Tales of Destiny II

"Easily one of the best PSX RPGs to date..."

Namco's Tales series is easily one of the best RPG series I have ever played. The first title, Tales of Phantasia, was released on the Super Famicom. After a few years, Namco created a sequel, Tales of Destiny, on the Sony PlayStation. During this period of time, Namco also created a PlayStation version of Tales of Phantasia, improving several thing in this new version. Then, a sequel to Tales of Destiny was released. It was called Tales of Eternia in Japan, but thankfully, Namco decided to localize this game to the US. The US title, Tales of Destiny II, was selected because few gamers knew of the entire Tales series, and Namco also decided that most people knew about Tales of Destiny.

But aside from all this, this is indeed one of the best PlayStation RPGs to date, easily beating out FFIX as RPG of the Year...

Graphics: Ten out of ten

I have seen far too many web sites whine like little brats that the graphics are not good enough. All they want is '3-D! 3-D!' Most of the graphics are not 3-D; instead they are beautiful 2-D graphics. These are some of the most beautiful 2-D graphics I have ever seen in fact; give me this beautiful graphics over some high fancy 3-D any day. Ten out of ten.

In-battle game play: Ten out of ten

The battle system is by far, the best I have ever seen. It uses the old Tales battle system model, and upgrades it in every way. For those of you that don't know, the Tales series battle system is similar to that of a side-scrolling fighting game. Your characters and the enemies have all the necessary statistics; HP, MP, strength, defense, etc. etc. and so on and so forth. But you are actually allowed to control one character through battle, the computer controls the ones whom you are not controlling. You can also later obtain new Craymels(elemental beings holding great magical power)and use them to give spells to your characters. If you think this battle system sounds confusing, just play the game; you'll be blow away by it's sheer magnificence. Ten out of ten.

Out-of-battle game play: Ten out of ten

Even when you are not fighting, the towns and actual landscape of the game is fun as well. For example, when you are in towns, there are many mini-games to play. A lot better than some of the recent mainstream games(i.e. Final Fantasy)and there are a lot more people in the towns to talk to. Plus, I absolutely fell in love with the beautiful graphics that Namco uses in the towns. Ten out of ten.

Story and characters: Nine out of ten.

I must admit that I've never really cared for RPG stories. Sure, they were a nice add-on, but that's all they really were to me. And that's still the same way I feel. However, for those of you that do care about RPG stories and think they are needed in an RPG, I can tell you right now that this game's story is fantastic. Sure it's cliched, but a story; any story in general in fact; lies not with it's originality, but with it's quality. After all, an RPG with a story that a bad man comes and steals all the girls from the village is certainly original compared to nowadays standards...but it's certainly not good.

Anyway, as I was saying, this game's story is quite good. The story progresses in a nice, clean cut fashion, and the characters not only learn about the worlds they live in, but the whole nature of the human psyche, and they learn about how to love each other. As I said before, I've never been a sucker for RPG stories; I prefer book stories myself, but if you like RPG stories, then this one is quite good. Nine out of ten.

Buy or rent?

I would easily recommend anyone who likes RPGs to buy this game.

Overall-Ten out of ten.

Buy this game, as it is certainly one of the best PSX RPGs to date.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/01, Updated 10/17/01