Tales of Destiny

"The grandest Tale ever (Re)told..."

A little over a decade ago, an RPG series was born. The series has mainly been about quirky characters, flashy battle systems, somewhat typical plots, and overall gameplay that doesn't differ by huge amounts from game to game. While some of these elements may seem weak, they generally end up being the series strengths. Tales of Destiny was actually the second game in the "series"- though like say, Final Fantasy, the games are mostly unrelated, though a couple of them are related directly. Tales of Destiny (ToD) was originally released on the Playstation in 1997, back when the series was still in it's infancy. The games were hits in Japan, and gave birth to what is more or less a niche following in the US.

Tales of Destiny for the Playstation 2 is a remake of the original PS game, taking the characters and plot events, but changing the battle system, and incorporating some aspects and features of later games in the series (Such as Tales of Destiny 2, and Tales of Rebirth) while also giving the game a complete graphical overhaul from the original. What the result is, is a game that has been completely revamped, the goofy old sprites, and graphics were nixed in favor of much more visually appealing 3-D backgrounds, as well as better looking 2-D character sprites.

Graphics 9/10: Visually speaking, this is one of those games that feels like it defines great 2-D. Sure, there are some better looking 2-D games, but this is probably the best looking game in the series (even counting "3-D" installments like Legendia and Abyss.) The original game had squatty, "chibi-like" characters, that were cute, but kind of goofy looking. Namco completely tossed out that graphical style in favor of a more Tales of Rebirth style. Everything is very colorful, from backgrounds, to characters, to special attacks and skills. The effects and there renderings are really quite striking.

The backgrounds themselves are actually 3-D now, but coincidentally enough, they fell like they're 2-D, from appearance. You know they're 3-D because of the fact that you can move your way through areas, and make your way deeper on the screen, so things were given more depth, and they do even appear 3-D, but they way they're rendered makes them visually seem meshed with with the appearance of the 2-D sprites. There are still a lot of neat little effects, though, such as shadows, and other minute details on buildings, and areas, that you can tell a lot of thought and attention were put into. I guess the easiest way to put it is that you know it's 3-D, but it doesn't pretend to be realistic looking, which helps maintain that overall visual appeal that the series has always had.

One note, however, if you've gathered from this description is that this is not a hyper-realistic looking game. It doesn't have realistically-rendered 3-D character models, on realistic backgrounds and settings. It follows and stays true to how the series has predominantly been, by offering somewhat anime-like graphics and visuals. Technically speaking, since many people favor those realistic, 3-D graphics these days, a game that's released at what is more or less the end of the PS2's lifecycle really doesn't reflect what people generally seem to look for in graphical prowess these days.

Story 9/10: The story is sort of typical, both for a Tales game, and for the sort of anime inspired feel the game has; A young man named Stahn has been found stowed away on a flying dragon-like airship. He's questioned as to what his intents are, as the ship is carrying an object of great importance. The ship is attacked by monsters, and Stahn makes his way to the depths of this ship and finds a sword, which he uses to fend off monsters, and helps to make his escape. He finds that this is no ordinary sword, but rather one that is sentient-it has a will, and voice of it's own.

The story flies from there, as Stahn meets several different characters, including two lens hunters, a snide young swordsman from the kingdom of Sinegald, a priestess girl, an arena champion, a musician, and other characters who ally themselves with him in his quest to find the Eye of God, a giant artifact that contains enough power to possibly destroy the world, and it becomes your quest to gather the swordians and their masters (The swordians being those sentient swords, not unlike the one Stahn uses.) This eventually leads you to uncover what is an even greater plot and threat to the entire world... Much of the story has been unchanged from the original version of the game, though there are new events and such that have been added, and some parts have been modified bit.

That being said, I think ToD is probably the most stand-out game in the Tales series, not necessarily because it's "the best," but more because it's probably one of the more unique games in the series. A majority of the Tales games now deal with seeking greater spirits, and summoners, and all of this. It's been done in the Tales series a handful of times as it is, not to mention the many other RPGs that include this as a main plot point. Tales of Destiny is at least somewhat unique in that respect. One other thing is that the characters seem to have been fleshed out more in the remake than in the original. Being one of the earlier games in the series, the characters aren't overly complicated to the point of trying to be deep, or analytical, or needlessly over-the-top. At the same time, they each have their own personalities. Their own reasons for joining you, and fighting to save their world. So in the end, the characters retain much of their charm, in that you really just can't find yourself disliking hardly any of them.

One final thing is that like other Tales games, ToD Remake has the Chat/skit system. It has actually changed somewhat, to what is now called the 'Emotion Card Skit system.' Don't kid yourself, it's really just the same as always, but the skit system has always more or less been a highlight of the series, as it builds the characters more, and has them interact with eachother, which often fills you in on little tidbits about each character's pasts or personalities. As always, there are generally several skits, and they're pretty much all optional, so you can skip them if you wish to not view them.

Control 10/10: The control is pretty much the exact same as most of the Tales games. We've kind of come to expect the interface to be the same, I think, and it really is. Skills and spells can be assigned to the directional pad, and you can execute them at any moment, or you can execute simple physical attacks. You can bring up menus in battle easily enough, and the menus themselves both in and out of battle are easy to navigate, and the interface itself, even though it's somewhat changed from previous games, is still visually, and user friendly.

Gameplay 10/10: Without a doubt, this is the most fun Tales game in the entire series. To be fair, the core battle system remains relatively similar to previous installments in the series, but there are a number of new and interesting things to deal with.

First off, the original game had this "disk" system, which had you swapping in and out various disks onto your swordian to increase stats, and give yourself a new spell or two. In the remake, that's been removed entirely in favor of the "Swordian Device," which in itself is almost like a disk. It's basically 6 levels of support abilities you can equip, such as skills that raise your stats, decrease spell-casting time, and increase your min~max CC count (More on that later). Device points are obtained by leveling up, defeating bosses in harder difficulty modes, and mastering other Device skills. What happens is that you are allotted a number of points, and you can equip skills until you are out of points. As you fight battles, these skills level up, and you eventually become a master of those skills. In the end, there are a number of unique things you can do with the Swordian Device, and you can adjust your stats and support skills accordingly.

Another thing is the Rerise system, which takes place of the normal equipment system. Throughout the game, you'll collect various types of lens (which is a type of item dropped by enemies) which will allow you to modify and upgrade your equipment. The swordian users can't un-equip their swordians, or upgrade (they already have the Swordian device for that) but your other characters can continuously upgrade their weapons and anyone can upgrade their armor. You generally have two or three options for upgrading, and doing so will yield equipment with higher stats, or elemental properties such as raising your defenses against those elemental types. You can also create armors with healing abilities, and a number of other things. The same thing really happens with accessories. There really aren't any static types of accessories, but rather the game has you seeking out different materials to make accessories out of. These allow you to add even more protection against certain elemental types, but they also do a number of things such as give you various protections against status effects, alter your CC counts, and do a myriad of other things.

The battle system has also been changed quite a bit. As I mentioned, the core is similar to past games of the series, but there are several noteworthy changes. For one, ToD remake is one of only two games in the series that has completely nixed the TP system (TP is to the Tales series, as MP is to say, Final Fantasy) and in it's place they offer a new system. The CC system. Each character is allotted an initial minimum and maximum amount of CC, and you can alter this as you progress through the game. Each action you take, be they physical attacks, skills, spells, backsteps, etc, cost a set amount of CC. Most things cost anywhere from 1 to 5 CC, which may not seem like a lot, but you actually start out with a rather small number of CC. You begin the game with something like a minimum/maximum of 2~5 (2 being the number that automatically refills after a set amount of time, 5 being the maximum amount of CC you can currently have). Chaining skills and casting spells depends on how many CC you currently have left. You can continuously assault your enemy until your minimum CC is 0, at which case you'll have to wait until it refills. Having a max of only 5 or 6 or so seems rather limiting, seeing as later skills and spells can cost upwards of 4 or 5 CC to even use. Of course, as you level up the swordian device, and obtain come accessory materials, you'll be given the option of raising your minimum and maximum CCs and can increase your minimum to 5 or 6, and your max to 15 CC or more. So when all is said and done, your ability to use higher-costing skills and spells, and longer combos will increase as you chose to increase your CC.

Tales of Destiny remake's battle system is also this aerial-based system, where you can either fight on the ground, in typical Tales fashion, or you can take to the air to preform huge combos on enemies while they are helpless, until you run out of CC. Some of the characters seem to be build more around ground-based combat, while others seem like they're better for using in the air anyway. It isn't some hugely new angle on the series, but it does offer a number of interesting new ways to execute skills and fight battles.

Music 7/10: For the most part is great. Most of the music is remixes, or carry-overs from the original game, yet there are a few really interesting new songs and BGMs. In the end, if you liked the songs from the original game, you'd probably like them quite a bit still. If you haven't played the original, or didn't like the music, it's still the typical Sakuraba fair, and that can be either taken positively or negatively, depending on whether or not you like Sakuraba's themes...

Replay 8/10: Like most of the other Tales games, beating the game opens up a few new difficulties (of which there are 5 total) and other things. Defeating the final boss opens up a bonus dungeon, where you can find and buy things to carry over to your new playthroughs, including dolls which change you into other characters, meaning you can have multiples of the same person in battle, or use characters that you don't get until later early in the game. Beyond that, there's no grade shop (though there is a shop where you can buy a few things with points you earn in the extra dungeon) but those options, and the increases in difficulty are enough to motivate people to play through the game at least once or twice. There are also a number of extras in the game as well, including a hidden character, an arena, the secret dungeon I previously mentioned, some minor sidequests, and a number of interesting cameos and references to find and see. Plus the rerise system, and swordian device systems are quite involved, so it might take time to get your weapons and equipment to where you want them. So there are plenty of extra things to do and see in the game.

Overall 9/10: Overall, this is a very solid Tales game. It's got a number of the things you'd expect from the series, yet at the same time it's got a surprising number of interesting new things, that set it a good deal apart from the majority of other Tales games. It really is a strong example of a Tales game, an RPG, and a remake. It took everything that worked in the original game, and enhanced it with newer features, and gameplay aspects to make it a very fun and interesting game. If you're an avid Tales fan, or even just a big fan of the original, I would certain suggest this game. It's doubtful that it'll ever see a release outside of Japan, but it's one of those games that shines brightly and distinctly. If you're a fan of the style or the series, I can't stress enough how great this game is, and it is certain worth a couple playthroughs, if you can get your hands on it...

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/06