Arte

Arte is the term used to refer to all physical attacks and spells in the English localizations of the Tales games. This term originated in Tales of Eternia, referring to the Craymel Artes system for spells obtained through fringing Craymel Cages together. In Tales of the Abyss, the term "arte" was extended to include all battle movements.

Strike Artes
These artes involve direct and physical interaction of a weapon or the user´s body with the enemy. Depending on the amount of TP consumed and the damage output, these can be divided into Base, Master, and Arcane Artes. All artes of each subset can be linked together in this order to create a combo chain. Certain passive skills may be used to alter this order, providing more freedom and creativity for players to create their own combo patterns. Some games remove the Master Arte category, which can limit the comboing potential, but there may be other additional arte groupings that are exclusive to certain games.

Base Artes
Base Artes are usually learned as a character progresses through leveling up during the game, and sometimes through events and sidequests. Base Artes consume a very minimal amount of TP, dealing a slightly increased amount of damage compared to the basic strike. These artes can be performed individually, but it is usually advised to attack enemies with a basic strike combo, linking the Base Arte to the end of the chain to prevent lag time. Some examples of these artes include Demon Fang and Tiger Blade.

Base Artes can also include self-support artes that can be activated instantly and without casting time. They can be used to heal oneself, or to provide small but useful stat gains for a short period of time. Certain self-support artes can, however, damage nearby enemies, such as the altered version of Fiend Fusion. But these artes will not usually link to a basic strike combo, so they shouldn't be used with that expectation. Examples include Coil and Center. Self-support artes do not receive more powerful variants.

Master Artes
Artes of this rank are more powerful than the base artes, but they come at a price of higher TP cost. Master Artes usually derive from existing Base Artes, so mastery of the original base is usually required to obtain the next arte within the same family. These artes can be linked to the end of any combo chain that ends with a basic strike or Base Arte. Continuing from the above example, the associated Master Artes are Double Demon Fang and Tiger Rage, respectively.

Arcane Artes
Arcane Artes are the final rank for all physical artes, and are the most powerful artes that are available to a character that relies on physical attacks to damage enemies. TP costs can become significant if these artes are used too often, but the costs are usually worth the ability to prolong a combo and deal even more damage before the enemy has a chance to recover. Like the previous Master Artes, this tier of attacks usually builds upon the same family of artes, requiring mastery of the previous forms. To conclude the previous example, the final Arcane Arte forms are Demonic Chaos and Rending Tiger Blade.

Some arcane artes are derived from the combination of two existing artes, which can be both physical or magical in nature. The artes are fused together to form a new arte, using the components of the two bases to create a single combined attack. The arte names usually reflect this fusion by referencing the original bases. These artes usually require both bases to be mastered before the combined variant can be learned. Examples of these combination artes include Demonic Tiger Blade (based on Demon Fang and Tiger Blade), and Fang Blade Havoc (based on Fang Blade and Havoc Strike).

Arcane Artes can also include certain artes that do not have a base in any of the lesser tiers. These artes can be learned by level or event, and they usually have a significantly lesser TP cost than those that follow the usual progression of power or combination. These artes might not be easily added to a combo chain, but they can have their uses. Examples include Guardian Field and Rising Phoenix.

Magic Artes
Magic Artes, also known as Spells, are used by characters who have a knowledge and ability to perform magical feats. Spellcasters are usually tied to some limiting condition that enables them to possess these powers, such as the use of a Swordian or the hereditary blood of the Elven race. Unlike strike artes, spells do not directly affect battle immediately following activation. The character usually recites an incantation before casting, limiting the speed by which they can deal damage to the enemy. Spells use TP after they have been cast, not during the incantation. By default, characters that are attacked during the incantation will be interrupted and the spell will not activate. However, with the use of certain passive skills, characters can have some resistance or even immunity to casting interruptions.

There are several names for magic artes depending on their usage and what powers them. Tales of Eternia, for example, names them Craymel Artes because they are empowered by Craymels, elemental spirits in the world, while in Tales of the Abyss, all spells are referred to as Fonic Artes (譜術) because they use fonons, the fundamental particle in their world. Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny 2 prefer the term Shoujutsu (晶術), while Tales of Symphonia uses both Houjutsu (法術) and Majutsu (魔術).

Tales of Phantasia makes the distinction between the various types of magic. It uses Magic (魔術) for spells which draw their power from mana, while differentiating Divine Power (法術) as spells derived from prayer. Summoning (召喚術) calls upon Spirits after making pacts.

In addition to the following methods, they may also be classified as Novice, Intermediate, and Advanced.

Offensive Magic
Offensive magic represents the usual method used by spellcasters to deal damage to enemies. These artes consume more TP than the physical strike artes, but they can be used to hit a large number of enemies within an area of effect with proper coordination and timing. They usually deal more damage than physical attacks, but the more powerful spells are countered by longer casting times, followed by a startup lag that further delays the damage output. Some examples include Fire Ball and Indignation.

Healing/Support/Recovery Magic
These spells are used to assist party members by offering temporary increased stats or reversing status ailments. These spells are more passive in nature, usually intended to cure and prevent enemy damage, or even to inflict damage to the enemy indirectly through debuffs and other harmful conditions, to provide a better advantage for the party as a whole. Primary examples include First Aid and Barrier.

Summons
These are special incantations that enable an elemental deity, known as a Summon Spirit, to be called into the battle temporarily to deal heavily concentrated damage or provide beneficial support to all allies. Summons can be activated only after several conditions are met, which can vary between each game. The summons can deal a very large amount of damage beyond the capability of most spells, but this is countered by their rare availability during battles. These summoned allies include Sylph and Celsius. The exception to this rule is in Tales of Phantasia, where Claus F. Lester's summons are treated as traditional spells.

Mystic Artes
Mystic Artes are typically rare and powerful artes that are unique to a given character within each game, usually accompanied with an anime-style facial or full-body cut-in of the character. These artes can be activated during battle while Over Limit mode is active, usually after performing an arcane arte and holding the "Attack" button, extending and chaining into the mystic arte automatically. Other games may have alternative methods for activating mystic artes, sometimes exceedingly difficult to perform successfully to counter the significantly increased damage output.

Team Skills
Team Skills are a unique function in Tales of Eternia, where a melee character and a spellcaster perform a specific attack or spell at the same time, merging both into a more powerful elemental arte. Because of the careful timing of the two attacks, it is fairly difficult to force these two-character Team Skills to appear, especially when a player's concentration must focus on enemy attacks while attempting to execute the artes. However, if the required spell is set to a shortcut, the player can hold the shortcut button to prevent the spell from activating after completing its incantation, providing the opportunity to control the melee character and use the required arte while releasing the spell shortcut.

Combination Artes
Combination Artes are the results of a similar system in Tales of Hearts, in which supporting characters can be called into battle through the Connect Command panel to combine his or her attack with an arte from the controlled player character, essentially amounting to the same fusion of existing bases into one unified attack.

In Tales of Symphonia, the Unison Attack system features a similar fusion of artes, allowing two characters to combine certain artes together to form Compound Special Attacks.

Altered Artes
Altered Artes are artes which have been modified from another arte through some equipment or circumstance. FOF Changes can be seen as a similar system of Altered Artes. The altered artes concept was first used in Tales of Symphonia, where dealing elemental damage can turn some artes into others; Lloyd's Rising Falcon can turn into the classic Rising Phoenix while dealing fire-elemental damage.

Naming Conventions
For many games, Japanese arte names have a sort of naming consistency. In general, spells are foreign words written in katakana; often, they are English words though some, such as Eclair de Larmes, are of other, Western languages. As a reverse, many traditional physical artes use kanji and the On'yomi pronunciation, though as the series progressed this rule has become almost non-existent. There have been little to no cases of a spell being written in kanji, however. For physical artes, the rule tends to be that a character's moveset may be based on Japanese kanji or foreign words in katakana with the only compromise being those who use both physical artes and spells, though for particularly childish characters such as Karol Capel or Beryl Benito, their physical artes names may have both.