Familiar combat and characters take Radiant Mythology so far, covering a fail of a story and a constant wave of tedium
+ Gameplay is fun and fast-paced
+ Plenty of familiar characters, if you have played previous Tales installments
+ Side quests are a decent distraction
Negative
- A ton of needless backtracking due to short and repetitive quests, and the exclusion of randomly generated dungeons
- Uninteresting story that fails to put its established characters to good use
- Combat is incredibly easy and prone to button mashing
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology would immediately appeal to anyone who has played and enjoyed a Tales games before. It offers the fun and successful combat system found on PS2's Tales of the Abyss and acts as a major crossover between its numerous predecessors. But aside from that, there is not much to like. The generic story fails to utilize its characters aside from the occasional random humor here and there, and the quest-based progression leads to a lot of tedium simply because there is not enough variety in anything you do in the land you must save.
A creature called the 'Devourer' is (like its name clearly states) devouring the world of Terresia of all of its mana. In an attempt to fight off this heinous foe, the World Tree gives birth to you, the descended. From a petty amount of customizations, you create your own character and choose one of the classes available at the beginning. After that, you meet a strange creature called Mormo who is the typically, cliché, and annoying partner that will do all the talking in the game, with you only having the occasional two chooses in some dialogue. Anyhow, his world was destroyed by the 'Devourer' and together you seek to stop the 'Devourer'. For the first part of the game, you'll be stuck in a city where a guild known as 'Ad Libitum' resides, that helps its citizens from the 'evil' mayor. Starting from this guild, you'll meet a variety of different and familiar characters, spamming several installments of the famed Tales series. Problem is, the game does not explain how these guys got here aside from the fact that almost all get along with one another and support the people. It is rather fun to see some characters with similar or polar-opposite personalities collide in an amusing conversation, but that is pretty much what best the story has to offer.
To advance further in the story, you have to join Ad Libitum and take on quests to prove yourself first. After that, you'll take a variety of repetitive quests that rarely change from eliminate beasts, or finding ingredients from the map or from the beasts themselves. Story events are highlighted amongst the five quests available, and once the story quest appears, the other side quests can be cast aside. The generic and uninteresting (and sometimes predictable) development really hurts the game, more so since the quests are as repetitive as they can get. There is a ton of backtracking because there are no randomly generated dungeons in the game, so you will be visiting the same dungeon over and over and over again to the point of memorizing it. Different dungeons vary in layout and enemies. To do a quest, you get it from the guild, take to the person that put up the quest, perhaps set up a party and head to the dungeon, kill the enemy or find whatever is needed, finished quest so you can teleport back, talk to that person that gave you the quest and get a reward. Repeat. Yep, that is pretty much the structure of the game.
While doing the actual quests may seem a chore, the gameplay system is exceptionally fun. Mostly the same as that of Tales of the Abyss, allowing a party up to 4 players and 3D movement to freely move around the battle field. Combat is typical Tales fanfare, straightforward and most of the time easy enough to fall victim of relentless button mashing. Aside from the rare bosses, the battles are easy but not scarce. Despite there being no random encounters, the number of battles is irritatingly high. When crawling in a dungeon, enemies will appear on the map and the battle commences upon contact. A battle area opens and you fight. Because of the thin passageway, it is normally tough to avoid an enemy if you happen to be in their line of sight. But it is not a problem if the combat remains fun and fresh. The combat remains fun but not fresh, but there are quite some tweaks you can make to your party. There are plenty of characters from other Tales games that are willing to join your temporary parties, if your level is high enough. The ability to change your job is quite welcoming, choosing from Warrior whose job is attacking the enemies to Mage, whose main strength is casting magic. Each job gets a variety of unique Artes, which serve as the game's spells. If you decide to change your job, you can, but you have to start from Level 1 in the new class, while retaining your other class' level. With the initial customization so plain, it is a relief that the equipped armor changes your character's clothing. There are plenty of different equipment and weapons, including the familiar items to find and the healing supplies.
There is not the same amount of freedom seen in Tales of the Abyss. Upon entering town, you are given a list of places to explore and after pressing the location, you can freely go look around that same area, and having to leave and choose another area. Dungeons open to exploration but it seriously sucks that dungeons are not randomly generated. It is a serious pain to go through the same dungeon and go down a floor to complete a quest. Chances are you encounter some very easy and unwanted battles on your way down. A flimsy problem is the camera. Not that it mars the game in any way, when moving around the area; the camera shifts to 2D, to give presumably give you the best view. They can be slightly distracting.
Tales of the World looks good. Let's leave the fact that the dialogue takes place in the usual square boxes with the involved characters talking, some of the story events look awkward with those types of cutscenes, which is a shame that developers opted not to use the same system as Tales of the Abyss. The world is colorful and the many characters (and enemies) are instantly recognizable. The dungeons look good, but as I continuously stated, they are repetitive, although the dungeons (not each floor) are diverse and interesting. On the other hand, the music is pretty standard. The English voice acting is merely decent but some characters sound awful. Raine's voice for example sounds robotic. Other voice tries to sound like the typical upbeat Japanese girl and ends up with a squeaky voice instead. Despite being given a voice for battle, it is Mormo that participates in conversation. You make the occasional, non-life threatening choose that does little to contribute to the conversation except changing the incoming dialogue a little.
The game may require some familiarity with some of the characters to appreciate further than just a dungeon crawler. Radiant Mythology's prime success for fans is the character interaction and the occasional random humor and the entertaining battle system. Other than that, the meager story and bland quests limit the appeal. The world of Radiant Mythology fails to be captivating and the dungeon and mission structures are excruciatingly repetitive that taking a mission similar to the last in the exact same dungeon feels like a complete waste of time. This crossover could have been the shining point in the Tales series, but as it is, it is just a fan service game that should not appeal much to the general RPG fans, let alone other gamers.
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Graphics = 7.8
A pretty looking game with instantly recognizable characters. The environments look as good but the repetition is excessive.
Sound = 7.1
The English voice acting is, as ever, below its Japanese counterpart and exists to give the characters less personality. Soundtrack is good but never special.
Presentation = 6.5
Cutscene presentation is average and a slightly troublesome camera. Random dialogue offers occasional humor but most of it feels clumsy and uninteresting conversations with characters from different Tales game.
Gameplay = 7.9
The only strength, for anyone who loves a Tales game at any rate. Almost a replica to that found in Tales of the Abyss but with a variety of characters to use. Lots of backtracking and repetitiveness because of the lack of randomized dungeons
Story = 5.5
Uninteresting and entirely forgettable story that fails to create something exceptional with its charming cast of characters. Tons of side quests to do, and despite the pleasure of exploring the same dungeon over and over for a similar objective to your last…that is a limit to monotonously repetitive ideas.
Fun = 7.0
Tales of the Abyss is one of my favorite RPGs on the PS2. I loved the combat portion, but also its likeable characters and story. Radiant Mythology got half of that right, but it is difficult to continue a game that struggles to keep you entertained.
OVERALL = 70 / 100
Familiar combat and characters take Radiant Mythology so far, covering a fail of a story and a constant wave of tedium