Title says it all. There simply isn't enough discussion about what is probably my favorite JRPG fantasy franchise.

Rules
1.) General Politeness is Preferred
2.) Keep All Discussion Relative to the Topic (Comparisons are allowed so long as they involve 'Tales of')
3.)NO BASHING MY WAIFUS (Lol, Just Kidding) ...or am I...?

Happy posting my friends.

I always have a soft spot for Zelos and Yuri @_@

Also I should probably finish that afterstory thing in Graces >_> am I missing much?

I'd say so. The after story was an extremely welcome extension to the game's story and game-play. There wasn't much development where I really wanted it HubertxPascal but it was still enjoyable, imo.

First one I played was Symphonia, loved it.
Then it was Phantasia, loved it.

Graces f, Vesperia : not bad, but didn't like them that much.

Xillia, Symphonia Dawn of the New World : hate.

I still need to play through Xillia, Graces f, and Hearts r. Haven't gotten around to getting Xillia 2. Traded in my copy of Dawn of the New World, though. It couldn't hold my interest. I have a ROM of Phantasia on my laptop that I put twenty minutes into, so I still have to sit down with that at some point.

The ones I have played to completion: Abyss, Symphonia, Vesperia. I enjoyed all of them (and Vesperia was the only thing that made me hesitant to trade in my 360 for a PS3, since all the games on the 360 I wanted to play went multiplatform or were just disappointing).

I pull for the Ristelle pairing. :P

Dawn of the New World, for me at least, redeems it's self on the second play through from pure hate to at least tolerable. It turns out like probably in the last quarter of the game up to the very end of the game that 95% of the story reasons I was furious at it turned out to actually be plot points meant to hint that things were not as they seemed and not just continuity errors.

Still not a great game though. I would really have preferred if I could have explored the united worlds in an overworld map instead of just picking locations out of a menu, and honestly, the main storyline didn't really need to be told within the Symphonia world, especially when so much of it just made the way the entire world worked in the previous game redundant. I would have probably liked it better if it was it's own game rather than a sequel to Symphonia.

my list of favorites is split into two parts for tales as in some, the story quality and gameplay quality are very different

gameplay wise it's:
1: Graces F: The artes and combat felt way more fluid than in most other tales games I've played and it was really fun. The titles and sp system also kept me going as well. Although the overworld was the worst one as it was just a series of hallways.
2: Vesperia was also really fun and had a good learning curve. the artes being tied to weapons also reminded me of the original dot hack games so that also won me over. Also the last tales game to have a traditional rpg overworld.
3: Xillia/Xillia2: battles were waaaay too easy save for a few select bosses. The combat flows really smoothly but the enemies gave little to no resistance. The chromatus system in 2 was a cool touch though (then again, I'm a sucker for transformation moves). Both the allium orb and lillium orbs were good level progression methods althout I prefer the allium orb.The over world was, again, a series of rooms but at least they I felt like I was exploring something. I also hate how, in Xillia 2, they pretty much recycled like 90% of the areas from the first game. Oh yeah, and the debt system was stupid. I don't know why they thought paying a debt would be a worthwhile feature in game.

I'm in the midst of Symphonia and Abyss and I'm not that far into either of them so I won't count them in this list or the next just yet.

Some spoilers after this line

Now story wise:
1. Xillia and Xillia 2 are my current all time faves in terms of story for tales. They have this sense of maturity that previous tales games I played didn't have and there were a lot of good twists in there too. Xillia one is notable in that it legit faked me out over who the last boss would be. Xillia 2 is also really good as it explores a lot about a world of magic and a world of science colliding which is something I don't often see in JRPGs. I also like the relationship between ludger and Elle.

2:Vesperia: A bit formulaic in story but the characters make up for it as each one is entertaining and relateable in their own right. I also the like the subtle themes of environmentalism throughout the whole thing and that Yuri was one of the few protagonists who wasn't afraid to axe someone if they were clearly a corrupt douche.

3:Graces: the most generic game in terms of story and characters I have played, even by tales standards. The beginning arc was great as it explored Asbel dealing with the changes from childhood to adulthood but as soon as the "save the world" business came into play, the whole thing pretty much followed jrpg 101. I did like Malik for being a mentor that wasn't a complete stick in the mud and Hubert for actually having to deal with the more complex realities of adulthood where as asbel started to but quickly set it aside as he had to deal with Richard. I also like how the planet their on is actually the moon orbiting the main planet as it is also something that not a lot of games do. The after story was a bit better than the main story and it did make me feel for sophie a bit more, but it didn't really feel worth it in terms of story.

Only played Vasperia so far but I'm working on getting the other ones.

That's awesome. Currently, I'm playing the PS3 version with the fan-made translation patch. I'm not too far along to any exclusive content yet but why they never bothered to make an official localization is wonder to me. I like the seiyuus but it's still a little weird to not have the English cast's voices for the game.

I recommend going for Tales of the Abyss next. Then Tales of Symphonia Chronicles and I think Tales of Legendia has an HD version on the PS3 but I'm not sure.

I've beat: Symphonia, Abyss, Eternia (in that order)
I've played but not beat: Phantasia, Legendia, Innocence

Thing is, I don't have any newer consoles (PC Master Race) so I haven't been able to play any Tales games since Abyss. Luckily, it looks like they're bringing Tales to PC starting next month with Zestiria, and Symphonia later on. There's also rumors that the PS3-era games will be ported to Steam as well. So I'm pretty damn excited. I also wanna play ToP again, but I'm waiting for someone to finish translating the PSP version since that one is apparently the definitive version.

Best Tales waifu is Farah.

I bought Tales of Hearts R for the Vita and despite it being rather generic, it's managed to pull me completely into another "tales" high. I don't know what it is but I just really like it. The combat is fun and I'm a sucker for Skill point based leveling systems. Hopefully this keeps me motivated enough to finally get back into Symphonia.

I've played: Symphonia, Legendia, Vespiria, Xillia (1 & 2), Abyss, Graces f.

Loved the ever loving stuffing out of Vesperia and Xillia 1.
Abyss was fun too! As well as Legendia.
Symphonia was the first one I ever played, it's what got me into the series, so it has a soft spot in my heart.

Xillia 2....felt more like an expansion pack than a full game. I was disappointed.
Graces f was just weird. Didn't feel right to me. Wanted to get into it, really did...but it was just meh.

I REALLY wanna play Ziestria. It's gonna be here SOON! :D

I...have a bit of a crush towards Muzet and Estelle. There may be others, but I can't recall.
[spoilers] Muzet is a whole hell of a lot less crazy in Xillia 2 [/spoilers]

Surprisingly, the I've only beaten Xillia 1. Technically 2, but I returned it when I found out it was shorter than a pirate's peg leg.

For me... I'm none to impressed with any of the stories except to an extent Xillia's from the PS3 era. My favorite parts of that era, however, were the character interactions.

Ristelle forever, for one... But things like Malik from Graces being regularly a total troll were wonderfully fun to enjoy, and some of Milla's interactions were great.

Thankfully, there's people translating more of the 4koma out there for quick character laughs. That definitely makes me happy.

What *doesn't* make me happy is whoever the hell Namco paid to do the translation of Tales of Hearts R. All kinds of things wrong, from tone breaks ("Let's make like my pants and split!" in the middle of a serious scene anyone?) to the absolute weirdness of changing one character name FOR A SUBTITLED GAME WHERE YOU HEAR THE UNCHANGED NAME CONSTANTLY, and the masterwork-level ignorance of past games causing flat-out wrong translations (missing Pascal's speech quirks entirely). I got two hours in, loved the gameplay, but just couldn't stand how crap the translation ended up.

Stuff like that tends to blow right by me but I'm curious, what sort of speech quirks does the game miss in regards to Pascal?

This is why I can't play Hyperdimension Neptunia, because I know every single line is WRONG.

I also played the Tales of Eternia undub and I realized that this "Max" character wasn't actually called Max because nobody was saying Max. After looking it up, I found his name is actually Fog. Luckily, ToE lets you change character names whenever you damn well please, so I just switched his name to Fog :)