battles were annoying and their design clashed with the core concept of the combat system, and as with many JRGPs, it started to feel bloated and stretched out towards the end
 
Berseria was the last good one

Now games seem to take a million years to release, and we're lucky if we get a single entry per console generation.

They're also focusing on re-mastering and re-releasing the old ones.

Series definitely seems like it's on life support moving forward.

Yeah and it doesn't even seem to matter what kind of game it is, it will take long regardless.

Arise isn't a technical marvel. It still took like 4 years after Berseria and its now about 4 years old without any hint of a sequel.
 
Haven´t played the new ones. I only come back for Symphonia, Destiny and Vesperia. Would love an Xillia remaster as well. The newer ones doesn´t look good at all. Nothing that´s grabbing me like the old guard. They were competent Jrpgs.
 
Hopefully we get an announcement of a brand new entry during The Game Awards or something. But I do like how they aren't releasing yearly crap anymore. They are taking their time with it. Arise was pretty good. Not as good as the classics IMO, but good.
 
Wait, Tales of Arise has sat in my backlog long enough for people to start trashing it now?
It got all kinds of praise which is why I got it eventually to start with.

Yea I've been noticing this as well more and more people coming out and trashing Arise in one way or another. I still think the game is great and I really enjoyed it. There's a difficulty spike and story dump at the end that gets a bit annoying but other then that I enjoyed the story and gameplay.
 
They are working on the next big Tales game and will throw remasters at us in the meantime. I bet a remaster of Tales of the Abyss is next.
 
I've collected these game over the years but I've yet to finish most of them. Symphonia is my favorite one. I was really disappointed the remaster was a turd. With Graces F I wanted to play it but the locked 30FPS Switch version and no 60FPS Switch 2 patch is lame. Vesperia ran with an unlocked frame rate why couldn't Grace F be the same. So I'm not too excited for what is next.

I only played Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube. Which should I play?
You've played the best one honestly the rest going forward are good to OK entries. Still a series worth checking out if you can find them on sale and want more games to play in the series. The games all have that sort of same feel but in a good way, at least for me, which I'm OK with.
 
Berseria was the last good one

Controversial take here:
Berseria wasn't even good. It just had a good battle system. Thought the story was bad and the characters were bland. It just appeared better than it is because the one that came directly before it was absolute ass. I will die on this hill.
 
It's been a long time since I've played a new one... I wanted to play Berseria but never got around to it, so I think the last one I would've played was... Xillia 2? Which I liked a lot, but that was 11 years ago.

It is a little weird how much things have slowed down - it was practically an annual franchise at one point. At the same time, not all franchises have to go on forever. I'm okay, personally, with the series just fading out - I get what these games are about and there's more than enough already. I'm alright.
 
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