Tales (video game series)
The Tales series is a franchise of role-playing games made by Namco. The series is most popular in Japan, and only a few entries have been localized for North America or Europe. Namco wanted a role-playing game to compete with the likes of Square's Final Fantasy and Enix's Dragon Quest. The developers of Tales of Phantasia left Namco to form tri-Ace, who now make the Star Ocean game series, published by Square Enix, but the Tales games are still made internally by Namco.
Battle System
The games in the series have a rather unique battle system compared to other console role-playing games. It has been likened to a fighting game's battles (like Street Fighter) and is called the Linear Motion Battle System, or LMBS for short. Usually the player has direct control over one character (usually the main character) at all times and can move and direct this character in any way the player chooses. By pressing the attack button along with the direction buttons in different directions, the character can perform different kinds of attacks, like slashes and thrusts or ground-to-air and air-to-ground type attacks and the character's weapons usually have different attack values for a slash or a thrust. At any time, the player can bring up a menu which pauses the action and allows them to select an item or an ability to use (and the target), a spell to cast (and the target), change a character's artificial intelligence tactics or escape from the battle among other things. The later games in the series allowed for up to four players to join in a battle (requiring the MultiTap for PlayStation consoles) instead of computer control. There have been a number of enhancements to the Linear Motion Battle system as the series has progressed as well, with Tales of Symphonia having a 3D battle system, but still keeping the linear motion aspect.
Game list
The following is a list of the games, their release dates and systems. Games without mention of a North American or European release date are, or were, marketed exclusively in Japan.
Main games
| 1995 | Tales of Phantasia SNES/SFC (fan-translated into English and other languages [1]) |
| 1997 | Tales of Destiny PS1 (1998 in North America) |
| 1998 | Tales of Phantasia PS1 |
| 2000 | Tales of Eternia PS1 (2001 in North America as Tales of Destiny II) |
| 2002 | Tales of Destiny 2 PS2 |
| 2003 | Tales of Symphonia GCN (2004 in North America and Europe) |
| Tales of Phantasia GBA (Announced for North American release) | |
| 2004 | Tales of Rebirth PS2 (Trademark Registered in the United States pointing to a possible release) |
| Tales of Symphonia PS2 | |
| 2005 | Tales of Eternia PSP |
| Tales of Legendia PS2 (Announced for North American release) | |
| Tales of the Abyss PS2 |
Spinoffs
| 2000 | Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon GBC |
| 2002 | Tales of Fandom (Volume 1) PS1 (Mint and Cless versions) |
| Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2 GBA | |
| 2003 | Tales of the World: Summoner's Lineage GBA |
| 2004 | Tales of Tactics Mobile phone |
| 2005 | Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3 GBA |
Upcoming games
| 2006 | Tales of Phantasia GBA (U.S. and Europe - March) |
| Tales of the Tempest NDS | |
| Tales of Legendia PS2 (U.S. - February) | |
| Tales of Eternia PSP (Europe - February) |