Final Fantasy wins this confrontation... Tales is an excellent series, but FF usually wins in the story stuff (some FF's have terrible and forgettable stories, so it's not a given. Tales of Symphonia and Phantasia easily outdo the weaker FF's), the FF VII battle system beats every other system in existence, graphically, FF's are overall better (even though I prefer the artstyle of Tales)... musically... both are excellent, but FF nabs this one for me also... Dancing Mad, J-E-N-O-V-A, The Extreme, Premonition, Man With the Machine Gun, Fight With Seymour... you get the picture. Even more so if you listen to the The Black Mages versions of the songs.
My series rankings go like this:
1. Final Fantasy
2. Shin Megami Tensei
3. Tales of
And I expect it to remain so for long, unless FF XIII and vXIII come out terrible.
