The Tales Series: Tales of Phantasia

The story itself is rather epic in scope with them traversing both land and time. Looking back on it, the story does have a lot of elements that'll be echoed in other Tales games to come: character relationships and their story arcs, towns in exotic lands, changing landscapes, summon spirits who'll be reincarnated several times in the games to come, bathing scenes (yes, even back then they had a bathing scene, actually, two scenes of the party bathing), the names of artes and attacks, items, ancient technologies, main male and female relationships and so on. Though, considering the age of the game there are a few story clichés, but that doesn't mean that it's horrible. The game has touching moments, humour and love stories between the main characters. The characters are not too complex nor too simple. Cress does have a main character persona typical of main characters in JRPGs at the time (brave, defends the weak and leads the party), but he does tend to be a goof when it comes to silly moments. However, whenever Dhaos appears, he's hellbent on exacting revenge and goes to great lengths to stop him. Cress would also go for great lengths for his friends and those he cares about, going out of his way to protect them. Mint, the female lead, does have typical main female character tropes common during the early JRPG era (caring, sensitive, main healer of the party and polite) but she has a strong will underneath her delicate nature. Mint's also the most level-headed and mature of the group, who would rather question other's actions instead of fight first and ask questions later. Cress and Mint do compliment each other in personality, though there's a kind budding relationship between the two. Within the story, there's an arc between the two involving Mint's Mother which results in one of the more touching moments in the game. Chester is brash, blunt and enjoys arguing with others, but it belies his caring nature to those who share his plight. He can be prideful and hot-blooded, but he's Cress staunchest supporter and best friend through thick and thin. Is it just me or does Chester's character design look a lot like Chichiri from Fushigi Yûgi? Well, Fushigi Yûgi was still being published during the period of 1992-1996 . . . so maybe Kōsuke Fujishima drew inspiration from that character? Claus F. Lester (or Klarth F. Lester depending on translation) is the oldest and smartest of the group, but he does tend to be blunt and arrogant, but does have a soft heart underneath for his assistant Milard Rune. Passionate about his summoning work, he's spent his life mastering summoning and augmenting his body to perform such magic, even though he is human. In the world of Aselia, the only magic users are elves and half-elves; a hurdle that Claus has challenged. Speaking of half-elves, Arche Klein is one of them, however she is prejudiced by pureblood elves for her race and isn't allowed into elf settlements. This doesn't deter her cheerful, playful, teasing and mischievous nature, though she's quick to anger when provoked. Also, she likes to fly around on her broom a lot, especially in battle (and you thought witches and wizards could only do that). Unlike Cress and Mint, Chester and Arche share a very volatile relationship, often bickering between each other. However, despite their ramblings, Arche and Chester do call a truce, yet the two do not truly admit to each other of their friendship or slight hints of romance. Unlike other characters, Arche's half-elf blood allows her to live longer than any of her human friends without aging. Even though she is from the past like Claus, she promises to wait to meet up with Cress, Mint and Chester one-hundred years from her time. However, is does pain her that she'll outlast everyone she befriends. Lastly, there's Suzu Fujibayashi, who is an additional character in the PS1 version, but non-recruitable in the Super Famicom version. A young ninja from fifty years into the future from Cress' present time, she does come off as cold, as she follows the regulations of a ninja (though she does question herself about distancing her emotions), but she does have shy core underneath and a powerful sweet tooth. Character designs were done by manga artist Kōsuke Fujishima, who will also serve as one of the main character designers for the Tales Series and future installments.
The presentation in the game is quite outstanding with the use of graphics and spoken dialogue. The graphics, even for the Super Famicom version, have a quality on par with Secret of Mana or Final Fantasy VI. The music is catchy at times and knows how to set the mood when it needs to be, though the music has nothing too memorable like the music from FFVI. Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura composed the score for the game, as such being the main theme composers for the series as a whole. Though, if any music nerds heard the church score called Perverse Religion they'll notice the resemblance of that piece to Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor. The battle system is rather unlike other JRPGs, since it doesn't have a similar title to compare it to. For most JRPGs, the battle system is either a turn-based combat system like the early titles for the Final Fantasy games or a real-time fighting system with an X and Y axis like in Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Phantasia has a Linear-Motion Battle System in which characters fight on an X axis against enemies. Many have pointed out that the LMBS is similar to that of fighting games in the SNES' life-cycle, having more button combinations and speed. However, with more party members on the playing field, characters will have to be micro-managed to fit their fighting styles, strengths and weaknesses. JRPGs, when good, have characters whose strengths and weaknesses also make the character, but also help balance out the party. Though, unlike later games where there isn't that much adjusting to the character's playing style, here there's a bit of fine tuning when it comes to boss fights. The PS1 version is considered to have the best gameplay out of the Super Famicom and Gameboy Advance port. The Super Famicom does have fast and engaging gameplay, but attacks from characters in your party can hit you and others. I guess friendly fire is encouraged? However, the Gameboy Advance version is probably the worst with a poor port of the system and very laggy gameplay.
There are a few drawbacks to the game despite it's presentation and gameplay. This isn't a game you can leave for a long time and return to. Unlike later titles, it doesn't have a journal to keep track of where you have to go to advance the plot. It does suffer from conveyance issues, especially in dungeons. The dungeons in the game don't have a mini-map to refer to, so it can be deterring when playing it without a walkthrough. There are some stretches of the game where not much happens, but it doesn't drag or stop the pace of the game. With some of the layouts of the towns, there are stretches of places that go nowhere or don't lead to anything, which is common with dock areas of towns and harbours. Also, there are towns and dungeons that you can completely miss during the first play-through of the game, like the Ninja Village in the Super Famicom version.
Tales of Phantasia did get a sequel, Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon and a remake called Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X. However, Narikiri Dungeon is considered to be one of the Escort titles of the Tales games. The Escort Games are the games that are not considered to be in the true line-up of Mothership games and are referred to as spin-offs. Out of the games in the Tales Series, Phantasia did get an anime adaptation into an four part OVA (Original Video Animation) in 2004 and an English dub by Geneon in 2007. The animation and dubbing is rather good, having VAs like Johnny Young Bosch, Michelle Ruff and Patrick Seitz does help, but the OVA does suffer a bit. For instance, it does jump around a lot and misses a lot of key moments when the characters are introduced. At the very beginning of the anime, it shows Chester setting flowers on his sisters grave and then cuts to Mars reviving Dhaos with Cress and Mint captive. It skips over a lot of parts, which I can understand giving how it's very limited on how many episodes it has as an OVA, which is common with OVAs that are adapting giant material as this. Another flaw of the anime is that it like to exposition dump . . . a lot. It's like it's making up for all of the plot jumping it does by explaining things to the audience. It's like it was made for the fans of the original game, however, that's where you see problems with it. Fans don't need to be told such information when they've already played the game; there's no need for the anime to neglect their audience or respect their intelligence. Even if someone comes across the anime and doesn't know where it's going, it alienates its audience more. This is especially true when it doesn't have time to allow the audience to get acquainted with the characters and help to sympathize with them.
Nevertheless, Tales of Phantasia does standout from the 16-bit era JRPGs of the time and even did things that weren't expected of it's technology. Gameplay is interesting and unique among other games and doesn't shy away from doing something different. It's quite interesting to see where it started and what it has offered to its line up of games to come and what connection they have with the first title. Yet, elements of this game may be echoed more in a certain installment yet to come . . . hmm, I wonder what that game could be? With challenging gameplay and quite the presentation, I think I'll have to give this game a Pretty Sweet/10.