Tales of Destiny II

"An awesome addition to the Tales series"

When you ask an RPG player what their favorite series is, one of the many responses that you will hear is the Tales series by Namco. I have never played any of the other games in this series, but I have heard great things about them. I was excited about the release of Tales of Destiny 2, because it meant I could get my hands on at least one of the games in this talked about series. Tales of Destiny 2 is the same as the game Tales of Eternia, that was previously released only in Japan. Namco decided to change the name in the conversion so that the Tales of Destiny name might appeal to a few more fans. The Tales series also includes Tales of Phantasia, which was for the Super Nintendo and Tales of Destiny, which was released in 1998 for the Playstation. Although it is called Tales of Destiny 2, you do not have to have played Tales of Destiny to understand this game, as the stories are completely separate from each other.

This game is a fairly good RPG, which has many similarities in style to Star Ocean The Second Story. If you like Star Ocean 2, you will definitely like this game. The graphics are bright and detailed, the characters are great, the story is well-paced, there is a decent soundtrack to go with the game, and a lot of voice acting. Many elements, like the graphical style of the game, and different gameplay elements, like the battle system, or the cooking feature cause this game to resemble Star Ocean 2.

The game begins with two childhood friends, Reid and Farrah. They are hanging out together, when they are interrupted by a bright flash in the distance, and a loud crash. Upon examination of the crash site, they find a strange girl, who can only speak gibberish, emerge from a ship. The ship explodes shortly after she gets out, right in front of them all. Wanting to help the girl, they bring her back to the village, only to find the village elder ban her from the village. After this strange girl is banished from the village, they decide to go with her, and try to find someone who can understand her. From here, the plot quickly thickens, and within a few hours, you are thrust into a situation in which you must save the world.

The story in this game is fairly good. The main characters of the game have very good development, and they have very interesting personalities to add to the experience of your quest. There are other character that join your party, besides the main characters, but they are not as well developed in my opinion. The story of the game flows at a nice smooth pace, with a good amount of balance between dungeons and story.

The battle system is fairly complex, but it is also a very enjoyable system. In battles, you can move freely, and perform any type of action. Since the game is a 2-D game, you can only move left to right on the screen. Personally, after having used many different 3-D action battle systems , the battles felt a little weird at first, but they quickly grew on me, and I ended up enjoying them quite a bit. You are in control of one character of your choice, while the computer performs actions for the other characters in your party. If you have some friends, you can plug in up to 4 controllers using a multi-tap, and have one control each character in battle.

The artificial intelligence for the other characters is very good, and has many possibilities. For example, you can have computers attacking flying enemies, the enemy that you attack, the enemy with the lowest hp, etc. You can also adjust their features by adding, or reducing points to each aspect. For each aspect, you can allot up to 5 points, with 5 being maximum use of that type of ability. The one main feature that all characters have for adjustment is the amount you want them to attack, or if you set it low, defend. There are two more features based on the use of skills, which vary from character to character.

The way techniques are learned is quite unique. Reid and Farrah are similar in style when learning techniques. Reid uses weapons like swords, axes, and spears, so his attacks are classified as either slashing, or thrusting. With each slash, or thrust he performs, his slash level, or thrust level will increase. In order to gain a new technique, Reid will have to have performed a certain technique at least a specific number of times, or he will have to have a certain slash or thrust level, or a combination of both. Farrah is the exact same, except that she uses her hands and feet in battle, and has a kick level, and punch level.

Two of the other main characters in the game can use magic skills. There are elemental spirits that you will encounter throughout the game called Craymels. If you can get the assistance of these great powers, then they will go into your Craymel Cage. Only these two characters have these special cages to hold them. You can switch them from cage to cage at any time. Depending on the mixture between cages, you will gain different abilities. The Craymels, like the characters, gain experience with each battle, and level up. Once they reach certain levels, Craymels between the two cages can fringe to create a new ability. There are many different possibilities for different spells. The good thing about fringing is that you are told when you are able to fringe and create a new move. If you perform a fire elemental spell, than the vitality of the fire Craymel will go up. Once the vitality reaches the peak, you can summon that Craymel in battle.

There are two other main characters that you will use in the game. In order for them to learn new skills, they will have to trigger a certain event. This will require some searching on your part, as very few of these skills can be found directly along your path.

Each hit that you land in battle is counted, and if you perform a few in quick enough succession, then the number of hits will be scored as a combo. After each battle, your highest combo for that round is displayed, and if it is your best combo ever, it will score a place on the menu screen. Based on the size of your combo, you will earn bonus experience points. The more hits you land, the higher the bonus. As you get into higher combinations, the scale gets a little steeper based on each hit. You can also get various other bonuses like extra money, or items, by performing a technical smash in battle. Technical smashes can be earned in various different ways by performing different actions. A couple examples of ways to earn these are to kill multiple enemies with the same single use of a technique, or to use a special skill to kill the enemy.

Menus are broken down nicely, and as a result, they are quite easy to use. Items are broken up into categories including new items, tools, food, weapons, armor, equipment, and special items. Although you are limited to carrying up to only 15 of each item, it does not really become much of an issue. Healing items used to restore hit points, or magic points are often dropped by monsters throughout dungeons, so you can usually use these items when needed, and still have a few left for boss battles. Aside from these items dropped, there are also many places that your party will stop to camp out. These camping sites are often used as places for a brief look into elements of the story. After the initial use, your party can return to camp, and restore all of their hit points here.

Adding to the list of healing items are dishes that you can cook. Scattered throughout the various towns is a character called the wonder chef. He disguises himself as various objects until you find him. When you find him, you are taught how to prepare a certain dish, and given one of each of the ingredients needed to cook that dish. There are 36 dishes in total, yielding different results like restoring hp or mp, or both, curing conditions, or increasing attack power for a brief time. Generally, wonder chefs are well hidden, and you can expect at least one in almost every town you visit. Like the wonder chefs, items called lenses are hidden throughout the land. Eventually, you will find a place that these can be traded in to receive special items for every 10 lenses that you collect.

One of the secret items you can get is a collectors book, which tells you the percentage of each type of item you own. For example, you may have 30 different weapons, but there may be 60 total. This can often be used as a convenient tool to tell you the amount of secrets you may have missed, or how far you may be into the game. To acquire some items, you will need to use the rune bottle. Rune bottles take one item, and transform them into a different item. Experimenting with items can wield some very good items that you did not know existed.

Graphically, this game is magnificent. Everything about the game is bright, and sharp, and greatly detailed. Other than a lack of much of a face, characters are drawn very well. Backgrounds use many bright colors, and they are very detailed. Despite the fast pace of battles, the animation remains smooth throughout, never suffering despite the multiple spells, and attacks taking place at the same time. The graphics displayed for weapons in battle will change based on what you have equipped. There are special battle animations that can occur when you perform special combinations, or when you summon a Craymel. Although they are not the most high-tech battle animations, they are a nice treat, and they are fairly quick, so as not to hamper with the pace of the battle. There are two types of graphical cut-scenes throughout the game, and they are displayed as either Full Motion Video scenes, or anime scenes. There are only a couple of anime scenes, but they are well drawn, and work well with the situation. The Full Motion Video scenes are incredible. Most scenes contain either water, or machines, which are two items that definitely received a lot of attention. Wave effects in these scenes are incredibly detailed, and look fantastic. The machines that they have created for these scenes are very big, and look very good in action.

The audio components in the game are quite varied. The songs in the game are good, but nothing incredible. They get the job done in providing good beats for the appropriate situation, but I do not think I would really listen to the soundtrack outside of the game. A nice feature is that there are two different regular battle themes that are played out in different sections of the game. This provides some nice variety since you will encounter many battles over the course of the game. Sound effects are very good. When performing spells, they sound just like the element of the spell. Making contact with enemies sounds very good. There are also many small little sound effects for special situations that are well done. The voice acting is one of the poorer components of the audio. In general, it is not bad, but there are many parts in which a little more effort would have helped a lot. For most of the game, voice acting is utilized approximately every half an hour to an hour. In some portions, the voices sound somewhat forced, and lack any proper emotion. Some particular voices in the game can get very annoying at times. Thankfully, you do not have to listen to any of the voices if you do not want to. Each time voice acting is used, text is also displayed on the screen, so you will not lose out on anything if you choose to turn off the voices, or just skip to the next part.

For a game with such a fast-paced battle system, the control is set up very well. With the main character Reid, the L1 and R1 keys are used as special hot keys that can be programmed to perform a special skill when they are pushed. You can use the skills of any character for this. You can also program four of his skills to the direction and O button combination. If you want, there are also special button combinations that will wield each of your skills. During battles, you can switch any equipment at any time, or disable the use of certain skills by the computer. This is good, because there will be times when certain equipment just is not the right equipment to be using. It also helps to control how much magic the computer uses. My one main gripe with the controls is when operating your vehicles. They obviously provide good transportation, but the use of the map could have been better. You can use a button to bring up a small portion of the map in the corner of the screen, but sometimes you may want to look at the whole map. In order to do this, instead of just pushing the same button again, you have to open up the menu, go to the items section, go to special items, and then click on the map you wish to see. As not many people tend to switch between a mini map in the corner, and no map in the corner very often, it might have been a lot easier to add in a third function, the full screen map.

This game offers a lot in the way of re-playability. The battle system is quite fast paced, and very enjoyable throughout the course of the game. You encounter a good number of battles in the game, but they are very quick. You are told the time it takes to complete each battle, and your average, and I averaged around 20 seconds per battle over the course of the game. For those looking for a challenge out of the battles, there are three difficulty levels that you can use. The rest of the game stays the same, but battles will become a lot more challenging. As mentioned above, there are quite a few items to find. There are also many secrets scattered throughout the game, and a load of mini games, some of which are mandatory to the gameplay, some which are not.

Overall, I was quite pleased with this game. The story was interesting, the battle system is a lot of fun, and does not get boring, the graphics were great, sound was fairly good, controls are set up well, and there is a lot of replay value. This game has definitely lived up to everything good I have heard about this series. I would definitely recommend a purchase, as this would be a good addition to any gamers library.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/02/02, Updated 01/17/02