The Inarguably Arguable Tale of a Tales of... List
All thanks to ArbitraryWater for the idea for this list - and subsequently, a few others.
The Tales series is the RPG equivalent of walking into any restaurant and ordering bacon and eggs. You know exactly what you're going to get with varying degrees of quality. That's not a bad thing - in fact, in an era when another major company known for making JRPGs seems more intent on finding a wider audience for their game by making bizarre changes to their core gameplay, it's endearing and entirely welcome. It's nice to have a near yearly series of RPGs where I know exactly what to expect.
That said, some Tales games appeal to me more than others. Maybe it's because they take some interesting turns with the story. Maybe it's because of some small gameplay changes. Or maybe they've just nailed down the formula so well that the entire package just feels great.
This is my attempt to rank the Tales games I've played. I realize the list is incomplete, so please refrain yourselves from throwing the rotten vegetables and realize I just didn't have access to all the games in the series when they were out for their relevant platforms.