Original

Overview

The Tales of franchise is a series of roleplaying games published by Bandai Namco with a unique battle system and widespread popularity, especially in Japan.

As indicated by the name of the franchise, each title in the Tales of series starts with "Tales of...". The name was born with the first game, Tales of Phantasia, released on the Super Famicom in 1995. Traditionally, the titles either refer to an important thematic in the games or chosen for flavor; for example, Tales of Phantasia is a fancy way of saying 'fantasy' as it is a fantasy roleplaying game, and Tales of The Abyss takes a lot of influence from the Qabalah and it's Sephirot. There is an eleventh Sephirot called Da'at. Da'at represents 'the abyss'. 'the abyss'. Tales of Vesperia, however, is explicitly relevant for Vesperia being the name of the guild formed by protagonists Yuri Lowell and Karol Capel, which itself is named after what is described as the 'brightest star in the sky'. Unless directly stated, with some exceptions (e.g., Tales of Symphonia and its sequel are a thousand-year prequel to Tales of Phantasia). Tales of the World: Summoner's Lineage is a sequel to Phantasia set a few hundred years after. Most of the Tales games are set in their own separate universes and only feature recurring elements.

Initially, the series' main producer, Makoto Yoshizumi, stated during a press conference in 2007, that the Tales games can be divided into two distinct categories: "Mothership Titles" and "Escort Titles". The former games present a canon storyline, while the latter are a number of titles that include spin-offs and side games. However, in 2020, those two categories were scrapped and replaced by two brand new ones : "Original Titles" for games featuring new stories as well as their sequels, and "Crossover Titles" for secondary entries drawing characters and worlds from various past titles.

Gameplay

In each Tales of game, enemy encounters are played out using a combat engine called the Linear Motion Battle System, or L.M.B.S.

In L.M.B.S., the fight is played out on a two-dimensional axis that usually stretches wider than a single screen width. So the screen can scroll to the left and to the right, depending on where the characters and opponents are relatively located. L.M.B.S. contains a pause menu during battle which lets the player select a spell or item. As in some fighting games, it is possible to assign items or combination moves to specific buttons as shortcuts for quick actions.

As opposed to most other turn-based systems, which allow the player to control every party member, L.M.B.S. (usually) only allows direct control of one character. Other characters in the party can be set to passive mode (defending themselves only) or active mode (full computer controlled). Additionally, some games in the series buck tradition by allowing the player to order the other characters to move to a given spot or use a specific spell or ability from the pause menu. For the titles that allow multiplayer, the other party characters can be controlled directly in combat by other human players.

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