New to the Tales Of series

Berseria and Zestiria are related but you don't need to play one to enjoy the other, necessarily. Otherwise they're mostly unrelated. If all you have access to is a PC judging by your list you're pretty limited on what you can play. Symphonia is a good game but very dated, Vesperia is showing its age with its rerelease but has a shitton of content (Arguably the most of any of the games) and is overall well liked, Zestiria is seen as mediocre, Berseria has some issues but is really good and doesn't have clunky gameplay like Symphonia or Vesperia.

If you think you could brace yourself for some very dated gameplay Symphonia is the best starting point since going back to it would be very difficult. Otherwise Vesperia or Berseria.

Once you play Berseria you might want to hit up Zestiria because the two games are connected, but you might enjoy ir or you might not.

They're all terrible, don't bother.

Also play abyss too. The other games really drop off after that

also, forgot to say that if there's a turn based rpg in these 4 i'm excluding that one on spot, since i hate that shit aside from pokemon games

the franchise feature of gamefaqs is pretty neat:
gamefaqs.gamespot.com/games/franchise/398-tales-of

Symphonia first.

Berseria is unfortunately tied to the trainweck that is Zestiria

fuck i just watched some gameplay of these 4 and i'm picking the two that look worse (Vesperia and Symphonia) and excluding the two that look better (Berseria and Zestiria)

None of the Tales games are turn-based. All of them have their own takes on how the real time battle system works.

Don't avoid Berseria, there's unfortunately a lot of people who swear only by three games out of the entire series (Symphonia/Abyss/Vesperia) and you're not exactly going to get an unbiased opinion out of them.

Yup, that's the thing. Symphonia and Vesperia have better worldbuilding and general RPG content out of these, but Zestiria and Berseria are far more modern and have more fun and less clunky battle systems.

Easy pick one from each type, I say Berseria and Verperia, and if you liked either one then do the other
Though I think Zestiria should be avoided altogether

I agree with playing Abyss as well but I'll throw in Graces since the gameplay was fun and Xillia 1 and especially Xillia 2 as a personal recommendation. And if you end up liking the series well and don't mind playing older games, I'd also recommend Phantasia, Destiny, and Eternia.
Zestiria is considered one of the worse games in the series but if you're really interested in it, either play it as your first Tales since you won't have many real expectations and end up alright with it since it was your first (though this still could backfire) or only after you've played other games in the series and just want something more to play.

He's pretty clearly PC-locked with that list so he probably can't play Graces/Xillia which is a shame because the two Xillias are a great starting point that mix the appeals of both the Team Symphonia and Team Destiny style games more than they went for later.

Ah, I should have realized that these were all the ones on PC. There were rumors of a Xillia/2 collection for Ps4 iirc though so maybe if that comes true we can see a PC release for them too.