Tales of Phantasia
Remake of Tales of Phantasia
3.87 average rating based on 143 ratings
- Platforms
- PlayStation
- Genres
- Adventure, Role-playing (RPG)
- Themes
- Fantasy
Release Dates
User Stats
How Long Is Tales of Phantasia?
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One down...a lot more to go. For its time Phantasia does a lot with its characters, combat, and sidequests that is really impressive and exactly what I look for in an RPG. However it also lives and breathes the confusing RPG jank that many 90s JRPGs fall prey to. I found myself very frequently having to look at a guide to realize that this one specific item with no description for what it did was necessary to interact with the weird light effect in one area of the dungeon. Some bosses are real gimmicky and annoying, others are jokes that clearly didn't have their attacks finished, and then there was Gnome. The other thing that I think hurt it for me was the games plot pretty heavily features time travel but with the exception of one minor sidequest that has no gameplay relevance the mechanics of time travel don't play into the gameplay or world at all. Its more like a change of location than of time, made doubly frustrating as this was made in a post Chrono Trigger World. All those complaints being said this is still overall a fun charming first outing for an rpg series, definitely moreso …
One down...a lot more to go. For its time Phantasia does a lot with its characters, combat, and sidequests that is really impressive and exactly what I look for in an RPG. However it also lives and breathes the confusing RPG jank that many 90s JRPGs fall prey to. I found myself very frequently having to look at a guide to realize that this one specific item with no description for what it did was necessary to interact with the weird light effect in one area of the dungeon. Some bosses are real gimmicky and annoying, others are jokes that clearly didn't have their attacks finished, and then there was Gnome. The other thing that I think hurt it for me was the games plot pretty heavily features time travel but with the exception of one minor sidequest that has no gameplay relevance the mechanics of time travel don't play into the gameplay or world at all. Its more like a change of location than of time, made doubly frustrating as this was made in a post Chrono Trigger World. All those complaints being said this is still overall a fun charming first outing for an rpg series, definitely moreso than some of its contemporaries, and I'm very glad I played it. Love the sprites for the characters as well. Chester was my favorite party member, and Klarth was my least. Now onto Tales of Destiny.
Gnome might just be the single most unthreatening and yet somehow utterly obnoxious fight I've ever had the displeasure of getting through in an rpg. Up until this point I had been impressed by how much of the DNA for Tales was actually present in the game. Now I need an entire day long break just to calm down. He has one attack. It does very little damage. But it lasts anywhere from 20 seconds to an entire minute, and the entire time this little reject Dugquatro is completely invulnerable. Cannot be targeted or damaged in anyway. Then he reforms very briefly for about 1 second. You can try to approximate the time before he reforms and maybe hit him with one of the other characters arts, but 19/20 times they will just barely miss and you'll only get in two sword swipes and one art from Cress. Then remix and repeat this process for roughly 12 minutes. I was never in threat of dying but just sitting there watching as missiles just poke at you until you finally get the chance to poke back only for your big hits to miss had me fuming. I hate you gnome.
So after beating Tales of Arise, I've decided to go back and play through the entire series from the beginning, filling in the gaps for the ones I haven't played and revisting the ones I haven't played in 4-15 years. Considering Symphonia was the earliest in the series I had played I'm excited to discover the origins of Tales and also just really want to play Symphonia and Abyss again since those got me into the series but I haven't played them in more than a decade.
Surprisingly great game! Enjoyed pretty much everything about Tales of Phantasia. Likable characters, fun battle system, amusing dialogue, great graphics...not really much to complain about, other than maybe some aspects of the story but the pros greatly outweigh the cons in the end.
After playing Star Ocean: First Departure, I didn't expect Tales to be as fleshed out as it was, having been made by many of the same people and Star Ocean releasing a full year after the fact. Definitely looking forward to playing more games in the Tales franchise. Now I need to figure out what to play next!
I struggled to like the battle system with Tales of Phantasia being the the first Tales game I have ever played. But now I am increasingly enjoying it and the story. I look forward to finishing the game and starting up Tales of Destiny at some point.