*Edit* Changed the question from "best story" to "best characters."

I haven't played a Tales game since Symphonia when it came out, which I loved. Recently I felt like I'd like to play another from the series. As I've gotten older, a strong story and interesting characters have now become the most important factors in choosing an RPG.

While I wait for The Witcher 3, I'd like to try and complete whichever Tales game you guys recommend to me based on the above criteria. Thank you for your suggestions.

I'm no Tales expert, as I only recently finished my first game in the series, Tales of the Abyss 3D. I can whole-heartedly recommend it. The world is sprawling with tons to do and explore. The story is very jargon heavy (what the hell is a phonon? gah they keep saying it!), and the main character starts out as insufferable, but he has a great arc and the story gets better and better. By the end I was completely invested in the characters and story and couldn't wait to see how it would end. Plus that active battle system keeps random encounters fun.

I'm really looking forward to branching out to other games in the series. Picked up Symphonia and Xillia but haven't started them yet. Anyway, hope that helps.

Im in the middle of graces. and its alright.

I really want to try one of the tales games that are on vita but I don't pay full price for games and $40 is damn steep for me.

Abyss and Vesperia.

Having recently played Xillia, I can confirm the answer to this question is, in fact, not Xillia.

edit: In light of the recent thread edit, I find a important piece of information to note is that my answer is still, in fact, the same.

The only Tales game I've beaten to completion is Graces F, and the story in that is some seriously cliche garbage with a lot of filler. The combat is really damn good though and pretty much carried the entire game for me once I started to realize how bad the story was.

There's just so much crossover, thematically. I've played 3 Tales games, and it was the same environmentalism parable every time, with minor variations in the jargon.

That said, I'd probably recommend Abyss. If you're into the Tales style, then Abyss does a good job of getting you personally invested in its characters. Just have your smartphone handy whenever they start babbling about their dumb magitech.

Tales of Vesperia and Abyss is a good one, everyone that has played it can get behind that. My personal favorite is Tales of Eternia for the PSX, it's a bit old at this point. The combat might be a bit clunky but I loved the story and world it's set in. Especially the part about there being another world right above their own.

edit: After everything that has happened to Luke in abyss, i was able to get over his whiny-ness and forgive him. He really matured

Symphonia definitely towers over the other enties, but besides that I guess Abyss and Vesperia are decent.

I remember really liking Abyss back when I played it on the PS2. In fact it's probably the only Tales game I've ever been particularly fond of.

But I also haven't played it at all since then, so I can't say how well it holds up now.

@encephalon said:

Yeah, my vote for "Tales game with best story" goes to "none of them, or all of them, because they're all kinda the same."

I remeber loving Symphonia years ago when it came out. Tried to play the HD release and couldn't do it. I felt like nostalga plays a large part of my love of that game, but I just found everything about it to be insufferable.

I played Abyss for the first time not too long ago and while I did hate it (Luke is a whiny piece of shit and his "redemptive" arc didnt save for the hours of bullshit I had to hear from him)

The only other Tales game Ive played is Vesperia and that is okay.

@bisonhero: They are very "tropey" games, but I do think some pull them off better than others. A good Tales games feels more a matter of execution than originality.

@bisonhero:Has a Tales game ever done that JRPG thing where the church is secretly evil?

Edit: Oh shit, Symphonia already did it! I forgot.

i've only played symphonia and Xillia but my friend(a tales fanatic) says Vesperia is alot better. So take that for what it's worth.

It's a tie between Vesperia and Abyss. Graces' story sucks ass.

The only Tales game I've played is Vesperia and it was alright. Nothing mind blowing or greatly affecting, but the plot wasn't too dumb and the characters weren't annoying.

Thanks for the suggestions. It's sounding like it's between Abyss and Vesperia, but I don't like the sound of this Luke guy...

From what I remember about the Symphonia story, it wasn't particularly great, but the characters were. Regal is my man!

I like Vesperia and Xillia. I'd avoid Xillia 2 if you play the first though, they go in some weird directions.

I've played a couple games in the series and I think I like the cast from Eternia the best. I hear good things about Vesperia though, been meaning to play it for awhile.

Vesperia's got my vote. It's the only one I've finished, though I've played Graces, Symphonia, Xillia, and Abyss.

I've only played Vesperia, and the cast wasn't bad, but if that's the best the series has, it's good to know I'm not missing anything.

I'd say Vesperia, if only because the main protag kind of acts as a counter to the traditional anime hero (also he's basically Anime Batman). The rest of the cast is pretty cool, too. The story is more or less "we gotta stop anime global warming", and is kind of interesting if just because of the themes.

Xillia is alright. It has a double protagonist thing going on that's kind of neat and adds replayability. Milla is probably the standout in that game. Shes someone the rest of the party looks up to and respects, and her actions are the basis of a lot of... Character development in the people surrounding her. At some point the story kind of becomes a tale about faith and religion that I find very interesting.

Xillia 2 is weird. I don't know if I'd say it was bad, but it was... Weird. If you play Xillia and really want to see more of the characters you should give it a shot. I think my favorite bit of 2 is the world it's in. A modern/futuristic world meets high fantasy isn't really done much.

Yeah, Yuri is great. Vesperia even managed to have a little kid character that didn't suck.

Abyss is pretty good overall. Luke could've grown up a bit quicker though.

Eternia was OK. Still haven't got round to Symphonia or Vesperia though, which are the 2 I've got my eye on.

Nobody's mentioned Legendia? Shirley is an excellent character with very logical and admirable motivations

.....hahaha, but no, really, my vote would be for Abyss, mainly for Jade and Tear but also because of general party chemistry. It just felt slightly less "generic trope-y" than the rest in its interactions between characters (though "slightly" is still the key word).

I feel like all of them have ended up being "hey guys we're anime fantasy protagonists!"

Though the characters from the original, Tales of Phantasia, are still probably my favourite, as the super shitty GBA port of that game was my first game in the series. Tales of Symphonia was alright too. Everything after that -- I wasn't too interested.

Vesperia is my favorite for characters by far.

Vesperia is by far my favourite in terms of character and story. its a excellent game probably on of my favourite Jrpgs of last generation

Does anyone know which game is longer - Abyss or Vesperia? Or are they about the same? I remember Symphonia being pretty long, but I was also a lot younger and impatient when I played it.

I always had a soft spot for Symphonia because that was the first Tales game I played but Vesperia is fantastic too.

I'd say they're all pretty much the same length. Vesperia may have more going on just because it's the most recent in the series compared to the other two, but I doubt it's a huge difference in play time.