Collection essentials #384: Tales of Phantasia (PS1)

After the success of the second “Tales of” game, instead of planning the third entry right away, Namco saw fit to completely remake the original game on PlayStation hardware, with impressive results. Of course, I already covered the original release of Phantasia, so you can go check out that post for some basic info about the game.

Practically everything in PlayStation Phantasia has been reworked, and the game borrowed and built on some elements from Destiny in this process too. The graphics have a different style, with the characters more resembling those from Destiny. The game also took the concept of frivolous conversations on the world map introduced by Destiny and brought it a step further, very close to what would become a Tales series staple. Now, when on the world map, you can hit the “select” button, and the portraits of one or more of your characters will appear and speak. So now you can see different characters have amusing conversations with each other, and their portraits emote appropriately, too. These conversations also sometimes serve to remind the player where they’re supposed to go next, too. This sort of thing became known as a “skit”, and if I’m not mistaken every single Tales game since has had them in some form. 

Gameplay feels like Destiny’s, but better. Now, you can perform two consecutive basic attacks in succession (plus a special move) instead of just one. This game also introduced the “Manual” control method. In Destiny, characters were controlled in “semi auto” mode which meant that, even though you can move your character freely, hitting the attack button means that they will run up to the targeted enemy automatically to perform the attack. But in “Manual” there aren’t any automatic actions like this, so you control more like you would expect in an action game. There’s also a new party member obtainable in this game, the ninja girl Suzu. This is a welcome addition because Phantasia lacked a second character that’s any good at close-range melee combat, so getting attacked from both sides by enemies was a pretty dicey proposition. 

The game’s reworked soundtrack takes full advantage of the improved capabilities of a CD compared to a cartridge, and it sounds absolutely gorgeous. I think I’d go as far as to say this version of Phantasia has my favorite soundtrack in the entire Tales series. There’s a lot more voice acting this time around than in the Super Famicom original, which is also welcome in a character-focused RPG.

This version of Phantasia also has an English patch, and I’d say this is the best version of the game to play as of right now for an English speaker. There is another remake of Phantasia that came out in the future which is perhaps better, but that one remains unpatched…for now.

I imported this game (the copy shown in the photo) in the mid-2000s when I was both getting interested in Tales and also importing games in general. It was one of my earliest PlayStation imports. I initially played through it with a guide, and I think that was before the translation patch existed. I later played with the translation patch and got most of the way through the game, though I think I didn’t finish it the second time.

Tales of Phantasia is still a really fun game. The combat isn’t as fun as some future Tales games, but everything else holds up quite well for the most part. I’d certainly recommend it. It’s a great remake of a classic which started a great and long-running series, so it’s an easy pick for essential status in my book. (Or blog, I guess!)