One of the great games of the Tales series, Phantasia will blow away any RPG lover.
ToP starts out with a boy named Cress. Cress lives in the peaceful town of Toltus with his parents. One day he and his friend, Chester, decide to go hunting. When they return, they find the village burned to the ground. The story goes from there, introducing magic, time travel, and great wars. The story in this game is superb and you'll never know what's coming.
The graphics in the game aren't special. They won't blow you away. You're not going to be playing a game like this for graphics anyways.
This is one of the largest games for the GBA and can be longer than some console games! Without doing any of the many sidequests and leveling up your character, this will take a good 40 hours. Since you're going to be going through side quests and the sort, look for a number larger than that.
The battle system in ToP is unique. Instead of a turn based game, you fight enemies on a 2D plane. You press in combos with the A button and control pad and you can use different skills by pressing B and a press of the control pad. It's a unique way of fighting. You can also take control of any of the different characters in the game. Although the controls do take getting used to, it feels ultimately rewarding in the end.
Like any Tales game, you have full control over your allies. You can direct them on how they use their skills, what skills to use, if they should use an item and more. It can be a strategic game as well as an action game at times. Skills for Cress can be linked together after mastering both of them(use each 100 times) and after aquiring the corresponding skill book. Spells can only be learned from spell books scattered through the game.
Tales of Phantasia has a wide variety of monsters. Although there are the usual, "change the colour and make it tougher" monsters, there are many different spirits, mages, soldiers, and assorted monsters to fight.
Also in ToP, there are many many items. There are different things to equip each character with(weapon, shield, gloves, armor and two accesories). There is also an item upgrade system. You use a rune bottle to upgrade an item. For example, using a rune bottle on an apple gel (+30% HP) makes a lemon gel (+60% HP). It's a unique way on healing and changing items, and when you eventually get ? items, rune bottles are the only way to find out what it is.
Overall, Tales of Phantasia is an underaprreciated, hidden gem that I recommend to all RPG lovers.