Tales of ____ series

My first was Tales of Symphonia and very recently I've started playing Tales of Vesperia. This is honestly the only jrpg series I can even stand. I like the characters in the games, and I really like the stories. I like the battle system and I like everything about them.

Has anyone played one of the modern Tales of games?

I got Tales of Vesperia, played it for a bit and hated it.

Then, for some reason, I gave it another go and kind of liked it. I got what I guess would be about half to two thirds of the way through and then stopped playing it again. I'm not sure why, but if memory serves I think it got a bit repetitive and stopped introducing new things to keep me interested.

They're not bad games. I think I initially didn't like the action based combat very much, but once I got used to it I liked it a lot more. The characters and story are fine, there are some genuinely funny moments. Well, an indication that I liked the story is that I watched all the little optional skits instead of ignoring them or skipping through them, so that's a good sign. Again though, for me, I really get frustrated with completely linear RPGs. Even if the side quests are few and basic, like the Hunts in FF whatever, I just like to have something.

Oh, and I liked the cooking.

The game isn't really completely linear if you mean side quests

there are tons of side quests, they just aren't obvious.

Prease to exprain.

I don't really remember any. Although ... there's a fight arena, isn't there ? That's all I can remember. That and collecting recipes and getting different characters to cook them to discover new recipes. I like the cookoing. Don't ask me why.

The cooking is very effective because ingredients are cheaper than items and cooked foods can have better effects than items. Sadly you can only cook after each battle.

I don't mind the fact that it's linear because the story is so engrossing. It's not a generic "YOU ARE THE CHOSEN ONE, SAVE THE WORLD" type story, but instead the hero(es) set off to solve some minor problem and like a domino effect one thing happens after another and eventually they end up saving the world almost by mistake. It's fantastic.

Side quests:
I don't know. They blend in with the game pretty naturally so it's pretty hard to tell what is a side quest and what is just part of the game. Once you get about 3/4 through the game, you have free roam of the map and can go pretty much anywhere you want. At that point there are tons of optional bosses and secret areas in past dungeons to play through. These secrets are fairly well hidden, though.