aspro73 said:I have a few "Tales of.." games from Namco in my collection, have not played any of them. I have even more on my wishlist.
What is the eal with the series? If there are any Tales enthusiasts here I'd like to know what's the story with the game, what the hooks are and what the best in the series are.
I have Tales of Symphonia, which is great, and Tales of Phantasia, which kind of sucked and I stopped partway through. It's generally considered a bit of an up and down series. Symphonia seems to be the most consistently well-received.
The battle system is real-time. You do enter a battle screen, so it's not free flowing in the overworld, and it maintains the RPG aspects and does not at all turn into an action game. You can see my Tales of Symphonia review for more specifics.
Of games I haven't played, Tales of the Abyss is very popular, and Tales of Legendia was panned.
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I own Vesperia, but my current playthrough is stalled because of my ADD-like gaming schedule. Nice, very nice game.
| Tales of Phantasia | 2003/2006 | Game Boy Advance |
| Tales of Symphonia | 2003/2004 | Nintendo GameCube, PlayStation 2 |
| Tales of Rebirth | 2004/2008 | PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable |
| Tales of Eternia | 2005/2006 | PlayStation Portable |
| Tales of the Abyss | 2005/2006 | PlayStation 2 |
| Tales of the Tempest[1] | 2006 | Nintendo DS |
| Tales of Destiny (Director's Cut) | 2006/2008 | PlayStation 2 |
| Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World | 2008 | Wii |
| Tales of Vesperia | 2008/2009 | Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 |
| Tales of Hearts | 2008 | Nintendo DS |
| Tales of Graces | Winter | Wii |
If this helps...
I loved Tales of Symphonia. The battles are real time as Yoda said so the battles don't really get too boring (didn't fr me anyway) which is great because they're pretty long games. ToS is anyawy. 
The story and characters are great in it too, and despite seemingly like a pretty cliche JRPG story, itfelt really different to me.
Definitely give them a go.
I personally enjoy it. It's relaxing to play and they're always light-hearted. But it does get annoying sometimes and the stories get redundant. Overall, I think they're always worth playing when I need that JRPG fix.
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Now Playing: Golden Sun Dark Dawn, God of War Ghost of Sparta, and DKC Returns
The only tales game I have played is Symphonia which was good apart from the overworld and after a while I kept getting lost and couldn't remember where I was going.
The voice acting is horrible too.
What is the eal with the series? If there are any Tales enthusiasts here I'd like to know what's the story with the game, what the hooks are and what the best in the series are.