I look forward to hearing your final thoughts on Tales of the Abyss when you finish it, not only is it my favourite of the series, it's also quite possibly the one of the best if not the best rpgs I've ever played! But this list has reminded me to get back on the tales of grind, I have most of the pal releases, just need to my hands on the gba tales of phantasia to complete it and plough through the series!
Great list! Tales of is one of my favorite JRPG series. Here is my top 5: 1. Tales of Vesperia 2. Tales of Abyss 3. Tales of Berseria 4. Tales of Xillia 5. Tales of Arise
Yeah...Vesperia is a good game mind you but it's imo low as far as Tales games are concerned...hell either 2nd or 3rd from the bottom with only Zesty being definitely below it and Symphonia Dawn (2) being as bad if not worse when it comes to the mainline Tales games (throw in the mobile and other escort titles and it may be around 5th to 7th or so from bottom). Biggest issue Vesperia has for it is that it has a very good first 2 arcs but than the 3rd arc nosedives completely and once you see said nosedive even the first two arcs have their issues as Arc 3 shows the entire game feels like they took 3 different game pitches and threw them all together for 1 game and it hurts the game as a whole by doing so. They do not connect the 3 arcs together well at all (the best case would've been tying arc 1's main villain to being a goon of Arc 2's but they didn't really even do that) and arc 3 just doesn't feel connected at all to the political focused arcs of arcs 1 and 2 and just felt tacked don to put some world ending threat into the game (what I call the pollution octopus (Adephagos)). Then throw in the hypocricy/Gary stu aspects of Yuri and the very little development he gets (pretty much none imo and yes while he's an adult that doesn't mean there can't be characte development to his character...hell even Alphen has character development and he's shown to be about as old as him mentally (minus the whole frozen in ice(?) aspect pushing his actual age a lot higher lol) and I've seen many adult characters get some sort of character building besides this in other games/anime/movies/shows/etc...hell Raven shows quite a bit development and he's got nearly 10 years on Yuri). If they had added stronger connections between arcs 1 and 2 and had the game end at the end of arc 2 and did a bit more with Yuri's (and the other) characters then Vesperia probably would've been in my top 5 (or at least top 8) games in the series. Combat wise it was solid, side content it was great, visuals it was the best looking game until Arise released but that drop in story and the characters not being that great imo (besides Raven and Judith anyway) does bring it down for me by a lot. The only thing keeping it from being the bottom of the series is Zestiria is a far worse game in many more aspects and the story is the worse from it's start and about even with Vesperia by its finish (the plot is literally just Lailah telling Sorey to go explore the world and see it for himself, see Heldalf once at the battlefield and then forget him for about half the game and then at the last 10% to 15% mark of the game the game tells you to go look for all those seemingly optional orbs that show Helldalf's past that are now mandatory (luckily i grabbed them as I went so I didn't need to backtrack for most of them but for those that didn't do them as they progressed they had to go back to ALL of those locations/dungeons to get those orbs to progress the story with the only difference for them being they'll have Zavied in the party for a fair amount of them while I had Dezel for the first half so you get 2 different skit options (maybe even more if Alisha can be in the party for some...don't think she is though) and only after all of those orbs are recovered do you get the main story really going when Sorey's hometown is attacked at the 95% mark and the game pushes you to the final events of the game to confront the great and Powerful Kittybeard (lol). Oh and as for al the other villains in the game....only 1 (Simonne) is really attached to the main plot (of which there is little) while the other 2 (Fox Dude and Maltran) don't even play into the main plot much at all. The only worthwhile parts of the game are the side quests and Edna, Laiha, and Zavied are awesome characters...oh an Alisha for what little time the game lets you spend with her anyway. Main plot wise the Anime did a better job than the game (though the elemental dungeons were cut and they were the ONLY good dungeons in the game). The combat sucked as the camera was broken due to trying to keep the combat on the field map which created man issues where the camera would catch on something or the battle field could get split in half if the edge catches the corner of a dungeon corridor's intersection (had enemies in one corridor while I was in another part of the corridor blocked off by the dungeons walls and edge of the battlefield so I couldn't attack them physically and needed to use spells only to kill them) or if you got too close to a wall you'd only see the enemy as the camera made the player character invisible to make sure you saw the enemy...hell had this happen to me in the Earth Temple minotaur boss fight when I got pinned between the wall, a column, and the minotaur and for the entire fight I was subjected to staring at a close up of the minotaur's groin as I fought...I've seen tons of bad cameras in action games but Zesty's honestly takes the platinum trophy in bad gaming cameras from all the games I've played. And don't even get me started on how frustrating the passive equipment based skill system in the game was...it was beyond stupid and easily the worst in all Tales games/most rpgs by far (only thing worse are actual gacha games). Zesty barely hits the meh to decent category or 5 or 6/10 game at best and is easily in my top 20 to 30 worst games I've ever played list (of which trash like FFXV and Bleach Soul Ressureccion are some of the few I rank worse than Zesty).
I have played many amazing Tales of games over the years but looking back my fondest memories was playing Tales of Destiny in the PS1. Yes it can get repetitive at times and the high enemy encounter rate was frustrating but that was my introduction to The Tales series and my first RPG so it will always hold a special place in my heart
1. Abyss and Vesperia 2. Xilia, Xilia 2 and Graces F (Hearts R....It's just that when I was playing "Graces F", I caught flashbacks from the game "Hearts R"....similar feeds of the plot about two races and planets) 3. Berseria and Zestiria.
Good list, brave of you to include Zestiria. Dw you’re safe here My list, just for my top 5 favs 1. Arise 2. Berseria 3. Xillia 2 4. Destiny (via its PS2 Remake Directors Cut) 5. Vesperia
Great List! I still have to finish a few tales of games before sharing my picks. Zestiria was my first Tales of game and will have a special place! I was surprised you put it on your top 5. Berseria is a really good one!!
My list is substantially different from yours. Solid list though. Mine would be: 5. Tales of Phantasia 4. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the new world 3. Tales of Rebirth 2. Tales of Eternia 1. Tales of Destiny 2
@@goncaloferreira6429 I assume you mean Tales of Symphonia 2. I personally prefer Emil to Lloyd. I like the dynamic between Emil and Marta, Tenebrae is the best mascot character in the entire series. Not to mention it has the best and most hilarious skits. It’s just a very enjoyable game.
@@Shinky strange taste. and no mentioning of the monster training aspect? while not perfect is probably my highlight of the game ad reason to replay it. thanks for answering. Always intersting to get other people´s perspectives.
I watched a full playthrough of Berseria, and ended up getting the game myself. I enjoyed the game so much that I even did some post-game content. The only problem was a single boss battle where the best I could do was keep Velvet alive while letting the rest of the party deal with the bosses. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, the final attempt took about an hour to complete the boss battle.
I should admit; I have watched the anime of Abyss and about half of a playthrough of Arise, but my backlog is so long that I don't want to buy more games that take 70+ hours for this grinder to complete.
Did not know Berseria was a prequel o_o TIL. But Tales of Graces F, MY GUY! I flippin love that game so much. It is totally slept on. No mention of Symphonia, huh?? That was one of my first, so I lreally loved that one!
@@chickenfillets Gonna note one thing about the Switch version: it has a lot of glitches and performance issues that only appear in that version...so chances are it won't be as good of an experience as if you played it on Gamecube (only version with 60 fps which for many people is a dealbreaker for whatever reason...imo 30 fps you see on PS3/PC/PS4/Switch is fine, I played both GC and PS3 and even bought Switch so I'd have it handheld (have yet to play as a bunch of other games I haven't played yet are taking priority for now)...people overvalue 60 fps as 30 fps is fine in every game I played with it as long as the framerate is stable, if there's constant framedrops below 30 fps (or whatever the framerate was supposed to be) that give a lag/freeze effect then that's an issue of course but as long as there's not any of that framerate feels the same to me regardless of what the frame rate is supposed to be...the human eye for the most part can't really see the difference anyway and the time difference between the frame rates is so small most people likely won't be reacting much faster regardless of which frame rate a game has...hell most people only learn if a game has 30 or 60 fps if it's advertised or if they have some software that shows the current frame rate. Symphonia Switch on the other hand while having the lower frame rate (a non issue as I mentioned above) has other issues like glitches only on said version, framerate drops in some parts of the game, and crashing issues which are a concern. I'd recommend getting and playing the PS3 version instead if you can (if you get it physical you get Dawn of the New world sequel too) if your PS3 works fine.
Berseria is definitely one of my favourites of the series. Velvet is such a great protagonist. Currently on my second playthrough that im playing on intense difficulty.
Fantastic list for a fantastic series. My list looks completely different haha. 5. Xilia 4. Eternia 3. Symphonia 2. Arise 1. Vesperia Love lists like that, can't wait for more. 😎
Gotta say, I was expecting the Tales of series to be too generic back in 2020. With a pretty attractive discount and much more time in the pandemic, I gave Berseria a try... and I swear this game surpasses even a few Final Fantasy titles given it's world building and charisma.
Nice to see some more love for Zestiria. I just finished my second playthrough of it and found it to be a really good and enjoyable game. It has its flaws but i really dont agree with people when they say its one of the worst games ever.
I think you're the only person i've heard talk well of Zestiria. Tales of Eternia was renamed because Eternia is trademarked for He-Man. This is why I love your channel man. Your takes are very different from others. Most everyone else would have Tales of Arise at the top and Zestiria at the bottom. I'm weird, I own almost every Tales game but have played only 2. I own my original copies of Tales of Destiny and Destiny 2 (Eternia) and my GCN copy of Symphonia. Then I have Vesperia, Zestiria, and Berseria on Steam (bought when on sale). And I have Tales of Arise on PS4 that I bought on super sale. Oh and my wife bought me Abyss for the 3DS as a present way back when it came out. But I've only played Destiny and Symphonia,.
Haha thank you man! Even so if you only played two of them it's awesome you still have them in your collection especially with alot of them being delisted recently!
My list would be 18 Tales of the Temptest 17 Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World 16 Tales of the World Radiant Mythology 15 Tales of Xillia 14 Tales of Xillia 2 13 Tales of Hearts 12 Tales of Legendia 11 Tales of Innocence 10 Tales of Eternia 9 Tales of Berseria 8 Tales of Zesteria 7 Tales of Vesperia 6 Tales of Arise 5 Tales of Phantasia 4 Tales of Destiny 3 Tales of the Abyss 2 Tales of Graces 1 Tales of Symphonia
Randomly got this video recommended to me and as I love Tales, I decided to watch. And after the video, I gave you a sub. This will be a giant wall of text, sorry about that in advance. Tales is strange series to me. I started on PS3 with Symphonia and instantly fell in love with it (like instantly, I remember getting hyped watching the opening😅). The early 2000s vibe is something I truly love and Symphonia captures that perfectly. It's hard to explain in a short comment, but the atmosphere in that game is special to me. Only Final Fantasy IX tops it in my favourite games of all time ranking. After Symphonia, I obviously wanted to try out other Tales games. I picked up Xillia and I remember liking it quite a bit. Played the sequel soon after and Graces, too. They're good games, but they couldn't reach the level Symphonia did. Maybe it was the linearity and the lack of world map, I don't know. They were just "good" IMO. Zestiria continued this same trend. The biggest thing I liked about the game was its OST. Go Shiina didn't have to go so hard. My Tales journey started to feel a bit stale. I felt like every game I played got worse and worse so I ordered a copy of Vesperia and borrowed my bro's Xbox to play it on. That game rocked. The battle system was stiff, but it felt so good to have that classic JRPG feel that was missing with PS3 era Tales games. I loved Vesperia, it brought back the fire I had lost playing the series. Easily my second favourite Tales I had played at that moment in time. I once again wanted to play Tales so I started to search out my next game. Berseria was coming soon, but I understood that I prefered older Tales so I started to learn how emulation works. I gave Phantasia a go and god damn, did I like that game! The beautiful 90s anime art, clunkiness of the battle system, music, great exploration etc. This was the Tales I love. Played Destiny straight after and liked it quite a bit. The opening song by DEEN is my favourite in the series btw. But yeah, like you said, Eternia is the best of those early Tales games. It's also one of the best looking games of PS1 era IMO. Tales games used to be top notch visually. After playing some of the older games, I bought Berseria and I liked it more than Zestiria and Graces, but I had so much more fun with early Tales games. My computer is pretty bad and it doesn't run PS2 emulators all that well so I haven't had an opportunity to try out Abyss or Legendia, but when I upgrade my PC, I'll play those straight away. In the meantime, we got Arise. Arise is interesting to me. I thought the game looked very promising with its visual upgrade, but I didn't "feel it" at all. Of course I completed it, but that's about it. Didn't care enough to buy the DLC. Arise to me felt like Final Fantasy XII: the game that I just couldn't get into for some reason. All in all, Symphonia remains my favourite and I tend to lean towards the older Tales games. Well, I would call myself a fan of "golden era" games and anime so it's not surprising. The PS3 era of Tales was solid and I liked the games when I played them, but after I experienced the better games in the series, I look back at them and think that maybe it's better to leave those games be and keep the good memories with me. I'll probably revisit those games someday, but not anytime soon. I want to play all the remaining games before that. By the way, Rebirth translation is coming soon, I think😎 My ranking as of now: 1. Symphonia 2. Eternia 3. Phantasia 4. Vesperia 5. Destiny
This comment! Awesome! Firstly thank you for taking a chance on my video and subbing!!! It's amazing how some games can't compare to others for example yourself with Symphonia! You know you made a comparison with Arise and FFXII, FFXII is a game I cannot connect with at all as well! Thank you again!!!
I do have my own top 4. 1.) Tales of Symphonia (Bit dated but my favorite story) 2.) Tales of Abyss 3.) Tales of Arise 4.) Tales of Vesperia I just don't feel any sits up on the same tier to make the list as a 'Top 5'. Berseria is probably the closest but I can't forgive how horrid the combat system was where I love to play on the hardest difficulty but that game it felt the only way to play was to constantly cheese it using Velvets invulnerability to do so... that and Velvet herself as her personality doesn't feel like it makes any sense at all with how she is described particularly in the prolog and how she turned out. I did like the over-all world/story though it's just other elements dragged down an experience I would otherwise probably like and made it a slog.
Hey John, thanks for the list, that was interesting, I really need to go back and play more Tales of games as I only beat the first 2, Phantasia and Destiny, did have quite some fun with both of them, I do own all of them, just need to take the time to play them lol
Hey! Thank you for watching!!! You'll have to let me know how you get on with them down the line! Btw I noticed you create videos yourself! Thrown a sub your way :)
Nice list man. I have only played Zestiria and Arise. Really liked em both. Beseria is one I am still on the hunt for and I am gonna be playing Symphonia probably this year. The intros to these games are always top notch, the music and animation is top notch ✌️
Okay you convinced me to play Tales of Berseria before Tales of Zestiria. My manager recently gave me her PlayStation 4 since she no longer has any use for it as she got a PS5 for Christmas. I'm in love with my Switch, but I'm sure as heck not gonna look this gift horse in the mouth. I've already got a few games for it but am looking for good PS4 exclusive RPGs. I got Grand Kingdom for my first because it's a turn-based RPG which are my favorite and it really looks like my cup of tea but I will get Tales of Berseria later, the next game on my PS4 wishlist is the Kingdom Hearts Collection.
That's brilliant that you got a PS4! There is an amazing amount of games for it! I'm planning on filming this week a PS4/PS5 game collection video so hopefully that show some games to pick up down the line! Switch is fantastic!
@@chickenfillets I know, I've already got a decent-sized list up and I'm not done yet. Cool, thank you. Besides Grand Kingdom my current PS4 collection consists of Transformers Devastation, Dragon Quest Heroes II, Ghostbusters The Video Game Remastered and Crash Bandicoot 4 It's About Time. Yeah I prefer the Switch because of its portability and I think that it has better exclusives including the only physical release of some games (I have 53 Switch games and every single one is physical) but now that I have the option I might choose the PS4 versions of some games because they're cheaper or because they are better ports. I've heard of some games like Ys VIII running better on the PS4 than the Switch.
The only Tales of I’ve beaten is Abyss, so that’s gonna be #1 by default. I need to play more of the others, it’s just difficult to find the time these days.
I only played two and that is Tales of Symphony and Berseria. Quite enjoyed them both. Berseria had the best character story and Symphonia the plot was interesting as well as the open world map. The ones you pick as top 5 are not the most popular from what I gather except Berseria seems to be popular. I wanna play more and I got Vesperia and Arise. Those get lots of acclaim so I am still curious about them.
Indeed love when the anti hero gets the spotlight. My first was symphonia, so it holds a special places in my heart. As for my favorite, xilla and xilla 2 are up there. Hearts r and graces f are also up there for me.
Interesting list John. Think I've played Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Xillia so far. My next Tales game I play will probably be Tales of Xillia 2. I need to play more Tales of games to catch up.
Isn’t Tales of Xillia The 13th game? Hints why it’s called Xillia. 13 is literally in the name Graces might be the 12 but. Hearts R is a remake but Graces f is a extended version
Sadly due to 1 of the character designers death She was only 63 years old their likely WON'T be a PRE Tales of the Abyss PS4/PS5/Switch ports/remasters for Destiny 1 Eternia Destiny 2 PS2 Rebirth and Legendia ports/remasters ANY time soon.
We also lost Toriyama the Dragon Ball/Chrono Trigger/Dragon Quest character designer and due to his death the DS remake of Chrono trigger is likely to not get ported over to the PS4 PS5 Switch either.
@@chickenfillets Yeah, while it wasn't my first, Velvet and her story, while being a fairly standard revenge story on the surface, focuses on the affects of her revenge and Artorious on the world
I didn't played all the Tales because I don't had a PS3 or Vita, but I think that you're right with Zestiria, it get so much criticism for beying a slow paced game, but the story is good and combat as well, just the craft system is a mess but you don't need it AT ALL to complete a normal playthrough, I think that ppl that complain about Zestiria never played the old 2D Tales games. Now it's a crime to don't add Destiny DC, maybe you don't played because it was JP only but there's a fan translation to EN that's very good and you shouldn't miss out!!!
Arise is SO CLOSE to being one of my favorite action games but the balancing is honest to god terrible. Alphen is pretty good once you get good at dodging, Shionne is... Good? Passable? Dohalim, Law and Kisara are horrible up until you defeat Vholran's first battle and- Oh I am sorry why am I wasting time trying to make the other characters decent when I can just collect all the howls and invalidate the whole game with Rinwell whos damage is far above anything everyone else can do for like 70% of the game?
My list would be: 1. Symphonia. Imo it has the best writing in the series (whether or not you like the plot is subjective though (mo it's alsot he best story in the series), I'm talking about how all aspects of writing are done well in this game in comparison to all other games. All plot points flow into each other well and are done logically with very little to almost no plot holes unlike the rest of the seires) and when it comes to the rest of the game it does everything well for its time (reminder it's a 2004 game, not a 2024 a lot of it is now obviously dated when compared to modern games) and doesn't do anything badly unlike other games in the series (worst thing I can say about the game is Raine/Genis AI is dumb and some parts of it get cheesy (though that in it's own way has its appeal too) and that's about it). Also has one of the better world designs and, imo the best dungeons in the series as well (though some people hate some of the dungeons). 2. Berseria. 2nd best story in the series after Symphonia and imo has the best characters in the series. Only real weakness is I do not like the arte tree combat system that much which is why it's 2nd overall rather than first. Side content and side plot lines are also solid (in some ways it's a bit better than Symphonia with the side content storylines though most of Symphonia's side content was either minigames or much shorter side quest chains). Exploration is better than Xillia but not as good as Arise imo with the way field maps were designed (Xillia all maps look far too similar (either same shape hallways or large open spaces, Berseria's a bit liek this but with a bit more variety to it's field map shapes as well and has far more biomes as well, Arise the maps look a bit more unique in comparison and are, imo, the perfect size: not too small to feel constrained but also not too big to feel to be a pain in the ass to explore...it could've used more platforming and the liek to get to some chests/secret stuff though). 3. Abyss. The 3rd best story in the series imo and it also has the best character development in the series with Luke. It also took the classic Tales battle system of Symphonia and enhanced it with free run and let you activate Over Limit yourself to use your own mystic artes when you wanted to (and of course gain the other beneficial effects of Overlimit). World design was also great imo. Also has the best written villain group in the series at the moment imo. 4th and 5th are interchangeable depending on my mood tbh and are virtually tied right now. 4th (or 5th). Tales of Xillia. Imo the game that perfected the Classic Tales combat system with Xillia 2 (Hearts R is also very close to it as well as the core system minus the game specific gimmicks is essentially the same in how it works between Xillia, Xillia 2, and Hearts R). Story is also solid and the characters are all great. The field maps were a bit meh though (granted was the first Tales game to have the behind the back perspective with a fully controllable camera...all prior games had a locked camera position besides when on the world map (for games with world maps rather than field maps). Only real complaint I have with the game is that it's by far the easiest game in the series imo (Xillia 1, not Xillia 2. X2 reworked things a bit to make it more challenging than 1)...an aspect Berseria shares as well tbh (probably another factor of why I ranked Berseria below Symphonia besides the art tree combat system). The game's side content story quality was also one of the best in the series imo (granted the best as far as quality for story of side content goes to Zestiria...which is about the only good thing I can say about Zesty as the main story was horrible, combat bad due to the camera, and it was an over all meh to decent game at best). 5th (or 4th). Tales of Arise. Probably the one that will get raised eyebrows as it does have a lot of faults but imo the game was good and in some aspects great. Story wise it had a decent story, first half was very good, second half nosedived to passable to decent (not the worse nose dive though...that goes to Veseperia with how act 3 nosedived even harder imo)...biggest factor to this was due to the twist they threw in once you reached the 2nd half...it should've just went without the twist even if that made the story predictable/generic, the story would've been more solid by keeping the main enemy to who it was from start to finish) at most the final boss could've been used as a weapon by the 'Renans' and the previous Sovereign/Crown contest winner instead. The field maps are the best as far as the field map games go though so that's a nice plus and graphically/visually it's the best looking game in the series. Character wise Alphen is my favorite MC in the entire series but still doesn't hold a candle to other non MC characters in the series like Eizen (Berseria), Rokuro (also Berseria), Jade (Abyss), and other non MC characters, he's also the first MC who was the character in their game I liked playing the most (all other games I prefer a non MC character's playstyle instead...which is funny as I expected to like Dohalim the most as I like lance/polearm weapons the most but the way he uses it in Arise doesn't really click with me). Side content was also all kinda meh with all quests being either hunt or fetch quests outside of maybe 3 to 4 and the ally AI and AI customization in Arise is by far the worse in the series. Combat however is the 2nd best after Xillia 2/Hearts R's imo and far better than art trees (biggest issue with arte trees is that you have to go through the tree to get to an arte you may want for any given situation, with classic you can choose what arte you want at any time via the directional input plus arte button (as long as it's slotted in of course) and with Arise it's more or less the same way though it's just tapping the face buttons without any directional input. Other, probably bigger factor that pushes Arise up this high is that the game's difficulty feels perfect imo and actually gives me a challenge unlike most of the past 10 to nearly 20 years worth of Tales games which have, imo, been far too easy in comparison...and yes one half is the HP/DEF stats are bloated to a stupid degree which make enemies far tankier (which a lot of people hate and I can understand that argument...though given the boost strike (instant kill once you get a gauge filled) that is an obsolete complaint on anything besides bosses) but the other reason and the one I'm mainly focused on is that all enemies are far more aggressive on Arise for their respective difficulty level than other Tales games on that same (or equivalent) difficulty level...normal in a lot of past Tales games had enemies attack and then sit there for about 5 seconds or so before attacking again while in Arise they only pause for about 2 to 3 seconds before attacking and on the higher difficulty levels you're constantly needing to pay attention or face getting killed fast (as along with being more aggressive they also hit a lot harder too).
Firstly thank you for taking the time to write this awesome comment! Such a great list for your top 5 with brilliant reasoning!! Tales Xillia is one I do I own actually but it's in my ever growing backlog!!! Really need to get it played!!
Solid list. Symphonia is such a solid Tales game, I don't have anything negative to say about it except that the combat is outdated. For Berseria the combat was the one issue I had with it, aside from that great game. It seems like we're on the same page about Xillia 2 and Hearts R, two of my fav 3D Tales combat systems along with Innocence R. I haven't finished Arise yet, one day I'll get to it. Arise is really interesting because I know so many people who love it and who hate it. Personally, I think the game has a number of design issues, most of which shouldn't have even been changed from previous titles, like Life Bottles bringing back people to 800 HP (I think), stuff like that. I enjoy fighting random mobs (even though most are just palette swaps), but bosses are just brick walls, it's so strange. It also feels like the game was meant to be played solo rather than having a party. I feel like when I play Arise, I need to stop comparing it to previous titles and pretend like it's a standalone, then I'll probably enjoy it a lot more.
Although I can't really choose my favorite of the Tales of series, since each entree has something that makes them special. I can for one give you give you my least one,being Tales of Arise. The game lacked what made the others so great, like the characters, skits,and the soundtrack. Which is why its a let down, because each game has a fews songs that i remembe. But sadly with Arise I dont remember any song
Love the series, though unfortunately I couldn't enjoy Arise as much as others have. Hearts R is the reason I bought a Vita. My out of order list would be Vesperia, Xillia, Hearts R, Abyss and Symphonia
Very awesome list. Also Zestiria is pretty well liked in JPN and the easter side of the world. Translation for the game was done really bad. My favorites umm well i need to play more of the series again before making that call.
Thank you! I really like Zestria, I didn't know how people would respond to it being in my list! :) you'll have to let us know when you do have a favourite down the line :D
Zestiria isn't that well-liked in Japan at all. It's the worst received game in the entire franchise and it still gets flak to this day. Western Tales fans aren't as hateful towards Zestiria in comparison to Eastern fans.
Glad to see you included Zestiria. It gets so much hate but I really enjoyed it. Sure, the battles can be brute forced through Armitization, but I really liked the characters and setting.
What is your favourite "Tales of" game?
Abyss, no contest. While Xillia is my top recommendation for new players, Abyss resonated with me deeply and still does.
I really loved Graces F.
@@Turbo_Waitress Amazing!!
@@keymo9480 that's awesome!!! It's so good!
Phantasia, Abyss, Berseria, Eternia.
I look forward to hearing your final thoughts on Tales of the Abyss when you finish it, not only is it my favourite of the series, it's also quite possibly the one of the best if not the best rpgs I've ever played! But this list has reminded me to get back on the tales of grind, I have most of the pal releases, just need to my hands on the gba tales of phantasia to complete it and plough through the series!
Yass mate! I'll keep you updated ;)
If Bandai Scamco drops the ball at the 30th anniversary I'm going to slander them for the rest of my life
hahaha! I'll have to come back to this comment and find out how it went :P Thank you for watching!
Super hyped on your list! Berseria is one I really want to play! I also own a bunch of the ones you listed so I better get on it!
i fully expect to see some videos on your Tales journey ;)
Great list! Tales of is one of my favorite JRPG series. Here is my top 5:
1. Tales of Vesperia
2. Tales of Abyss
3. Tales of Berseria
4. Tales of Xillia
5. Tales of Arise
And this is also a great list!!!
reasons pls
Great video. Couldn't agree more about Vesperia. Just don't understand all the love it gets.
Anyway.
1 arise
2 berseria
3 xillia
4 graces F
5 xillia 2
Someone who agrees with me!!! Hahaha! Thank you buddy!!! That's an awesome list!!!
Yeah...Vesperia is a good game mind you but it's imo low as far as Tales games are concerned...hell either 2nd or 3rd from the bottom with only Zesty being definitely below it and Symphonia Dawn (2) being as bad if not worse when it comes to the mainline Tales games (throw in the mobile and other escort titles and it may be around 5th to 7th or so from bottom).
Biggest issue Vesperia has for it is that it has a very good first 2 arcs but than the 3rd arc nosedives completely and once you see said nosedive even the first two arcs have their issues as Arc 3 shows the entire game feels like they took 3 different game pitches and threw them all together for 1 game and it hurts the game as a whole by doing so. They do not connect the 3 arcs together well at all (the best case would've been tying arc 1's main villain to being a goon of Arc 2's but they didn't really even do that) and arc 3 just doesn't feel connected at all to the political focused arcs of arcs 1 and 2 and just felt tacked don to put some world ending threat into the game (what I call the pollution octopus (Adephagos)). Then throw in the hypocricy/Gary stu aspects of Yuri and the very little development he gets (pretty much none imo and yes while he's an adult that doesn't mean there can't be characte development to his character...hell even Alphen has character development and he's shown to be about as old as him mentally (minus the whole frozen in ice(?) aspect pushing his actual age a lot higher lol) and I've seen many adult characters get some sort of character building besides this in other games/anime/movies/shows/etc...hell Raven shows quite a bit development and he's got nearly 10 years on Yuri).
If they had added stronger connections between arcs 1 and 2 and had the game end at the end of arc 2 and did a bit more with Yuri's (and the other) characters then Vesperia probably would've been in my top 5 (or at least top 8) games in the series. Combat wise it was solid, side content it was great, visuals it was the best looking game until Arise released but that drop in story and the characters not being that great imo (besides Raven and Judith anyway) does bring it down for me by a lot.
The only thing keeping it from being the bottom of the series is Zestiria is a far worse game in many more aspects and the story is the worse from it's start and about even with Vesperia by its finish (the plot is literally just Lailah telling Sorey to go explore the world and see it for himself, see Heldalf once at the battlefield and then forget him for about half the game and then at the last 10% to 15% mark of the game the game tells you to go look for all those seemingly optional orbs that show Helldalf's past that are now mandatory (luckily i grabbed them as I went so I didn't need to backtrack for most of them but for those that didn't do them as they progressed they had to go back to ALL of those locations/dungeons to get those orbs to progress the story with the only difference for them being they'll have Zavied in the party for a fair amount of them while I had Dezel for the first half so you get 2 different skit options (maybe even more if Alisha can be in the party for some...don't think she is though) and only after all of those orbs are recovered do you get the main story really going when Sorey's hometown is attacked at the 95% mark and the game pushes you to the final events of the game to confront the great and Powerful Kittybeard (lol). Oh and as for al the other villains in the game....only 1 (Simonne) is really attached to the main plot (of which there is little) while the other 2 (Fox Dude and Maltran) don't even play into the main plot much at all. The only worthwhile parts of the game are the side quests and Edna, Laiha, and Zavied are awesome characters...oh an Alisha for what little time the game lets you spend with her anyway. Main plot wise the Anime did a better job than the game (though the elemental dungeons were cut and they were the ONLY good dungeons in the game). The combat sucked as the camera was broken due to trying to keep the combat on the field map which created man issues where the camera would catch on something or the battle field could get split in half if the edge catches the corner of a dungeon corridor's intersection (had enemies in one corridor while I was in another part of the corridor blocked off by the dungeons walls and edge of the battlefield so I couldn't attack them physically and needed to use spells only to kill them) or if you got too close to a wall you'd only see the enemy as the camera made the player character invisible to make sure you saw the enemy...hell had this happen to me in the Earth Temple minotaur boss fight when I got pinned between the wall, a column, and the minotaur and for the entire fight I was subjected to staring at a close up of the minotaur's groin as I fought...I've seen tons of bad cameras in action games but Zesty's honestly takes the platinum trophy in bad gaming cameras from all the games I've played. And don't even get me started on how frustrating the passive equipment based skill system in the game was...it was beyond stupid and easily the worst in all Tales games/most rpgs by far (only thing worse are actual gacha games). Zesty barely hits the meh to decent category or 5 or 6/10 game at best and is easily in my top 20 to 30 worst games I've ever played list (of which trash like FFXV and Bleach Soul Ressureccion are some of the few I rank worse than Zesty).
My favorite is Tales of Berseria. I just loved it so much. I'm actually starting to replay it last night. I love the animation.
That's amazing! Have fun with your playthrough!!!
I have played many amazing Tales of games over the years but looking back my fondest memories was playing Tales of Destiny in the PS1. Yes it can get repetitive at times and the high enemy encounter rate was frustrating but that was my introduction to The Tales series and my first RPG so it will always hold a special place in my heart
That's awesome! Destiny is one I really need to play, annoyingly it didn't get a PAL release haha! Thank you for watching :)
The real question is which era of Tales is everyone's favorite:
90s Tales
2000s Tales
2010s Tales
Modern Tales
oh now this is an awesome question!!!!
for me, from 2005 to 2012 (from Abyss to Xillia 2)
1. Abyss and Vesperia
2. Xilia, Xilia 2 and Graces F (Hearts R....It's just that when I was playing "Graces F", I caught flashbacks from the game "Hearts R"....similar feeds of the plot about two races and planets)
3. Berseria and Zestiria.
Awesome!!!
Good list, brave of you to include Zestiria. Dw you’re safe here
My list, just for my top 5 favs
1. Arise
2. Berseria
3. Xillia 2
4. Destiny (via its PS2 Remake Directors Cut)
5. Vesperia
Hahaha! Yeah I knew it was gonna be a brave move hahahaha
Great List! I still have to finish a few tales of games before sharing my picks. Zestiria was my first Tales of game and will have a special place! I was surprised you put it on your top 5. Berseria is a really good one!!
Thank you! That's great about Zestria! I thought it maybe a risky move putting it in my top 5 but folk seem politely surprised haha!
My list is substantially different from yours. Solid list though. Mine would be:
5. Tales of Phantasia
4. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the new world
3. Tales of Rebirth
2. Tales of Eternia
1. Tales of Destiny 2
Awesome list my dude!!!
what do you loke abour TS2?
@@goncaloferreira6429 I assume you mean Tales of Symphonia 2. I personally prefer Emil to Lloyd. I like the dynamic between Emil and Marta, Tenebrae is the best mascot character in the entire series. Not to mention it has the best and most hilarious skits.
It’s just a very enjoyable game.
@@Shinky strange taste. and no mentioning of the monster training aspect? while not perfect is probably my highlight of the game ad reason to replay it.
thanks for answering. Always intersting to get other people´s perspectives.
Tales of Eternia was one of my first JRPGs and I still absolutely love it
Amazing!!! Gotta love it!!!
I watched a full playthrough of Berseria, and ended up getting the game myself. I enjoyed the game so much that I even did some post-game content.
The only problem was a single boss battle where the best I could do was keep Velvet alive while letting the rest of the party deal with the bosses. After multiple unsuccessful attempts, the final attempt took about an hour to complete the boss battle.
I should admit; I have watched the anime of Abyss and about half of a playthrough of Arise, but my backlog is so long that I don't want to buy more games that take 70+ hours for this grinder to complete.
That's brilliant a playthrough got you to pick up the game! Oh I remember the final boss!!! It was a tough one!!! Thank you for watching 🙂
My backlog is massive as well so I totally get this!! Thank you for watching 🙂
Did not know Berseria was a prequel o_o TIL.
But Tales of Graces F, MY GUY! I flippin love that game so much. It is totally slept on.
No mention of Symphonia, huh?? That was one of my first, so I lreally loved that one!
Tales of Graces f is a banger!!!
I've only recently picked up Symphonia for the Switch ;) so need to play it!!!
@@chickenfillets Gonna note one thing about the Switch version: it has a lot of glitches and performance issues that only appear in that version...so chances are it won't be as good of an experience as if you played it on Gamecube (only version with 60 fps which for many people is a dealbreaker for whatever reason...imo 30 fps you see on PS3/PC/PS4/Switch is fine, I played both GC and PS3 and even bought Switch so I'd have it handheld (have yet to play as a bunch of other games I haven't played yet are taking priority for now)...people overvalue 60 fps as 30 fps is fine in every game I played with it as long as the framerate is stable, if there's constant framedrops below 30 fps (or whatever the framerate was supposed to be) that give a lag/freeze effect then that's an issue of course but as long as there's not any of that framerate feels the same to me regardless of what the frame rate is supposed to be...the human eye for the most part can't really see the difference anyway and the time difference between the frame rates is so small most people likely won't be reacting much faster regardless of which frame rate a game has...hell most people only learn if a game has 30 or 60 fps if it's advertised or if they have some software that shows the current frame rate.
Symphonia Switch on the other hand while having the lower frame rate (a non issue as I mentioned above) has other issues like glitches only on said version, framerate drops in some parts of the game, and crashing issues which are a concern. I'd recommend getting and playing the PS3 version instead if you can (if you get it physical you get Dawn of the New world sequel too) if your PS3 works fine.
Berseria is definitely one of my favourites of the series. Velvet is such a great protagonist. Currently on my second playthrough that im playing on intense difficulty.
That's awesome! Giving yourself a challenge!! Thank you for watching!
Fantastic list for a fantastic series. My list looks completely different haha.
5. Xilia
4. Eternia
3. Symphonia
2. Arise
1. Vesperia
Love lists like that, can't wait for more. 😎
Great list my dude!
what do you think about arise?
Gotta say, I was expecting the Tales of series to be too generic back in 2020. With a pretty attractive discount and much more time in the pandemic, I gave Berseria a try... and I swear this game surpasses even a few Final Fantasy titles given it's world building and charisma.
Oh i absolutely agree! Berseria is awesome and i'm glad you gave it a chance! :)
Nice to see some more love for Zestiria. I just finished my second playthrough of it and found it to be a really good and enjoyable game. It has its flaws but i really dont agree with people when they say its one of the worst games ever.
Yay someone else who thinks the same!
I think you're the only person i've heard talk well of Zestiria.
Tales of Eternia was renamed because Eternia is trademarked for He-Man.
This is why I love your channel man. Your takes are very different from others. Most everyone else would have Tales of Arise at the top and Zestiria at the bottom.
I'm weird, I own almost every Tales game but have played only 2. I own my original copies of Tales of Destiny and Destiny 2 (Eternia) and my GCN copy of Symphonia. Then I have Vesperia, Zestiria, and Berseria on Steam (bought when on sale). And I have Tales of Arise on PS4 that I bought on super sale. Oh and my wife bought me Abyss for the 3DS as a present way back when it came out. But I've only played Destiny and Symphonia,.
Haha thank you man! Even so if you only played two of them it's awesome you still have them in your collection especially with alot of them being delisted recently!
Just starting my Tales of journey and loved this video
Amazing!! I fully expect a video from you on Tales
Ayy, nice list John! I reckon this'll be another video of yours that'll eclipse 1k views!
Don't jinx it you beautiful man hahaha
@@chickenfillets 🤣🤣🤣
I haven't played any Tales of games, but I'm looking forward to getting whatever I can get my hands on eventually!
You'll have to tell us when you play your first one!!
My list would be
18 Tales of the Temptest
17 Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World
16 Tales of the World Radiant Mythology
15 Tales of Xillia
14 Tales of Xillia 2
13 Tales of Hearts
12 Tales of Legendia
11 Tales of Innocence
10 Tales of Eternia
9 Tales of Berseria
8 Tales of Zesteria
7 Tales of Vesperia
6 Tales of Arise
5 Tales of Phantasia
4 Tales of Destiny
3 Tales of the Abyss
2 Tales of Graces
1 Tales of Symphonia
What a list!!! :D
Randomly got this video recommended to me and as I love Tales, I decided to watch. And after the video, I gave you a sub.
This will be a giant wall of text, sorry about that in advance.
Tales is strange series to me. I started on PS3 with Symphonia and instantly fell in love with it (like instantly, I remember getting hyped watching the opening😅). The early 2000s vibe is something I truly love and Symphonia captures that perfectly. It's hard to explain in a short comment, but the atmosphere in that game is special to me. Only Final Fantasy IX tops it in my favourite games of all time ranking.
After Symphonia, I obviously wanted to try out other Tales games. I picked up Xillia and I remember liking it quite a bit. Played the sequel soon after and Graces, too. They're good games, but they couldn't reach the level Symphonia did. Maybe it was the linearity and the lack of world map, I don't know. They were just "good" IMO.
Zestiria continued this same trend. The biggest thing I liked about the game was its OST. Go Shiina didn't have to go so hard.
My Tales journey started to feel a bit stale. I felt like every game I played got worse and worse so I ordered a copy of Vesperia and borrowed my bro's Xbox to play it on. That game rocked. The battle system was stiff, but it felt so good to have that classic JRPG feel that was missing with PS3 era Tales games. I loved Vesperia, it brought back the fire I had lost playing the series. Easily my second favourite Tales I had played at that moment in time.
I once again wanted to play Tales so I started to search out my next game. Berseria was coming soon, but I understood that I prefered older Tales so I started to learn how emulation works. I gave Phantasia a go and god damn, did I like that game! The beautiful 90s anime art, clunkiness of the battle system, music, great exploration etc. This was the Tales I love.
Played Destiny straight after and liked it quite a bit. The opening song by DEEN is my favourite in the series btw. But yeah, like you said, Eternia is the best of those early Tales games. It's also one of the best looking games of PS1 era IMO. Tales games used to be top notch visually.
After playing some of the older games, I bought Berseria and I liked it more than Zestiria and Graces, but I had so much more fun with early Tales games.
My computer is pretty bad and it doesn't run PS2 emulators all that well so I haven't had an opportunity to try out Abyss or Legendia, but when I upgrade my PC, I'll play those straight away.
In the meantime, we got Arise. Arise is interesting to me. I thought the game looked very promising with its visual upgrade, but I didn't "feel it" at all. Of course I completed it, but that's about it. Didn't care enough to buy the DLC. Arise to me felt like Final Fantasy XII: the game that I just couldn't get into for some reason.
All in all, Symphonia remains my favourite and I tend to lean towards the older Tales games. Well, I would call myself a fan of "golden era" games and anime so it's not surprising. The PS3 era of Tales was solid and I liked the games when I played them, but after I experienced the better games in the series, I look back at them and think that maybe it's better to leave those games be and keep the good memories with me. I'll probably revisit those games someday, but not anytime soon. I want to play all the remaining games before that. By the way, Rebirth translation is coming soon, I think😎
My ranking as of now:
1. Symphonia
2. Eternia
3. Phantasia
4. Vesperia
5. Destiny
This comment! Awesome! Firstly thank you for taking a chance on my video and subbing!!! It's amazing how some games can't compare to others for example yourself with Symphonia! You know you made a comparison with Arise and FFXII, FFXII is a game I cannot connect with at all as well!
Thank you again!!!
Here's my top 5 (haven't played Arise yet so it could change):
1. Legendia
2. Graces F
3. Eternia
4. Xillia 2
5. Hearts R
That's an awesome list! Glad to see we match with some of them!!!
I do have my own top 4.
1.) Tales of Symphonia (Bit dated but my favorite story)
2.) Tales of Abyss
3.) Tales of Arise
4.) Tales of Vesperia
I just don't feel any sits up on the same tier to make the list as a 'Top 5'. Berseria is probably the closest but I can't forgive how horrid the combat system was where I love to play on the hardest difficulty but that game it felt the only way to play was to constantly cheese it using Velvets invulnerability to do so... that and Velvet herself as her personality doesn't feel like it makes any sense at all with how she is described particularly in the prolog and how she turned out. I did like the over-all world/story though it's just other elements dragged down an experience I would otherwise probably like and made it a slog.
That's a great top 4 though. That's totally fair thoughts about Berseria!! :) thank you for watching!
My favourite is Phantasia, with a second close being Symphonia , Arise at third. Also good job on the video you got yourself a sub, keep it up !
Thank you for subbing! I actually am subbed to you also!!! :)
I've never played a tales game So this was really interesting, Hopefully 1 day I will get round to playing a few of these Gems
There is loads of them so hopefully some point you can! :)
Great list. Berseria is really good, with this dark story. Vengeance. I hoped for Abyss to get on the top 5 list. Maybe in the future. Thanks
Thank you!!! I only ever heard great things about Abyss so I am hoping it will end up on the top 5!
Hey John, thanks for the list, that was interesting, I really need to go back and play more Tales of games as I only beat the first 2, Phantasia and Destiny, did have quite some fun with both of them, I do own all of them, just need to take the time to play them lol
Hey! Thank you for watching!!! You'll have to let me know how you get on with them down the line! Btw I noticed you create videos yourself! Thrown a sub your way :)
thanks for that :)@@chickenfillets
Some love for tales of rebirth ... it's my favorite tales on the ps2
That's awesome!!
Nice list man.
I have only played Zestiria and Arise. Really liked em both.
Beseria is one I am still on the hunt for and I am gonna be playing Symphonia probably this year.
The intros to these games are always top notch, the music and animation is top notch ✌️
Berseria is an utter blast ken. Symphonia I da really ken aboot. I've picked it up like but still yet to play it!
Okay you convinced me to play Tales of Berseria before Tales of Zestiria. My manager recently gave me her PlayStation 4 since she no longer has any use for it as she got a PS5 for Christmas. I'm in love with my Switch, but I'm sure as heck not gonna look this gift horse in the mouth. I've already got a few games for it but am looking for good PS4 exclusive RPGs. I got Grand Kingdom for my first because it's a turn-based RPG which are my favorite and it really looks like my cup of tea but I will get Tales of Berseria later, the next game on my PS4 wishlist is the Kingdom Hearts Collection.
That's brilliant that you got a PS4! There is an amazing amount of games for it! I'm planning on filming this week a PS4/PS5 game collection video so hopefully that show some games to pick up down the line! Switch is fantastic!
@@chickenfillets I know, I've already got a decent-sized list up and I'm not done yet. Cool, thank you. Besides Grand Kingdom my current PS4 collection consists of Transformers Devastation, Dragon Quest Heroes II, Ghostbusters The Video Game Remastered and Crash Bandicoot 4 It's About Time. Yeah I prefer the Switch because of its portability and I think that it has better exclusives including the only physical release of some games (I have 53 Switch games and every single one is physical) but now that I have the option I might choose the PS4 versions of some games because they're cheaper or because they are better ports. I've heard of some games like Ys VIII running better on the PS4 than the Switch.
I would love to play Tales of Legendia again.
That's one I would really like to play! I've not played it yet! Thank you for watching :)
pressed like when Eternia came up haha
Definitely the right move!! :)
The only Tales of I’ve beaten is Abyss, so that’s gonna be #1 by default. I need to play more of the others, it’s just difficult to find the time these days.
I understand this! Older I get it's getting harder to get the time to game!
I only played two and that is Tales of Symphony and Berseria. Quite enjoyed them both. Berseria had the best character story and Symphonia the plot was interesting as well as the open world map. The ones you pick as top 5 are not the most popular from what I gather except Berseria seems to be popular. I wanna play more and I got Vesperia and Arise. Those get lots of acclaim so I am still curious about them.
Arise is a decent game and the story is pretty good! Vesperia like I say the story just wasn't there for me!
@@chickenfillets yeah, i get ya. I have read mixed responses on them as well.
Indeed love when the anti hero gets the spotlight. My first was symphonia, so it holds a special places in my heart. As for my favorite, xilla and xilla 2 are up there. Hearts r and graces f are also up there for me.
Awesome man!!!
Interesting list John. Think I've played Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Xillia so far. My next Tales game I play will probably be Tales of Xillia 2. I need to play more Tales of games to catch up.
Adam!! There is definitely plenty of Tales games to catch up on haha!
Isn’t Tales of Xillia The 13th game? Hints why it’s called Xillia. 13 is literally in the name
Graces might be the 12 but. Hearts R is a remake but Graces f is a extended version
You know what, hands up I've read it wrong! Still though they are all awesome!
Sadly due to 1 of the character designers death She was only 63 years old their likely WON'T be a PRE Tales of the Abyss PS4/PS5/Switch ports/remasters for Destiny 1 Eternia Destiny 2 PS2 Rebirth and Legendia ports/remasters ANY time soon.
It was such a shame she passed. Only time will tell. Thank you for watching the video!
We also lost Toriyama the Dragon Ball/Chrono Trigger/Dragon Quest character designer and due to his death the DS remake of Chrono trigger is likely to not get ported over to the PS4 PS5 Switch either.
Berseria will always be my fave
That's awesome!
@@chickenfillets Yeah, while it wasn't my first, Velvet and her story, while being a fairly standard revenge story on the surface, focuses on the affects of her revenge and Artorious on the world
I didn't played all the Tales because I don't had a PS3 or Vita, but I think that you're right with Zestiria, it get so much criticism for beying a slow paced game, but the story is good and combat as well, just the craft system is a mess but you don't need it AT ALL to complete a normal playthrough, I think that ppl that complain about Zestiria never played the old 2D Tales games.
Now it's a crime to don't add Destiny DC, maybe you don't played because it was JP only but there's a fan translation to EN that's very good and you shouldn't miss out!!!
Someone who gets where I am coming with Zestria! Haha! Oh now I'll have to look out for that one! Thank you for watching!!!
Arise is SO CLOSE to being one of my favorite action games but the balancing is honest to god terrible.
Alphen is pretty good once you get good at dodging, Shionne is... Good? Passable? Dohalim, Law and Kisara are horrible up until you defeat Vholran's first battle and- Oh I am sorry why am I wasting time trying to make the other characters decent when I can just collect all the howls and invalidate the whole game with Rinwell whos damage is far above anything everyone else can do for like 70% of the game?
Hahaha that's completely fair!!! Thank you for watching!
This man put Zestria on the list 💀 that game was trishazzz trash
I certainly did hahahaha
My list would be:
1. Symphonia. Imo it has the best writing in the series (whether or not you like the plot is subjective though (mo it's alsot he best story in the series), I'm talking about how all aspects of writing are done well in this game in comparison to all other games. All plot points flow into each other well and are done logically with very little to almost no plot holes unlike the rest of the seires) and when it comes to the rest of the game it does everything well for its time (reminder it's a 2004 game, not a 2024 a lot of it is now obviously dated when compared to modern games) and doesn't do anything badly unlike other games in the series (worst thing I can say about the game is Raine/Genis AI is dumb and some parts of it get cheesy (though that in it's own way has its appeal too) and that's about it). Also has one of the better world designs and, imo the best dungeons in the series as well (though some people hate some of the dungeons).
2. Berseria. 2nd best story in the series after Symphonia and imo has the best characters in the series. Only real weakness is I do not like the arte tree combat system that much which is why it's 2nd overall rather than first. Side content and side plot lines are also solid (in some ways it's a bit better than Symphonia with the side content storylines though most of Symphonia's side content was either minigames or much shorter side quest chains). Exploration is better than Xillia but not as good as Arise imo with the way field maps were designed (Xillia all maps look far too similar (either same shape hallways or large open spaces, Berseria's a bit liek this but with a bit more variety to it's field map shapes as well and has far more biomes as well, Arise the maps look a bit more unique in comparison and are, imo, the perfect size: not too small to feel constrained but also not too big to feel to be a pain in the ass to explore...it could've used more platforming and the liek to get to some chests/secret stuff though).
3. Abyss. The 3rd best story in the series imo and it also has the best character development in the series with Luke. It also took the classic Tales battle system of Symphonia and enhanced it with free run and let you activate Over Limit yourself to use your own mystic artes when you wanted to (and of course gain the other beneficial effects of Overlimit). World design was also great imo. Also has the best written villain group in the series at the moment imo.
4th and 5th are interchangeable depending on my mood tbh and are virtually tied right now.
4th (or 5th). Tales of Xillia. Imo the game that perfected the Classic Tales combat system with Xillia 2 (Hearts R is also very close to it as well as the core system minus the game specific gimmicks is essentially the same in how it works between Xillia, Xillia 2, and Hearts R). Story is also solid and the characters are all great. The field maps were a bit meh though (granted was the first Tales game to have the behind the back perspective with a fully controllable camera...all prior games had a locked camera position besides when on the world map (for games with world maps rather than field maps). Only real complaint I have with the game is that it's by far the easiest game in the series imo (Xillia 1, not Xillia 2. X2 reworked things a bit to make it more challenging than 1)...an aspect Berseria shares as well tbh (probably another factor of why I ranked Berseria below Symphonia besides the art tree combat system). The game's side content story quality was also one of the best in the series imo (granted the best as far as quality for story of side content goes to Zestiria...which is about the only good thing I can say about Zesty as the main story was horrible, combat bad due to the camera, and it was an over all meh to decent game at best).
5th (or 4th). Tales of Arise. Probably the one that will get raised eyebrows as it does have a lot of faults but imo the game was good and in some aspects great. Story wise it had a decent story, first half was very good, second half nosedived to passable to decent (not the worse nose dive though...that goes to Veseperia with how act 3 nosedived even harder imo)...biggest factor to this was due to the twist they threw in once you reached the 2nd half...it should've just went without the twist even if that made the story predictable/generic, the story would've been more solid by keeping the main enemy to who it was from start to finish) at most the final boss could've been used as a weapon by the 'Renans' and the previous Sovereign/Crown contest winner instead. The field maps are the best as far as the field map games go though so that's a nice plus and graphically/visually it's the best looking game in the series. Character wise Alphen is my favorite MC in the entire series but still doesn't hold a candle to other non MC characters in the series like Eizen (Berseria), Rokuro (also Berseria), Jade (Abyss), and other non MC characters, he's also the first MC who was the character in their game I liked playing the most (all other games I prefer a non MC character's playstyle instead...which is funny as I expected to like Dohalim the most as I like lance/polearm weapons the most but the way he uses it in Arise doesn't really click with me). Side content was also all kinda meh with all quests being either hunt or fetch quests outside of maybe 3 to 4 and the ally AI and AI customization in Arise is by far the worse in the series. Combat however is the 2nd best after Xillia 2/Hearts R's imo and far better than art trees (biggest issue with arte trees is that you have to go through the tree to get to an arte you may want for any given situation, with classic you can choose what arte you want at any time via the directional input plus arte button (as long as it's slotted in of course) and with Arise it's more or less the same way though it's just tapping the face buttons without any directional input. Other, probably bigger factor that pushes Arise up this high is that the game's difficulty feels perfect imo and actually gives me a challenge unlike most of the past 10 to nearly 20 years worth of Tales games which have, imo, been far too easy in comparison...and yes one half is the HP/DEF stats are bloated to a stupid degree which make enemies far tankier (which a lot of people hate and I can understand that argument...though given the boost strike (instant kill once you get a gauge filled) that is an obsolete complaint on anything besides bosses) but the other reason and the one I'm mainly focused on is that all enemies are far more aggressive on Arise for their respective difficulty level than other Tales games on that same (or equivalent) difficulty level...normal in a lot of past Tales games had enemies attack and then sit there for about 5 seconds or so before attacking again while in Arise they only pause for about 2 to 3 seconds before attacking and on the higher difficulty levels you're constantly needing to pay attention or face getting killed fast (as along with being more aggressive they also hit a lot harder too).
Firstly thank you for taking the time to write this awesome comment! Such a great list for your top 5 with brilliant reasoning!! Tales Xillia is one I do I own actually but it's in my ever growing backlog!!! Really need to get it played!!
Solid list. Symphonia is such a solid Tales game, I don't have anything negative to say about it except that the combat is outdated. For Berseria the combat was the one issue I had with it, aside from that great game. It seems like we're on the same page about Xillia 2 and Hearts R, two of my fav 3D Tales combat systems along with Innocence R. I haven't finished Arise yet, one day I'll get to it. Arise is really interesting because I know so many people who love it and who hate it. Personally, I think the game has a number of design issues, most of which shouldn't have even been changed from previous titles, like Life Bottles bringing back people to 800 HP (I think), stuff like that. I enjoy fighting random mobs (even though most are just palette swaps), but bosses are just brick walls, it's so strange. It also feels like the game was meant to be played solo rather than having a party. I feel like when I play Arise, I need to stop comparing it to previous titles and pretend like it's a standalone, then I'll probably enjoy it a lot more.
Although I can't really choose my favorite of the Tales of series, since each entree has something that makes them special. I can for one give you give you my least one,being Tales of Arise. The game lacked what made the others so great, like the characters, skits,and the soundtrack. Which is why its a let down, because each game has a fews songs that i remembe. But sadly with Arise I dont remember any song
Yeah that's totally fair! Not every game can hit a home run :) thank you for watching!
Love the series, though unfortunately I couldn't enjoy Arise as much as others have.
Hearts R is the reason I bought a Vita.
My out of order list would be Vesperia, Xillia, Hearts R, Abyss and Symphonia
That's awesome Hearts of R made you buy a Vita! Great list as well!!!
Very awesome list. Also Zestiria is pretty well liked in JPN and the easter side of the world. Translation for the game was done really bad. My favorites umm well i need to play more of the series again before making that call.
Thank you! I really like Zestria, I didn't know how people would respond to it being in my list! :) you'll have to let us know when you do have a favourite down the line :D
Zestiria isn't that well-liked in Japan at all. It's the worst received game in the entire franchise and it still gets flak to this day. Western Tales fans aren't as hateful towards Zestiria in comparison to Eastern fans.
Glad to see you included Zestiria. It gets so much hate but I really enjoyed it. Sure, the battles can be brute forced through Armitization, but I really liked the characters and setting.
See I thought it was a bold choice putting it in but glad someone else likes it! Hope you are gooooood dude