Tales Music

[Dimentionalist]

I'd have to say Tales of Symphonia or Tales of Destiny 2(J). I loved how ToS incorporated some of the character themes into the battle themes and was just well-done, IMO. I know a lot of people though it was bland, so I guess I'm special.

ToD2 just had some really catchy songs (both "Theme of Battles", "Don Nobis Pacem", both versions of "Wheel of Fortune", all the characters themes).

[Goshi]

Tales of Phantasia for me. I have to admit Tales o Symphonia and Tales of Eternia did have some pretty bland themes and the music from both of them never really appealed to me.

Tales of Destiny probably has the weakest music of the series though. Although the battle themes were decent.

[Cyllya]

ToP. As much as I liked ToS's event/character music, the meh area music hurts the soundtrack as a whole, while ToP's is good throughout.

And those are the only two I remember much of.

[Cless]

The crown goes to Destiny 2. Hard to pick a second.

Rebirth and Eternia are the weakest by far.

Never understood all the ToS OST hate though. Funny thing is that Tales game probably has more tracks in my playlist than any other. It just sounds like a nice old school RPG soundtrack to me...

[Dice]

ToP- really pretty, its suits the kinda of serene environments depicted thorughout the game.

ToS- great melodies, shitty instruments playing them, its sounds way too playstation/N64 sometimes

ToL- IMO, the best and probably highest budgeted.  Not only suitable songs, but long and beautiful and a unique mix of vocals, traditional instruments, and synthing/mixing. Both thumbs up!

ToA- err, I'll judge this one when I play the game, otherwise its getting a "middle-thumb".  You can tell the difference between which composer wrote which tune.  I dunno, the songs don't stick with me that well, some are nice adn what you'd expect, but some are kinda "meh".  Karma rocks though. =)

ToR- never heard it.

ToD and D2-  I think they're great, they picked up where Phantasia left off.

ToE- Im surprised this one is getting bad rap, I love this one for being fun or nice, or, again, suiting the environment really well.  Mind you, Celestia's over world theme makes going outside a task...

[StIoachim]

ToD2j is the best IMHO, I haven't even played the game, but loved the music, specially the battle themes. I also like the mood of the songs that seems right to the situations.

But it's just a little above ToD and ToP. I liked ToP a lot cause it was the one that better fitted it's game. ToE, anyway, wasn't awful, it was just "right" and nothing more beside a couple of tunes.

[Sword-Breaker]

ToD2j is the best IMHO, I haven't even played the game, but loved the music, specially the battle themes. I also like the mood of the songs that seems right to the situations.

But it's just a little above ToD and ToP. I liked ToP a lot cause it was the one that better fitted it's game. ToE, anyway, wasn't awful, it was just "right" and nothing more beside a couple of tunes.

Eh, the only prob is it sounds like midi >_<

[Cless Aileron]

The top three Tales soundtrack for me are:

1.  Tales of Phantasia.  They're really beautiful and very fitting with the game.
2.  Tales of Destiny 2.  The battle tunes are the big stars in this soundtrack and they're awesome.  Not to say the other music aren't great because they are also awesome.
3.  Tales of Legendia.  After hearing two lackluster soundtracks (Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Rebirth, both on my list as least favorite Tales soundtrack), it was great to hear something fantastic again.  Beautifully composed music and had a great scope to the scene.  Fantastic stuff.

Eh, the only prob is it sounds like midi >_<

I don't know.  I feel like I have to play the bad guy here.  I could say the same thing about other Sakuraba soundtrack, since it's all synth.  I would think there would be two things Sakuraba gets criticized for.  1.  Cookie-cutter music and 2.  The synth/midi sounding thing.  I wouldn't say the midi thing would be for just one game.

[Leroy]

Legendia is the only good one in my opinion.. the rest sound like they came from those Casio keyboards you can buy at Wal*Mart and yet there's no melody to any of the Sakuraba/Tamura stuff to offset to low-tech sound. They work as BACKGROUND to the games just fine, but are utterly forgettable seconds after they're gone and totally not listenable on their own.

Now, Destiny 2 did have one track that I thought went WAY above and beyond the normal S/T composition. I looked for it on the PSF files and I think it was called "March of the War Time" and it's just freaking AWESOME. The climax of this song has more energy than their 10+ CDs of previous Tales work in my opinion. Then there was the song that played in the 3D maze before you meet Stahn and crew, I'm pretty sure it was a remix of the song that played in the opening level of Tales of Destiny.. it just has a totally pimp bass line.

[Gutterflower]

Regardless of the midi quality, I find ToD to have the best moeldies.  If the OST was reperformed using real instruments it would sound fantastic.

[Magicpaint]

Only Tales of Destiny 2j, Tales of Legendia and Phantasia have good soundtracks imo.

The others just have a few standout moments here and there.

Phantasia is probably my favourite though, almost on par with some of the FF OSTs, and very memorable. I liked Legendia's full score, but it's not effectively used in the game or THAT memorable like Phantasia or Destiny 2j.

[Datschge]

What is it with the lack of love for Abyss' music here?

[Dice]

Not many of the tracks are amazingly unique or catchy on the Abyss one, IMO. 
Magicpaint said it best, "The others just have a few standout moments here and there."

[Goshi]

Tales of Eternia's soundtrack was pretty weak as well I have to agree. Whilst some songs aren't bad they never really appealed to me. Infernia Battle and Mid Boss 2 were the only decent battle themes. The others needed work. And the music for the FMV when Shizel enters the Dark Matter thing was pretty cool too.

The world map theme of Celestia totally didn't suit and the first theme for Imen is quite annoying. The music for that mountain where you go to the Brdige of Light didn't really suit as a mountain theme. The songs did suit the enviroments otherwise for the other cases but not the sort of music that had me coming back for more like with Tales of Phantasia.

... Oh wait I already talked about Eternia... well here's a more in depth explanation for it then >_>

[SwanKnight]

Tales of Phantasia has my vote. ^^



Semi-offtopic question: Do you guys know who yo-mi (is/are)? (ToP Psx Opening)

[Judas]

My rating list:
Legendia
Destiny 2
Phantasia
Destiny
Abyss
Eternia
Symphonia
Rebirth

After hearing Sakuraba's latest 3 Tales+VPS(though Abyss was probably the best out of the 4...) I'm starting to doubt his preformance and what  Tempest will sound like...