Tales of Destiny II

"And so, the third is the charm..."

Tales of Destiny, the second game of the Tales series was considered by many hardcore Phantasia fans as lackluster, lame, or to some others, an insult. I consider myself a ''hardcore'' Phantasia player, but I didn't think Destiny was truly THAT bad. T'was an okay game on its own, but came up shadowy in some parts where Phantasia shined. But now, Namco has finally put out the third sequel, Tales of Eternia. So, just how great is it, and how does it compare to the others?

Story - N/A
In this unfortunate event, I can't read Japanese dialogue, and inevitably, hardly understand anything being said. I can read some stuff that's useful for menu navigation, but that's about it. The one that I can say though, is that the story looks rather good, and dare I say it, better than Phantasia's (and of course that means it looks miles ahead of Destiny's). Character interaction is all there, the characters all have their distinctive personalities. Like previous games, it looks pretty comical too. Here's hoping Namco actually decides to translate this game into English, even though it seems unlikely. (and to Namco: Please SUBTITLE the chat sequences if you do decide to translate this game. You cut them out of Destiny US and don't seem to have a blasted clue that what you did was BAD... you killed off half of the character development!)

Gameplay - 10/10
Improvements everywhere to everything. The game sports a seemingly rebuilt-from-scratch engine, so it's kind of fresh and feels different than Destiny and Phantasia PSX (Phantasia PSX seems to run on a slightly modified Destiny engine).

Now: battles. Those used to Destiny/Phantasia PSX battles may be slightly overwhelmed by Eternia's rewritten battle system. Essentially, it's the same, but it has its differences. For one, the battle speed is significantly faster. Battles move at least 50% faster. The battles generally feature a looser feel than the seemingly stiff battle engines in Destiny/Phantasia PSX.

With Rid, our hero guy, you can also do these new mini combos. Go up to an enemy, hit up on the d-pad and attack. He'll do an upward slash. Just as he finishes, hit up and slash again and he'll jump up and slash, up and attack again he'll go even higher! But as he falls from the high jump, hitting down and attack really fast before hitting ground will cause him to do a drop slash the enemy. Remember, this chain of attacks needs to be executed QUICKLY because of the battle speed.

One other thing that is really worth noting. The battles will NOT pause when a big magic spell (i.e. Indignation, Explosion, Meteor Swarm etc) is cast! You still have free movement to attack enemies. This is good though, if you're quick enough, you can even evade the big spells (this should be just about effortless if you have the Jet Boots, hehe...). You need to watch out though. Some of the bigger spells cause the battle camera to zoom out, and since it's still active you might lose track of your character. It should also be memoed that Summon spirits WILL still pause the battle. But that's not so bad because the enemies can't summon them.

Some people are probably also wondering-- does it fail yet again with CPU controlled characters? Are they really stupid like just about every realtime RPG in the past? Answer: Absolutely not, and god forbid if they were. Think... the only thing you could do in Tales of Phantasia was set 5/6 different options or turn off spells/moves you didn't want characters using. They fought somewhat like how you set their tactics, however, they were often time either extreme dullards and stood around like dorks and either attacked occasionally, or mages like in Arche's case, used magic way too often, thus wasting TP.
This is not the case in Tales of Eternia. However, if they do fight like this in Eternia, It's your fault, not the computer's. Because... there are -16- AI options, and several usage meters that you set from 1 to 5--

>Instead of just a few lame settings as in Phantasia consisting of things such as ''Go berserk'', we have many USEFUL settings that go into detail like ''Attack flying enemy'', ''Attack enemy that is far away'', ''Ruin enemy's special'', ''Attack important enemy'' etc.
>Now the special Meters. The main characters have 3 meters, and the optional ones have 2. The first one deals with how often the character will use physical attacks. This is how the settings for them work:
1- Don't attack,
2- Attack rarely,
3- Attack occasionaly,
4- Attack often,
5- Go berserk.
Look at that!! You can select ''Go Berserk'' using the meters, but also have the AI option set on ''Attack important enemy'', so they'll go berserk on the important (boss) enemy! Why couldn't there have been this much flexibility in the past?
The other two meters deal with TP usage (Tales' equivalent to MP). For a mage, the first one is how often they'll throw offensive spells, and the second healing spells. In Farah's case (she's a Monk type character), first is how often she'll execute Fist based specials, and the other foot based. The optional character's second meter is just how often they'll use any set specials.

Of course, in addition you can still turn off spells you don't wish your buds to use. With this much flexibility in the AI department, it's just about damn well possible to make a character fight just about exactly the way you'd want them to. What's more is that an AI like this is extremely critical. With all the speed of the games' battle system, a typical AI like Phantasia/Destiny or even Star Ocean would only turn your party into a heaping pile of roadkill.
Oh, and there's a small, but new thing called the 'shortcut', but it's relevant to the commanding of characters. Shortcuts are basically like quick commands that let you assign other character's spells and special attacks to your L2 and R2 buttons in the special attack menu. It's useful for healing, so you can force an ally to cast a healing spell with a press of a button. It CAN also be used to place two more specials for your main character. It's quite a nifty new feature.

Now, battles aside...

The encounter rate went up a bit from Phantasia PSX. Mind you, that game had a LOW encounter rate, especially when compared to Destiny or Phantasia SFC. Eternia's encounter rate is about medium in the series. Even at medium, it can be slightly annoying at times, but it never quite gets as aggravating as Destiny/Phantasia SFC. Just be happy the Holy Bottles are still there for you.

Multiplayer no longer requires special accessories. In Destiny, at least, those items were quite the pain in the ass to find. They were easy to find in Phantasia PSX though, but Eternia doesn't require such things, therefore you can save an accessory slot. It's totally up to 4 player multiplayer as soon as you get a fourth character.

Manual battle control, a control mode I prefer to the standard Semi-Auto is also available very early. Although you don't have it right at the beginning like multiplayer, a Monk in the Regulus Dojo (less than 20 minutes into the game) will give you a book about Manual control. It's not an accessory, so once you get it, you can select Manual! Frees up yet another accessory slot!

There's a new magic system in place and it's fairly complex and hard to explain. Only two characters, Meredy and Keel use magic in the game, every one else is a fighter.

Both Meredy and Keel have what is called a ''Cramer(?) Gauge'', or C. Gauge. Defeat a Spirit, and you can put its power in the one of their C. Gauges. (Please refer to an FAQ for more information on this system. It's too hard to explain right here. Even if I'd try to, it'd take a long time to write up about).

Some smaller things worth noting-

+There are tons upon tons of subquests in this game that can be completed. To put things shortly, there are MANY more subquests than Tales of Phantasia and Destiny have combined. Tons of secrets, and all. There is so much extra stuff you can do even after you've finished the game... and don't forget the INSANE bonus dungeon you get access to after beating the game...

+Mini games.. mini games. Namco loves these things and there are a lot. You'll find anything from river rafting to an eating contest with Mighty Kongman (otherwise known as Bruiser Khang) from ToD.

+Quizzes with general questions from Tales of Phantasia and Destiny are abound. They are once again asked by familiar faces...

+The adjustable difficulty levels from Tales of Phantasia PSX have returned!

+Cooking is there

+The decorative and hard to find character jobs have come back too

+The game is utterly and completely loaded with character cameo appearances, surprises, and other such things from Destiny and Phantasia. Nostalgia seekers will like what they find. To keep ToE from looking unoriginal however, is that all of these things have optional origins. If you strictly stick behind the linear plotline, you'll miss out on all or most of them.

Music 7/10
Unfortunately, this is probably the weakest soundtrack of the series. Although Motoi Sakuraba is back in full force with his great battle themes, a fair portion has fallen prey to a problem with most current day RPG soundtracks. There is a lot of totally forgettable filler music. Some such tunes are slight ambienty songs that are used on Sylph's mountain and Undine's forest. Everytime I walk back into those places it sounds like new music because I've COMPLETELY forgotten it. I've never heard Motoi Sakuraba compose this kind of music before, so I'd assume someone else was right there with him to write it. Anyone who's listened to Sakuraba's music will know right off which one he did... of course all the battle themes. A few songs REALLY REALLY remind me of his works in Valkyrie Profile (the greatest RPG on the face of Inferia, IMO. If you haven't played it yet, do it NOW! It was released in english)... Celestia's boss battle music would've melded in PERFECTLY into a boss battle into that game. The opening and closing songs are pretty good still, just like all the other ones. They take a more rock/alternative approach than previous songs though.

Instruments used are mostly of higher quality and also aren't so echoey.

Graphics 8/10
The backgrounds are pre-rendered, however, fitting to the Tales style, they are of anime-style (with bright colors). They don't quite reach SaGa Frontier 2 or Legend of Mana, but they are quite nice nonetheless. Overworld graphics are polygonal and rotatable just like in Phantasia PSX, Star Ocean 2, or any PSX Final Fantasy.

Characters are far less deformed. The characters are taller, skinnier and their heads are NOT as big as their bodies like before. Thanks god for that cameo... 'he' (or I?) looks so much better. ^^;

My only complaint is that... contrary to the anime-like graphics used throughout the game, most of the movies on this 3-CD game are actually made of drab CG. Not that I don't like CG movies, they just seem completely out of place. There are only a couple movies with anime in them. You'd think there'd be more especially since the game has an anime that's about to air on Japanese TV soon (this review was written on 12/18/2000)...

The verdict - 9.5/10
Namco, you've accomplished the once thought impossible. You've managed to best Tales of Phantasia (PSX) out of my 2nd favorite spot. Congrats!

The only complaints I have for this game are-

+Slow world map movement. You move about 1/2 speed on the world as you do in Phantasia PSX. Ugh.
+Too much forgettable music
+Far too many out of place CG movies. There should've been more anime.
+Fairly uninspired character designs. Generally, the cast of characters doesn't look as 'cool' as the ones from previous games. (I mean, compare Cless to Rid. It's no contest, really...) Keel looks kinda cool though.

This is one heck of a game. Even if it doesn't come out in English, it is a VERY worthy import. If you're a dedicated Tales fanatic, you NEED this game. If you're skeptical because you thought Destiny was horrible, don't be.

We can only wonder how good the anime will be. Hopefully it'll be a justice giving treat. I await fansubs...

-Cless

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 12/20/00, Updated 12/20/00