Tales of Destiny

"Forget today's story based rpgs and play this classic!"

Several years back in the rpg world, an amazing action/rpg called Tales of Phantasia was released in Japan. I found out about this game while reading an issue of Nintendo Power, where they named it rpg of the year. "Oh my goodness!", I yelled. "I have to play this game!" Then I found out that it was made by Namco. "Wait a minute.... didn't they make Pacman?!" So I told my fellow rpg nut of a friend about it, and we had a good laugh about the "rpg brought to you by the makers of Pacman!". Sadly, Tales of Phantasia never got translated, and I never knew the truth behind its gameplay.

And so that brings us to Tales of Destiny, the sequel to Tales of Phantasia. ToD has been criticised a lot for having bad graphics, not much story, and linear gameplay, but I say, "Forget all that! This game's gameplay is so good, it makes it worth it!" If you were raised on the old Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy 1, Crystalis rpgs of the NES like I was, or if you value the solid gameplay of FF5 and FF6 over the graphics and storylines of FF7 and FF8, I absolutely guarantee, "You WILL love this game!"

GAMEPLAY: 10/10:

Tales of Destiny is a lot like Tales of Phantasia. (I managed to see Tales of Phantasia once, but it was in Japanese, boo hoo!) It's an action/rpg, unlike any other. Everything is like what you would expect from an rpg, except the battles, which are awesome. Remember Zelda 2: The Adventures of Link? (It was the sucky Zelda. Mmmhmm. Yeah... that one... now you remember!) The battles in ToD are like that, except a whole lot better. The fights are 2d side scrolling. You control your main character, Stahn, and the computer controls the up to 3 other party members. You can tell the computer fight patterns and it does a pretty competent job at it. The computer will automatically attack the best choice, cast healing spells when neccessary, etc. You can also tell your other pary members exactly what to do by using a menu like regular rpgs. You can tell them to cast a fire spell, or target a specific person for the rest of the fight. You have manual control over your main character, Stahn. When you push left, he moves left. When you push O, he swings his sword. You can attack high or low, slash or thrust, use special attacks, or cast magic. There are hundreds of different moves and spells in this game! The special moves are very diverse, ranging from Street Fighter style fireballs to 30 hit combos. Your weapons are talking swords called "Swordians". You can attach disks to them which are like relics in FF6 or materia in FF7. There are tons of other weapons also. One problem withthe gameplay is that there you fight an insane amount of enemies! There are way too many random battles. You can hardly move without fighting someone. All this battling means lots of experience levels, and consequently, most of the game is too easy because you your high levels. (Note: This isn't much a spoiler, but even if it is a spoiler, it's worth it because it makes the game better and more enjoyable. Use Holy Bottles and Cloak all the time, which will reduce the amount of battles to acceptable levels. This also makes the game more of challenge.) Another very good aspect of this game is the multiplayer. By using a special item, (you get one early in the game) you can have another person on another controller control other party members. You can have up to 4 people playing. The game is so awesome when you and your buddies are hacking away at a difficult boss, and celebrating together when the foe is vanquished. Multiplayer only works in battles though, so your friends might as well climb a wall while your in town buying supplies or finding information.

STORY: 5/10:

Teenaged boy finds out he's destined to save the world from evil. Oh my goodness! That is such an original story! I've never heard that one before! In case you haven't figured it out, that was sarcasm, hence the 5/10 rating. Nothing much about the story, which is full of stereotypical rpg cliches, but the talking swords are mildly interesting. Also, I think part of the story deals with the prequel, Tales of Phantasia, so that isn't much of a help to us unfortunate American players.

GRAPHICS: 7/10:

Nothing spectacular here. 2d graphics that remind me of the good old days on the SNES. If you enjoyed your SNES or Genesis graphics, there's nothing wrong with these. Some of the spells look pretty neat, but overall it's nothing to write home about. One neat thing is that the weapons all show up in battle, so you can see your character holding his sword/axe/broom and swing with it. Some of those weapons look cool also.

SOUND: 8/10:

Once again, nothing spectacular here. There are a lot of songs, but most of them are forgotten. But forget about the songs, the characters also speak when they fight. However, the voice actors were all Japanese. UH OH! But actually, this is helps the game a lot by making it really funny at times. One of the mysteries in this game that you'll have to solve is wondering whether the Japanese voice actors are saying English or Japanese! ^_^ <--- Anime smiley face for those that don't know. Sometimes, you know that they're saying Japanese. (Like when you win a battle) Sometimes, they speak English with funny accents. (Listen to Rutee and Philia say "Ice Tornado". It's hilarious.) And other times, you'll be wondering "What the heck?!" (Listen to Rutee cast Antidote. It sounds like An-Shi-Doto. Is that Japanese for antidote, or really bad English? Also funny is the spell Big Bang, which ends up sounding like Big Guh-Guh.) You can turn off the voices if you want, in case you start falling off your chair from laughter. ^_^ (Just to show that I'm not being mean to Asian accents, my parents are both Chinese and they also speak in strange accents, so there. ^_^)

REPLAY: 9/10:

With so many different weapons, abilities, spells, and lots of different characters, this game can be played over a good many times before getting sick of it. (Which I still haven't.) Also, there's a big bonus dungeon near the end which is really hard, and lots of fun.

OVERALL: 10/10:

In my opinion, this one of the best Playstation rpgs, and the best non- SquareSoft rpg. If you're tired of the direction that the new rpgs are moving, and just want something that's fun to play instead of fun to look at, definitely buy this under rated game. This game deserves more recognition than what it got.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 11/25/99, Updated 11/25/99