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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A good tale to tell, 23 Mar 2006
The Tales series began with Tales of Phantasia. Unfortunately, it didn't make it over to the UK when it should've, and that's rather sad because it is a good game. Those who played the smash hit Tales of Symphonia, will instantly notice a parallel and that the Tales series carries on themes just as Final Fantasy does. The game begins with Cress and his best friend, Chester, going on a hunting trip. Things start off great, but when they get home it's been destroyed, and Cress's family dies taking a secret about him with them. Cress now has to leave the village before the same forces come back. And he does so. His quest soon escalades into anything beyond his wildest dreams when he's involved in Politics, and forming pacts with elemental summons. Ultimately he will go on to save the world. Your quest is also full of loveable and likeable characters. Something the Tales series has always been good at. The game gets off to a rocky start, but it gets better as time goes on. The battle system is what's unique about Tales of Phantasia. An action/fighting style look at it, rather than the same old turn based strategy we've seen before. It's fun to battle because it's different than most RPGs at the time were. You play as Cress, of course, and you'll be able to select whether you want to control him manually or let the game control him. The surprising thing about Tales of Phantasia (and the Tales series in general) is that the AI is actually good. Unlike other games where the AI of your characters is rather dumb (say... Sword of Mana?), Tales of Phantasia has characters that may actually stay alive and look after themselves. There is also an array of special moves you an do. These moves can also be linked to your attacks. However, there comes a point where battling feels repetative. They go fast, and they're frequent. There's little break to these random encounters. Pretty soon some battles go so fast (and the encounter rate is pretty high) that battling feels like a chore. It's fun, but it's limited. Since this is the first game in the Tales series, the battle system just isn't nearly as fleshed out as later games. It had a great concept, and it's fun at first, but after a while it gets repetative. The game is also ridiculously easy. There are moments when you wish it would just remain the same old turn based RPG battle system. There's just no strategy involved in the battle system. The graphics and music are good though. The GBA may slowly be getting outdated, but at least the graphics still remain colorful and full of life. The music also sounds pretty good. The length of the game might be a problem for those who weren't RPGers in the mid 90's. This game isn't going to take you a whole long time to finish. Maybe 20 hours if you do the main quest all by itself. The good news is, like many of the later Tales game, it's got a ton of sidequests to do, and they'll keep you busy and reward you whole heartedly. Again, though, those who weren't RPGers in the mid 90's will probably find this to be a bad thing. Since sidequests are frequent, you'll find yourself forgetting what to do next. There's no quest log like in many RPGs of today. So you'll end up having to talk to villagers a lot. This isn't a problem however. It IS an RPG, therefore you ARE going to have to talk to people. For what it's worth, Tales of Phantasia is a really good game. Battling sometimes feels like a chore, but really... that's the only thing that keeps this game from being fantastic. It's great, just not perfect.
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