The official Tales of AOD thread.

[martod]

As far as I'm concerned, Tales of AOD needs its own thread(even if I believe there's only four of us :tired: ). Post any comments you have about the Tales of series.

I'm currently about twenty hours into Tales of the Abyss. I just got out of the Abandoned factory. I haven't been able to play it much as I have so much else to play(I've also caught the FFXII bug). Some comments:

Fonic hymns, Grand Maestros, The Score, the fact that every other word begins with "fon". I think this game and Tales of Symphonia need to swap titles :D .

This is the first Tales game I've played where money is a serious problem(which is ironic given that the main character is an aristocrat). I'm fighting an above average amount of battles and I don't have anywhere near enough to buy all weapon and armor upgrades when I enter a new town. I know the town link system will lower prices eventually but still.

For some reason I've gotten almost no multiple character victory quotes after battles. I got a few Luke and Tear ones, but 95% have been the same old single character ones.

It looks like the game has no real totally pure and innocent, Colette/Shirley type character in it. Ion comes somewhat close, but he's a boy, even though he's way too cute to be a boy. Anise, Natalia, and Arietta fill the cuteness quota though.

[Suwako Moriya]

I'll start by saying Tales of Destiny was the very first Tales game I seriously played. In all honestly it wasn't until we got Tales of Eternia, that I seriously decided to play Tales of Destiny. Think of it as one of those, I may as well play the older game first situations.

In any case Tales of Destiny worked as a way to introduce me to the series, but it does need massive improvement. Which is why it's good there is a remake which will probably never come out here because they hate us. Yeah I'm still bitter.

I liked how in Tales of Destiny everyone in the party fought at once and had a nice anime feel to it. However I thought the story spent far too long in the [hide]prisoners of Leon[/hide] mode. Also I wanted to have easier control of people besides Stahn. It's also hard to go back to having Stahn on screen all the time after playing the other Tales.

Tales of Eternia is where the series really took off for me. Farah is awesome and she just looks look. Plus I like her battle voice for some reason. It was also fun to directly control. She's probably one of my favorite. In general the story structure was better and it was a bit more fun to play.

Fast forward to Tales of Symphonia which was pretty good and gave me something to actually play on the Gamecube. Okay so it wasn't the only thing, but let's just say my Gamecube focus wasn't exactly huge in comparison to my other focus as it were. In any case I was rather fond of Colette and Presea in Tales of Symphonia and I'd control those two directly. I also liked how there were some situation victory quotes. Some funny, some evil, and some curious.

Tales of Legendia was a mixed bag. I like the first half and found the game to be fun. Plus I love how the second half was focused on the characters. In general the cast was rather interesting in some regards. The main problem is it felt like a step backwards in terms of battle compared to Tales of Symphonia. Also I felt the second half turned into too much of a pattern. Sure there were differences, but after awhile you start to wonder about the [hide]murder your shadow therapy[/hide]

I have barely played Tales of Phantasia. I still have yet to get the GBA version. Although if I had a PSP and I could be certain the PSP version would come out here, I'd be tempted to skip the GBA version and go for that. Of course I'm not sure what's less realistic here. My getting a PSP or the PSP version coming out here?

In any case the other Tales games I never really played at all. Since it's kind of hard for me to. Over all I find the series to be extremely good in terms of single play through, but I've never really replayed any of them. Then again that is true of a lot of games. Either way I'll take a game that at least motivates me to complete it once over a game that makes me drop it before I'm even done.

[Lovely]

Member #3 reporting!

My first Tales of game was Tales of Destiny. Which I ended up renting twice just so I could finish it ^^. I really loved that game, but I was kind of broke a lot back then ... Heh, heh.
Anyways, I fell in love with the setting, the cute characters, and the action-ish gameplay. And uh... I wanted to put a spoiler here but I don't know how those work now 0_o .
I do remember my annoyance with the infamous unsolvable puzzles though. When I found out it was due to a translation error, grrrrrr.

That was when my love/hate relationship with Namco began. Namco is truely an abusive lover >_> . What with the random cutting and the holding back of games and all...


After that game came Eternia, Symphonia, Legendia and Abyss, and well, I've enjoyed each and every one.
Legendia I still consider having one of the better group dynamics/cast. Ah, and the best music in the series. I still listen to that soundtrack frequently.




To Marko-- yes indeed, money is a QUITE the pain to get in the first... erm... half of Tales of the Abyss. It's not that you don't get money in battles, it's just that things are expensive ^^;. It gets easier later on. Oh, but as a tip, I suggest you kepp all your extra weapons and armor instead of selling them back right away (if you can.) There's a point in the game where the sell-back prices for weapons are HUGE.

Also, if you ever come across a Seriphita, by all means, equip it to make money getting a bit easier.

[Nork22]

May as well join this small crowd. My first "Tales" game was Tales of Phantasia (can I say emulation?). However, I kinda lost track on how far I'm into the game and haven't touch my last save point in like a year.

Got Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny 2 (Eternia) for my PS1 about a year ago as well, and have only played so much till I kinda got sidetrack. Haven't even made a dent in Eternia.

And thru some bizarre urge, went and bought Tales of Symphonia for the PS2. And seeing as it is all in Japanese, I haven't gotten too far into it (what like 10 minutes worth of play time). :nervous:

Though what I'm proud of is the fact that I finish Tales of the Abyss. Clocked up around 70 hours and getting about 80% of the skits and hidden events done. I'm replaying the game again just to see some of the events that I've missed. And besides, gotta love Mystearia and the silly boob jokes. :D

[HitokiriShadow]

My first Tales game was Tales of Symphonia. Solid game after it grows out of the Pilgrimage thing. I got the room before the Final Boss, but I've yet to get around to actually beating hime.

Then I obtained the fan translation of the SNES version of Tales of Phantasia (The GBA version was not even announced yet at that point). I didn't get very far in that one, but I intend to finish it someday. The deJaps translation is hilarious at times though.

#3 was Tales of the Abyss. What a disappointment that one was. I liked the characters and the main story was alright and the Character Quest portion was a good concept but executed poorly. I stopped caring near the end of Grune's quest and sold it. I had not intention of playing through it again as the gameplay tended to be tedious at best.

I've started Tales of the Abyss, but I have yet to finish it due to Final Fantasy 12 coming out. I intend to finish Abyss after I finish the main story of FF12. Abyss is the overall best of the ones I've played and will probably be the first one I actually finish.

So, basically, I've played four of them and finished none of them (unless you count Legendia, since I *did* finish the main story).

I want to play Tales of Desiny 1&2, but I'm not shelling out $70+ for them and I don't want to mess with ebay.

[Lovely]

You were near the end of Grunes quest in Legendia? Um... you realise that was basically the end of the game right ^^; ? Ah well...

Anyways, I forgot to mention that I too played some of the fan translation of Tales of Phantasia. However, the retardation of the teamate AI made me quit the game in frusteration. What happened was I was in a battle and got petrified. No big deal, I thought, this is a weak enemy, my teamates can finish it off, no problems. Did they? No. They just stood there while I got killed. Stood there, doing nothing, just watching. Sadistic bastards.

[Suwako Moriya]

Originally Posted by Lovely

Anyways, I forgot to mention that I too played some of the fan translation of Tales of Phantasia. However, the retardation of the teamate AI made me quit the game in frusteration.

Okay that example you gave for the AI scares me. In any case part of my problem was the encounter rate. Also it was kind of hard to play Tales of Phantasia after trying Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia.

[martod]

My first experience with the series was Tales of Destiny, but I didn't truly fall in love with the series until Tales of Eternia, one of my favorite games of all time. Everything about the game worked for me. I liked it so much that when I lost my save minutes away from the final boss I actually went back a replayed the game to see the end.

I have played Phantasia, both the fan translated version and the GBA version, and I was unimpressed. Particularly the SNES version makes it clear that the game is the first in the series, and lacks all of the polish in the later games. In fact, take out the battle system, and it's basically a completely generic 16 bit RPG.

I don't understand why everyone bashes Legendia so much. It takes a while to get going, but once it got going, I found it great. There are a few too many group pep talks and boring monologues and entirely too few character skits, but the characters and the way they interact with each other are great. As for the battle system, it seems that that's just the battle system the series has used outside of the 3D games, which is to say it's basically Symphonia's system in 2D. Why do people think it's worse than the systems in Destiny and Eternia?

[BluWacky]

Like most people, my first Tales game was Phantasia, but Eternia was what really hooked me on the series (I have the PSP AND PS1 versions, I am a moron).

I own all the mainstream Tales games except Destiny; I imported Destiny 2, Rebirth, Symphonia and Abyss, although I gave up on Symphonia because the PS2 port is rubbish and the characters hateful, and got sidetracked in Abyss and never got back to it (the load times didn't help). Destiny Remake is on its way, and I might pick up Radiant Mythology depending on how flush I feel.

Tales games are all about the battle systems for me; the plots are usually crap if enjoyable, but Wolf Team/Tales Studio certainly know how to make a good strategic button mash.

[LimePie]

This is the Founder, reporting in!

My first Tales game was Tales of Symphonia, which not only soothed my RPG-deprived, Gamecube-only owning soul, but became my favorite game to this day. My favorite character is Raine, because she and I both have archeology mania. :D

I finished Tales of the Abyss about two weeks ago, and I loved it to bits. So many anime scenes to drool over. And wasn't Ion so adorable?

I've got copies of ToP(GBA), ToD, ToE(ToD2 US), ToL, and ToR(in Japanese) as well. I just haven't completed any of them yet.