Tales in Ten

After beating Tales of the Abyss, the seventh game from Namco Bandai's RPG series that I've seen through to its conclusion, and writing up an extremely long blog about the game and my opinions on it, I've realised something: that for a lot of people on the outside looking in, who see these odd anime action JRPGs show up every couple years, there's not a whole lot to distinguish them. At least beyond having new names.

So for the heck of it, here's every Tales game summed up in ten words, making sure to emphasize what's unique about each particular entry. For full disclosure, those game descriptions I've marked with an asterisk (* <-- this thing. I mean, you all know what an asterisk is. He's not the little mustache guy who beats up Romans) are for those I haven't actually played, and am just going off what Wikipedia says. Mostly.

How descriptive could I possibly get with just ten words? Let's find out.

(N.B. This list is of no help to anyone actually curious about the Tales series.)

List items

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  1. Tales of Phantasia

  Time-travelling heroes attempt to stop environmentally-conscious, bishounen alien.

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  2. Tales of Destiny

  Idiot, thief and talking swords fight floating continent. Asshole drowns.

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  3. Tales of Eternia

  Space girl lands on Earth, lazy hunter becomes chosen one.

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  4. Tales of Destiny 2

  Kid of idiot and thief fights a time-travelling psychopath.*

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  5. Tales of Symphonia

  Girl makes pilgrimage, dumb swordsman follows. Not Final Fantasy X.

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  6. Tales of Rebirth

  Serious man fights to end furry racism. Shouts a lot.*

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  7. Tales of Legendia

  Boat monk finds bigger boat. Gonna need a bigger boat?*

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  8. Tales of the Abyss

  Rich brat hates clones, responsibility, friends, little cute monster, himself.

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  9. Tales of the Tempest

  Werewolf fights werewolf racists. Nobody seems to like this one.*

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  10. Tales of Innocence

  Teens relive awesome past lives. Protagonist is the dorkiest dork.

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  11. Tales of Vesperia

  Cool guy and cool dog fight group of intelligent monsters.

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  12. Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

  Problematic sequel drops cast to two newbies, no-one's happy.

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  13. Tales of Hearts

  Main guy is called Shing Meteoryte! Main guy is called SHING METEORYTE!*

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  14. Tales of Graces

  Knight befriends amnesiac, then fights a planet. Boxart's super girly.

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  15. Tales of Xillia

  Two different protagonists, two different stories. Spirits are people too?

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  16. Tales of Xillia 2

  Sequel, fairly unknown outside of Japan. Hero has gambling debts?*

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  17. Tales of Zestiria

  Weirdo with friends only he can see. "Weirdo" maybe redundant.

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  18. Tales of Berseria

  Claw girl goes looking for revenge. Maybe a Zestiria prequel?

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  19. Tales of Arise

  Jerkass aliens carve amnesiac masked man's world into elemental territories.