Open topic
Something about the Tales series...
OK, I'll just come out and say it...Tales has the best gameplay of all RPGs. I only got into Tales in earnest last year when someone bought me a copy of Tales of Vesperia, and since then I've known I'd love this series. I don't want to talk about localisation here, simply why Tales is so incredibly brilliant. Since getting Tales of Vesperia, I've beaten it three times, gotten most of the achievements, bought a GameCube and Tales of Symphonia (and, thus, found a game that demoted The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker from my top three games of all time), paid ludicrous amounts of cash for both that and its Wii sequel, Dawn of the New World, imported and played Tales of Legendia, bought Tales of Eternia for PSP and finally played Tales of the Abyss and am now over half way through my second playthrough - Vesperia opened the floodgates of Tales to me, and I'm so glad it did.
It's like Namco Tales Studio have a picture of me in their office - they begin each project saying 'let's make this guy a game'. That's how perfect Tales games are for me. The distinctive anime art style - bright, colourful and beautiful to look at on whatever platform I'm playing on, the awesome, memorable characters like Lloyd from Symphonia, Raven from Vesperia and Jade from Abyss, and especially the gameplay - Tales Studio have every aspect of RPG gameplay absolutely perfected and mastered. From the intricately built towns, full to the brim with people to speak to and things to do, to the dungeons, which present a genuine braintease every single time, to the absolutely brilliant Tales battle systems. Tales combat manages to be both fast-paced and strategic, while still being wonderfully customisable and eminently impressive to look at. from the simplest Tales games like Eternia and Legendia to the more complex ones like Abyss and Vesperia, Tales battles are always exciting from start to finish - a feature which can be said about few RPGs.
While I think that Final Fantasy does beat out Tales in terms of overarching plot and music, few of them match up to Tales in terms of town, dungeon and battle design. And even there, Tales still has some pretty goddamn memorable music and some sweeping plots of its own like Fury Sparks from Vesperia. Before I played Tales of Vesperia, I'd have without hesitation ranked Final Fantasy as my favourite series. Tales has made me question that - Tales is at least on par with Final Fantasy and, this generation, has it beaten hands-down. I eagerly anticipate Tales of Graces F!
It's like Namco Tales Studio have a picture of me in their office - they begin each project saying 'let's make this guy a game'. That's how perfect Tales games are for me. The distinctive anime art style - bright, colourful and beautiful to look at on whatever platform I'm playing on, the awesome, memorable characters like Lloyd from Symphonia, Raven from Vesperia and Jade from Abyss, and especially the gameplay - Tales Studio have every aspect of RPG gameplay absolutely perfected and mastered. From the intricately built towns, full to the brim with people to speak to and things to do, to the dungeons, which present a genuine braintease every single time, to the absolutely brilliant Tales battle systems. Tales combat manages to be both fast-paced and strategic, while still being wonderfully customisable and eminently impressive to look at. from the simplest Tales games like Eternia and Legendia to the more complex ones like Abyss and Vesperia, Tales battles are always exciting from start to finish - a feature which can be said about few RPGs.
While I think that Final Fantasy does beat out Tales in terms of overarching plot and music, few of them match up to Tales in terms of town, dungeon and battle design. And even there, Tales still has some pretty goddamn memorable music and some sweeping plots of its own like Fury Sparks from Vesperia. Before I played Tales of Vesperia, I'd have without hesitation ranked Final Fantasy as my favourite series. Tales has made me question that - Tales is at least on par with Final Fantasy and, this generation, has it beaten hands-down. I eagerly anticipate Tales of Graces F!
Posted on Jan 28, 2012 at 9:32 PM
Tales of, Soulcalibur & Ridge Racer fan. PSN ID- lordirongut; Xbox Live- hyakushiki1234
