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Title: Tales of Phantasia (2nd Review)
Author:Namco
Rom Player: SNES9x
Reviewer: Tyler Kinder (VikingKitten)
Synopsis: This was one of the great RPG's of the SNES’s time. Sadly enough, it was never released in the US (for obvious reasons, if you play the game). It was later released on the PSX, and I'm not sure if it was released here, and I'm not going to check... (Editors’ Note: It was.)
The game is about a 15 year old boy named Cless Alvein, and his other party members: Chester (The Archer), Mint (The Healer), Klarth (The Summoner), and Arche (The Spellcaster). This group of youngsters is out to slay the beast that is traveling through time causing havoc through history - Dhaos.
Now, some may be wondering why a game as good as this never made it to the US - everyone knows ALL the good games come to the US. Well, if you play the game, you'll realize things right away. This game doesn't sugar-coat death. It actually says things are "killed" rather than "defeated".
So? That could be changed very easily in the translation process.
Yeah, but when you have Arche join your party, you'll find out a bit more. Arche is alot more sexually active than the other characters, and flaunts it. No objections by me; it was great comic relief. I'll quote one small conversation between two of your characters (Cless and Klarth)
Klarth: So, which one do you like?
Cless: Huh?
Klarth: Which one of the girls do you like? Would you wanna do?
Cless: ...
Klarth: Mint's got that quiet elegance, but I bet Arche fucks like a tiger!
See? If you play the game, I know that's not the *exact* quote, but I've already beaten the game, and I didn't make a save before that particular part, so I'm not going to screw with it. Now, I know that could be changed in the translation process too, but there's so many more things, such as a weapon for Klarth being 'A Porno Magazine'.
Now, the game itself is awesome. It's similar to Chrono Trigger in many ways. It has all sorts of similarities - Even all the time traveling stuff! ... Which inevitably means it's going to have all sorts of paradoxes. I won't even get into that...
The game also has a lot of new things that I've yet to find in other RPG's, such as only being able to control the main character while fighting. You can set what spells you want your spellcaster to cast, what things your summoner should summon, and what spells your healer should cast, but you really can't control when or on what they'll cast the stuff on. That's a downfall, but you can toggle this, but I'd advise against it, as the fighting parts are hard enough only controlling one person.
You can also toggle all of your party members tactics, and you can also decide where each party member will start off on the battlefield. So, in a boss battle you can start your fighter right by the enemy, and have all your spellcasters be on the other side of the screen, out of the way of the enemies attacks.
There's one major downfall to this game. Aside from the time traveling, I later found out that this game was based a lot on Norse Mythology. Not in the Final Fantasy sense, either. This just isn't ANOTHER RPG using Ifrit (What're we up to? 100?) or Shiva. Most of the plot, a lot of the towns, enemies, and places are based on Norse Mythology (Many thanks to my friend Tyler Fleming for informing me of this - He's smart. I'm not).
All in all it's a great game, and I recommend you download it some time. It's a great game with a great game concept, and for an SNES game, these are some nice graphics. Thanks for reading, and enjoy!
Best Cheats: No cheats, but tons of secrets. Go to gamefaqs.com and look for one of the pages.
Game Play: 10
Graphics: 9
Music/Sound: 6
Originality: 10
Overall Rating: 9
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