About
The Tales series is a popular JRPG franchise published by Bandai Namco Entertainment (originally just Namco, nicknamed “Bamco” by some gamers). The series anime-style art and character designs are provided by artist Kōsuke Fujishima (creator of Ah! My Goddess!), as well as music composed by Motoi Sakuraba. Instead of using an turn-based battle system the Tales series uses an fighting system called the “Linear Motion Battle System” where the character can move freely in an arena-like area. Another feature of the Tales series is “Titles” which provide small boosts to certain stats of the characters, though they were in the original games some “Titles” in the 3D Tales of games provide costume changes for the characters and with more recent games accessories that can be added and even altered. “Skits” are another feature in Tales games which the characters have side conversations not part of the main dialogue, most being humorous.
The Series Timeline
1995 – Tales of Phantasia
1997 – Tales of Destiny
2000 – Tales of Eternia
2002 – Tales of Destiny 2
2003 – Tales of Symphonia
2004 – Tales of Rebirth
2005 – Tales of Legendia & Tales of the Abyss
2007 – Tales of Innocence
2008 – Tales of Vesperia & Tales of Hearts
2009 – Tales of Graces
2011 – Tales of Xillia
2012 – Tales of Xillia 2
2015 – Tales of Zestiria
TBA– Tales of Berseria
The first game of the series was Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom; Tales of Phantasia spawned a PS1 re-release, an anime, a PSP full voiced port and finally the game made it overseas with the release of the Gameboy Advance version in 2006.
In western countries the series started to gain more popularity thanks to the release of Tales of Symphonia on Nintendo Gamecube in 2003. Thanks to the success of Symphonia in the United States the developers as well as Bandai Namco started to focus on getting more Tales of titles overseas. With Symphonia’s success a sequel was made for Nintendo Wii as well as an HD version of the original for PS3 as well as an anime series. Currently a PC port of the HD version is being worked on and will be available on Steam sometime in 2016.
There have been other successful Tales of games as well; including Tales of the Abyss on PS2 & 3DS, Tales of Vesperia on the Xbox 360, Tales of Xillia on the Wii and currently Tales of Zestiria on the PS3/PS4 & Steam.
The current Tales of game in development is Tales of Berseria which will be on the PS3 & PS4.