Being starved for a NEW rpg, I bought Tales of Symphonia. Loved Baten Kaitos so I thought I'd go with the same publisher (and creator I guess in this case). Never played a Tales game before.

A few questions I hope I can have answered.

1) Are these games stories linked at all, or all original like Final Fantasy.
2) The "Tales of Legendia" game coming in a couple weeks, who is doing the music?
3) Is the battle system similar in all the games?
4) For those that have played the FFXII demo, is the FFXII battle system at all similar to Tales of Symphonias. I know you encounter enemies the same way, and the demo vids I've seen sorta look similar to Tales of Symphonias system.

Cheers,
Cram

Not really. If you're playing the series for the stories, you're gonna be pretty disappointed. The characters are often banal and the plots cliche.

Some guy by the name of Go Shiina. Rumor has it the music is actually quite good.

Yup.

Not even remotely. ToS's battles are very quick and require hands-on action. FFXII is slow-paced and deliberate (and the jury is honestly out on how it's going to work in the game). Plus, ToS has random battles. In FFXII, all of the enemies are on screen and you simply walk up to them to fight.

Thanks for the quick reply and the information. Interesting though on the ToS random encounter comment. There are none, all enemies are on the screen (in dungeons and overworld) and you must touch that enemy to start a battle.

Guess I'll be shelling out some money for a PS2 slim and ToL.

Actually, it depends.

Tales of Destiny and Destiny 2 (PS2, not the US version, which is really Tales of Eternia renamed. The real ToD2 didn't make it out here) are related to each other.

Tales of Phantasia and Symphonia are confirmed to take place within the same universe (which is pretty darn obvious if one has played both, really), but are not dependent on each other (Symphonia is thought to be set many thousands of years before Phantasia). Also involved in this universe are the spinoffs of ToP Narikiri Dungeon and Tales of the World Summoner's Lineage.

Some early info is suggesting that Tales of the Tempest (new DS game, not released yet) is somehow connected to Tales of Rebirth.

The rest however, are separate universes.

I should note that Legendia is by a different development team and its battle system is roughly based on those of the first three Tales games (single 2D battle line like in Phantasia, Destiny, Eternia aka Destiny 2 US) but with several steps backward (no multiplayer, no real quick battles, no hidden ougis). It's not really comparable to Symphonia (the next game using that battle system is Tales of the Abyss).

Those who dislike them in usual Tales games are quite favorable about Legendia's character development and its music though.

I dunno what to make of that lol. Not happy to hear about the battle system situation, and happy to hear that the music seems to be getting good reviews. Guess I'll wait for a Gamespot/IGN review to get a better idea of the game before purchase. I'll read up on TotA.

*perks up*

Tales of the Abyss

Why couldn't it be Narikiri 4?