I've never played a Tales game before

I'm about to start Symphonia, what am I in for?

symphonia's combat system aged like milk but it's still an okay jrpg. if you can play vesperia or abyss, I'd recommend those first since they're based on symphonias combat but better and have better characters.

mediocre first half, pretty good second half, terrible dungeons.

Awesomeness

A good gaem

The story and characters are pretty nice, but sadly it is an older game so it might feel dated when you played it. Since it's your first Tales game you won't really notice it though so that's good. The combat is still fun in my book, and once you learn to do unison attacks that also makes it more fun as well. The dungeons are kind of sub-par though, but the story and characters are top notch to me. Also like any JRPG there is a lot of side content and things you can do as well.

Suggest you definitely try out Tales of Abyss and Tales of Xillia games when you get the chance. Those are my favorite in the series.

>terrible dungeons
The dungeons actually had content other than hallways with forks which automatically puts them ahead of 99% of jrpgs.

It's horrible, it was the first Tales in 3d so they had no idea on how to make a proper shift from a linear battle system using two plnaes to a free motion one with three planes, the story, characters and music are mediocre either, if you really want to start from the older games try Eternia, if you REALLY want to play something in 3D try Abyss, even that with all its problems is still leagues ahead of Symphonia.

I can tell you to stay away from the newest Tales games. They're glorified walking simulators.

It's the best Tales Of imo. It's the first I played, and no sequel has been as good. The recent ones are horrible.

>Best route not canon to sequel
I'm still mad.

I just beated efreet, when do i get mystical arts or unison attacks or something else? im getting bored

you unlock unison attacks when you reach ossa trail with kratos. the mystic artes have special trigger effects so you don't use them often like other tales games

Babies first Tales.

a pretty cool adventure with a tiny dose of red pill about racism and classicism. the gameplay is a bit outdated but i still find it very enjoyable to this day.

when you enter a blue sphere and you speaking with colette, be a dick to her always. the game has a friendship meter going on and at one point of the game you get to choose who your BFF will be. colette has so much points its almost impossible to unfriend her. shes boring and not worth BFFing unless your 100% the game.

I like vesperia better. It does everything symphonia/abyss does gameplay wise but better. No surprise since it's made by the same symphonia dev team

at6least the dungeons are dungeons. unlike the new tales games.

A good time. I recommend Tales of the Abyss if you want more afterwards!

use other characters other than Lloyd to mix things up. kratos/zelos are the most fun to play if you got all their magic attacks.

can you switch character mid-combat?

i dont think so. cant remember.

Play as Lloyd, blue hair guy, red hair guy, and mercenary man, if you want to get the best out of the gameplay. Pink hair girl is good too but hard to do any combos with. Spell casting is lame outside of the 3 other guys I mentioned. Has a decent NG+ if you really want to take it for a spin. If you're playing the gamecube version you won't need to worry about the amount of uses for spell cancelling. Try both routes during the first half because they offer some variety in the order you do things.

If you play games past symphonia but similar to it, abyss is good but only on the first playthrough, has awful NG+ if you do higher difficulty. Vesperia is great. ps3 version only

Collette is the best character in the game.

Best retard in the series for sure.

There's a button for that, try everything in the menu

I started it just an hour ago and I'm confused about EX skills. How exactly do they work? They give a passive bonus?

I like her voice

They are a passive bonus. There are also EX Skill combinations which have stronger effects, so experiment with them a bit.

Meh music(aside from a few tracks), decent yet predictable story, fun combat, tedious shit in dungeons, an okay party led by your average shonen protag, and a fanbase that tends to claim its better than it actually is.

Almost every game after it has been better in one way or another. Rebirth, Vesperia, and Destiny DC were flat out better games than Symphonia period.

comfy jrpg

it's basically a worse vesperia though

>Lloyd with ex-skills for more combos and air combos
>not fun

Zelos/Kratos are great, but Lloyd is damn fun with Sword Rains, that Falcon thing, Tempest, etc.
Regal is more tech stuff, but he is still fun.

This gameplay is still good and fun as fuck when you know how to pull combos and having certain partners in the Trigger buttons to call them to use certain moves to extend your combos.

You can. I think you need to press the menu button and then press the select button.

>Rebirth, Vesperia, and Destiny DC were flat out better games than Symphonia
They're also the top tier games in the series, it's not like you're wrong, but it's not a fair comparison.

read up on ex-skills and look what you gain from them. some of them are pretty OP like turning presea into a tank or zelos manwhoring.

A very heartwarming experience. I lied, it's actually cold.

hot coffee

gween tea

a fun adventure

everyone is about to be killed
>trips
oops, i saved everyone again!

PC port (pirated) vs GCN version (on Dolphin)
Which is better if I want to replay it?

this.
vesperia is better than it in every way except maybe plot

pc since you can get a better graphics pack on github somewhere, and you can use cheat engine and set a hotkey to turn on speedhack to get you through some of the slog.

Gamecube version is 60FPS and has better shadows, but PC version has more content. I'd go with the Gamecube version just because the game plays much faster. 30FPS makes the game feel like it takes twice as long to beat

the combat is awful, but the story is nice

Best girl Sheena Fujibayashi

which ones are good on ps3?

>terrible dungeons
Then what are the fucking empty piece of shit hallways in the new cancer Tales games?

Are you stupid?

Don't blame all JRPGs for shit Dragon Quest and nu-Tales of do and get a pass for for some reason.

hope you play on a gamecube or an emulator. the game looks like ass otherwise.

all of them except symphonia and zestiria

The Call of Duty of jrpgs

>dungeons absolutely need to have gimmicks
eh i disagree
>the combat is shit
i thought Sup Forums liked things that weren't whatever?

The OoT of Tales games.

Whens the new tales

Ugly graphics.

Vesperia ps3 is considered the best tales by a lot of people (loads of content, jack of all trades), you need a hacked console to install english text though.
Graces f is a mixed bag, some love it (usually for the combat) some hate it (usually for the story) - personally I think it the other way combat is kinda shit (nu-tales CC) but story is pretty sweet and endearing.
Xillia - this is where tales started to decline, also the game cut a lot of content, personally I still like it more than the sequel.
Xillia 2 - sequel to xillia, better combat, other shitty gimmicks introduced, story is meh same as xillia although I prefer 1 over 2 because not a fan of silent protag, same maps, just a drag to play through.
Dawn of the new world - mostly a spin off but a direct sequel to symphonia, so you need to play that one first. Most people hate it, it's kind of a monster raising sim with jrpg elements like story and combat.
Zestiria - most people hate it. IMO it has decent story (gets worse later), good characters and music, but terrible CC combat with forced party and transformation gimmick, awful camera, empty open world maps.
Berseria - get it on ps4/pc if you want, for better performance. This might not be a popular opinion but for me this is the worst tales game I've played, major let down in all aspects, so read some else's comments on it to convince you.

My brethren, I've only played Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia, and Xillia. Are there any other Tales games actually worth my time?

not until 2020 at least. I don't mind the next game taking much longer to release if that means we get something that's not a hallway simulator like berseria. we could use a new tales game that tries new stuff like a botw tier revival

I wanted to play it multiplayer but I don't have enough friends or controllers.

Define "worth your time", what makes you play Tales games? What's the main mechanic appeal to you?

wait a sec are some of you guys talking about hallway simulator in the same way Final Fantasy 13 is literally that for basically the entire game? if you're not exaggerating then I understand some of the frustration

graces F. the combat is great.

cold coffee, actually

Worst pacing in video games.
This is main "feature" of Tales series.

a lot of the dungeons and areas in recent tales games just feel very uninspired with their level design. you move from point A to point B, there's no real incentive to explore unless something is marked on your map. and even areas that try to be more "open" feel cramped at best with invisible walls.

My god Dragon Quest 1 is more open ended and adventury than that. And that was the standard setter.

Every area of the game is classifiable as "that one level."

I personally have a soft spot for Phantasia, particularly the PSX version.

I honestly feel like Abyss is the better starting point at this point. Symphonia's story is fine but everything else has aged like milk.

if colette wasn't a retard, she could tell the coffee was hot by the steam coming off it.

A solid 8.5/10 JRPG with puzzle-centric dungeons.

Post yfw you discovered you could just head north and skip ahead in the story instead of heading straight to Palmacosta.

I honestly hate this about recent Tales games. I miss the top down map view and just having certain locations to explore. This new take on the overworld they've gone with is kinda lame.

My sentiments exactly. I shrugged it off with Graces because it's entire development seemed like a mess and was hopeful that Xillia would bring back open world exploration but it didn't. It doesn't help that each subsequent game has seemingly gotten easier and easier. It's a shame because there are improvements, I really enjoyed Berseria's cast but God it was so boring to play.

God I fucking hate graphicsfags.

the game without cell-sheding looks awful.

Where are Eternia and Phantasia, you nu-tales?

>Nobody has even mentioned the fucks like a tiger patch of the SNES version of Phantasia
Only acceptable version.

Eternia sucks.

Thanks, already played symphonia.
I will probably try graces since my ps3 is not hacked.

Does Eternia ever get good? I played maybe like 4-5 hours and didn't seem hugely different from Phantasia or terribly interesting.

>I will probably try graces since my ps3 is not hacked.
Don't. It's garbage. The characters will drive you nuts.

Is it okay to start with Berseria? It's on sale right now, and the trailer made it seem okay.

I'd probably call it another starting point in the series, yeah. It's simple enough and the cast is very likable.

Yes, start with it. Only thing it does better is the graphics (unless you want to debate pixel art or vesperia's cell shading), everything else is really garbage, you will find combat, progression, music, maps, dungeons, etc all better in at least half the other games. Story and characters literally is just one's preference, I liked half the cast (like in most tales) the other half I couldn't stand.

Probably the best place to start in the series. It's an extremely overrated game that, like others have mentioned, has aged very poorly. The cast is good, and the story might seem amazing to you if you're unfamiliar with Tales/JRPGs in general.

The sequel is not worth your time, unless you get really bored. It has a better combat system, sure, but you get stuck with Symphonia's shit dungeons, no map, the main cast of the first game might as well be fucking "guest characters," Emil had the potential to be a great character but they had to make him an absolute faggot because why not?

Yeah, if you like Symphonia, try out Abyss or Legendia next. If you've got a 360, Vesperia is a must-buy. Graces F, Zestiria, and Berseria are the worst game in the series, overrated to hell and back by all the newfags that got into Tales via PC. Steer clear from those. Xillia 2 is pretty fun, if nothing else. Destiny DC, the overall best game in the franchise, might get a translation patch sometime soon (maybe this year, but most probably next). If you like the series in any way, you owe it to yourself to try it out.

>terrible dungeons.
Most of them are fine, but fuck the Temple of Darkness.

A shittier version of FFX's story with unlikeable characters, generic music, and terrible weeb artstyle

Pretty much this.

>Graces F, Zestiria, and Berseria are the worst game in the series
>what is legendia, tempest and dotnw

I LOVE RITA MORDIO!

It´s a great game, but it´s far more enjoyable if you play it as a little kid with little to no knowledge of JPRG cliches.

Symphonia is fine but dated. It's mostly notable for being the first 3D game in the series and also the first time anybody in the west paid any attention to the series. It's got a great dub for how fucking ancient it is.

As far as the series in general, I find the characters and their interactions to be the main draw. Usually the battle system is good and the story is serviceable, but lately the world design and dungeons have gone to shit.

My personal favorite game is Abyss. The story was corny but I liked the battle system, dungeons, and characters more than what the rest of the series has to offer.

I haven't played Legendia, but Legendianon is a cool guy, so it must have SOMETHING of merit. If anything, the game looks fun.
Never played Tempest, and DoTNW is like the fourth worst title.

Zestiria is an embarrassment and such a shit stain in the series they literally fired the series' main producer. Graces F follows because of the mind-numbingly bad combat and utter bastardization of the CC system, as well as the introduction of the Combo Tree. Not to mention 5 of the 7 main characters are beyond horrible, and the story is fanfic-tier. Berseria has more of the button mashing mess for combat, a completely forgettable story, and a horrible protagonist. The only thing going for it is the rest of the cast, which is good, but not the best one in a Tales games (I shudder to think of how mentally damaged one must be to claim it is the best one in JRPGs).

The ToL OST is amazing. It's too bad most Tales music is shit nowadays

Although I agree with most of your points, the way you write and express yourself is highly obnoxious and a prime example of what gives the fanbase a cancerous name (which it deserves). Same posting style from previous threads too. Really, you need to stop being so bitter and rude.

I don't care if the way I express myself comes off as obnoxious, or if my words hurt the feelings of all these stupid newfags acting like Berseria is the second coming of Christ. It's a bad game in a mediocre series.

Rita's going to get chubby from all that candy.

Who is your favorite cast?

>5 of the 7 main characters are beyond horrible
May I ask who? Only Cheria is the one I didn't like. Asbel and Sophie are meh (generic shonen mc and emotionless girl). However Malik, Pascal, Richard and Hubert are some of my all time favorite characters in all the series.