When I was a wee lad, well, maybe not all that wee, I first played Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube. The game blew me away with its unique battle system, compelling story, and interesting characters. Granted, in retrospect, it isn't an absolute masterpiece, but it really was a great Tales game that pushed me towards discovering more titles in the series. Let's not even mention how many times in a row I completed the game on NG+ (at least seven on one file).

My next game kicked it old school when I tried out Tales of Phantasia. As some of you may know, it was a bit of a step back due to its age, but I still enjoyed it. It was certainly more difficult, both in finding direction and in general combat, but that gave it its own charm as a retro title.

Following that time, I played more and more Tales games. I played Tales of Innocence on my DS and discovered how woefully mediocre it was, while I played Tales of Hearts R on my Vita and discovered another game I felt compelled to beat at least twice in a row. I played Vesperia on the 360 and found a fun title that really should have landed on a different platform to begin with, and tried out Abyss on the 3DS, finding it mediocre in most respects, but okay for what it was.

The last console Tales game I enjoyed was Tales of Graces F. The story wasn't the strongest, but was still interesting. The iteration of the battle system used was fluid and still required skill. Titles were probably the most useful they had ever been, acting as a secondary means of growth right after basic levelling itself. I admit I wasn't able to push through a NG+, but I still enjoyed the game start through the Future arc finish.

Now here comes the cascading disappointment, and its name is several titles:

Tales of Xillia
Tales of Xillia 2
Tales of Zesteria

Now I know I may get some flack for not liking at the very least Xillia, but bear with me. I thought Xillia was a huge step back. The battle system was simplified to overpowered combination attacks, the story was basically a rehash of Symphonia with a few tweaks, and good god was most of the character development bad. I played over halfway through Xillia and ended up dropping it, half out of boredom material collecting in yet another large, bland field, and half because I wasn't sure how long I could go without having to harm myself just to endure the terrible characters.

Xillia 2 isn't even worth mentioning. It suffered the way a Tales of sequel is bound to by just being bad. The MC was an absolute joke, and otherwise nothing about the game ever rose above average, rounding out the experience with a still awful cast and even worse story. It continues to prove that the Tales of series should really give a wide berth to the idea of sequels, as if Tales of Symphonia 2 wasn't already enough proof of that.

Then we have Tales of Zestiria. I saw some very average reviews for it and thought it had to be better. I was wrong. So wrong. This one I actually completed the other day, putting about 37 hours into it thoroughly exploring, side questing, and otherwise completing the story. I even did a couple of the pillars in the post-game dungeon. Unfortunately, this game is flawed on a fundamental level in that the battle system is just crap.

The battle system in Zestiria is too dependent on elemental weaknesses. You primarily battle by fusing with your magic capable Seraphim characters, each of which is a different element. This becomes the crux of battles, as you fuse at the start of a fight with the most appropriate Seraphim and proceed to mash the circle button (or your PC button of choice) the entire fight. There were far too many fights where I could just fuse and look away, watching a show while I mashed the circle button and periodically guarded. It's as if they took the Xillia system and thought "how can we make an even more limited and simple system of combat?"

This doesn't even begin to touch on the somewhat bland characters (just stfu Dezel and quit with the stupid puns Lailah), although Rose and Edna get credit for being somewhat interesting. The second most fatal flaw may be the fact that I never really felt like my character had a personal stake in the story. It became a way too standard ambigious hero saves the world story, and by the time they unveiled the big twists at the end, I was all out of fucks to give about the story as a whole. I can't count the number of lines of dialogue I just skipped through because it was uninteresting and bland.

To be blunt, there is almost nothing good about Zestiria, nor the bulk of the latest Tales titles to hit the West. I can only hope the next game breaks the cycle, since I'm coming far too close to just dropping the series until everybody remembers what a good Tales game is supposed to be like.

Thoughts? Am I just being oversensitive here, or is the quality dip a real issue for the series at this point?

I hate to sound like I'm wailing on the series, but I've been there since Phantasia. I lived Tales for quite some time. From Phantasia, I played Destiny, Destiny 2 (Or eternia), Hearts (with a translation guide), and once I hit Symphonia I fell in love with it. I thought nothing could go wrong but it could. I want this series to get better. Or even better, I want the tales studio to move on to a different series. What became of the Wolf Team Split, was the Tales Studio and Tri Ace/Tri Crescendo. I don't know if they're still around but who ever is making the Star Ocean games is at least taking it in moderation. It's like Tales has become an annual franchise and annual JRPGS aren't usually that good. (Pokemon included). That's part of what killed the genre imo, and Tales is killing itself. I wonder how they keep making them seeing how they don't sell that well but I guess the production values are low so that makes up for it and they can turn a profit. I just want a Phantasia 3D remake and I'll be good with the series. It's going further than it's supposed to imo.

Dang, I didn't think I'd hear someone being harsh on the Tales games. I like them myself, but I haven't played as many as you. Also, while I haven't done that, I am leaning that maybe the series does need a break...

I think I was like you, haha. I started on Symphonia and loved it. I played it again rather recently, and I feel too it's not as great as I remembered, but I recognize it's a good game with a lot of good elements in it. Good characters, great battle system, good music, and the conversation system being fun.

I played others, like ToS2 and Graces and enjoyed them. I am playing Abyss, and well... so far it's okay. I also played some of Xillia, but I also too fell out of it. It was just... okay, and didn't really pull me in like the older Tales games did.

I'm feeling maybe more that the series hasn't gotten down hill, but perhaps they should give it a break, take some time to really refine the next Tales. Though before I say more, maybe I should get to playing more of them, haha! I'm trying to get through Abyss so I can get to Xillia, and then Zesteria! I may skip X2, because I dunno if I'll be up to playing that...

Youre just spoiled with fast localisation, they should let it rot in Japan for 3 years to make it cool again like they used to do

Never been a fan of this series... I'm not affected by that. Sucks  for  the  fans  though..

I'll post more when I get home, but I don't think you're being over-sensitive at all. If you loved the older games, you'll definitely hold the modern ones to a higher standard. I've only played Xillia of the modern games, and the narrative had some seriously obtuse flaws. Some of the characters grew on me, but I still found the majority to be rather bland. Still enjoyed it, but it definitely ranks near the bottom of the series for me.

I've played a few of there games and tried to enjoy them but overall the magic just wasn't there.

my last tales game was tales of legendia, so i can confirm that i lost interest in that series quite a while ago. never was a die hard fan of the series to begin with tough so yeah...

I've been disappointed with how much flak Tales as a series has been taking recently, it really seems like the 'in' thing to do is just wail on it for being a yearly franchise.  In my opinion it's always been a "slightly above average" series but for some reason games like Symphonia get revered while anything new they release gets met with "But it's not Symphonia!"  Yeah, of course it isn't, the series has taken a hell of a lot of steps forward since then.

In my personal opinion, if we're talking about peaks and troughs, I feel the low point was definitely a few years ago between Symphonia 2 and Graces and the series has taken a number of vast leaps forward since then, and in particular has been getting better with every mainline entry (and also Hearts R was a very solid spin-off).

To touch on a few of your specific points:

Playing to only halfway through means you do indeed miss out on most of the character development and plot.  I mean my god, the whole of the start of the story is world building, the characters and plots really come to their own between the side quests.  And the plot is a rehash of Symphonia, seriously?  You didn't even finish the game lol.  It was actually the highlight for me and gets significantly interest towards the end with the multiple threads and antagonists.

Combat is definitely the weak point of the game, but I dont' agree with "overpowered combination attacks".  They felt like a nice bonus to me; never a mandatory part of winning a battle.

Christ, I swear most of the people who wail on Xillia 2 barely even touched it.  The plot lost itself a little towards the end but up until that point was far the most interesting thing Tales has done in ages.  I absolutely loved the fractured dimension aspect and it created some really unique scenarios that were especially interesting if you'd played the original game.  Nothing about the game rose above average?  3D Tales combat is at its absolute best in Xillia 2, so I really don't know how you can say that.  Beside the fact that character development almost took centre stage in the game due to it being a direct sequel with only two new introduced characters.

Only thing I'm not sure I liked about the game was the grimdark optional ending, but even that wasn't canon so I can't really fault it.

I think you're really going to need to expand on the points in here to make a coherent argument.

One of the things I enjoyed most about Zestiria's combat was the fact that Rose & Sorey can trigger any elemental weaknes through their arte attacks.  While I will admit that fusing with a seraph makes battles a lot easier, again it felt like a nice bonus.  Maybe this is the time to up the difficulty on your playthrough?  That's what I did and started getting much more enjoyment from it.

One thing I will fault Zestiria for is the story.  It's fairly poorly told, and that's something I defintiely think it drops the ball on.

Without sounding overly harsh, I feel like this is a massive problem with gaming in general at the moment - people nitpick for the sake of nitpicking.  I don't think the quality has dipped at all, if anything, I think quality has continually increased from the pits of Symphonia 2 and Graces (although Graces had some redeeming qualities).

Read your post and was very pleased that someone else feels the way I do about this series.  Agreed with all of your points in this post.

I didn't like Zesteria either. Like you said it was all just very bland. I got to the very end decided I really didn't care decided to sell my gaming PC and got a PS4 again. Have no intentions of buying Zesteria ever again. I was sad because Vesperia was an amazing game and one of the best JRPGS I've ever played. Just really well done. I hope Besteria is much better.