Tales of Destiny II

"This is simply a splendid game."

First off,I would like to thank Namco for making such a great sequel. And even though this game is for the Playstation and not the Playstation 2,it is still very great.Now on with the review!

Its about two worlds(inferia and celestia) that are close to each other,but havent had any communication between each other beacause of a mysterious barrier.The worlds are facing each other,so if you are on one world,it will look like the other is upside down. But something called the ''dark matter'' is developing.The dark matter is supposed to cause world destruction,and its getting bigger by the day. Since celestia has much more advanced technology,they have already learned about the dark matter,but with inferia`s primitave technology,they do not yet know.so the people of celestia send a girl named meredy to inferia to warn them. She lands on the planet and is found by two people named reid and farah.meredy tries to communicate with them,but cannot since she does not know the language.She only speaks melnics,an ancient language.So reid and farah(who do not know melnics language) decide to find someone who can understand her.And so the story begins.

The graphics in the game are like the ones in saga frontier 2.They are not in 3D(exept on the world map).But that does not make the game bad.it still looks great,i havent seen a game like this in quite a while now,and was very pleased when i saw it.This game does have some animated scenes,which are very well done.But some will have subtitles,such as one from the beggining,meredy talks to someone on her planet before leaving,and since its in a different language,there are subtitles.but other than those scenes,everything else is in english.

The battling is like in the first one,its not turn based.you go across the screen and clobber your enemies(which DO fall on the ground).The attacks are mainly slash and thrust,which if performed regularly,level up your slash and thrust level,which can make you aquire skills. Skills can be used in battle,you can assign them to a certain button.And in order to execute a skill,you have to press down the skill button along with a directional button.Certain skills can be stronger against certain enemies,and if you use a skill regularly,it will become stronger.For characters that you do not control but are also in battle,you can turn certain skills off or on,the the ones that are off cannot be executed by the character. But watch out,if you use your skills too much,you will run out of TP(technique points),which are kind of the same as MP.Your TP gets restored a bit after each battle,and each skill uses different amounts of TP. The player that you use can go into auto,semi-auto,and manual modes during battle.Auto makes the computer battle for you,semi-auto is for begginers,if you attack,your player will go to the enemy,attack,and then come back to the same space,and in manual mode,you have full control of your character.You can also perform combos,by combining certaion attacks,such as slash,thrust,thrust.

The sound is great.The music is perfect for the game.But the sound acting only comes up during certain events in the game.So you dont hear it very often,and since the mouths of the chraracters dont move,the voices dont really belong in the game.but the thing is that if you change a persons name and the voices come up.and you set a certain characters name to something other than the default name,it will still say the default name,even though a different name is there.but the good thing is that you can turn off the voices.But the ones in the battle will stay on,which is the way it should be.since they only come up when you attack,they`ll say things like ''lightning blade''!or just go huuwaahh!!

The controls are pretty basic.In screens for the town,dungeon,etc.You press X to confirm/check.O is to cancel.And square is the menu.but you can change these to however you like.The controls in battle are pretty much the same as in the first one.Square is to attack,X is to use a skill,O is to defend,and triangle is to bring up the in game menu.The select button is to switch between the battling modes(auto,semi-auto,and manual).Although the game does have analog control,you problably wont use it.Its a lot easier using the control pad.

One of the things you may notice about this game is the cooking option.you must combine ingredients together to make a certain food item.The food item may either restore HP,restore TP,cure status ailments,or just give you a status ailment.So you have to select the right player to cook the item. Another thing you may notice is the names of the items,such as apple gel,which restores HP.So you may wonder,why isnt it just called a potion?well,thats just one of the things that make this game unique. Another thing is the equipment.While a spear will increase a players thrust power,an axe will increase a players slash power,and a sword will have an equal amount of both the slash and thrust powers.and another thing that makes this game unique is the minigames,which are all very different but are all very fun to do.there are some in which you have to make a ball squish your opponent.And in another,you will have to use a raft to go down a river.

So basicly,if you sum up all that i`ve said.I`m just telling you to get this game.That is,if you like RPG`s.And if you`ve already played the first one,you should definetly get this game.if you dont,you`ll be missing out on a lot.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/15/01, Updated 01/29/02