Topic: A couple questions about the Tales series

I'm a former JRPG nut that took a 12 year hiatus from gaming and missed out on the Tales series completely. I recently played Tales of Vesperia and think it was good. Not classic Final Fantasy/Suikoden level good like I had heard, but it was a good 7 out of 10, imo. My question is... The other 2 that seem to be rated in the top 3 are Symphonia and Abyss, and I'm interested in both, but when I look into both of them, I have to say... I'm getting the vibe that the games in this series might be very samey.

As someone new to the new gen of videogames, I loved the way ToV looked and played when I first started playing it. But, as I look into the other games, not only does the art style and design look the same, but the way the characters speak, just the style of... EVERYTHING seems very much the same. While I thought the ToV story was serviceable, I have no desire to play through other games if they are very much a rehash with minor tweaks (story is the most important aspect of a JRPG for me).

Just curious what someone else's take is on this series.

@LetsGoRetro: yes they are very "samey" but i think that's part of the charm, you know what your going to get with a Tales game and much like the Dragon Quest series it's kept all the hallmarks of what makes them fun

besides if each game was completely different to each other they would feel like they are the same series of games

Yep, they really are very samey gameplay wise.

Story-wise is different, but also in quality.

I absolutely LOVED Vesperia.
Graces F was good.
Abyss was kinda meh.
Xilia was okay.
Hearts R I also loved.

Still have to play Symphonia, but because it's on PS3 I keep putting it off...

I'm loved Vesperia. I'm playing through Tales of Zestiria right now and I may be mistaken but it's pretty different from Vesperia. The combat and gameplay are more or less the same between games but the stories are different. Zestiria may become my new go rite Tales game because the story and characters are great. I wouldn't let that 'samey' feel keep you away if you enjoyed Vesperia.