by mento
Bored. Wanted to do something with Xillia, but sort of exhausted all pertinent topics with the regular Sunday Summaries updates. Instead, realized the best way to irritate and alienate fans of this series and confuse almost everyone else would be to sort the playable characters from every game into FGC-style tiers. I tossed in some notes for funzies. You know me and funzies, we go way back.
Disclaimer Zone: These tiers are entirely subjective and based on my opinions of the character as a narrative construct and also as a playable combatant in the always wild and deeply layered Tales real-time combat engine. (You've heard they have things like LMB systems? You got that right! Tales has got tons of LMB systems.) I've also only played like eight Tales games, so I'll be periodically adding more characters to this list as I eventually get around to the other games in the series. Legendia, Graces F, Hearts R, and Xillia 2 are presently the most conspicuous absences, given they all have English versions. Expect an update in 2025, maybe. Oh, and there's spoilers for all the games included, but since the newest one is still four years old I didn't think it would matter too much.
Final Disclaimer: Tales is a pretty great JRPG series, despite what some of the below descriptions might suggest and whatever footage you may have seen of animes saying the darndest things in fancy costumes. A franchise doesn't reach this many games without having a strong inner core made of molten iron spinning a thousand miles an hour. They are to RPGs what I am to analogies - a gift, in so many words.
2021 Edit: Now includes all the Zestiria and Berseria characters. Graces F next, and then maybe Arise?
Also, be sure to agree/disagree and/or make a case for your favorites in the comments below, excepting characters from games I've yet to play. (All in due time for those guys.) I'm considering putting together another list for Tales villains if this goes well enough.
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Tier: E Game: Tales of Phantasia (SNES/PS1/GBA, 1st in the series) Role: Healer Nickname: "Walking Bandaid" Notes: Mint's the very definition of uninteresting. She's a pure cleric class, standing alone in the corner hitting Cress and the party with cures, and her personality is as vanilla white as her nurse/priestess costume. Phantasia is the first game in the series and was still finding its feet with the variable group dynamic in its distinctive real-time combat and the series' trademark of small character moments to help its cast evolve from their archetypes and breathe a little, instead resorting to roles common to all RPGs of that era. It wouldn't be until the later and more sophisticated games that we'd begin to see fully-developed and more distinctive characters.
Tier: D Game: Tales of Phantasia Role: Ranged Nickname: "Mister Dead Sister" Notes: Chester introduces the Tales archetype, one that also can be seen with quite a number of protagonists from a certain other long-running RPG series, that is the overly serious brooding hero. He is a particularly one-note example, spending most of the time grieving his dead sister and bringing the mood down whenever Arche comically crashes into a tree on her broomstick or something. It's one of those thankless "straight man" roles that the series would eventually move away from, making sure each member of their ensemble casts has their own silly quirks and foibles for lighter moments of levity between whatever apocalyptic events are transpiring. One point in Chester's favor though - Phantasia's plot is a little odd, and the party sans Chester ends up a hundred years back in time, making pacts with spirits and growing very strong in the process. When they get back, Chester realizes he has some work to do to catch up, and essentially grinds off-screen for several days and nights to get on everyone else's level in an uncommon twist of ludonarrative harmony. He's a determined guy. Also his sister's dead. She's deeeead.
Tier: C Game: Tales of Phantasia Role: Melee Nickname: "Garden-Variety Cress" Notes: Cress is a very straightforward character, in that inevitable way that most JRPG protagonists tend to be. There's the cypher theory for why this is, of course: that by making the hero as plain as possible it becomes easier for the player (also assumed to be male, though frequently not the case) to project themselves onto that role. It's why many video game heroes are mute beyond occasional dialogue choices, and go largely unseen in first-person games. Like anything else in Phantasia, the first Tales game, all the traits that the franchise would become known for were still in their primordial state here, and while the protagonists of future games would still be fairly boilerplate on occasion, there would at least be more of an effort from the developers to distinguish them through personality quirks and personal motivations than the modest and selfless heroism of a guy named after the least exciting of the common sandwich fillings. That said, at least he's fun enough to play as, creating a mold for the dextrous swordsmen protagonists to come.
Tier: B Game: Tales of Phantasia Role: Mage Nickname: "Hermanime Granger" Notes: Arche is the exception in Phantasia, in that she's a more overt anime character than the RPG archetypes that populate the rest of the party. An adolescent witch with pink hair that is rarely not flying around on her broom, she represents both the more uncommon (to RPGs in general, at least) character design of Tales and an unusual role in combat as a participant that is always in the air. Most mages are stuck at the back with warriors to protect them, but Arche's flight means she can go wherever she is needed and still be relatively out of harm's way. She's a fun character to have around during Phantasia's more gloomy moments and an equally fun character to use in combat, and I want to say the developers made sure future Tales games were influenced by what she brought to the table over her comparatively stock companions.
Tier: B Game: Tales of Phantasia Role: Mage Nickname: "Uncle Lester" Notes: I haven't really talked about the recurring Tales archetype that Lester represents - the tired old man trying to keep up with all these darn kids. It's an easy role to relate to, especially as I get older myself, and a way to ensure that the precocious musings on the nature of reality from the younger cast are kept in check by an older voice of wisdom, even if that older voice can frequently be as silly as anyone else. Claus is kind of a dick to the group when you first meet him, as he's far more attached to doing research and drinking his coffee, but he slowly warms up to them as he helps them in their quest.
Tier: B Game: Tales of Phantasia Role: Ninja Nickname: "Pocket Ninja" Notes: The Fujibayashi clan makes two appearances in Tales (at least, of the ones I've played) and in both cases represent a distinct "ninja" class that operates largely on incredibly fast attacks and debuffs. Suzu's the younger of the two (despite being several hundred years older - it's a time jump thing) and she's an incidental optional character in much the same way Yuffie was in Final Fantasy VII. She's still a lot of fun to use in combat and would become the basis, I'd imagine, of my favorite martial class in the Tales series - the fast melee combatant who dazzles enemies with combos and juggles rather than heavy and slow knockback attacks.
Tier: D Game: Tales of Destiny (PS1, 2nd in the series) Role: Magic Swordsman Nickname: "Squall Leonmagnus" Notes: If Chester was the originator of the moodyguts Tales character, Leon is very much the epitome. Introduced as a rival, then nemesis, then eventually begrudging companion and friend, and finally waterlogged corpse, Leon's one of those characters that, while powerful, you don't ever want to spend any amount of time building up because you always have the nagging sense that he's going to split after the next cutscene for dramatic reasons. (Tales has a huge number of these types of traitor characters, incidentally.) He's also an enormous jerk with his shock collars. His demise (spoilers for a 20 year old game) at the mid-way point in the game is meant to be a Aeris-tier tragic heroic passing, but I was glad to see the last of him. Naturally, as a mercurial androgynous pretty boy with a whole lot of emotional baggage, he's one of the series' fan-favorites and was brought back in the most contrived way for Destiny's Japan-only sequel. At least his sister is cool. And not dead, if you thought there was a theme emerging.
Tier: D Game: Tales of Destiny Role: Ranged Nickname: "Pretty Archer Sailor Moon" Notes: There's a cynical theory, though a popular one, that Final Fantasy started adding what could only be politely referred to as jailbait characters for the sake of boosting sales among the more salacious fans of anime and JRPGs in its home nation. Yuffie, Selphie, Rikku, Penelo and Vanille all occupy a recurring role of a perky, bubbly and not all that plot-important cheerleader/support role in their respective games who, were they actual actors and the games actual movies/TV shows, would probably only be there as a launching point or stepping stone for their pop idol careers. It's probably more indicative of how Japanese celebrity culture operates as a whole than a decision borne of any specifically prurient intentions, but it can still be a bit creepy to see all these sexualized 8th graders throwing down with the slightly older main cast. Anyway, the pink pigtailed Chelsea is pretty much that for Tales of Destiny, and doesn't really offer a whole lot beyond temporarily becoming the party's archer while Garr (who she creepily dotes on) is occupied elsewhere.
Tier: D Game: Tales of Destiny Role: Bard Nickname: "Knifey Bard" Notes: Though a swordsman, Karyl spends most of his time sitting at the back buffing everyone with his music. While bards are often useful additions to any party for their active buffs, they're generally dull to play as and Karyl's a little too close to a certain Edward of Final Fantasy IV (there's a lot of shared DNA between that series and this one, if you were wondering, especially early on when Tales was still finding its own path). There's also the fact that Destiny has a distinct edge, as it were, with the sentient weapon "Swordians" that bond to each of the main characters and offer them various elemental magical artes to go with their combat artes. Karyl is one of the few characters in Destiny that doesn't have one, so his usefulness is limited.
Tier: D Game: Tales of Destiny Role: Tank Nickname: "Donkey Kongman" Notes: A hulking bruiser that joins the party if they beat him in the arena. He's an optional character and so the game doesn't spend a whole lot establishing any kind of personality for him beyond "big, bald, and prideful". Double Dragon's Abobo probably has more of a dramatic arc than this guy, and all he does is break through walls and get tricked into falling down bottomless pits.
