An engrossing adventure with a compelling emotional plot, unique battle system, and just pure SNES RPG goodness!
Recently I picked up this game again in an RPG binge look to recapture the magic of the 16-bit era and was surprised to still enjoy ever aspect of the game in it's SNES format, not the updated version for Play-Station. From the beginning the well written dialogue and interspersed humor jumped out at me and kept me hooked 'til the end, some of this may be the writing of the English translation team but I think they added to the overall fun of the game by adding their own quircky jokes and spoofs on that generation of the RPG genre. They often poke fun at overly repetitive music and battle sounds, NPC's with the same dumb line, strangely named items, and recolored models of food, for example, their is a Twinkie food Item sold in some stores and when transformed with a Rune Bottle it becomes Butter. Oh and there is a magical book weapon called Porno Magazine that pops up all too often ; )
The graphics are still great after all these years and the sprites are very well animated in battle, especially Cless, during their special moves and spells. Even the enemy sprites are well done and detailed, as seen in their almost comical expression of pain everytime you hit them. The entire game has sort of a pastel color scheme that keeps it grounded in somewhat reality, but doesn't hurt the fine detail. Both the scrolling Battle backgrounds and the close-in town view have much detail, while the over world view leaves much to be desired as it's bland and mostly uniteresting. Occasionaly the action in battle causes the frame rate to slow a bit but this is not really a bad thing as it gives you time to plan your next moves more carefully.
Sound definitely makes or breaks the atmosphere of any game and Tales of Phantasia does a wonderful job using music. The musical score is epic when it needs to be and blends into the background just enough the rest of the time. It aslo helps to convey the overall feeling of uniqueness each town like the upbeat almost dance music of the desert village Olive Town and the depressing dirge-like score chosen for Migrad as it trembles on the edge of war. Once you get spell casters in your party though you may be a little more inclined to turn the volume down during battles, as the calls they use whenever casting a spell get repetitive albeit funny, being in engrish (English w/ a Japanese accent)
I absolutly love the 2D realtime battle system, as it break the mold of the day. If you've played any of the recent Tales game you know what I'm talking about but it you haven't then you're in for a treat! It's like an arcade style beat 'em but with more variety. You directly control the main character Cless as you hack and slash all kinds of monstrous foes with swords, axes, pikes and more. He can use a multitude of special attacks that consume a limited amount of TP and as you progress in the story and in leveling up Cless learns more skills and powerful combo attacks that use two skills to deal massive damage. With differing button combos Cless can even turn his regular attacks into more powerful uppercuts and plunging dives, also used to hit flying enemies and ones behind other enemies. You also have the ability to indirectly control your other team members by setting tactics for them and telling them when to cast spells or even to only cast certain spells. The different spell casters have varying spells to aid you in battle ranging from minor healing spells to apocalyptic damage spells, most spells pause the action in battle when cast, which becomes annoying if it happens to be away from where you have Cless, but the camera usually corrects itself in a hurry. There is a huge variety of weapons, armor, accessories, and items to collect and help you along the way, allowing you to play exactly the types of characters you want and using the strategies you like.
The gameplay is an amazing experience overall but sometimes grinds as you face a lot of random battles, helping you gain experience in the end, and dying randomly when enemy spell casters spam and gang up on your party... maybe that's just me. Words of advice, save all the time and carry a ton of Holy Bottles. There is plenty of playtime and possible replay value as you score the world for the rarest weapons and the best sword techniques. This game is so good that I sometimes lie awake at night asking, "Tales of Phantasia, how you be so good?"