Tales of Destiny

"Telling The Tale of The Talking Swords (comparing)"

I was the first person to pick up Destiny among my friends. Some of them got disappointed at first by it's two-dimensional experience, despite it's on a 32-bit console. But I soon fixed their opinions and deeply regret introducing this game to them in the first place.

Cool character designs, colorful graphics, really real sprites, and astounding BGMs (though some are sometimes a bit out of place). As a newbie in the role playing gaming world, what else could I ask for? I thought I had everything that I wished for inside this game (which was only surpassed by Square's “Final Fantasy VII” that time for it's ‘beyond dreams and imagination' feel) and do I ever regret buying it?

Well, in most aspects, no.

Tales of Destiny is the second of Namco's Tales series which I later found out was very similar in many ways to it's predecessor, the classic Tales of Phantasia, which never got to be officially translated in the US. Actually, it was more like that Destiny was ‘influenced' by Phantasia. Though having no particular connection in storyline, Destiny has very similar gameplay with better graphics, a more-developed system, a whole lot more voice acting, and even a number of exactly similar scenes and mini-games! (Some, like the voice acting in events and the beautiful opening soundtrack, were sadly ‘butchered' in the US version because of reasons they call ‘cultural differences'. But let's not talk about that.)

Stahn Aileron is a naive country boy who, rather unintentionally, stowaways onboard the kingdom's flying dragon ship in hopes of getting a free passage. However, that experience becomes a nightmare for him as the ship was hijacked by an army of flying monsters. The situation was tense, because the ship turns out to have been carrying some very important luggage which happened to be an ancient sentient sword named Dymlos, relic of the long past apocalyptic war between the Er'thers and Aetherians. Stahn becomes the sole survivor of this incident and the sword's whereabouts disappear from world's attention together with him. Thus, his true adventure begins. As Dymlos chooses Stahn to be his new master, a part of the burden of the world's fate is put on to him, since the world is once again about to enter a dark era.

The similarities with Phantasia: One, the Linear Motion battle system. Sprites of Stahn and company battle their enemies in real time, resembling the ones in 2D fighting games. This time, lots of moves can be accessed at once, a more variety of character battle types allowing high numbers of combos, and devastating magical Spells are unleashed by the people who use Swordians. Of course with better graphics, moves, control, and all; Two, the overall menu and field layout (flat view of sprites from the top), including the Food Sack system from the original Phantasia which helps recover your lost HP as you walk by putting various foods to be eat; Three, some situations in towns or dungeons are exactly the same as in Phantasia, like I had said before, including the comeback of some good old mini-games and puzzles.

Original Destiny stuff: Swordians gain experience as they accompany their masters in battles, which means becoming more powerful together with time in their Slash and Thrust parameters, learn new spells, and also can have their status modified by the use of equipping Aura Discs; a more interactive field to explore together with a pack of (weird) side-quests; and last but not least, the Lens, which you obtain from battles aside the experience points (your character needs to level up with) and money (Gald). Lens, which also plays a prominent role in the storyline, can be exchanged for Gald with an ever changing rate.

Ok, I must admit that Phantasia has a more engrossing storytelling rather than Destiny, but Destiny's tale proves to be quite a decent one. The characters are actually the ones that make the story interesting and personally I loved the layout of Destiny's world. But it could just be because of some out of place music and several translation simplifications, the events didn't turn out as ‘biting' as they should be. Nevertheless, Destiny is still a great game.

After Wolf Team under Namco who created Phantasia broke up (some stayed behind with Namco, several worked as freelancers, not a few of them regrouped and made Tri-Ace who eventually created Star Ocean), it's understandable why Namco never got to release Phantasia in the west and decided to make new games similar to it instead. That also goes for the rest of the Tales series. Tales of Destiny was just the beginning of a new RPG subgenre, full of development and surprises (including a very nostalgic hidden dungeon), which exists under the shadows of a very close to ‘beyond dreams' experience.

May it live long and prosper.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 01/13/05