Tales of Eternia (PSP)

Finally, the PSP gets something that's been sorely lacking since its European release, namely a decent RPG. Tales of Etermia is a remake of a PS1 game of the same name (it was released as Tales of Destiny 2 in the US and like so many other decent RPGs before it, was never released in Europe at all) ported to the small screen of the PSP.

The story is pretty standard RPG fare. The main character and his childhood friend are hanging out together one day when a strange girl literally falls from the sky. They want to help her but she speaks a strange language nobody seems to be able to understand and so they first have to figure out what she's jabbering about. As the story progresses it becomes apparent that the fate of Eternia itself hangs in the balance with only our small band of friends standing between their respective worlds and armageddon.

Anyone who has played a Final Fantasy game will have a fairly good idea what to expect, run around collecting items and talking to people to solve problems and adance the story line, fight battles to level your characters up and earn gold to buy better equipment for them, nothing we've never seen from an RPG before. It is all executed nicely though and the story gradually sucks you in as it unravels until you simply can't put your PSP down except to recharge it.

One nice departure from the standard RPG formula is the battle system, which is realtime instead of turn-based. To be honest, the Final Fantasy series was seriously losing appeal to me because of the "Wait for time gauge to fill, select "attack", repeat" battle system, and while the idea of realtime battles isn't new they are definately a whole lot more fun.

This game doesn't really push the PSP from a technological point of view, the graphics are mostly 2D with a 3D world map, but that doesn't mean it's not a pretty game to look at. In fact it's stunningly beautiful with hand-drawn backgrounds and animated cutscenes made to the very highest standard. I could just watch this game all day and not get sick of its look. One complaint here though is that the text size hasn't been increased from the original PS1 version to compensate for the small screen of the PSP and it's very difficult to read. Of course quite a bit of the dialog is read out for you but significant portions of it isn't and if you have less-than-perfect vision you're going to be squinting at the screen a lot. The fact that there still doesn't seem to be a decent PSP screen magnifier certainly doesn't help.

The sound is for the most part good, with decent music and the typical whooshy-slashy-phunchy-zap-bad-guy-with-enormous-spell-and-watch-him-go-voipy RPG fare, but unfortunately the voice acting lets it down rather badly. It's really stilted and poorly performed, it seems like the voice actors were just reading it off the script without really putting any effort into providing a real performance. Given the small screen size and the difficulty of reading the onscreen text this is a real blow. Plus it's fairly obvious that several of the male characters were played by the same voice actor, and scenes where these characters interact sound like what they are, some guy talking to himself.

Faults aside though, this game is still very entertaining and after the seemlessly endless onslaught of racing and sports games it is a real breath of fresh air.

Note this review is based on the actual PSP version and not an older version of the game! I have not completed it but am around 20 plus hours through the game and it reckons there are about 60 plus hours of gameplay.

Tales of Eternia contains great graphics (I wouldn't say outstanding as I have seen better on the PSP but certainly very nice enough - 8/10) great music and sound fx (8/10), brilliant gameplay (you won't want to put this game down 10/10) and BEST OF ALL no loading screens!

The storyline is a bit limited but who cares. You basically are finding out about a girl who seemed to drop out of the sky and because she speaks an alien language you cannot understand her until later in the game when the storyline develops further. The story itself does not really matter much because the joy of the game is in exploring the vast map you get and picking up items/skills which can take you further in the game.

You get a fab cast of characters on board (usually 4 although this number may vary) who you can equip with a vast array of items as you progress through the game and move from city to city. Plenty of fighting as you move around the map but not so much that you get sick of it although you do get items which can reduce or increase your enemy encounters.

What rocks about this game is the attention to detail and the fact that there are so many things you can fine-tune to your advantage if you are an experienced player like equipment, skills, use of items and something called 'cooking' which is using ingredients you pick up to rustle up 'meals' which enhance your status. The detail really means you can tailor this game to your own personal preference.

If you like RPGs, you should love this.

Note, I have not played an earlier version so I cannot compare it and tell you if it is worth buying if you have already played the playstation version.

GAME DESIGNERS PLEASE NOTE WE WANT MORE DECENT ROLE-PLAYING GAMES FOR THE PSP AND NOT JUST PORTS!!!