(US Imported Review) Tales of Destiny will give you some decent memories of the SNES while understanding what RPG's.....
Game Title: Tales of Destiny
Platform: PlayStation (PSOne)
Developer: Wolfteam
Publisher: Namco
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: T-Teen (ESRB)
Release Date: December 23rd 1997 (Japan), September 30th 1998 (North America)
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Game Score: 8.0/10
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Summery:
(US Imported Review) Tales of Destiny will give you some decent memories of the SNES while understanding what RPG's Europeans missed out on if anyone in the UK imported this.
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Usually for European gamers like myself, we don't usually tend to J-RPG's all that often so it makes sense that RPG's that gets released in North America like Enix's Dragon Quest (Dragon Warrior), Square's Final Fantasy and of course Namco's Tales of Series don't make their launches overseas. Europeans haven't had as many localizations for the series and Tales of Destiny for the PSOne is just one of them.
As a fan of the series it's a great experience to see what other games that we never had a chance to play. Tales of Destiny digs into the strengths and weaknesses of it's predecessor.
Usually Tales of games are all about long paced storylines which don't point out until nearly half stages of the game. The Tale begins young man Stahn Aileron sneaks abroad a Dragonship called the Draconis, Stahn becomes an involuntary stowaway and then monsters soon attack. Stahn retreats to find a mystical talking sword who revails himself as Dymlos a sentient Swordian of Fire from the Ather Wars. Stahn soon becomes involved from one situation leading to his arrest to discovering the power of a powerful Lens called the Eye of Atamoni which has the power to resurrect the world of the Aeropolis as well as destroying the world.
While Destiny's storyline isn't as memorable but it does some RPG clinches from to time. Also the plot is very slow that it takes nearly half of the game to understand the true intentions. The characters are what makes the storyline worthwhile. The main character Stahn is a total sleepyhead, Rutee has obsession for Gald, Mary Argent a women suffering with amnesia and of course there's the fan favourite Leon Magnus who is very complex for his skill and cool characteristics. Even if you do see some minor typos you'll still will feel attached to the enjoyable characters.
Tales of Destiny is an Action RPG where you'll spend the majority of the game reading conversations on where to go next from NPC's, resting at an Inn to recover and shopping for Items, Weapons, Armor and you can also purchase food as well. You have a gauge where food slowly refills your characters health after taking a step. While it's not too useful but it's an extra that you'll make some use out of much later on.
On the world map you'll move around from each town you visit to enter the next dungeon that you'll need to go to advance the plot with monster encounters along the way, in each dungeon there's hidden items to find and puzzles to solve to advance further. Some puzzles start off simple like moving boxes around or placing a wheel to turn the valve but other times gets complicated like finding the right passwords or combinations. For some of the harder puzzles it relays a little bit of trial and error before you'll figure out the solution.
There is also some sidequests that are unlocked when you reach a certain parts of the game, most of these sidequests can be found by talking with NPC's and there is an optional dungeon that is unlockable at the end of the game as well as an extra ending if you defeat Leon at the very beginning of the game. Tales of Destiny will take around 40 to 50 Hours of Gameplay time. It's not a very long game compared to the Final Fantasy instalments and of course Tales of Phantasia but Tales of Destiny does have some replay value for it though.
While exploring the overworld and dungeons you'll go into battles which are incredibly frequent. Tales of Destiny uses an Enhanced version of the Liner Motion Combat System used in Tales of Phantasia where battles take place inside a single plane battlefield in realtime rather then turn based. You take up to 6 different characters but only 4 can enter battles and each character has their own unique abilities known as Artes (Special Moves they are called in this game) while Swordian characters Stahn, Rutee, Leon and Philia can use magic spells which deal better damage then normal attacks or by Healing or Supporting your allies.
You only have direct control of the main character Stahn while 3 of your allies are controlled by the AI. You can also plug in a second controller or a multitap to allow up to 4 players join in battles regardless of what it says on the back. In order for this to work though you'll need to equip an accessory called a Channeling onto a character in slots 2, 3 and 4 and then pressing Start on each control that character. One is found at the beginning but you can only get the others through a sidequest. Alongside the Swordian characters 2 from out of 4 other characters that can join your party for the remaining half of the game.
Stahn shares a lot of similar moves to Cress and also controls the same way as well. Pressing Circle makes him do a charge attack, using Down and Circle does a Thrust attack while Up and Circle does an upward slash. You can assign 4 different Artes from the list you got to the Direction Buttons as you see fit. Whenever you enter battles in an Ambushed or Pincer situations you can use the L1 to change the party sides and you can set Party Formations, set Commands and edit Strategy settings to keep your party members alive.
Alongside Levelling up your characters the Swordian characters Swordians will also level up giving them additional attack power and give their masters new magic spells. Also hidden are Swordian Discs throughout the world, each of these will either give them a spell to use temporally or by boosting their Swordians attack power.
Tales of Destiny also implies a combo system where characters can deal punishing combos which builds when each character lands consecutive hits on the same target. When you build up the combos the amount of maximum hits are multiplied into additional EXP which is very helpful for Levelling up faster.
In addition to EXP you'll also gain little gems called Lens which can be transferred to extra Gald inside Oberon stores. This helps get you enough money for the amount of stuff you'd properly want later on.
While battles are handled in realtime you can also use items whenever in an emergency for healing their wounds, curing status effects or by reviving them whenever one of your allies is KO'ed.
Tales of Destiny's combat system is enjoyable and there are some impressive battle mechanics but however the battle difficulty is only challenging when you're constantly engaging into random encounters due to their high encounter frequency. Because of this you'll be doing some grinding along the way. Bosses aren't too challenging until nearly about halfway through the game as long as you're well Leveled and gotten some good equipment and how effective your Strategy is. Other then that you properly plough through most of the most of the bosses without too much trouble.
Tales of Destiny's production values are mixed between good and dated. The characters and the monsters are pint sized chibi sprites The character animations and spell effects do look good while the environments aren't too bad but doesn't look as impressive as how Tales of Phantasia looked on the Super Famicom. The game does have a few anime sequences and the artwork is actually quite impressive by artist Mutsumi Inomata.
The Audio has some good tunes like the Leon Magnus theme and the key story battle themes but there are some that play on a short loop. The Japanese voicework proves that their actors put more energy into the characters but it's a shame their battle quotes and speeches aren't translated. The dialogue and writing is passable but as there are some minor errors but otherwise it's not a bad translation overall.
Compared to some other J-RPG's we European gamers miss out on. It's a shame that some great Tales of Games like this one just didn't give Europeans a chance when Final Fantasy VII became so popular. If there is forever to be a re-release on PlayStation Network then Tales of Destiny is worthwhile to anyone who wants to know where the franchise began. What holds the game back is that it's all similar to Tales of Phantasi in terms of story progression, graphics and of course the battles. It's not to say that it's a bad thing but however importing it might be very expensive on Ebay International online.
For me personally if I lived in North America and saw this game instead of Final Fantasy VIII then I would beg my parents to buy me this game and then toss Final Fantasy VIII out of my window. Final Fantasy VIII annoyed me and bored me so much that I think I'd appreciate Tales of Destiny a lot more. Overall Tales of Destiny is not doubt in nearly every way better then Final Fantasy VIII but I guess it isn't as good as Final Fantasy VII. It's just a shame that we Europeans have to suffer with some terrible RPG's before we'll ever see some good ones.
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The Good Points:
1. Enjoyable realtime combat
2. Humorous and loveable characters including fan favourite Leon Magnus
3. Great animé sequences
4. Much better then Final Fantasy VIII
The Bad Points:
1. All to similar to Tales of Phantasia
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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