The villains of the Tales series are not your typical run-of-the-mill bad guys. Classifying them in terms of "bad" or "evil" is limiting and the motivation for their actions is often similar to the heroes'. Many fans of Tales have even called a number of the series' villains, "misguided heroes" and have some have claimed that some villains could be seen as victims, forced into violent acts.

Dhaos from Tales of Phantasia is a classic Tales villain, and the first of the series. He starts the game in a quest to save his dying home world. The journey brings him to Aselia where he hopes to acquire a Mana Seed needed to save his people. Unfortunately the people of Aselia have consumed too much of their world's energy and there is not enough for Dhaos to form a Mana Seed. Dhaos is enraged and decimates the people of Aselia. Traveling through time, Dhaos hopes to find a version of Aselia that has the energy he needs, but no matter how far in time he travels Dhaos is only with frustrating disappointment and the people of Aselia suffer his wraith.

Tales of Destiny's Leon Magnus (also known as Emilio Gilchrist) possibly the most reluctant villain of the series, forced to commit evil by his father, Hugo Gilchrist. When Leon was a child, an ancient and deadly weapon possessed his father. As Hugo's mind succumbed to his possessor, he was rendered a murderous madman. Hugo killed Leon's mother and sent his sister away, but Leon was trapped. In such a setting, the boy grew up isolated, hard and cold. Leon hates Hugo to the core, but he must obey his wishes else Marian, the one person he cares for, be harmed. Although far from a heroic figure, Leon is forced into villainous acts he commits and is evil in deed alone.

An excellent example of a misguided hero taking on the role of a villain is Tales of Symphonia's Mithos Yggdrasill. Quiet, effeminate, childlike, and utterly deluded, Mithos is perhaps the most debated villain in the series. Mithos truly believes in his own heroism for, in a former time, he did commit heroic acts. Since then, his actions have taken a more devastating turn. Yet, Mithos remains convinced-in spite of all the havoc he's wreaked-that his actions will save the world. His intentions are good, but the results of his actions terrible. With his unwavering belief that he is doing the right thing some fans argued that Mithos Yggdrasill is the real hero of Symphonia, and that the protagonists are the villains.

Van Grants of Tales of the Abyss is an antagonist with two other Tales villain traits: vengeance and a dream. When Van was a young boy, he was forced to destroy Hod, his birthplace, by attaching to a hyper-resonance machine. The legendary prophecies know as the Score predicted the act, and Van grew to hate the thing that forced the destruction of his home, dreaming of a place that wasn't chained by prophecies. Van's desire to act against the Score sets him on a path to destroy most of the world. He wished to fill the world with replicas (or clones), which supposedly cannot be constrained by the Score, and destroy all the original beings. By killing the population and replacing them with the replicas, he believes he could overthrow the Score and create a world without a forced destiny.

The villains the Tales do not fall neatly into labels like "evil" or "wrong" as seen in the antagonists listed here. Players are able to connect with these characters and understand their motives. Villains like the ones here are what give Tales games the added depth and complexly that keeps players coming back again and again.