Tales of Destiny
Main game
3.54 average rating based on 155 ratings
- Developers
- Wolf Team
- Publishers
- Namco
- Franchises
- Tales of
- Series
- Tales, Tales of Destiny
- Platforms
- PlayStation
- Genres
- Adventure, Role-playing (RPG)
- Themes
- Action, Open world
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Tales of Destiny?
Related Content
WerqKween's review of Tales of Destiny
This review is for the PlayStation version
You know, this wasn't too bad. I'll try to be short as there's not much to say, really. Decent story that starts pretty light and comical, your typical RPG fare, then gets pretty dark. Lots of the second half feel out of place, narrative-wise. Fighting is fun, but there's just way too much of it. I could've lived with half the encounter rate, honestly. The translation is good, graphics are fine, music is largely forgettable except for a few interesting bops. There's an optional sixty floor dungeon called the Tower of Druaga based on the Namco arcade game of the same name. This was a fun little diversion, containing some of the hardest content and best treasures in the game, but then making the rest of the story line trivially easy. All in all, pretty decent, just a bit on the long side for what it is.
MrSaturn21's review of Tales of Destiny
This is the first video game that I had ever purchased. I didn't even own my own playstation. My brother had one, and I had intended to use his, but you know how little boys can be. He found that my desire to own and play my own things was an afront to him and so I had to go and buy my own playstation. Was quite awhile before I got to playing this.
Its a great game, the story is a little long, but the little nuances and the sort of small instances where there is not much story to be told are kind of a breath of fresh air, because sometimes it will be a good 10 minutes of explaining text.
Stahn Ailerion (I think I spelled that right) is a pretty good protagonist. You start out as a stow-away and find a sword wrapped up in chains on an old airship called the Draconis. After having been discovered, they force you into swabbing the deck for the rest of the flight. As you are tending to the deck, monsters invade the ship and begin killing the crew mercilessly. You avoid them as best you can and find …
This is the first video game that I had ever purchased. I didn't even own my own playstation. My brother had one, and I had intended to use his, but you know how little boys can be. He found that my desire to own and play my own things was an afront to him and so I had to go and buy my own playstation. Was quite awhile before I got to playing this.
Its a great game, the story is a little long, but the little nuances and the sort of small instances where there is not much story to be told are kind of a breath of fresh air, because sometimes it will be a good 10 minutes of explaining text.
Stahn Ailerion (I think I spelled that right) is a pretty good protagonist. You start out as a stow-away and find a sword wrapped up in chains on an old airship called the Draconis. After having been discovered, they force you into swabbing the deck for the rest of the flight. As you are tending to the deck, monsters invade the ship and begin killing the crew mercilessly. You avoid them as best you can and find your way back to the storage room to find the only weapon you are aware of. As you lift the sword from its prison, a voice speaks out to you, calling you a moron, and telling you it hasn't been able to talk to anyone else in ages. You and the sword work your way to an escape pod and land in a snowy mountain plain. Your journey begins.
Its a great game. The idea of swords that can talk was pretty great. I like that there are characters who are weapons. Leon Magnus is a pretty cool dude. I wish they had brought the sequel to this game to America. If you play Tales of Destiny 2 (Which is really Tales of Eternia) there is a quiz that has information from this game. ToD2 is a pretty solid game as well.
As much as I love this game I was never quite able to finish it. There are 2 major arcs. The first one ends with you coming back to your hometown and sleeping, and suddenly bad things begin to happen again. The second one which I have never been able to finish climaxes with a layer of land wrapped around the planet's stratosphere as a dungeon, with about 4 dungeons, each containing a different colored crystal, each dungeon heralding its own puzzle mechanic that you have to work through. This over 100 hours in. I couldnt deal with it anymore. I laid down my controller as my wretched body could take no more. I admitted defeat.
I ended up youtubing the ending. I've restarted this game more than 10 times. It just wasn't meant to be. That being said I do enjoy the characters and the battle system in this game. If only the ending werent so long winded.
I get it why so many love this chapter. It's a game with a lovable cast (Philia and Leon my beloved ♡), the 'original' CC Battle System (I'm fond of it thanks to Graces) and interesting dungeon with riddles (apart the final one, ugh).
The pacing is a bit off, just like in many old games. There's a lot of backtracking, but I didn't feel it so annoying because I was genuinely interested in Stahn and other Swordians story. It helps that the protagonist is an optimist and funny one.
Another good thing that helped me not to feel this bad pacing is the Skit System. Some skits are quite remarkable, especially the ones that depict better the relationship between Master and Swordians. As you progress through the game you always want to know more!
The story is nothing new, some plot twist are obvious, but you can't help to feel sad for the characters. A particular scene left me in tears.
I never played the original Tales of Destiny, but the difference visually speaking is enormous!!
Another one bites the dust. Funnily enough even though a few of the main characters were stronger here, I think I liked the party and game over all a little less than Phantasia. The villain was just a less interesting version of the previous villain, the back half of the game's dungeons are incredibly repetitive, and while I like one particular party members plot progression a lot of the villains fall in the classic, "I'm evil right up until you kill me where its revealed that this is all very tragic." This is one that if a new person asked if they should give it a shot I might recommend skipping especially since the direct follow-up does not have a full English translation. Still as a fan glad I played it. Rutee is best girl, and I could not be bothered to care about Karyl the bard.
So far definitely enjoying the characters in this one more than Phantasia, but combat in general less. The Ally AI is braindead and will not attack enemies if you are in front of them, and for some reason your basic combo is a single hit. Thankfully Stahn, Philia, and especially Rutee are maintaining my engagement, as they are much more fully personified than the old cast. There's also this weird thing narratively where every city you travel to is struggling with one particular social issue across all people. This city has a sexism problem, this one has a terrible class divide, this one is xenophobic. The game doesn't do any commentary beyond "this is bad" and the characters don't really do anything about it so its more a funny game of "guess the social issue coming next" than any kind of thematic relevance.
UGH I leveled up a certain character at the expense of others and they left my team. So in the second half I have a new roster of half under-leveled characters. The second half gets much harder than the first, but grinding a few levels made things more palatable.
I decided to pick up Bruiser and Chelsea to fill my open slots. Chelsea seems to just be a much worse Garr, and Bruiser actually wound up replacing Garr on my active team, so that seals the deal on archers in this game I suppose. I like that folks on the bench still gain some experience, but having them join the team 6 (or 30...) levels behind is such a bummer.
I would think about bringing Mary along but she's going to be way behind when she's recruitable again. I didn't see any point to use Karyl even when he was forced on your team, so I'm not getting him.
Has anyone else out there played this? Who was your final four?
5 hours in, it's fine. I like JRPGs so I can't complain, and it's nice to play a game with a translation that isn't flaming garbage after the last few I played.
I haven't quite figured combat out yet, like it seems easy with me just button mashing. But for some reason my auto battle characters don't want to attack very often, and I get the feeling this strategy is not going to work very well when I come up against harder enemies.
Other than that, it's your standard fare. Characters are all pretty annoying at this point. 😬
This was the first Tales game I ever played. The Swordians are a great piece of world-building and I thought the story took a lot of unique turns. The encounter rate is stupidly high and some twists felt contrived.
