Shonen That You Play | Why The Tales Of Series Might Be For You script

Intro:

The Tales Of series is deeply underrated. Despite having some of the best characters and casts in perhaps most media I’ve seen, these games tend to remain obscure to most people, save for the dedicated, hardcore Tales audience. Tales of Arise broke sales records when it released back in 2021, but honestly… I haven’t seen many people talking about it recently. As though it made a huge splash, only to join its older siblings in obscurity shortly after.

I got into the series through the 3DS port of Tales of the Abyss, and I’ve been a fan ever since. I mostly play games to relax, and I always stick around for story, characters, and themes. If you’re like me and you enjoy a good, emotional story with dorky, memorable characters, Tales might be up your alley too. And so today, I’m here to explain why the Tales series might interest you, and if you decide to give it a go, how to go about it. What game you should probably start with, what systems it’s available on, and what to expect in terms of gameplay.

Memorable Characters:

The strength of a Tales game is in its characters. Tales is an anthology series, where each game takes place in its own world, with different stories and casts, meaning that for the most part, you don’t have to play one to understand another (save for clearly numbered sequels, of course). Not only does this mean you can pretty much play the games in any order you want, but it also means you can expect new idiots to fall in love with every time.

Characters will usually fall into traditional JRPG and anime archetypes, but those tropes are mostly used as building blocks to create far more complex, endearing characters. From a rogue who left the path of knighthood to deal out vigilante justice, to a simple village girl turned into a horrible monster, out to avenge her murdered brother, to a spoiled nobleman who suffers from amnesia after being kidnapped by a rival kingdom as a child, you can always count on compelling stories from not only your protagonists, but also the supporting cast.

The plots are usually fine, but the casts are what Tales games live or die by, and nine times out of ten, they always deliver. You get to what a ragtag collection of losers band together and form a little found family. You venture the far reaches of different fantasy worlds, doing everything from tracking down petty thieves, to rebelling against authoritarian regimes, to restructuring the very nature of the world itself. Ya know, the usual things you and your friends do during a night out.

The games emphasize this in just about every in-game mechanic, including skits: brief cutscenes that you can play while running about where characters will discuss… literally anything considered unimportant enough to be animated in a full cutscene. It allows players more interested in the characters to watch them talk about anything from their backstories, to conflicting philosophies about the world, to who among your cast is a dog or cat person.

The older Tales games nailed this with the portrait-skit system, whereas newer ones tend to have overly long skits with long pauses between bits of dialogue. Looking at you, Arise, along with the stilted animations using 3D models instead of the iconic 2D character art. Not to mention, older Tales games also tend to have more focus on comedy. The comedy aspect is still present, but it’s far less pronounced, with the post-Graces Tales trying to take themselves so seriously, it kinda sucks a lot of the fun out of their stories… unless you’re Berseria. Then you’re perfect.

Speaking of which, let’s talk about some of my favorite Tales casts. Berseria has my personal favorite cast, made up largely of antiheroes and wanted criminals rebelling against the Abbey: an arm of the kingdom’s church which oppresses its citizens, seeking to strip them of their emotions and very humanity. Berseria is all about embracing the messier aspects of human nature, and reflects that with a cast who are fighting to be themselves in a world intent on either forcing them to conform to the order they’ve imposed, or eradicating them outright.

There’s Rokurou Rangetsu, a master swordsman from a clan of warriors in service to the ruling class. He’s a daemon: a monster created from dark human emotions that the Abbey fights against. Despite becoming a daemon, Rokurou still maintains many of his human qualities and emotions, including his fervent passion for battle, alcohol, and life. And when he makes a vow, he’ll go to the ends of the earth to see it through and make good on his debts. Plus, he’s just a hell of a lot of fun, always teasing other characters while providing unexpected bits of brotherly wisdom.

Then there’s Eizen: the first mate of the infamous Aifread’s Pirates, who stand against the Abbey. Eizen is a malak—a spirit born from the planet itself. Almost all malakhim are enslaved by the abbey, used only as expendable tools to ward off daemons and control the populace, and Eizen detests this. Nothing is more important to him than living a life on your own terms, and so he makes it his mission to destroy this world of oppression.

He also has the Reaper’s Curse, meaning he inflicts misfortune onto those around him, even the ones he loves. Despite his broody pirate nature, Eizen is a total sweetheart and a complete dork. This man is OBSESSED with the finer things in life, including ancient, artsy trinkets.

Magilou is a self-described “evil witch.” She’s able to perform magic, known as malak artes, through her own malak, but does so outside the acceptables laws set by the Abbey. She’s quite theatrical, always making biting jabs and quips, trying to get a rise out of people. She claims not to care about anything, but it’s quite clear she does. Especially as you learn about her past, you start to see what exactly shattered her heart, prompting her to rebuild herself into the guarded witch she is now.

Eleanor is an exorcist who works under the Abbey. She at first believes in their ideals of order and reason, but once she witnesses the harm this does to the people she seeks to protect, and learns that malakhim are more than mere tools, she works hard to face these realities and reshape her worldview. She genuinely wants to protect the innocent, and if that means standing against the Abbey and working alongside pirates, daemons, and witches, so be it.

Laphicet is an adorable lil malak who initially is a slave working for an exorcist. But when he’s whisked away by our leading crew, he slowly breaks free of that control, learning to become his own person and embrace life. He has an insatiable curiosity, wanting to learn about everything there is to know about the world, while also protecting the people who gave him a name when he was just a number.

And then you have Velvet, Berseria’s leading lady. She used to be just an ordinary girl living in a humble forest village with her younger brother Laphicet (yes, the same as the baby malak boi), and her older brother-in-law Arthur. Her life had already been marked by tragedy, losing her parents when she was young, and then her older sister Celica seven years before the game starts during the Scarlet Night: a night where the moon and sky turn red, and people transform into bloodthirsty daemons.

Another Scarlet Night occurs at the game’s start. During this, Arthur sacrifices Laphicet, throwing both him and Velvet into a pit when Velvet tries to stop him. In the process, Velvet emerges a therion: a powerful daemon which is able to consume other daemons, along with their abilities. She’s then imprisoned by Arthur, now calling himself Artorius, and vows to kill him to avenge her brother. Her entire quest sees her causing havoc across the world, doing whatever she can in order to slay Artorius, not for the greater good, but for her own selfish desires.

But in the process, she becomes an icon for liberation, and one I think a lot of queer people specifically can relate to. Velvet refuses to accept a world that was built on the death of her innocent brother. She sees the ugliness of this world, past the platitudes and order imposed by the exorcists, and ultimately, leaves the world in ruins so it can be rebuilt into something new, and something better.

Seeing these six losers go on adventures together, slowly becoming a family even as they butt heads and threaten each other’s lives, genuinely gives me life. Their journey is deeply compelling, but only because it comprises the individual journeys of each character as they fight to find their place in a world that refuses to accept them.

They’re definitely my favorite cast, but most Tales casts are quite similar: groups of characters trying to find their ways through life, all finding solace in the fact each of them are outcasts in one way or another. Even characters who are nobles often find themselves at odds with their own kingdoms and states, fighting against the roles and structures controlling their destinies.

Playable Shonen Journeys:

When I describe the Tales games, I usually tend to go, “Oh, they’re playable shonens.” That is to say, they lean very hard into your standard-fare anime tropes, being all about getting to know a cast of characters as you go on world-changing adventures with them for 30 to 40, even 60 hours. The plots themselves usually aren’t all that spectacular, but they still tend to be at the very least enjoyable. A good excuse to venture on with the dork squad for at least a little while.

Now, if you tend not to play games, or you go for much shorter games, and if that runtime sounds scary to you, don’t worry. I usually play my games for a couple hours before bed to help myself unwind, and that’s usually good enough to get through a Tales game in a couple weeks or so. For instance, I completed Tales of Arise in about… I’d say three weeks’ time with this approach? And I did the same for Vesperia. You can still enjoy these games even with a busy schedule. And actually, I’d argue this approach makes it easier to appreciate, because then you can treat each session like its own anime episode.

Tales games tend to follow similar themes: coexistence, friendship, and environmentalism. They’re all about why friends are great, why you should totally do crime with them, and why you should also do crime to save the world. A few of the games will have analogs to climate change and renewable energies, like Tales of Vesperia or Xillia, while others will focus on discrimination and prejudice, like Symphonia. Whether they excel in these aspects is up to you, honestly, but I do salute them for trying, cuz they usually tend to do a decent job in my book… well, most of them.

In games like Vesperia, the story is usually low-stakes for a long while before going on the whole “we need to save the world” escalator. It’s set in a medieval fantasy world which uses technology called blastia to fight off monsters or defend cities. The main character, Yuri, used to be an imperial knight, but left because he couldn’t see himself changing the system for the better from within. Now, he’s chasing after a thief who’s stolen the blastia core of a fountain in the lower quarter, endangering the capital city’s poorest citizens while the knights and ruling class ignore their suffering.

Along the way, you meet a girl who totally isn’t the princess, a monster-hunting dork, a blastia nerd whose rudeness gives me life, a tiny pirate girl, a weird old guy in purple, an elf girl who’s totally not an elf. Vesperia’s story stumbles about halfway through, and ultimately doesn’t quite stick the landing, but its characters make it an enjoyable ride nonetheless.

Now, if you want the games with the best stories, I give you Tales of the Abyss, and Tales of Berseria. I explained Berseria a bit before, so we’ll focus on Abyss. Tales of the Abyss is set in a world where the future is foretold through a prophecy called the Score. Pieces of the Score have fallen down to the earth in stones, and as such, two kingdoms - Kimlasca and Malkuth - have been warring over these stones for centuries in order to get the upper hand over each other.

Your main character is Luke: a young Kimlascan noble who was kidnapped seven years ago by Malkuth, and as such has developed amnesia to cope with the trauma. He’s a spoiled, sheltered brat since his family has refused to let him leave the manor since he returned home. One day, while he’s training with his swordmaster Van, a female assassin named Tear breaks into the manor to assassinate Van. Luke steps in to save him, in the process unleashing a power which transports him and Tear halfway across the world.

Tear is unexpectedly apologetic, offering to take Luke home to make up for getting him involved. Luke is naturally hesitant, but agrees, only for them both to wind up deep in Malkuth territory by accident. As they try to make their way back to Luke’s home, they discover a plot by the Order of Lorelei - the religious institution which upholds the Score - to start a war between Kimlasca and Malkuth, ultimately revealing the truth of Luke’s kidnapping.

Tales of the Abyss is all about existentialism. If the future really can be predicted, do any of us truly possess free will, or will the world itself simply adapt to our decisions to ensure fate goes accordingly? And does that mean we were all born for a specific purpose? What if some of us were never meant to be born, and what does that mean for us? Can we hope to change a world that seems bent on destroying itself? Do we even need a reason to have been born? A reason to live?

I’m probably biased given Abyss was my first, and it does admittedly tend to cling to its lexicon of fantastical, made-up words, but there’s a fantastic, phenomenal story here that still resonates with me to this day in here.

Gameplay:

Now, I’m very much a story-focused girliepop. For me, gameplay is merely a vector through which I enjoy the story. So long as it doesn’t actively get in my way or make me wish I was dead, I’m onboard. And given I was raised on Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2, it explains why the real-time combat of the Tales series feels so enjoyable to me. Unlike other RPGs like Final Fantasy, which traditionally have featured turned-based combat, Tales games allow you and your party to fight in real time.

Usually you wander the overworld, exploring every nook and cranny of a town, field, or dungeon, and then enter a separate battle screen when you encounter a foe. It clearly delineates battle from everything else. The battle system changes from game to game, with some being more enjoyable than others, but the details will likely only matter if you’re a hardcore-gameplay girlie.

That said, I should warn you about what to expect. Namely, if you’re gonna play Tales of Zestiria, be prepared for the camera to become your enemy. Zestiria doesn’t have special arenas solely dedicated to combat. They just put you right into battle there in the environment you were exploring, which means it wasn’t designed with battle cameras in mind. Not to mention that Zestiria’s combat… honestly, it feels like my characters are wading through waist-deep mud half the time.

The games with more enjoyable battle systems, to me, are Abyss, Vesperia, Xillia, and Berseria. I did enjoy Arise for a while, but it’s admittedly soured on me given certain changes like number-based healing items (as opposed to percentage-based), damage-sponge enemies, and throwing endless mini-boss gauntlets at you in the name of padding the runtime. Abyss and Vesperia can seem a bit archaic, but they’re quite easy to follow once you get the hang of them, especially because they don’t have five million particles distracting your eyes and destroying the visual clarity.

Which Game Do I Play?

Tales games are largely anthological, meaning they each have their own story, world, and characters. You don’t need to play one to understand another, unless of course it has the obvious number after it, like Xillia and Xillia 2. There are easter eggs in there for the longtime fans, but those are for optional side and post-game quests that aren’t mandatory.

Any Tales game can work as your first, but in my humble internet opinion, there are certain ones that will give you a better impression of the series. I’m also trying to keep in mind how accessible they are to casual fans, given a lot of the games are older and haven’t received re-releases on modern systems. And so, the games I recommend as your potential first Tales games are: Symphonia, Vesperia, Xillia, and Berseria. Arise was on that list initially… but uh, no more I say.

Tales of Symphonia, which as of right now is available on PC, PS4, and Xbox One (and apparently Switch, but supposedly that port is cursed), was the game which popularized the series here in the west. It’s the oldest one on this list, so it’s definitely… aged quite a bit. Despite the cel-shaded graphics, it does look quite dated and janky, and it certainly felt that way when I tried playing it for the first time on PS3. Admittedly, I never finished it, but I did watch Majuular’s review in which he recaps the story.

Symphonia is considered to have one of the best casts and stories in the series. It follows Lloyd, a young village boi who lives in a world called Sylvarant, which is currently dying as the magic fades from its lands. His classmate Colette is named the Chosen of Regeneration, and as such must embark on a dangerous journey to revitalize the world’s magic, becoming an angel in the process. But of course, there’s something quite insidious about this journey, and about Colette’s “ascension.” It’s definitely a classic, and if it sounds like it might be up your alley, then go for it.

Vesperia, meanwhile, is available on pretty much all systems now, and is likewise a fan favorite among fans. Again, it doesn’t have the best story, but it is considered to have one of the best casts, and is one of the most enjoyable of the series. It’s also considered by many to be the last classic Tales game, given the games following its release ditched many classic elements, including the colorful cel-shaded graphics, and the use of the overworld map. If Symphonia’s too archaic for you, I think you might really enjoy Vesperia, especially with its more lighthearted tone.

Xillia, sadly, is only available on PS3, not having received any kind of ports or re-release. That said, it’s still worth a try if you’ve got a PS3 lying around. Tales of Xillia follows two protagonists: Jude Mathis, a young medical student and professional do-gooder; and Milla Maxwell, the lord of spirits who seeks to protect the world from chaos. Together, they work to destroy a weapon called the Lance of Kresnik, which is fueled by the death of spirits as well as humans. Essentially, it has a stronger version of Vesperia’s story, but lacks a lot of Vesperia’s more lighthearted charm. If you don’t mind a more muted, at-times broody cast, along with graphics that have… definitely aged like milk, then you might really enjoy Xillia.

And finally, Berseria, available on PC and PS4. Again, I’ve explained the shit out of Berseria, but it’s by far and away my favorite Tales game. Its story resonates with me the most, I adore its themes, and I would die for literally any member of its cast.

Now you’re probably wondering why the most recent game, Tales of Arise, isn’t in this list. And honestly… it’s cuz I don’t think it should be your first Tales. Yes, it’s very pretty, and yes, I do love its cast, but it’s missing so many vital aspects that I consider fundamental to a good Tales game. Its story is ridiculously melodramatic and undercooked, mostly because development was fixated mostly on developing its shader, along with crafting giant monster fights that have nothing to do with the story. If you wanna give it a go, it’s available on PS4, PS5, the Xboxes, and PC, but please keep in mind that if you don’t like it, you’ll still likely enjoy the other Tales games.

Conclusion & Outro:

Ultimately, the Tales series deserves more love. Its features fantastic characters, enjoyable stories, and unforgettable moments that’ll stick with me for the rest of my life. I will genuinely never forget the mindblowing, heart-wrenching story of Tales of the Abyss, the defiant, unwavering cast of Tales of Berseria, or the goofy, wild shenanigans of Tales of Vesperia. And even in the Tales games I don’t enjoy all that much, I can still see plenty that would be enjoyable to other people.

It’s sad to see the series in the state it is now. Namco has become so busy trying to chase popularity, and cash in on mobile-game transactions and nostalgia baiting, that it forgot why people loved this series in the first place. I do hope the next mainline game after Arise will return the series to its roots, giving us a fun, memorable story in the vein of Vesperia or even Berseria. But if not… you bet your ass I’m praying for the indie-game girlies to give us Vesperia, Even Gayer Edition.

I’m the Unicorn of War, and Namco’s handling of this series is a shit show.