Aaah, the start of one the greatest RPG series of all time.
Later on, I restarted the game, and after playing for 2-3 hours, I got hooked. Tales of Phantasia is, without a doubt, one of the best RPG's to the SNES, if not THE best. With a unique battle system, a wonderful storyline and gorgeous graphics, this game manages to hold it's own against even the newest games.
The story begins with the main character, Cless Alvein, going hunting with his friend Chester Barklight. After fighting some boars not wanting to die, they find their hometown burned to the ground, their family and friends dead. Cless heads to his uncle that surrenders him to some knights (as you might have guessed, they are all evil), and after some events (that includes getting another character, and a long dungeon) Cless and Mint (the new character) get sent back in time. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where the game really starts. Graphics wise, this game offers the player lots to look at. The character sprites, NPC sprites, towns, enemies, animations and the like are beautifully made. Also, one of the screens provide you with realism; as the leaves touch the water, you can see it's reflection and circles on the water. Also, the music (composed by Motoi Sakuraba) fits the game perfectly, with both sad and happy tunes.
The thing that makes Tales of Phantasia shine the most is it's famed battle system, the LMBS (Linear Motion Battle System). All battles are on a 2D, horizontal field, and your characters are placed on it according to their positions that you can determine through the menu, with enemies on their left and right. You can move Cless around, and attack the enemies directly, or use one of his many skills; or you can just let the other AI controlled party members do the dirty work. The other characters act accordingly to their strategy that the player determines, but you can also tell the spell casters to use a spell that they have learned from the in-battle menu, or use an item on a character. Cless's skills can be assigned to the B button, and the player can use a skill from a distance or up close. This is the only downside with it, as you can end up using a weak long range skill when you were planning on using a powerful short range skill. It does not drag the system down, though, as it is still unique and great.
This game proves to all RPG players that companies other then Square can make games good enough to play. Tales of Phantasia is definitely one of the better games out there.