An action oriented change of pace from RPGs of the time, but the gamespot review is basically right.
I bought Tales of Destiny as soon as I could, and the novelty of the battle system alone kept me into the game all the way to the end, but this game has not aged well, no matter how much of a classic it seemed at the time. The story drags and drags, loaded down with cliches and bland character development. Giant spikey haired sleepyhead ("wacky" in fingerquotes!) main character must save world from whatever. A plain story like this still beats the Xenogears/saga overblown, overhyped and under-edited bloat fests, but at the same time is probably still trying a little too hard to be epic. The Final Fantasy games can usually pull off an epic storyline, and somehow have some original characters, so I guess it's not as easy as it might seem.
However, I slogged through all 80+ hours of this game gladly because it actually let me run and jump around, and then do these insane screen shredding combo attacks that I loved. If it were still 1998, I'd whole heartedly recommend this game. Since it's the end of 2007, I'd just say get Mass Effect, or if you refuse to play anything but anime stuff, try the Tales of game on the Gamecube, or Eternal Sonata.