I'm starting a Tales of Zesteria playthrough for the first time, and so far I'm not that into it yet compared to what I played with Xillia. Maybe I'm just getting burned out, from playing them, or maybe it's just this one in particular. The characters don't seem all that interesting (I'm only a few hours in). The camera seems messed up for some reason, and the story, like so many of the others all feels the same; political intrigue, two groups, etc. 

I might just stop playing these games for a year, as they seem to have annualized it as well. That might make me want to play it more if I've given it a good year. 

Anyone else feel the same way, or is it just me? Thoughts? 

It does need a break, bigger budget, and better writers... Better production value in general.

It also needs a better art-style. Xillia's art style is so bland. It's unbelievable that the best looking Tales was released 8 years ago (Vesperia) and all the later games look uglier than it.
And it needs better overworlds. If they don't have the budget for a good overworld, then just return to the world maps.

Definitely this...the bolded in particular. I finished Xillia a few weeks ago, and, though not a bad game, it suffered from some serious narrative problems. The series does well with characters IMO, so I really wish they'd improve the story-telling aspect of the games. Hard for me to care about what's going on when the story has so many issues.

While it could use the break, it hasn't really bothered me yet.

I'm playing Zestiria right now, going through my eight playthrough of Symphonia and my third one of Abyss, and after that I'm going to play Phantasia, Hearts R and Destiny.

Well, Japanese criticized the game heavily, so there must be a reason why they don't like it.

Although many people just close the argument by saying that Japanese people are butthurt because 'face character' being fake. But that also can be read as 'Character that replaces it just sucks.'

Obviously, Japanese culture that doesn't accept 'killing' as a best moral decision also comes into play, but even if you don't consider that and the fact that Alisha gets completely forgotten very soon (Despite the initial premise), character gets bland pretty fast, it isn't like Symphonia or the Abyss where main character go through profound change as story progresses. Cast of Zesteria never faces direct challenge to their ideal, as a result, characters seems to be mostly unchanged.

This could have been amended by the game world, but overall aspect of set up didn't changed much since Symphonia-Abyss.

But honestly, greatest gripes I have with that game is that it requires so much grinding to complete a character compared to other tales game.

And? you buy call of duty and other yearly franchises all the time i remember from your trophy/archievements. 

I dont see a problem, i rather have an annualized jrpg than another shooter series

It's been annualised in the West since 2011. Since then we've seen the Abyss (3DS, 2011/12), Graces f (PS3, 2012), Xillia (PS3, 2013), Symphonia Chronicles (PS3, 2014), Xillia 2 (PS3, 2014), Hearts R (Vita, 2014) and Zestiria (PS3/PS4, 2015). It's basically on-par with the two biggest annualised non-sports franchises, Assassin's Creed and Call of Duty, which have seen eight and six new entries since 2011 respectively.

For me, it certainly needs a break. I'm not even that much of a Tales fan, having only dipped my toes in the franchise thus far, but the constant releases turn me off instead of enthusing and exciting me. It's happened with Assassin's Creed and Pokemon as well, and will pretty much happen with every single franchise I enjoy or am interested in if they're annualised.

More power to the people that are enjoying them and are fine with one or more new entries per year. I'd just prefer a new entry every 2-3 years.

I think they release too frequently for games that take 40 - 60 hours to complete.

I play every Assassin's Creed game because I enjoy the gameplay, story and they can be finished in about 15 - 20 hours. If they were 40 - 60 hours each I would have stopped playing them years ago.

The only Tales games I've completed were Symphonia (Gamecube and Wii sequel), Abyss, and Vesperia. I had enough of the series, I probably won't play any more.

There is still a difference, every tales game has new characters and new story and content. Assassins creed is pretty predicable ounce you know in which timeframe its playing: ohh its playing in victorian london guess we have to put jack the ripper dlc into it.

And Call of Duty really? It has no deep story at all in its campaign, i think you cant compare the tales series to these franchise. And neither sells the tales series as many units