Sandbox / Video Game Tales Series Cleanup

Leftover text that was removed from the old version of VideoGame.Tales Series. Please see this thread for any issues.

Unsorted Examples

Integrate into the series' description:

• A real-time combat system called some variation on the Linear Motion Battle System (LMBS). The battle system is reminiscent of a 2D fighting game, and focuses on chaining moves together. The player controls one character, while the other battle characters are controlled by the AI and follow general commands. Most of the time, they're actually pretty good, as they are able to hold their ground, don't use unnecessary actions, and not flailing around like an idiot. There are a few exceptions, such as Natalia being notorious for going through her TP VERY quickly, Guy from the same game using up all your items at the drop of a hat, or Raine having a penchant for trying to charge up her spells RIGHT next to an enemy ^note if you get attacked while readying a spell, it automatically cancels itself and you have to start over, no matter how close you were to casting it. However, if you play around with their default settings in the game's "strategy" menu (ex. telling Guy not to use items on his own or instructing Natalia to use less TP at a time), you can help control this and make them more competent on their own.
• Combat techniques known as "Artes" (pronounced as "arts" and known in Japanese as "Jutsuwaza" lit. Skill Arts). Advanced techniques are known as "Arcane Artes". The combo system is often based upon chaining Artes into Arcane Artes.
• In Japanese, artes that are basically physical attacks with kanji are known as "waza" (arts) while artes that are more magic-based with English/foreign names are "jutsu" (techniques).
• The majority of the games feature a music score composed by Motoi Sakuraba working with a collaborator, most notably Shinji Tamura (a.k.a. Hibiki Aoyama) from Tales of Phantasia until Tamura's retirement following Tales of Graces. Go Shiina, Tales of Legendia's composer, has been Sakuraba's main collaborator ever since. Tales of Xillia was the first game to feature Sakuraba as the sole composer, followed by Tales of Xillia 2 and Tales of Berseria. The aforementioned Tales of Legendia and Tales of Innocence (composed by Kazuhiro Nakamura, who has also worked with Sakuraba) are the only two Mothership titles Sakuraba hasn't worked on.
• The Tales Series is known for having anime cutscenes, including an anime intro with an Anime Theme Song, since the first PlayStation installment. However, the original Nintendo DS release of Tales of Hearts came in two versions, where one had the standard anime cutscenes, the other version had 3D pre-rendered CG cutscenes. Needless to say, the version with the 3D CG cutscenes wasn't a big seller, and thus it remains the only release in the franchise to feature that style.

Check if there are actual tropes for this:

• Easter Egg Island?: A mysterious island that can only be accessed in a specific way or after a specific point in the game called Nam Cobanda Isle, and it serves absolutely no purpose other than to amuse the player. If the casino is on this island, expect to be Sidetracked by the Gold Saucer (though the island has other merits that can lead to this). You can get at least one costume title here, too. It also is the main source of references to other Tales games or other Namco games in general, and contains a place for you to view the Anime Cutscenes (and sometimes your skits).
• Pre-Final Battle Talk?: A heart-to-heart conversation between each party member the night before the Final Boss, usually to give closure to their Character Development.
• I don't think Super Mode really counts here but it might fit under a different trope or be cut: A form of Super Mode called "Over Limit", in which characters gain increased defensive power and become immune to stagger. At higher levels, Over Limit can even allow characters to use Artes without consuming CC or TP.
• ???: Titles, which can be attached to a character just like a piece of equipment. New titles are usually earned at key storyline moments, or for special achievements (such as building a long-enough combo). The actual effect of a Title varies from game to game: in some it is merely cosmetic while in others it affects stat growth or contains hidden effects. This is one of the more widely known features of the Tales series, since some of them can be appropriate and define the situation in which they are given or downright hilarious.
• ???: Skits, which are little conversations between the party members that can be triggered while travelling. They are one of the main sources of Character Development in the game. Depending on the game, skits can also affect Relationship Values.
  • A rather weird bit of history: originally, the Skit system was made to complement gameplay due to hardware limitations. Most systems in the time they were produced (like the SNES, PS1, and so on) couldn't handle character-to-character talking, or even multi-character talking of more than two characters sometimes seen in Visual Novels or even Final Fantasy when synced to an actual voice, so all the essential and non-essential stuff was pushed to the skits with a floating mouth in a box talking not in sync. The system ended up being so efficient in getting the message across in many games that it ended up sticking even through the latest games in the series on their respective consoles (Xbox 360, etc.) can handle way more than the now-tradition Skit system, on top of the now-achieved multi-character talking and the animated sequences.

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The following entries here may be lacking in context/too general at the moment to be a valid example, but could be salvaged:

Needs Context

• A Hero to His Hometown: The so called Demon Lord of the Tales of...... series is considered to be a wise and just ruler by his subjects and is willing to do anything to ensure their survival, including destroying your player character's world.
• Amazing Technicolor Battlefield:
  • Tales of Symphonia, when you fight Maxwell, the Sin Incarnates, and the Robot version of the Big Bad. Also any fights in the book, Forbidden Anamnesis. And the area before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, would count as well.
  • Tales of Vesperia's final battle starts off on regular stone platform, but gets more like this trope with each form of the boss you defeat.
• Apocalypse Maiden:
  • Tales of Symphonia plays with this. To Sylvarant, Colette is the Messianic Barrier Maiden. But to Tethe'alla she is this trope. Finding that out is what makes the main party decide to Screw Destiny and Take a Third Option. Helps that the Big Bad is behind the whole corrupt system, giving them a target to beat up.
  • The reason why Richter's after Marta in Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. He should have been more concerned with Emil.
  • Shirley from Tales of Legendia. Great job taking away all her reasons for ''NOT'' wanting to destroy humanity, Senel.
• Archnemesis Dad:
  • Kratos Aurion from Tales of Symphonia is this to the main character. Unlike Darth Vader, it results in a much more successful Heel–Face Turn.
  • Tales of the Abyss has two examples:
    • Natalia's biological father is Largo the Black Lion, something she only finds out in the end game. Since Largo considers that part of him long dead, it's a major tearjerker when Natalia fights and kills him personally despite making it clear before she wants to get to know him as a person.
    • It's made clear throughout the game Luke looks up to Van as his Parental Substitute and he's even responsible for his creation. In the end, Luke kills him...and makes it very clear he never got over the fact Van is his father in all but blood.
• Armies Are Evil: Evil military leaders, somewhere close to The Empire. The position of Commandant is a particularly common warning sign for nefarious schemes. Multiple times, there are named officials, and you will end up fighting them in a Boss Fight. If soldiers use the color red (or dark colors like purple), along with Sigil Spam on the armor, they are definitely a part of The Empire and the antagonistic world.
• Bare-Fisted Monk: This is becoming a common element of the Tales of... series, starting with Tales of Destiny. It is not uncommon to see this archetype combined with elements of other classes, for example Yuri Lowell.
  • Bruiser Khang from Tales of Destiny
  • Farah Oersted from Tales of Eternia
  • Regal Bryant from Tales of Symphonia. Since he only uses his legs to fight, he also doubles as an Extremity Extremist.
  • Tytree Crowe from Tales of Rebirth, who also doubles as an archer
  • Senel Coolidge, the main protagonist from Tales of Legendia
  • Anise Tatlin from Tales of the Abyss, though her giant doll Tokunaga does the swinging while she does the casting.
  • Hermana Larmo from Tales of Innocence
  • Sophie from Tales of Graces
• BFS:
  • In the Tales of... series, there's the spirit Undine's blade in Tales of Phantasia, Philia Philis' Clemente (heavily magic-tilted and terrible for offense, unlike most examples here) and Berselius in Tales of Destiny, Ruca Milda's signature weapon type in Tales of Innocence, and Decus's sword (which he keeps stored in a man-sized iron maiden) from Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. There are also massive axes to be found, specifically Barbatos's axe in Tales of Destiny 2, Presea Combatir's Gaia Cleaver, and Innes Lorenz' Folseus (and both characters are Mighty Glacier types to boot).
  • And then there is the VBFFS (Very Big F'n Feather Sword) in the ending of Tales of Vesperia.
• Blackout Basement:
  • The Temple of Lightning in the Tales of Symphonia games has like this, lit up only by the occasional flash of lightning.
  • The Bonus Dungeon in Tales of Phantasia has two such rooms, one of which is a maze that will sour your opinion of rocks and stalagmites.
• Campfire Character Exploration: In general, the party spends the night around a campfire or at an inn, and the main character, who can't sleep, becomes the only controllable character. These scenes typically allow the player to have hushed, intimate conversations with all the party members separately, but involve one or two specific required conversations between the main character and one or two other characters before the plot will progress. Note: Too general?
• Cave Behind the Falls:
  • Latheon Gorge in Tales of Symphonia comes to an end in one of these - although you repeatedly enter and exit the cave throughout the dungeon, the final entrance is opened by dropping a huge boulder into the waterfall, unveiling the cave entrance behind it. Of course, there's a MacGuffin and a huge Man-Eating Plant in there. Also, while there are no caves involved, there's goodies behind the mini waterfalls in the Torrent Forest later in the game.
  • Tales of Zestiria has the Water Trial Shrine hidden behind like this. Amusingly you access it by using the Wind field ability.
• Cool Old Guy: At least one character who is physically and mentally over 25 years old (ignoring the Really 700 Years Old characters, since they don't look their age). The oldest main party member in a Tales game is 62. ^note This character's Always Male, however; the oldest female party member is 25, and even then she's only that old in a spinoff of her original game as a result of a timeskip. This character will almost always be the butt of jokes about being an 'old man'.
• Crapsaccharine World: If the game has a remotely positive look for face value, even if it's for seemingly minor plot points, chances are the game will Shoo Out the Clowns at some point in the story.
• Cute Monster: Especially noticable once Pre Rendered Cutscenes entered the fray; the intro to Tales of the Abyss looks like Jade, Anise, Natalia and Guy are slaughtering a horde of plush toys. One of them with a plush toy.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Almost every entry I've seen about this franchise's deconstruction tendencies trends towards gushing about the games, this is going to need its own overhaul later.
  • Plots that start as Cliche Storms, but later go on to subvert and deconstruct the very tropes they employ, often by drastically highlighting the nasty downsides of those tropes. This is one of the main reasons why the games have a fanbase.
  • Creating some sort of Chosen One, then showing how much It Sucks to Be the Chosen One.
  • Deconstructing Black-and-White Morality by having the heroes do morally ambiguous things in the name of saving the world. In the most extreme cases, it even bends towards Black-and-Gray Morality.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: The Tales of... series has anti-piracy messages at the start of some of their games; when the game is booted up, a character will come on screen and talk about they're relying on the player to keep the industry alive, et al. Which one?
• Doomed Hometown: Doesn't this trope require that it happen at the start of the story/kick off the character's plot, not just any time a character's home is threatened?
  • Tales of Eternia: Meredy's hometown gets destroyed somewhere during the middle of the game. Arguably the first thing that made Reid realize not caring is not the answer to life.
  • Downright inverted in Tales of the Abyss — it happened to the villain during the backstory and is his main motivation for his Well-Intentioned Extremist ways.
    • Though one of the protagonist's companions comes from the same town and was only able to get past the "wanting revenge" thing due to the friendship of the protagonist.
    • Ditto in Tales of Hearts. The villain is attempting to restore his dead planet. Unfortunately, not only does he plan to do this by stealing the life energy from the main characters' planet, but his plan isn't even going to work.
  • Every time a town is attacked by an enemy force in Tales of Graces, its always Lhant. "Save Lhant from " is regularly recurring objective in the game. Every military in the world attacks it at some point, plus the Big Bad's monsters of course.
• Elite Four: A core group of four military leaders often called "The Four [x]" and have other titles associated with them. There are always Boss Fights with each individual, but whether or not they pop up and fight you again is really dependent on the story. (Since the series is Japanese, you can probably guess why there are four.)
• Evil Former Friend: least one member of the Big Bad's team will be former friends or family of a fellow party member.
• Evolving Attack: sometimes combining two attacks together.
• Final Boss Preview:
  • Tales of Phantasia, which was released first but takes place far later in the same timeline as Symphonia, does this with Dhaos. Twice, as Dhaos is also the boss of the Disc-One Final Dungeon.
  • Also, Shizel in Tales of Eternia. It isn't as much of a curb stomp since you CAN fight back, but after a while the fight abruptly ends anyways.
• Fission Mailed:

  • The fight against Dozo and Okiyo in the Euclid Arena qualifies, but it is possible to win with some extra grinding/Infinity Plus X swords available elsewhere (It goes up to Infinity Plus 5!)

• Go Wait Outside: So common that whenever it is not used, it's usually to cram in a cutscene or another dungeon for you to loot while it's being made.
• Green Aesop: ??? If there is something the entire planet is dependent on, such as the world-wide religion or advanced technology, the things that let everyone use artes/the things that strengthen abilities, etc., chances are it won't make it to through the end of the game. It is usually revealed to be obtained or performed in a less-than-moral way or is ultimately bad for the planet, sometimes as part of the Wham Episode as well, and the second half of the game is mostly spent on fixing this problem.
• Guest-Star Party Member:
  • Leon in Tales of Destiny, though the remake had narikiri dolls that let the player turn any party member into a replica of him complete with arte set.
  • Ras in Tales of Eternia.
  • Asch in Tales of the Abyss. A rather Guide Dang It! glitch can be used to keep him in the party instead of the main character (who he replaces during his stint in the party), at the expense of a few treasures and sidequests. He has two stints^note Well, three; in the third one, he actually is in the party at the same time as the protagonist, but he never gets into any battles so it doesn't really count too much., and manages to get massively depowered between them without a Good Is Dumb moment - he just has the same equipment at the end of the game that he had in the middle, and it turns out that a sword that was pretty damn good 20 hours into the game isn't so great when everybody else has gotten a twofold increase in attack power. Needs a rewrite. Is this an actual glitch that isn't intended by the game or is it a feature that's Guide Dang It!?
• Heroes Prefer Swords: The Main Character having a sword as their weapon. Even Velvet from Tales of Berseria, who doesn't use a traditional sword and mostly fights with kick-based attacks, has a retracting gauntlet blade at her disposal. Senel and Jude are the two exceptions to this gameplay element since they use their fists instead. List all sword users and then state the very few ones that don't.
• Idiot Hero:
  • Country-bumpkin Stahn Aileron. His genes of Idiot Hero is passed down to his son Kyle Dunamis.
  • Reid from Tales of Eternia as well, but that's mostly in the first half of the game, where his stomach is bigger than his brain.
  • Lloyd from Tales of Symphonia, who really takes the Idiot Hero → Fool → Messiah evolution to a whole new level of exaggeration, insofar as he actually sprouts wings near the end of the game.
  • Subverted. He is absolutely Book Dumb, but he is very competent when it comes to crafting. As the game goes on, he proves to be a competent leader and other characters sometimes remark that he's better at making quick decisions than them. Some of this is Character Development.
  • Colette is also an example, and she also happens to be The Chosen One.
  • Tales of the Abyss protagonist Luke fon Fabre. Although he becomes a better person after his Important Haircut he still has plenty of moments that prompt someone, usually Tear, to tell him that he's an idiot.
  • It should be stressed again — Luke is mentally seven-years-old, due to the whole cloning thing. When you see it from this perspective, he's quite smart for his age.
    • Further subverting Luke's Idiot Hero status is the fact that, in addition to having to learn everything from scratch over the past seven years (including walking, talking, and the faces of his family) he spent the entirety of those seven years being locked in his mansion with his family, closest friend and beloved teacher doing their best to keep him from getting any info about the outside world, ostensibly for his own security but actually because they're either plotting to eventually trick him into being a suicide bomber, kill him and his family, or both. Seriously, can you blame the poor kid?
• Implied Love Interest: Is it actually intentional though or is it plain Ship Tease/Homoerotic Subtext? I don't go here, but I remember cutting the Fan-Preferred Couple entries because Vesperia doesn't seem to have any creator-preferred ships besides giving everyone teasing moments.
  • Tales of Vesperia: Rita and Estelle's friendship is another case that borders on Hide Your Lesbians, since it's never officially confirmed.
    • Several in-game skits lampshades the implied attraction between them, such as when Yuri and Karol discuss how Rita always frets over Estelle's safety. A separate skit has Judith call Rita out for trying to make an excuse to visit her, while a third one has Yuri outright call them "Ristelle."
    • Rita's also prone to blushing whenever Estelle pays direct attention to her, or anytime she gives Rita a compliment. Karol teases her about it in the following victory skit:
      Estelle: Wow, Rita! That was SO cool!
      Rita: [blushing] Really? Um, t-thanks...
      Karol: [grinning] Oooo~ooo!
      Rita: [flustered] Sh-shut up, YOU!!
    • Further implicated by the live-action "Tales of Ristelle" skit. During which, Zelos' Japanese VA tricks Rita's VA into showing up by telling her Estelle would be there. When Rita calls him out for it, he and Milla's VA tease her for being Tsundere towards Estelle.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Those outfits requiring an enormous amount of bias tape for cosplayers to reproduce.^note There's a fandom joke that bias tape is to Tales as belts are to Final Fantasy Rewrite so they're not so dependent on looking at the image links themselves.
  • Tales of Graces: Asbel Lhant's Badass Longcoat as seen here◊. Not only does it seem to have an awesome pattern on every side, but the arms are practically held together with gold disks.
  • A few "Tales" characters are guilty of this.Tales of Legendia seems to be one of the worse offenders. To start of, the main character Senel's top is not only skin tight but has strange mechanics attached to it. Makes one wonder how exactly he puts them on, and how they STAY on.
    • Norma's full outfit looks like it would take some effort to put on. In addition, there are Moses's pants. Good lord, his pants.
  • Yuri Lowell◊ from Tales of Vesperia generally has one of the series' simpler character designs, barring a pair of knee-length boots which are open at the front and don't appear to have any laces. They pretty much defy the laws of gravity by even staying up. One possible explanation is that they are actually buttoned onto his pants, which makes them less impossible, but still really, really silly.
• Like Brother and Sister: Though it's never outright stated, Yuri and Estelle in Tales of Vesperia fall into this. Despite numerous Shipper on Deck moments from other companions in various skits, they never stray from being like brother and sister.
• One-Time Dungeon:
  • Tales of Phantasia: The Catacombs and Thor, the latter of which serving as a MAJOR Point of No Return as well.
  • Tales of Symphonia: Every Human Ranch, except for Iselia's, as well as the dungeons within Welgaia and the Tower of Salvation.
  • Tales of the Abyss: Deo Pass and Akzeriuth Mine Shaft 14.
  • Tales of Xillia: The E.S.S. Zenethra.
  • Tales of Xillia 2: Every single Fractured Dimension.
  • Tales of Berseria: The Calix
• Patchwork Map: A snowy town and a desert town; the former usually has a "romantic" atmosphere which may be explored or just touched upon. Oddly enough, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World ends up with both at once by covering its predecessor's desert town with snow.
• Port Town:
  • Izoold and Palmacosta in Tales of Symphonia.
  • Venezia in Tales of Phantasia is where the protagonists can get a boat to Alvanista, which is also a port town.
  • Capua Nor and its sister town Capua Torim in Tales of Vesperia, along with Nordopolica to a lesser extent.
  • Tales of Berseria has Hellawes, Port Zekson, Port Cadnix, Reneed, Yseult, and Taliesin.
• Praetorian Guard:
  • Tales of Symphonia has the five Grand Cardinals, who double as bosses. The four Seraphim of Yggdrassil may also count, though at the time of the game all are either dead or rebelling against Yggdrassil, openly or otherwise.
  • The six God-Generals in Tales of the Abyss serve Van and double as bosses as well.
  • Video Game:Tales Of Luminaria: Blaze for the Federation and the Alphas for the Empire.
• Prison Episode: At some point, the party (or at least the main character) will end up in jail. It's also possible that if the party ends up escaping from the police, a very badly drawn wanted poster will feature them.
  • Rare Candy: Some herbs that can increase base statistics.]]
• Say My Name: Lots of shouting. Particularly, someone's name being screamed out. Almost every Tales-related meme requires capslock.

  Note: They're basically all Zero-Context, maybe we should just cut them...

The following are entries that I believe are misuse based on the context given and should be cut, but I don't want to just delete them immediately in case someone can argue that they are actual valid entries:

To Cut

• Combat Medic: Would an inversion even count? Otherwise you might as well list every combat-oriented character who has a single healing skill. These entries seem (going at it without any prior context at all) to just be characters who have at least one healing arte.

  • Regal fits the monk sub-type of this trope, but inverts the general concept by being a primarily melee-based character with just one tech tree of single-target healing spells.
  • Kratos and Zelos can also learn three different healing spells regardless of their ability trees. They are not as effective as Raine, but they can provide some much needed relief when she's busy.
  • Similarly Karol heals as well as a White Mage, though his heals are limited to a small radius around him. He even obtains an arte that lets him remove status ailments!
  • Raven is built for combat, having only a single move that heals for small amount. However, his sheer healing speed and efficiency compared to other characters with higher healing power, like Estelle, makes him the combat medic of choice for many players.
  • Flynn is basically a more melee-oriented Estelle. He has strong offence and crowd control abilities, tanky skills that make it almost impossible for him to die while keeping everyone else safe, light spells to devastate his enemies and two healing spells straight out of Estelle's spell list in case you need to heal. A true Paladin through and through.

  • In Tales of Xillia 2 Muzét could count as a minor example since she has two martial artes that can be used for healing and she has access to the Resurrection spell.
• Doomed Hometown:
  • Tales of Innocence has the main character able to enter his hometown, but unable to enter his house, since it's under surveillance because he has special powers.
  • Tales of Destiny averts the trope by having the player see the main character's hometown (which is notably NOT doomed) for the first time in the middle of the game, and when you arrive, he is welcomed home by his two living parents.
  • Tales of Eternia: the main pair is banished for the heinous crime of finding an alien girl, whose presence gets the elder's house attacked.
  • Tales of Vesperia continues the tradition with Rita's hometown, Aspio. But this happens near the end of the game. And no one dies since the one who destroyed it needs as many human lives as possible to power his superweapon.
    • Zaphias, the Imperial Capital and home to both Yuri and Estelle, becomes the target of a massive aer overgowth that decimates the city near the climax of Act II. The Lower Quarter, where Yuri is from, is noted to be completely overrun. However, it later turns out that the area was evacuated by the Inspector Javert and his cronies, and the city is rebuilt before the end of the game.
• Fighting Your Friend:
  • Tales of the Abyss also does it the least since the only friend you fight is Asch...No one's sudden betrayals actually result in a battle.
  • Like Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Symphonia also has a little too much fun with this trope...but not to the point described above.
    • The Sequel includes a possible final battle but this is one where you're supposed to lose, winning results in the Downer Ending.
• Gainax Ending: In some cases, a Gainax Ending that wraps up everything and pulls the above together. The only crosswicks are Tales of the Abyss, Tales of Berseria, and Tales of Symphonia. I'm inclined to say this is just misuse and misinterpreting intentionally open/ambiguous endings.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • The Adephagos in Tales of Vesperia, another Sealed Evil in a Can that does not drive most of the plot. Even when it manifests, it itself is simply a mindless malevolence.
• He Knows About Timed Hits: Tales of Vesperia and Tales of Graces both subvert this, doing away with immersion-breaking tutorials because all of the characters involved are seasoned warriors (and in Vesperia, everyone except Yuri and Karol are some variety of Magic Knight, leading to homogenized movesets.) Game controls are instead explained through on-screen hot tips during or after battles.
• Inevitable Tournament: The Tales of... series almost always has an arena. It's rarely necessary to complete the tournament, though the Superboss therein often coughs up some sweet stuff if you beat it, but you are often required to participate in a fight or three when the plot calls.
• Never Say "Die":
• The French version of Tales of Symphonia is a funny example of this when you understand English, because while the text is in French, the voice acting is still in English. So you hear "killed" and read "destroyed/eliminated/disposed of/badly hurt". They toned down some of the stuff Zelos says, too...
• In Tales of the Abyss At a certain point in the game, Luke is talking to Asch, telling him that he'll stop Van. Asch bluntly corrects him by saying: "Not 'stop'. Kill!"
• In the video game series Tales of... when the party is killed by monsters, the usual death screen message is "they were never heard from again..." paired with depressing or unsettling music.
• The Thunderdome: An optional arena where you can take on a number of challenges, such as Solo Character Runs and Boss Rushes. You can even end up fighting your own party members.
• Wham Episode: in the perfect center of normal story progression (it is really that horrifyingly accurate), often accompanied with a Face–Heel Turn. Said Face Heel Turn will also happen somewhere immediately before or after this time. Deconstruction will play a major part of the segment, but it will most likely not compare to the horror initiated. Due to this change in perspective, the Big Bad will end up becoming the Well-Intentioned Extremist he will be properly known for.
• Word Purée Title: The title of each series almost always consists of either a made-up word that never comes up in the game, a word that does technically exist but is incredibly niche and not commonly used at all (and also is never said in the game), or a regular word, but has no real significant meaning to the plot of the game. There are a small handful of exceptions, such as Tales of Vesperia (the word in-universe refers to the brightest star in the sky, and the party's guild name themselves "Brave Vesperia" after it), but not many.
• Virtual Paper Doll: Costume Titles, which completely change the appearance of a character while equipped. May also be a Casting Gag or Mythology Gag depending on who it is used on.

Needs examples from other games

• Inn Security: This is rarely in the Tales of... series. You are frequently offered free rests at inns, but the result is almost never dangerous or detrimental. More frequently, it is used to advance the plot.
  • Tales of Phantasia used the trope both directly and in variation repeatedly. Near the beginning of the game, you have to rest at your uncle's house, and the resulting cutscene kicks you into the dungeon. On the other hand, the game also offers you a free rest when something has to happen "tomorrow" or "in a while," such as when you're waiting for an NPC to return to the inn to meet him, or when your characters decide to meet in the inn to discuss the plan to infiltrate a castle (well, the first one's free - you have to pay to visit the cutscene if you decide to hold off on the mission).
• Kick Chick: There are a few female characters who specialize in kicking: The other games need context, otherwise the example from a single game can't be put on the franchise-wide page.
  • Tales of Hearts has Kohaku Hearts who is a unique hybrid of a fire mage, healer and a martial artist with her specialty being kicking. Kicking is also one of her traits as her wanted poster in a skit in Tales of Hearts R noted.
  • Tales of Graces has Sophie who is a healer and a martial artist. She is small, but her kicks are deadly.
  • Tales of Innocence has Hermana.
  • Tales of Berseria has main character Velvet Crowe use a wrist blade and a demonic left arm as her main weapons but a lot of her artes use kicks and blades hidden in her shoes as well.
• Life Energy:
  • Mana from Symphonia. When the world decays, a Chosen sets out to restore Mana, and takes it away from the parallel world, causing them to spit out a Chosen to tilt it back again.
    Note: Potholed on Rays and Tempest.
• Like Brother and Sister:
  • Tales of Graces: When Asbel refers to himself, his brother Hubert, and Cheria — who clearly harbours romantic interest for him — as "Lhant's Triplets of Terror", Cheria angrily retorts, "I am not your sister, Asbel!"
• Luke, I Am Your Father:
  • Tales of Symphonia: Kratos is Lloyd's father, but believed Lloyd to be dead for years. It's actually Yuan that reveals the truth to Lloyd, as while Kratos did figure it out in Iselia, he never told Lloyd because he knew wouldn't be too pleased finding his biological father was alive and was never with him most of his life.
• Medium Awareness:
  • In Tales of Symphonia, one skit called "For Lazy People" has Lloyd complaining about having to walk through one of the dungeons again. Specifically, he asks "Couldn't they at least give us a Quick Jump option?" This confuses the other characters, who have no idea what he's talking about - he's referring to a few dungeons that can be skipped after you've beaten them once. It's done again by Tenebrae in another skit for the sequel.
• Schizo Tech: Symphonia: particularly within the waning world of Sylverant. While the Sylveranti consider a coal-powered steamship to be their most technologically advanced vehicle, Cruxis, the Renegades, and later the main party possess Rheairds, which are basically personal interdimensional jets. Note also the Desian human ranches. While they have elevators, electric lights, automated factories with electronic control panels, AND autonomous robots with lasers, the outside world is comparatively primitive. Heck, people have to travel to the Thoda Geyser using wooden wash buckets.
• Space Whale Aesop: Tales of Vesperia: If you don't use environmentally friendly technology, a technicolor interdimensional ghost squid will come down from space and eat everybody.

  Note: Vespiria is the only game crosswicked here. It may be too rare to be series-wide. (But just by reading this, it feels like misuse?)