Tales of Phantasia

"Tales of Random Battles"

Role-playing games are their own animal when it comes to rating one. Let's look at what makes them tick. They typically all have similar aspects: a hero or group of them, fighting unprecedented odds against a force unknown in strength. That's just in their plots. They all have ways of making your character somehow stronger, whether in level, stats, equipment, abilities or a combination thereof. But hey, what can I say? I'm in love with the genre, as I'm sure many others out there also are. I've played great ones and lousy ones, but what makes them different. Take for instance, two at least somewhat well known SNES titles: Chrono Trigger and The 7th Saga. One is taken as being quite possibly one of the greatest games ever created, the other fell down into obscurity and is overlooked and even maligned by the RPG gamers in the know. Well what is in that fine balance between great and awful, good and evil (which most certainly The 7th Saga is, by the way)? Well I honestly can't tell. What I can tell is that sometimes games just click, they have all the right things going for them. Now before you can go screaming “waste of a paragraph,” the game in question for this review, Tales of Phantasia, for me falls somewhere in the middle of the pack; for me one of the few that do. I see most games of the genre as being really fun, or just awfully boring. This game was neither, and one of the few to do so.

Tales of Phantasia might be part of the somewhat well-known Tales series of games, but it has very little in common with the rest (apart from the battle system). It was developed by the obscure, but very talented Wolf Team who generally created action titles. Not in this case, however, they crafted an RPG. A little history lesson, is that after creating Tales of Phantasia Wolf Team members became mostly disgruntled employees and left to form a certain company called Tri-Ace. Sound familiar? STAR OCEAN! Yes, these guys went on to create the Star Ocean series and also explains why future Tales series games are just simply different from Phantasia.

The game opens up rather bleakly with a dark quote from a certain individual named Edward D. Morrison (who you'll find out more about later on within the game), “Truly, if there is evil in this world, it lies within the heart of mankind.” That sets the tone for the rest of the game, or at least the introduction. You then flash forward to a battle between unknown forces. A group of obvious heroes against one formidable giant enemy dude with long hair. Somehow this giant enemy dude gets trapped via a magic triangular spell that makes him stone or something. Really I'm just explaining this to you in your seat, as one who has no clue whats going on and on your first playthrough

When the game finally settles in you play the role of a certain young hero who goes by the default name of Cless Alvein. You are typical townsfolk in a rather dull and boring town. Cless's father apparently teaches some form of swordsmanship. Well one day, Cless and his buddy Chester decide to go pig hunting. So they go out, spot a boar, get lost a bit and Cless spots a tree. And in true Mana spirit fashion an apparition appears to him saying to protect the tree. After reuniting with Chester and defeating a boar, they hear the town's danger bell ringing and they rush back to town to see it raized, Cless's mother dying in his arms saying something about a pendant. It's up to you to travel and right what is wrong. The plot goes into an evil villain trying to destroy the land, and you have to go to the past to destroy him. To be honest, it's nothing new. It gets the job done as far as a storyline goes.

The basic battle system is one of the most noteworthy features in this game; it is the Linear Motion Battle System. Basically you are on a linear plane much like a fighting game (complete with a mode-7 floor you run on). You control Cless and his actions, while the computer controls your cohorts, of which there can be four at a time. It sounds like a neat little battle system that may or may not be somewhat innovative, but in reality its not nearly as good as it possibly could have been. Essentially the game boils down to you pressing “A” and having Cless run forward and attack and then run backwards to the point he started at. There is the essential abilities like magic (or techniques in this game) and using items, but that takes a major backseat to just pounding away at the enemies and letting your allies cast their magic.

Ironically, all of the bad misdone things in the battle system were corrected in the developers unofficial follow-up to the game, Star Ocean. More importantly I think they realized how the aspect of what they had been working on in Tales would work out so much more efficiently and deeply in a fully fleshed out, but streamlined open battle arena. Fortunately for the Tales series a lot of the nuisances compliant with the original Linear Motion Battle system were corrected, and today we have games that are actually somewhat fun to battle in, without micromanaging bad AI or having to deal with a character whose only method of attacking is running back and forth with a sword when you touch the “A” button. Cless is usually the only one who survives because of the fact that his allies are terminally mentally ill when it comes to attacking and healing.

This now brings me to the real downer in the game which I must devote an entire paragraph to. You see, one thing in common with RPGs of the Japanese type is the aspect of the random battle. Some people critique them as being a thing of the past and should be avoided, others like them because of the fact that random battles make leveling up easier. Like them or not, they are pretty much a part of Japanese role playing games. In Tales of Phantasia they certainly are present. However, there are just WAY too many of them. I don't think I've ever played a game where the random battle encounters were so dastardly high. Walk maybe four steps and an annoyingly evil sound transpires signaling yet another encounter with the same enemies you fought 4 seconds ago. It makes traversing dungeons and world maps all the much more hard and frustrating. Why does Wolf Team not value the player's sanity? For many gamers who can normally have the patience for these types of encounters will more than likely be turned off by them and give up. I know I did a few times, but stuck through it enough to finish, even if it was tearing away at my self-worth.

Though if there is one great thing about this game is the fact that the graphics are lush as hell and sure are fun to look at. From the opening sequences the characters and their animations, they all are amazing. The only thing that is lacking in the graphics department is the fact that the battle backgrounds are rather dull at times and sometimes lacking in detail. This is made up for the fact that enemies, characters, and most attacks are very detailed and well animated. They didn't cut corners in the graphics department, thats for sure.

The same can be said about the sound. When the game came out the size of the cart was unheard of. The reason? Real voice samples scattered throughout the game. They certainly sound pretty good, however they are in Japanese so I cannot understand them fully. The music is very nice too, many memorable tunes throughout. It's not quite up to the par of some of the bigger soundtracks by the likes of Uematsu and Mitsuda, but the soundtrack is fitting to the game and a pleasure to listen to. It is more upbeat then most games, and it has to do with the great spunk the main characters have. It's inspiring; maybe thats what helps people get through all of those damn random battles.

The game really only owes itself to be played once. There are way too many random battles in the game to deal with, and they take way too much time where you can be traversing the dungeons and getting on with the story. They definitely hurt the pacing of the game. In the end, the game boils down to a hack fest with an interesting premise as far as battles are concerned, but it could have used some more work getting git streamlined and more efficient. The game isn't bad by any means; any seasoned RPG veteran looking for something new should give it a try. Just don't go expecting a ton out of it. I was hyped into hoping the game would be incredible because of the mostly positive reception it received, but I was let down. The game is merely above average, not bad though. Star Ocean was a vast improvement over what was developed in this game, and I think the developers knew it.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/11/08

Game Release: Tales of Phantasia (JP, 12/15/95)