need a bit more Tales in my life

Tales of

Any Jrpg fan will be able to tell you that the top 3 most well-known Jrpg series of all time are Final fantasy, Dragon Quest and Tales of series. Each of these series though similar due to genre, give completely different experiences in the way in which they tell stories, mechanically work and the style of art that they portray. The Tales of series for example is a series targeted to jrpg fans that tend to watch anime. They all have anime inspired artwork, themes and characters archetypes. These games tend to be more light hearted than the other two I mentioned and thus easier for those getting into the jrpg genre. They’re like gateway drugs 😉 . The tales games hold your hand through most of the opening straight through to the mid-section at which point they submerge you into a story that we fans of the genre would be more familiar and comfortable with. The tales games are also very Japanese in nature so for fans of anime or manga they will have you feeling right at home.

tales-of-graces-f-2
Best part of tales games are the crossovers

I am currently on a quest to finish a few of the Tales games currently in my position. The one I’m engaged in at the moment is (abyss), and I plan to acquire (hearts R) for my PS Vita soon and complete it too. These days with school and work keeping me away from home put together with my slowing wavering attention span for playing games at home have resulted in a lack of me completing many games, but with my two handheld companions I’m back on the waggon and plan to do more reviews, first impression and featured articles. This is the first of many, and if all goes according to plan I’ll have at least a few articles per week including a podcast episode. I’ll also be getting a new laptop soon, enabling me to write new articles and keep up with things here on BSB while I’m away from home. Anywho, how about I tell you a bit about my experience with Abyss.

So far Abyss is proving to be a deep and engaging game though I’m only 8 hours in (that’s a short amount of time in a jrpg). As the characters change, mainly Luke, I feel myself getting more and more interested in the happenings of this world. Given that there is a lot to process in a short amount of time I am finding the opening sections a bit rushed. It can be a bit overwhelming to understand all the words, characters, moves, and locations, but through use of my 3DS’s note feature I’ve been keeping reminders and key notes so as to not get too confused by all the information being thrown at me. I’ll have a full review of the game post completion at which point I should already have (Tales of hearts R) to start.

Any other future tales games that I may play will involve (Graces F) which I already own for my PS3 and maybe (Xillia and its sequel). I do wish to play some of the spin off series such as Tales of the World: Tactics Union (hoping it gets a western release). These spin offs tend to have a mixed story with you creating a character and forming a team of characters from numerous games in the main series. It’s what I’d call fan-service and I love it. With these games you get to revisit old characters and even learn their moves with your own avatar. It’s also a change in pace from the main series as these tend to be not as large in over world scope and more of a tight knit hub experience that is progressed by the story and missions to dungeons.

Anywho that enough talk I need to get back to my adventure as Luke…

PS if you wish to check out some gameplay of the tales games then might I suggest you check out the current playthrough of Tales of hearts R by Chris from at the buzzer.

Qudduws Campbell

That messy hair bloke: Romantic, Food lover, Gamer, Sports Fan, Manga Reader, Tech Head, Podcaster... Pretty much do a bit of everything.