A look back at: Tales of Symphonia

A game that's basically about combating racism, but you gotta do it right, basically.

The most popular Tales game, albeit PROBABLY not the absolute best. I honestly think that the battle system still needs better work, since the linear motion mechanics of old still apply for a 3D battlefield and the game's got no ambush mechanics to speak of. Plus, having to use techs or attacks constantly just to LEARN new ones can get stale and the randomness I don't appreciate. Maybe it's luck stat? I don't know. Regardless, it's also good practice to use every character you can at least once to ensure what they are capable of. Lloyd's the most obvious, and perhaps the most fun, but I've experimented with using spellcasting of Raine, Kratos, and Zelos (usually to gain their techs), and then using other fighters like Kratos, Zelos, and Regal. Lots of possibilities here, just like there's lots of possibilities for relationship-building and sidequests. Jeez, there really had to be that many. You can find cursed objects, rebuild an entire town, duel with a defected ninja, etc. I think I may have actually missed only one major quest, the Niflheim one, but dammit I got TOO MUCH WORK TO DO that I really don't have time for it all.

Hence the somewhat rushed way I managed to complete this at the beginning of March. But I took good time on weekends and other off-periods to make the most of things, and the plot of the game was worth it. Tons of character development, save for maybe the last few playable characters, and arguably for relationship building it's very likely you'll wind up with Colette and Genis on the first go. I certainly loved the idea of screwing with the "chosen one" gimmick, how it really sucks to be Chosen and how many other Chosens have failed. There were plot twists all over the place besides that, and the main villain's goal of ending all discrimination is noble, yet his methods turn to "basically just kill everything". Which frankly sucks, because all of his motives are drawn by the fact he had a sister and that somehow being a half-elf is somehow the worst of both worlds. Yeah, I can see some people not liking the villain now.

But there's a lot of variety in Tales of Symphonia, tons of things to just do, and tons of ways to play this game that there's no one way to really do it. Heck, I managed to beat the final boss without a major healer character (alright Zelos had healing spells and I primarily controlled him, but he doesn't have revival or status-healing spells and also I did overlevel for the boss since I did optional bosses first). It's worth at least one try. And now I have Dawn of the New World on my bucket list for later too.

A look back at: Tales of Destiny 2

And I mean the actual Tales of Destiny 2, not what Tales of Eternia was marketed as in the West.

And sadly the game never got imported to the West at all. Heavily anticipated as a Namco title in Japan yet never saw a Western release and at the time of writing this, fans are clearly having a hard time translating it all. At least it's a Tales game through and through, giving us most of the stuff we'd know from playing the previous titles, though things look a lot bigger. As far as the game's plot, a lot of it fanservices previous characters, one of which is THE most famous character of the previous game returning as a totally different man. No translation meant I had to consult someone's own translation of the lines on GameFAQs and just watching as characters speak a language I never really studied.

Well gameplay can be more important, and I've never been a fan of grading you after battle to get better rewards. It emphasizes nigh-perfection in every battle in order to get better rewards, and the more sophisticated a game's battle system is, the harder it is to get a good grade on your battles and thus a better tech for your characters who could use it. Especially when you have the Linear Motion Battle System making it that you can only control one character and having AI control the rest of the party, which has mixed results usually. Also especially when enemy HP gets to be quite high in the end of the game, with end dungeon enemies having around 10000 HP. Also also especially when melee attacking isn't that good, and spellcasters make or break the battle on both sides, making a party of three main spellcasters (usually Reala, Harold, and Judas) and one physical fighter (usually Kyle) a default party throughout the game.

The characters are at least fun, and the plot loves time travel so much it becomes a central theme. Judas/Leon is a nice addition, not the best, but at least he sticks around throughout the game. Nanaly's funny skits with Loni are fun, and Reala's plot importance as the mysterious girl with godlike praying is kind of redundant. Harold is a breath of fresh air too. Yes, we do get to see the Swordians in their human form in the past, which is really cool. Yes, we get to see our former heroes from Tales of Destiny 1 in better roles. Rutee's the mother of Kyle now, unfortunately her husband Stahn dies in the current timeline. Philia and Garr are leaders of their respective areas, and even Lilith and Chelsea have minor roles. Our main two villains are actually quite decent. Elrane is basically a foil to Reala, both being avatars of god but Elrane being deranged and wanting to destroy all to cure all. Barbatos, woo, he's on another level. Imagine if you will a boss that wants you to fight like a true man, so much that if you try using healing spells, spells in general or USING ITEMS, he'll counter it hard. He thinks it's a fair way to fight too, but this kind of counter makes him one of the truly hardest battles ever. And he's just totally crazy as a character. To think that he also tried to kill the former heroes, somehow ONLY succeeding in the case of Stahn, it's insane.

But the time-traveling is only so much fun and the plot sort of devolves into a whole "Kyle loves Reala" thing, and while it's not the single worst romance overall, I was able to make at least one comparison. I remember how Lunar 2 went, with the epilogue involving Hiro making a one-way trip to finding his love Lucia again. This is kinda like that, but with a bit of amnesia on Kyle's part after the storyline time distortion brings everything back to the way it was. So when Kyle ends up going to the ruins where he first met Reala in the erased timeline, she's back and gives the memory back. Really weird.

A look back at: Tales of Eternia

 

You know, perhaps it's just my overall familiarity with the JRPG genre that is causing me to start feeling senile towards many games I end up playing, or maybe I'm just trying my best to care but not finding it. But overall, Tales of Eternia didn't really do much in my opinion. It's thankfully not a BAD game, but it's just painfully average. I have quite a few pet peeves with the game overall. First and foremost, the title for the North American version is that of Tales of Destiny 2. This can EASILY be confused with the REAL Tales of Destiny 2, which would actually be the fourth game of the Tales franchise. Eternia, the real name of this game, has nothing to do with Tales of Destiny. That other sequel does.

Another pet peeve? The voice acting. It's HILARIOUSLY BAD. Like, wow. Farah's the kind of altruistic person with super messy hair so you'd expect her to be vibrant, yet her voice actor sounds boring. Reid's voice actor too, has barely any emotion for his somewhat wild personality. And then you have stupidly reused catchphrases like "You bet!", "No problem!", and my personal favorite "Yeah!" from Max, just, laugh out loud. You've got plenty of sidetracks in the game's plot that it is so easy to forget where you're actually supposed to go, especially after you get the Van Eltia. I spent way too much time sailing and doing sidequests involving Chat, Max, and other unimportant characters that I forgot what the plot was about very often.

But even when I remember what the game's plot is about, I remember not a lot in terms of overall excitement. All I know is: Meredy speaks a super weird Melnic's language and isn't understood for the first half of Disc 1, two worlds are about to collide (hello Star Ocean what are you doing in a Tales game), Keele's a scholar and kind of a jerk, the Inferian kingdom are the biggest douchebags in that entire world, Ras is a double agent, somehow Reid, Keele, and Farah destroyed their own town but it got rebuilt, and you can hop between worlds in a neat way. Oh yeah, and a nice little rebel movement to fight Balir except well it's his wife that does all the work. And of course, the ending is quite cookie-cutter, just barely saving the worlds from destruction even if it means the eternal separation. Well, it's better than Star Ocean 2's plot at least.

I even hear a lot of stuff was unfortunately cut from the North American release, including extra spells for Shizel during her final fight as well as a truckload of skits which would have made the game far more interesting plotwise. There's a lot of stupid references to previous games as well as Namco's other stuff, but somehow a lot of the stuff that would have mattered in the game was ultimately cut? Makes no sense. So overall, Tales of Destiny even beats this game, and I just don't know what I should do with regards to the rest of this franchise.

A look back at: Tales of Destiny

Well, I'm a bit slow with the Tales series, only really doing both this and Phantasia. No real major things to note overall though, both series are quite story-driven with an interesting combat system.

So Tales of Destiny, the first game for the PSX and the first Tales game actually released outside of Japan (Phantasia had a remake later but it sucks). Destiny honestly felt a lot easier to play than Phantasia, mostly because of my former experience with Phantasia coupled with the much easier to use Playstation controls. And in this game, there's more physical fighters than just the main character in this game. The concept of Swordians is pretty good, although having them talk is pretty awkward if you ask me. At least we get to see what they're capable of. Dymlos sucks magic-wise, but good physically, while Clemente is the exact opposite. Atwight and Igentos are both interesting in their own ways, while your short-lived time using Leon as a character reveals that the Earth Swordian Chaltier is also somewhat interesting. To be frank, I'd rather have the conversations between the humans rather than the Swordian interactions. Sure, at least they provide some sense for the plot, especially at the very end of the game.

There's always the character archetypes to look out for. Stahn is somehow considered the "idiot hero" and while he may be quite dumb at times, he's not the dumbest protagonist I've seen. Wain from Lufia: The Legend Returns outright eclipses him in idiocy. In this game, Stahn's main idiotic trait is honestly just being a heavy sleeper. Then you have characters like Leon, who pretty much is a fanservice character by how he looks and how badass he is. That pretty much sums him up. Other characters, well, Rutee's growing on Stahn is pretty lame, and I'm not too keen on Garr as a character overall. Mary is somewhat interesting by having amnesia, then remembering who she was the moment you visit a town. The plot is about the antics of thieves at first, which Stahn joins and Leon stops*, then having to do dirty work with Leon until that's finished and we finally beat Lydon. Only then do things start to get apocalyptic, former bosses and acquaintances become enemies while a whole slew of optional content, including the very cryptic Tower of Druaga minigame, show up. As interesting as all this is, I really can't help saying this isn't anything too spectacular. It does a good job being a decent RPG, and that's basically that. It does have quite a lot going for it though, so that's why it's still recommended to give it one go.

*Okay if you are cheating or overleveled somehow you can have Stahn, Mary, and Rutee beat Leon, which actually unlocks a sort of bad ending, which is just the thieves doing their thing. It's kind of lame.

A look back at: Tales of Phantasia

This was a BIG game, particularly for the platform I played it on. This and Star Ocean share a lot alike, their menus and character interactions, and the fact that their Famicom sizes were the largest for the platform ever. Tales of Phantasia is quite debatable on whether or not it is the most famous Tales game. For one, I've seen quite a bit about other games, especially Symphonia, so Phantasia may not be all that popular. On the other hand, this game was the most remade out of all of them, with a GBA port and an iOS port, both of which aren't very well received at all. The original one on Super Famicom is honestly where it's at if you want the best experience.

I was quite pleased with what this game offered, but not completely excited. Lots of menus, lots of combat opportunities, although the random encounter rate is rather annoying for this game. A few unique battles and navigation moments, the time travel aspect, and quite a few nasty sidequests which thankfully are sidequests, oh yes, one of them just HAD to be an arena. The game's main combat system is pretty difficult to get the hang of as it is semi-active time. Making things worse is you only have two characters who are fighters in the sense, and one of them is an archer. And then there's the squishy wizards that make up the rest of the party. Actually, the problem here is that Cless is the only really controllable character, and it's pretty easy to just make him do the stuff in an effort to win battles quickly and forget about your other characters who are there to help sometimes. The battle menu serves as a slight pause to the action, and I abused the hell out of it here and when I played Tales of Destiny. Many battles end up pretty tough, and you don't want to get Cless KOed as he's the one you control throughout. TP is used for both magic and Cless's abilities, and this game thankfully regenerates them after battles, which I think is excellent considering how often abilities are used.

So plotwise, the character interactions take most of the precedence. This game does the destroyed hometown gimmick a lot better than most. Well for comparison, Breath of Fire 1 has Ryu's hometown ravaged, but no one there really dies due to Sara's magic. In Tales of Phantasia, both Cless and Chester when returning from their hunting trip come back to see everyone pretty much dead, including Cless's parents, Chester's little sister, and if I remember this one couple who were gonna get married. It's one of the grimmest things to see here. Not only that, but we see Mint later on and naturally her mother's dead too. The circumstances for this were dire, especially due to Uncle Olson selling Cless out, and how much of a jerk Malice turns out to be.

Most interesting character? Dhaos naturally. The sorceror king is the villain travelling through time to find a world tree and simply wanted a seed from the world tree on this planet. Once he finds out that this tree is apparently dying, who's to blame? Yeah, the humans, with their usage of technology and what not, that's what Dhaos thinks, so he wants to destroy the humans here. Of course, it's only after the final confrontation with Dhaos that the heroes know of his motives, and then a seed gets thrown to his planet, although Dhaos himself obviously would not be present. But he's definitely the kind of villain who was well-intentioned and actually quite agreeable in a sense. Unfortunately, it's one of those cases, in that he's nothing but a villain the party is after until after you beat him where his motives become clear, and that sort of ruins things by quite a bit. Many of the other characters really have only few interesting moments, Mint with the unicorn, Arche in general, but Dhaos's interesting moments only showing up at the end sort of eclipses everyone else entirely in some way.

Really and truly though, it's a hard game to give a decent grade to. There's so much there to find in many aspects, but in the end it's not entirely the most pleasing out of the RPGs I've played.