The "Tales Of..." Thread!

[Sai]

Seems a bit strange that we don't have a thread for this series when it was one of the bigger video games that Nana voiced for

So who else has played this awesome series of JRPGs? I've played Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Symphonia: DotNW, Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Eternia, Tales of Phantasia, and a tiny bit of Tales of Destiny and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology.

I'm extremely excited for Tales of Xillia coming out this summer - it might be the first game in... literally years that I buy upon release! (Though that's in part due to Ayumi Hamasaki singing the theme song, but there you go! )

** Just a note, as the Tales games are rather story-heavy and lengthy RPGs, do be careful about posting spoilers, and use the Spoiler tags appropriately :good Thank you!

[relmy]

I've played Symphonia, and a bit of Phantasia. I think I've played a little of the other pre-Symphonia ones too. That's it! They tend to be on consoles I haven't owned, or just never get localised... hence why I've only played the older ones. They're easier to *ahem* acquire.

I love Tales of Symphonia though, very cliche, but done so well! It's all the cheesy RPG themes pushed into one epic adventure, and it works... surprisingly haha.

I adoooore Colette by the way, which seems to be a rather unpopular opinion. Such a cutie.

[sevenpetals]

Im quite a hardcore tales of fan xDD!!! I have every game... some on multiple systems, and tales of symphonia (the anime) is what made me fall in love with nana mizuki inadverdantly though Tenkuu no Canaria + finding out she voiced colette.. I remember that nana mizuki voicd her in the game, but seeing as how i had the english one, i didnt hear how amazing and adorable she sounded until is aw the anime!!!

I hope they dont have an instrumental for the english release... i actually quite like progress by Ayumi, except the beginning of the whole song is unnecessary to me.

[Sai]

Apparently it's been confirmed that it will contain the original song, vocals and all! A first, I believe, for the Tales series progress is definitely one of my favourite songs by Ayu, so I'm over the moon about this.

I adored Colette. The whole ToS cast was really hard not to love.

[noknuckles]

I played a fan translated version of SNES Phantasia. I was very impressed by it. Good story, good twist, great music, graphics controls etc. A tiny bit weak on character development, but I don't expect much in that regard for even story driven video games (especially that era of games). I was also blown away by the 16-bit jpop in the opening:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=haG-PiysN_I

Some time later I played Symphonia. Really fun game and the only memorable gamecube game that I played (I wasn't really a fan of that system). Cool world, lots of conflict, nice art, awesome music and really fun dungeon design. The dungeon design was my fav part of that game, and there were a lot of good parts to that game. The puzzles were not really difficult, but difficult enough to get your brain working, and the dungeons were designed so that if you solve half the dungeon and exit, you can reenter the dungeon and go back to where you left off pretty quickly

The faults with Symphonia... I remember near the end in the final dungeon Lloyd was just spamming cheesy cliches. The entire game, you could argue, was cheesy but it was well constructed and I never felt like my brain was getting assaulted with cheesiness until the end. Also the instrumental opening was disappointing. I was hyped for Symphonia and listened to the Japanese theme song a lot, and when it came out in English and I bought it, I was so disappointed with the first few minutes of my experience.

For some reason those are the only two that I played. Both games were awesome so I should be seeking out more Tales games

[Sai]

I remember the very first time I started Phantasia and witnessed that opening... back in elementary school or so? Yeah, I was similarly blown away. I still listen to that song quite a bit today. ToP did a lot to push the SNES to its limits

Symphonia definitely had a fair dose of cheesiness but as people have said, it kind of worked for that game. I like games with characters who have a sense of humor, even if they're the stoic/serious type - like, you can see that even Kratos and Regal had a sense of humor, despite their archetypes. I dunno, it makes a cast a lot more believable when they're capable of talking casually together and cracking jokes - which they often did in the game's skits (one of the best features of Tales games, really <3).

[relmy]

Kratos has some of the funniest parts in the game, especially if...

MAJOR SPOILERS

SPOILER: Click to show

...you take him over Zelos at the end. It's like the writers just went "it's actually really hilarious that this SUPER SERIOUS guy is Lloyd's dad, because Lloyd is a bit stupid. Let's make loads of jokes about him being his dad!!"

[Sai]

Tales of Xillia is confirmed to be coming out in North America in August! The 6th, I believe, and the 9th in Europe.

And!! To make things even better, it's confirmed that Ayu's theme song, progress, will be in it and not replaced with an instrumental, which is a first for the Tales series! Honestly, this may be the first game in years that I actually shell out the money to buy as it comes out. They've done so much right with this title (and series as a whole) that it really deserves it Plus Ayuuuuu! In a game series that I actually liiiike!

(And yes, to anybody who says that the artist who sings the theme song to a game is inconsequential and has no effect on who buys it: this is simply not true, and I am proof :XD)