The Top 5 Tales Games

#2: Tales of Xillia: Ok, if I ever do a “best Tales games list” again somewhere down the line, I may not be as fond of this and rank it lower. It may have been that it was years since we had a really good Tales game (Tales of Graces was just ok) and more than doing anything truly inventive, it merely took a lot of elements from previous titles and managed not to screw them up. Admittedly the choice between starting as either Jude or Milla doesn’t make much of a difference (and actually leads to some plot holes), but the characters are fun and engaging, the story strikes a pretty good balance of humor and seriousness, and everything gels pretty well together. We’ll see if it still holds up a year or two from now when several new Tales games have come out in the West (Xillia 2, Zesteria, Hearts R, etc.). But the fact that I really wanted to spend more time and see more stories in that universe with at least some of those characters speaks volumes and I’m pretty hyped for a sequel taking place in that universe, which I don’t really feel about most of the other Tales games no matter how much I enjoyed them. So, yes for now Xillia gets the very strong ranking of #2 in the Tales series, but I feel free to revisit that in the future.