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Tales of the Abyss

Is this a good place to start?

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DeathaXx98
Posted 5/2/2012 12:25:45 PM
I've never played any of the Tales games, but would really like to start. Is Abyss a good one to start with? And which Tales games are the best, or should I avoid any?
KingBordem
Posted 5/2/2012 5:36:05 PM
I started with Legendia, but I'd say Abyss is a good place to start. Though, if you want to play Legendia, play it first before you get used to any other battle system.
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CatMuto
Posted 5/3/2012 6:37:05 AM
I find Abyss to be a good place to start. It has a good story, lots of character development - much more than my first Tales of which was Phantasia and also Symphonia. And the music is great, but then most of the Tales games have good music.

I don't know Legendia except some gameplay videos - and hearing that Shirley's english voice is the worst thing ever and I have to agree.
But with Abyss I noticed that the amount of level grinding to proceed through the game is almost minimal. In the beginning you might have to do some grinding to beat the second boss in the game and maybe some at the end for the final boss as well, but I found I was able to finish the game with little time spent not following the plot and grinding.

I would like to tell you to avoid Phantasia GBA but that's because the voices were horrendous and in general it was not that good. Phantasia X is really good, but there's the problem with language...
Symphonia is a great Tales game to play as well. It's still one of my favorite, but if you play Abyss first and turn to Symphonia you'll get confused with controls. Or at least, highly miss the option to Free Run.

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Negima15
Posted 5/3/2012 12:57:58 PM
Legendia wouldn't be a bad place to start, per se but a good portion of people that played other English translated titles first (mainly Eternia, Symphonia, Abyss, Vesperia, or Phantasia to a certain extent) don't tend to really like it. Despite that I absolutely adored it for the charming cast, vibrant setting, and amazing music, gameplay wise Legendia is actually simpler than the majority of the other Tales titles.

On that note, while I'd say it'd be fine to start anywhere (maybe barring PS1/X Destiny or GBA Phantasia), I'd somewhat agree with KingBordem on that Abyss is a fine place to start.

On another note, generally speaking, while Legendia tends to be somewhat of a black sheep, it has it's own following and furthermore, there are only two titles that are usually advised to outright avoided. One is Japanese (Tempest) and the other is Phantasia's GBA version. The GBA version isn't too bad I'd say, but every other version is noted to be better. However, two of those versions are in Japanese (both PSP) and the other two (SNES and PS1) while older and have translations, require work.

Long story short, Symphonia and Abyss are the main entry points.
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YoYoLeFtToRiTe
Posted 5/6/2012 8:55:45 AM
KingBordem posted...
I started with Legendia, but I'd say Abyss is a good place to start. Though, if you want to play Legendia, play it first before you get used to any other battle system.

This. I did enjoy Legendia, but overall I felt it was a step backwards compared to the rest of the games in the series.
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that one guy
Posted 5/6/2012 3:22:26 PM
This is as good a place to start as any, but be forewarned that it's hard to go back to a 2D battle system like the older ones after playing a 3D system one.
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the_kaskuser
Posted 5/9/2012 3:01:30 AM
i think it's ok,the story here stands alone