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Game Title: Tales of Phantasia
Platform: Game Boy Advance
Developer: Namco
Publisher: Nintendo
Genre: Role Playing
Age Rating: CERO: A (Japan), ESRB: E-10+ (North America), PEGI: 7+ (Europe), PG (Australia)
Release Date: 1st August 2003 (Japan), 6th March 2006 (North America), 31st March 2006 (Europe), 13th April 2006 (Australia)
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Game Score: 7.7/10
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Summery:
Tales of Phantasia on the GBA is a nice refreshment of the Super Famicom original which can hold itself quite well.
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At the end of the Super Nintendo timeline there have been various J-RPG's that stood the test of time such as Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI or Earthbound while Japan only ones seemed to get first impressions from the eyes of critics but never seemed to get attention. One of those games is Namco's Tales of Phantasia which was released in 1995 on the Super Famicom (the Japanese Super Nintendo) and it eventually gets a release on the Game Boy Advance platform with some nice new additions. Anybody who wants to play the original Tale that started it all can get a good experience from what this version offers.
Tales of Phantasia is a story about tragedy, revenge and corruption where Teenage Swordsmen Cress Albane encounters a strange spirit in a dying tree and soon witnesses both the destruction of his hometown and the awakening of an evil being named Dhaos. Cress and his companions travel back through space and time to be able to find out how to stop him and learn about the wrong doings of human kind. Usually it involves what they believed was right for their people but however being bound and wanting power so bad left them as evil as the tools they used. It made Tales of Phantasia a unique storyline that's different from a few RPG's. The characters in the game are bright and enjoyable with others like Chester, Mint, Claus and the humorous pink haired girl Arche. The only thing that hurts the story is the somewhat rough towards laughable translation as well as a few text errors I noticed when I played my copy.
Tales of Phantasia is an Action RPG where you'll get to explore dungeons, visit towns, fight monsters and watch various story sequences where you'll be given hints to where you need to go next. Towns have stores to purchase new equipment and items as well as learning new food recipes to cook up meals to restore party's health as well as status effects. Dungeons have a few challenging puzzles to solve where it involves either moving stuff, activating switches or using the Sorcerers Ring to shoot fire at a long distance object. It makes each dungeon you run through rather unique plus there's always hidden items to uncover throughout the world and at the end of each dungeon there's always a challenging boss fight to engage against. The game does also includes a few sidequests to unlock that extends the gameplay on top of the main quest that does take roughly 40 to 50 hours to complete. Sidequests involve a minigame where you race around the town or unlocking the 6th playable character Suzu Fujibayashi who aids the party with her ninjitsu.
The majority of Tales of Phantasia is during the game's random encounters which are triggered every couple of steps on either the world map or in dungeons. The Battle System is called the Linear Motion Battle System where battles are in Real Time rather then Turn Based like in a Final Fantasy game. You control Cress in battles but you can optionally take control of other characters but only one at a time in the Field Menu. Movement is used with the D-Pad and you use Basic attacks with the A button while special attacks called Artes are used with the B button, R allows you to change targets as well as reversing formation and L allows you to utilize shortcut commands. This one of those game where for some strange reason the game designers decided to have the Select Button to access the menus and pause the game instead of Start. The learning curve of the battle system is simple but you'll need to get used to having the character return to the position after attacking. There is another control scheme which allows the character to be controlled manually which can only be gained in a sidequest called Manual Mode whilst the default setup is Semi-Auto.
All characters have their own abilities, Cress has his swordplay but can also use Axes and Spears and each of his weapons have their advantages, Chester uses his bow, Mint can heal the party, Claus can summon powerful spirits to aid the party and Arche uses magic spells. Cress, Arche and Suzu can learn special Artes by talking with NPC's that are willing to sell them to you but Cress can learn basic Artes by levelling up alongside Mint. You're going to need every ounce of those Artes cause while the game is manageable on the default difficulty for the most part you are going to be facing tough enemies specially harder bosses at several stages of the game. Like any other RPG Tales of Phantasia does force some required grinding so that you stand a chance but thankfully EXP and Gald earned is worthwhile.
While the battles are great but however they can become frequent and can interrupt pacing especially when you're trying to solve a puzzle. Thankfully you can use Holy Bottles which can reduce random encounters for a brief time while Dark Bottles can increase random battle rates if you wish to build up your characters levels. Using recovery items is helpful but you're only limited to carrying 15 of the same item at anytime so it's best to use them wisely, thankfully this adds a level of strategy because many healing items restore a percentage of a characters HP, TP or any status effects such as poison or worse petrify. As for the AI they are capable of holding their own for the most but on the harder settings they may require you to use commands that you give them through the Artes menu during battles to make things easier. Tales of Phantasia's battles thankfully have a great number of depth that will keep you engaged and ensuring that you'll always have the upperhand.
Arguably for the 16 bit era Tales of Phantasia was one of the most impressive looking game for a Japan-Only Super Nintendo game but the Game Boy Advance release of the game still makes the game well worth looking at with nice looking towns and dungeons, torches that brightens up dark caves, environment shadows coming from trees and flying birds and insects hovering around. Character sprites have been updated and they do look nice and their animations (although stiff in some places) are aright alongside the various Physical and Magical Artes used. The best way to get a good look at the graphics is on the Nintendo DS Lite as the game looks more colourful on it.
The music in the game is quite impressive alongside it's famous battle music like Take up the Cross or the most popular one Fighting of the Spirit which can still sound epic in GBA sound quality. The sound effects are aright and there's actual voice acting during the battle sequences and they are not bad aside from Suzu's in which they got her voice mixed up incorrectly with her Artes. She'll say Omega Storm when she used Flare Blitz for example.
While it isn't on par with Tales of Symphonia nor the SNES original but Tales of Phantasia on the Game Boy Advance is a great and enjoyable Action RPG for what the port offers. Sure the translation has a few laughable lines and the voice acting isn't one of the best ever heard but the game can hold well it's own thanks to it's storyline, characters and the great gameplay. If you wish to finally experience the first chapter in the series then it's recommended as a purchase alongside some of the GBA ports of Square Enix's Final Fantasy games.
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The Good Points:
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1. Great Storyline and enjoyable characters
2. Fun and Simple Battle System
3. Plenty of areas to explore and sidequests to do
4. Graphics still look great even on GBA
The Bad Points:
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1. Laughable Translation and minor text errors
2. Frequent Random Encounters
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Reviewed by: Anthony Hayball (AQWBlaZer91)
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