Reminiscing the older Tales games I've played, I noticed two qualities of Tales games I liked best. First off, one of the prominent features of all Tales games is the heavily anime-esque characters and stories. It's also one of the reasons that I got into the Tales series. Another thing I really like about the series is its heavy character interactions. Tales of Destiny, as I remember, had interesting enough character interactions. I've recently replayed Tales of Eternia on PSP after playing Tales of the Abyss, but I thought the playable characters and their interactions with each other were a bit dull. Reid, Farah, and Keele are okay individually, but their interactions with each other were not particularly interesting. In terms of game play, I thought both games' battle system were so-so (not too much fan of 2D left/right running & attacking), and as far as I can recall, I thought that Tales of Eternia was quite difficult while Tales of Destiny was too easy.
The most noteworthy thing about Tales of the Abyss, like other Tales games, is its character interactions, but unlike Tales of Destiny or Eternia, I really really enjoyed Tales of the Abyss and mentally labeled the game as one of my top five PS2 games. I have to say though, Jade Cutriss is a huge factor that made me had tons of fun with this game. Jade Jade Jade Jade, the skits and dialogues in the game with Jade in them are all very funny and amusing, and his voice actor Kirk Thornton was so good at voicing Jade and making his sarcasm even funnier (his Japanese v.a. is quite good too!). I think Jade's up there among my favorite video game characters of ALL time. Anise is pretty funny and cute too. I like that she's realistically flawed and can be mature yet acts childish at the same time. Mieu is pretty fun to watch too when he's being mistreated :D.
The battle system in Tales of the Abyss is no longer the linear left-right path, instead, it has the free-run system where it functions like Star Ocean battles. Encounters in Tales of the Abyss never got boring because of the F.O.F., it basically allows skills to change base on which element was left on the field by the previous attacks. Finally, I love that Tales of the Abyss allows changes to the character sprite's appearance! I love the alternative costumes in this game. Anise's Cat Cat Kitty Cat, Jade's Doctor Mambo, and Luke's Vagabond Son are my personal favorites.
I think Tales of the Abyss have the same team that worked on Tales of the Symphonia, so I'll probably check that out soon. I've started playing Tales of Legendia (same team as Eternia?), but I'm not very motivated to continue it so far (boxy 3d graphics, Senel and his sister complex is kind of off-putting).
PSP titles Tales of Radiant Mythology and Tales of VS are pretty fun. I like the concept of brining together characters from different Tales games, especially since there are lots of Tales characters I like even from other Tales games I haven't played. So far my favorite Tales of characters are Jade (but of course), Anise, Yuri, Kohak, Reala, Richter, Garr, Mao, Luca, and maybe Zelos.
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