Never played any Tales of Series... Can I start with Arise ?

[Therealkiller[HalaMadrid<3]]

While I have my full share of JRPGs, Tales of is one of those series I didn't try out however I know bits and pieces of it, mainmy the MCs of each series from a crossover (Cress, Velvet, Yuri, Milla)

Are the series standlone ? Do I need to play in a specific order ? And will I risk spoiling (Major spoilers) previous Tales of games ? And which Tales of should I start with first ?

Thank you all, thinking of trying Arise first but I'll see what you guys have to say

[Rin]

All of the games in the Tales series are standalone (apart from numbered titles like Tales of Xillia 1 and 2). It's the same deal as Final Fantasy basically. You can start off with Tales of Arise without knowing anything about the previous entries.

That being said, Tales of Arise is quite a ways off and the other Tales games go on sale for pretty cheap during sales. I recommend giving Tales of Berseria a try in the meantime!

Tales of Berseria takes place 1000 years before Zestiria (but since they take place so long apart from each other, you can play Berseria or Zestiria in any order). Zestiria was an alright game but the characters/story was weak by Tales standards in my opinion, so I would personally recommend going with Berseria. Tales of Vesperia is also pretty good, though I enjoyed Berseria more.

Berseria is one of my favorite games and I even replayed it twice (once on PS4 and once on PC). I've been kinda wanting to go back and play it again for a third time because I really loved the story and characters lol.

[Michaミカ]

Yes, you can start with Arise. It is a standalone story. Nothing related with previous titles. And most tales games on steam are standalone stories, so you don't need to play them in a specific order. Except Berseria & Zestiria. The story in Berseria happen 1000 years before Zestiria. So if you want to play those two, you should first play ToZ then ToB since ToB is a prequel to ToZ.

[Simon]

Berseria & Zestiria can be played in any order. Berseria takes place 1000 years before Zestiria, meanwhile Zestiria was first released before Berseria. But it is also possible to play one of them and not play the other one since both have standalone stories anyways.

Otherwise, most other tales games including Arise are not related to each other at all. So you can start with any of them. Except for numbered Tales games like Tales of Xillia & Tales of Xillia 2.

[D-Burgundy]

You can start with Arise if that's the one that got your attention. They designed the game to attract newcomers afterall, though if you're interested in the series, the games are mostly standalone with some being loosely connected by taking place in the same world with thousands of years in between (Tales of Zestiria + Berseria and Tales of Phantasia + Symphonia are examples) or you have a few that have close/direct sequels like Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny 2 for the PS2 (never released in the West and the North American release of Eternia was horribly called Tales of Destiny II for some stupid Heman copyright issue or something).

Symphonia, Vesperia, Zestiria and Berseria are on Steam and go for very cheap during sales so maybe they'll be worth a try during the Summer, but there is no harm in just going straight to Arise which comes out in about 80 something days.

[Ryulightorb]

Originally posted by Amelia:

All of the games in the Tales series are standalone (apart from numbered titles like Tales of Xillia 1 and 2). It's the same deal as Final Fantasy basically. You can start off with Tales of Arise without knowing anything about the previous entries.

That being said, Tales of Arise is quite a ways off and the other Tales games go on sale for pretty cheap during sales. I recommend giving Tales of Berseria a try in the meantime!

Tales of Berseria takes place 1000 years before Zestiria (but since they take place so long apart from each other, you can play Berseria or Zestiria in any order). Zestiria was an alright game but the characters/story was weak by Tales standards in my opinion, so I would personally recommend going with Berseria. Tales of Vesperia is also pretty good, though I enjoyed Berseria more.

Berseria is one of my favorite games and I even replayed it twice (once on PS4 and once on PC). I've been kinda wanting to go back and play it again for a third time because I really loved the story and characters lol.

Tales of Phantasia is in the same world and timeline as Tales of Symphonia don't forget that one haha

[jdulzo]

Yes you can, this game is set in it's own world with it's own character. There are usually cameo fights with characters from past games, but there no story to it and they are there for fun.

[Drunio]

All of the games are standalone and can be played without touching the others.

If you like anime several of the series have adaptions such as Abyss (tv series) Vesperia (prequel movie).

If you like an interconnected experience you could check out the Legend of Heroes series which has been connecting the events of their games for probably closer to 20 years now.

[Stitch]

There will probably just be very minor easter eggs and small nods to previous Tales of games.

One that I remember from Tales of Vesperia was an easter egg on Tales of Abyss when you check a back of a specific sign while playing:

Luke...Excellent swordsman, difficult to get along with.
Tear...Trained in fonic artres, uses projectile weapons.
Jade...An artes expert and reputable with the spear.
Anise...Powerful puppeteer.
Guy...Very alert and agile, weak in defense.
Natalia...Excellent archer, highly skilled in recovery artes.
Asch...Always looks angry.

[Leylin Cassiel]

I recommend starting off with Tales of Vesperia (do play with a guide, though). Berseria is such a button masher that's just plain boring (it does have quite a decent ending to the story, I'll give it that much).

[Dregora]

Originally posted by Leylin Cassiel:

I recommend starting off with Tales of Vesperia (do play with a guide, though). Berseria is such a button masher that's just plain boring (it does have quite a decent ending to the story, I'll give it that much).

All tales games are button mashers on easy/normal difficulty, wdym?

[steven]

Originally posted by Dregora:

Originally posted by Leylin Cassiel:

I recommend starting off with Tales of Vesperia (do play with a guide, though). Berseria is such a button masher that's just plain boring (it does have quite a decent ending to the story, I'll give it that much).

All tales games are button mashers on easy/normal difficulty, wdym?

Well, yes but no. Berseria was a Brawler where you had only to mash your head on the controller to win, no matter the difficulty. You were low on health ? Use Velvet break artes, you will be invicible for the duration of it (basically, you can not die if you play well). You want to block or use normal attack ? No, you can't lul, you should go face only with artes. Level up ? What is it ? I don't need it, i rekt everyhting in 10 sec even underleveled....
Just mash every buttons and you win

The previous titles were more strategic. Even if you play on easy or in hard, you still needed to use a little bit of your brain (health, aggro, retreat, pattern, level up or you are dead anyway...) so you didn't press a button every 1/4th of a second. Sometimes you were running around, use one or two artes, run again, use some artes again, heal yourself with a bottle, take the aggro so your AI can heal a little bit or damage him from behind... You mashed a button every 2 or 3 seconds.

[Noma]

Until now, Tales of games were positionned on the low end of the JRPG genre. Limited gameplay, which turned into a button mashing experience since a few games, naive (or even childish) writing, stereotypical characters, questionable art style, obvioulsy atrocious dub, like every JRPG ever but still...In short, low budget games, a fact you can see behind every thing those games try to do.

Bandai Namco seems to care more suddendly, maybe because they realised they weren't competing on the same level as their concurrents, whose market share increase more and more. We'll see.

[CHAIN BREAKER]

Originally posted by steven:

The previous titles were more strategic. Even if you play on easy or in hard, you still needed to use a little bit of your brain

No, not really.
They don't differ from Berseria that much, in terms of "strategy". Berseria seems easier, because they went full on Devil May Cry with it, but did not adjust difficulty to it.

I just finished Scarlet Nexus and i think, that's what Tales are moving to. With more focus on combat, companion skills and more active gameplay. Only thing they lack(compared to Nexus) is enemies that require you to use different stuff.

Originally posted by Noma:

atrocious dub

1: It's ok. Not good or bad, just ok. It does its job and actors are trying to play.
2: You are stupid and spoiled brat that never heard "atrocious dub".

[Leylin Cassiel]

Originally posted by CHAIN BREAKER:

Originally posted by steven:

The previous titles were more strategic. Even if you play on easy or in hard, you still needed to use a little bit of your brain

No, not really.
They don't differ from Berseria that much, in terms of "strategy". Berseria seems easier, because they went full on Devil May Cry with it, but did not adjust difficulty to it.

I suppose the difficulty dispute here depends on your general playstyle (if you want to button mash, you can do it in every single game), difficulty level chosen at the start and whether your characters were overleveled or not. Still, Berseria does not punish you for mindless button spamming (even encourages it) whereas in Vesperia combos require a bit more attention (not to mention the necessity of dodging and blocking).

Do keep in mind, the Tales series games are not exactly known for their depth in combat mechanics, so you could say that this entire argument is entirely a matter of opinion/preference in playstyle.

[Tyrone Biggums]

you have 4 days until arise plenty of time to start with vesperia get on it!