Tales Series discussion

[RepentantSky]

I've been playing a lot of Tales games lately and I couldn't help but wonder what everyone's else's experiences with them were. 

I only really got into them about a year ago but since then I've played Tales of Xillia 1 and 2, Tales of Symphonia 1 and 2, Tales of Hearts R, Tales of Vesperia and I think I'm about to finish Tales of the Abyss. I'm about to head to the Absorption Gate Dungeon and it does seems like that will be where the main story ends. Anyways, those along with the coming Tales of Zestiria are where my experiences with the franchise ends. I'm really enjoying it as a whole and I kind of wondered what others thought of the series. A final thought for now is that I really don't like Tales of the Abyss as much as any of the other ones thus far. Jade and Anise have always gotten on my nerves and haven't really developed at all. Van is kind of a boring character to have as a main bad guy, the battle system has a lot of fluff in it that I never need, the idea that storms and what looks like fireworks are preventing me from getting to certain areas is annoying and adding things like jewels to change the effects of attacks seems completely un-needed, as do Mystic Artes.

Anywhoitzers, thoughts on the tales series?

[Melcadrien]

They sure know how to make world maps. And good ones, too.

[RepentantSky]

They sure know how to make world maps.  And good ones, too.

I'd debate that with Tales of the Abyss. Because it's so small and the game is as long as it is, you back track way too much, to the point where it seems that it's all you do until the final few areas left in the game become available to you. That's poor map design. Same thing kind of applies to Tales of Xillia 2 because the world you spend most of your time in is the technologically advanced one and it's very small compared to the world of Xillia one.