Completed: Tales of Phantasia (OVA) (spoilers)

Many years ago, 8 or so, a friend of me felt i should broaden my RPG knowledge away from mainstream games like Final Fantasy, he suggested I play a RPG that had been released for the SNES a long time ago "Tales of Phantasia". Seeing as how at this point it had never been released to North America he set me up with an emulator and the fan translated game.

I Loved the game, it quickly became a favorite and I played it till i get 100% of everything.... except levels... i think i was only around 95 or 98. Anyways it was the only time i ever played an emulator but it left an impression on me.

Why bring this up? There's a bit of controversy with the character names among fans... see when they eventually did get a version of the game to North America on the GBA the official game had some changes to the names.

Cless became Cress
Klarth became Clause.
the others pretty much all stayed the same.

However to two little tiny changes can cause a huge uproar among fans, What is my stance on the issue? Well considering Japanese is a phonetic language it's really hard to have a translation for words that everyone can agree on.
ex. Natsume Yuujinchou, Natsume Yuujin-cho, Natsume Yujin-cho
or
shoujo, Shojo / Shounen, Shonen

I think it's Less an issue of which one is right and more an issue of which one you are used to... for that reason in this review I will be referring to the two characters as Cless and Klarth... be it right or wrong, i don't care it's what i'm used to calling them.

Now that's out of the way, onto the next story.

As mentioned above I loved the game, so in 2004 when The first episode of the OVA was released i was extremely happy. Watching it had the memories flooding back to me, it was exactly like the game... by the time all 4 episodes were released (which took two years) I was so happy, yeah they cut out some of my favorite scenes from the game but it's a long game and only 4 episodes... they did manage to keep a lot though...

But.... i started to think.... did i only like the show cause i loved the game?

Fast forward a few years, Geneon releases all 4 episodes on one disk and i scoop it up right away, luckily too since not too long after that Geneon closed their doors....
Fast forward to earlier the year, thanks to this completed series i've really enjoyed re-watching shows, i saw the disk and thought. "hey, why not? it's only 4 episodes long"

So i watched it again and i still loved it.... but now i really wondered if i only liked it cause i played the game.

So i posed an experiment, I have a Friend who when she was younger didn't get to play many games... if any at all.... she had never played ANY of the tales of games and had no prior knowledge of stories/characters/controversies.... SO i lent it to her with the stipulation that she must watch all 4 episodes, no matter what.

So she did and she came back to me "i like it but the last episode confused me"

I was stunned, it was not the result i was expecting, i was POSITIVE it would make no sense... but no after asking her to tell me the plot she got pretty much all of it right till the last episode, she didn't understand the point of the ninja girl and the whole revelation around Dhaos of left her wondering why she should care.

So i got ready to write the review when my other friend sees the dvd and goes "hey, is that related to Tales of Symphonia? i loved that game"
The answer is yes, Phantasia takes place 4000 years after Symphonia so the two are very loosely connected... anyways it got me thinking, would someone who had a little bit of knowledge of the game enjoy it? She doesn't watch as much anime as me or play as many games so it was a perfect middle ground between me and my first test subject.
So i lend it to her but i don't say she has to watch all 4 episodes.

So after a few weeks of no news about it i ask her "have you watched any? what did you think"

"It makes no sense, i even had a friend over and we tried to make sense of it but we couldn't"
 See that's the reaction I was expecting... and i got it from an expected place. however with that knowledge in place i think i should FINALLY get to the review.

Tales of Phantasia is about Cless Alvein a Swordsman who has hid hometown destroyed because of a trinket he carries from his father, Mint Anadade a Cleric who gets taken from her family for a trinket she possesses and Chester Barklight a archer who lost his family and little sister because of the destruction of Cless' hometown.

Apparently their necklaces (which are exspheres... tee hee hee) are the Key to releasing Dhaos, the Big bad of this series who had been sealed for almost 1000 years.

So Dhaos is released and the only key to stopping him is magic.... too bad in this time the Tree Yggdrasil is a rotting mess and seeing as it's the source of all magic that means the only people who possess any form of magic are Clerics.... yeah too bad they aren't terribly offensive.

So a Mage who happens to be there when Dhaos is awakened  send Cless and Mint to the past, poor little Chester is left behind to serve as a distraction.

Why the past? oh because at this point in time Magic uses still exist, they are tasked to find Arche Klien, the half elf Mage and Klarth. F. Lester a Summoner.

so they do, they help protect a town that has technology that can send them back to their own time. Unfortunately the town also has this Canon that uses up all the mana in the area and it is the reason why there's not enough mana for the future. hence no magic users...

Dhaos doesn't seem too trilled by the canon and does his best to try and stop it from firing, he fails and then the Tree that is the source of all Mana starts to die. Mint who has Martel, the spirit within the tree, calling to her goes to heal the tree... and is helped by an unlikely source... Dhaos also does his best to feed mana into the tree.

Well that's odd...  anyways they eventually get back to their time and fight Dhaos, but he gets away.... damn him and his time travel abilities. Well they have no idea where he went so their job is done right? Wrong.

someone from the future come to the past looking for the Time Traveling heroes.... Chester tags along despite being much weaker then the others and they go on an adventure to find a way to keep Dhaos in one time....

Apparently they need the Origin Sword that the Summon spirit Origin can create. it's guarded by the elven village.... which Arche can't enter.

anyways they do get the sword and the contract for Klarth... now off to Dhaos' castle which the sword leads them to.

here is where suzu comes in, in the version i played she was a side character who had her parents controlled and she eventually has to kill them.... in later versions she's a playable character... though in this her role seems to be closer to what i described and it really doesn't add anything to the story.

So they go and fight Dhaos with their magic, they win and oh crap... thanks to you killing him his entire planet is going to die, see this world screwed up the flow of mana when the tree died and that completely screwed Dhaos home world over since the two are connected.
well that sucks.... oh well....
everyone goes back to their own time, Arche manages to see them all again in present day since she's a half elf but Klarth can't cause.... yeah he's probably dead. anyways the work hard to try and help the tree get healthy again since mint helping in the past seems to have done something.


It's a really pretty Anime... it's really well animated and it's fun seeing the characters i love so much with so much life. However as my experiments proved.... without prior knowledge of the series as a whole it's damn near impossible to understand... it jumps all over the place... and even if you get most to a point the ending will leave you baffled.

So with a heavy heart i know it's not a good show.... but i still love it... i kind of wish they had done the unicorn scene from the game but i understand why they didn't fit it in...

I do however recommend the game if you can find the GBA version... it's not the best port in the world and the audio is terrible due to limitations of the hardware but still... great story. i know there's a PSP version as well but i'm not clear on if it was released to North America or not.

Alright, wow didn't mean for this to be so long.... oh well~

Completed: Tales of the Abyss

this is the 3ds Version that was just released not the Ps2 version but i may comment on the slight differences.

To date i haven't played very many Tales of Games, i have played Phantasia, Symphonia 1&2, i tried to play destiny but it wouldn't play on my console and now i can add The abyss to the list.

So i'll start by saying Next to Falcom games the Tales of Series is one of my favorites. Tales of phantasia was the first rpg that i beat, i mean lv 99 all summons all magic all items.... 100% so the games are near and dear to my heart. However they aren't perfect.

So lets look at the good and the bad of Tales of the Abyss (in my opinion of course)

Opening:
Right off the bat this intro is amazing, i could tell right away it was the instrumental version of a song which made me kind of sad... especially when i heard the original version with words.... which makes a really good song even better... but it's in Japanese so i understand why they changed it. but yeah really good song, it's called Karma by BUMP OF CHICKEN. The lyrics fit the story perfectly and the music adds so much to the mood. but we just get the instrumental in North America.... i'm just happy to have a tales game in general.

Story:
We begin with Luke, a spoiled brat with long who seems to just be existing... he hasn't left his mansion in 7 years since he was kidnapped and doesn't remember his past. but he's not completely alone. Guy his servant/friend is always by his side ready to cause trouble within the mansion as well as he is trained by one of the Oracle Knights, who goes by Van, in fact he's the leader of the Oracle knights.

However one day during training the mansion is broken into and a mysterious girl attacks with odd magic Luke has never seen before but as the girl goes to attack Van Luke rushes in to fight her off. When there weapons hit there is a bright light and next thing Luke and the girl know they have been whisked away to unknown lands.

And thus our story begins. Unfortunately this is where all the in world gargain gets thrown at you in full force. Normally i hate when characters throw around words and expect you to just understand what that is supposed to mean *gives a sideways glace at FFXIII* but this game takes the approach of Luke knows nothing of the outside world so when other characters are explaining things we get the "oh right the main characters a moron who's been extremely sheltered, this is what all that means" this works pretty well for the most part. but yeah... lots of in world words thrown at you really fast.... to name a few: seventh fonons, Yuliya's Score, Fon Master, Field of Fonons, Fonons, Lorelie, cheagle. now having played the game through all that makes sense but at the start i just kind of stared at the screen.

after a while we find out the murderous girl, Tear, is actually pretty nice and didn't mean to take luke from home and will help him get back...  we meet someone called Fon master Ion, essentially he's the most powerful position of this world religion, his Guardian Anise and their Escort Jade. prety soon after that Guy shows up again and they all work together (kinda) to get luek back home.

But this is an RPG.... things are never that easy.
without giving away much more the main world mechanic is that there is this thing called the Score, a prophecy given mostly once a year but you can go in a get it done more if you want... anyways personal ones are vague... but the one known as yuliya's Score actually is quite clear and so far 100% accurate.
Unfortunately when things are already set in stone for you... you tend to rely on it and not try to do anything on your own.... and that's is really the crux of the story.... how to deal with yuliya's score.... both those who follow it blindly and those who try drastic measures to get away from it. It also deals with the sleeping God Lorelei and the fact that Luke seems to be able to talk to him (kinda)

and that's all i'll say without giving away spoilers.

so.... i really like the combat system... a more linear action based game BUT you can move around in the fight area... the characters are all really well developed... every bad guy has a story and a reason why they stand for what they stand for.... all the protagonist have an arc... (thought there is a section where luke starts warming up but then he goes back to being an jerk almost out of nowhere.... i'm guessing it's the task getting to his head but yeah... that was odd) and as shallow as is seems.... it has costumes in it... i love when games allow you to change costumes.... it's just fun.

the things i didn't like seem to be constant through all Tales of games.
"go here, it's south west of where we are now.... now go here.... past the desert east of us...." there is a lot of navigating.... which on foot is okay.... but once you get the airship....
"go to this town" the game states smugly
"but i've never been there and i don't know which direction it's in.... hm... maybe the people know? nope.... oh a skit? maybe? well it reminded me where i need to go.... oh oh oh i know *check synopsis*" and of course if it's not there... off to game faq just to find out where i'm supposed to go.... also don't tell me "it's on the content of Rugnica!" and expect me to remember which content that was.... but yeah especially in the third part there is a lot of "go here, then here, back to where you came from, go tell the church, now the kings, back to the church... for funsies..." which is fine at that point cause you have a jump opinion but still... it gets a little annoying traveling from cutscene to cutscene.

also, the 3ds version has random slowdown on some areas of the map... i found specifically near bridges.... no idea why but compared to the ps2 version the load times are much better.... i never played the ps2 versions but i did see a lot of comparison videos out there.

so other then that... i adored the game, it made me laugh, it made me cry (a few times) it deals with some pretty deep plots and it's hard to tell if what your doing is always the right thing... and that's what games should do.... make you wonder if in fact you are really the good guy... or just a group of racialist... okay it never goes that deep into the plot but it was close.

if you don't own or haven't played the ps2 version and you have a 3ds then get this game.... the entire thing is in 3d and it adds a little dimension but it's not a necessary thing to the game.... so yeah,,, really solid game and i hope more Tales of games are ported to 3ds.... it's nice to have it on the go. I put about 45 hours into my first play through so i felt it was worth the money.... plus that awesome intro song..... so good...

alright time to call it a night, i have a little fanart of luke in the works and i'll probably post it tomorrow.