ToS2 is apparently going to have a similar battle system of Tales of the Abyss which I think was criminally ignored and is the best of the current Tales games (which isn't saying much but any improvement is better than none).
Yeah, Tales of the Abyss is actually pretty good, in my opinion. I was sure it'd suck and I didn't want to touch it but Sarah recommended it to me so I decided to torrent it and I actually liked it, though I still haven't beaten it. Despite being a bit anime, I think Tales of the Abyss has a good and interesting cast and the story isn't too bad either, though the game is way too long, takes like 60-70 hours to beat when they could have made it 20-30 hours shorter by cutting some unnecessary parts. Another thing which bothered me was how Abyss seems to have pretty low production values. For example, when there's supposed to be a war going on, nothing really indicates that except one short anime cutscene. I think Tales of Eternia and Tales of the Abyss are the best and the only worthwhile games in the series. Yes, Tales of Symphonia sucks. I can't understand how anyone can even like it. The characters are so boring, it's full of predictable twists and the story generally sucks, battle system is the worst in the Tales series and nothing really stands out. The graphics were pretty cool when it came out but some of the locations are so ugly and the design just sucks. There was this complete lack of any atmosphere and ugh, it was just so lame. I enjoy many traditional or maybe even generic JRPGs but Tales of Symphonia was just bad.