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Tales of Phantasia GBA - Official Thread
- Thread starter Mejilan
- Start date
Spiritreaver
Member
Never gotten that, could be a buggy copy or well.. something else.
Just got done with the
and I'm having a blast.
Just got done with the
first battle with Dhaos
Tell Demi to buy the game, not play a ROM. Heee!! Oh, and while yer at it, tell him to update enable the Tetris and Metroid pages on his GAF Friend Code Index, eh? 
Uh, seriously. Tell him to take the game back. I've NEVER had that problem. Better to exchange it now before he gets any further in the game.
I'm in the final wrap-up of the game. Once you get the Tech Birds and the rest of the (future) world opens up, in a pleasantly (FF6 World of Ruin-style) non-linear fashion, seemingly.
LOVING the game.
Uh, seriously. Tell him to take the game back. I've NEVER had that problem. Better to exchange it now before he gets any further in the game.
I'm in the final wrap-up of the game. Once you get the Tech Birds and the rest of the (future) world opens up, in a pleasantly (FF6 World of Ruin-style) non-linear fashion, seemingly.
LOVING the game.
Mejilan said:Tell Demi to buy the game, not play a ROM. Heee!! Oh, and while yer at it, tell him to update enable the Tetris and Metroid pages on his GAF Friend Code Index, eh?
Uh, seriously. Tell him to take the game back. I've NEVER had that problem. Better to exchange it now before he gets any further in the game.
I'm in the final wrap-up of the game. Once you get the Tech Birds and the rest of the (future) world opens up, in a pleasantly (FF6 World of Ruin-style) non-linear fashion, seemingly.
LOVING the game.
Tried the colosseum yet?
I beat the first go-round and faced off against Suzu's parents. Took me two attempts to beat them. Yikes.
I've since completed the first 4 or 5 rounds of the Arena. I'll continue today and see as far as I can go. I don't even have close to having Cress' ultimate gear or skills yet, so it's pretty damn tough, despite his level (71, everyone else 55-61). Some enemies I can barely touch!
I've since completed the first 4 or 5 rounds of the Arena. I'll continue today and see as far as I can go. I don't even have close to having Cress' ultimate gear or skills yet, so it's pretty damn tough, despite his level (71, everyone else 55-61). Some enemies I can barely touch!
UltraMarioMan
Member
Is the US version out now?
Spiritreaver
Member
WTF the game just froze on me
Just a black screen and nothing happened. Sooo terrible, I don't honestly feel like doing that battle again just to see if it will work, it was easy but it still took a while. Blaaah.
after the time machine in Thor was used to go to the future.
I freakin loved the game. I just beat it. My levels ranged from 92 - 107, and my hours were at just over 67! I'm pretty sure I did just about every optional goody (both classic sidequests from the SNES game, and new ones)!
And, man oh man, the last boss has a third form not originally in the SNES game, and I'll be damned if he (
) wasn't a spitting image of
Awesome, awesome game.
And, man oh man, the last boss has a third form not originally in the SNES game, and I'll be damned if he (
Plume Dhaos
Yggdrassil from Tales of Symphonia, in his angel outfit!
Awesome, awesome game.
I encountered no freezes or bugs. I hear Demi had a bum copy that wouldn't save properly when on the world map. Perhaps there's a buggy batch out there?
Dhaos was a great villain, but he needed to be fleshed out a bit more. I found the dialogue in general to be a bit more sparse than it perhaps should have been. Yeah, I know the game is dated, but it's a brand new localization, so I had hoped for more. Dhaos in particular had little enough presence in the game. By comparison, Yggdrassil in Tales of Symphonia was MUCH more fleshed out.
Dhaos was a great villain, but he needed to be fleshed out a bit more. I found the dialogue in general to be a bit more sparse than it perhaps should have been. Yeah, I know the game is dated, but it's a brand new localization, so I had hoped for more. Dhaos in particular had little enough presence in the game. By comparison, Yggdrassil in Tales of Symphonia was MUCH more fleshed out.
Okay, I admit, at first I played this game for two hours and fifteen minutes and was fairly disappointed--the battles felt too slow, the enemies didn't seem to give enough experience, Mint didn't do much of anything, Chester seemed overpowered, I wanted more different attacks and more TP to use them with, etc.
Rather than playing ToP, I ended up beating Super Princess Peach 100%, playing Pokemon Trozei, still working in my daily Animal Crossing sessions, and finally letting Tetris DS dominate my portable time. In addition to that, I found Paper Mario 2 for $25 and played for 38 hours to beat everything. The number of games that took precedence over Tales of Phantasia is almost insane considering that Symphonia is my third favorite standalone game.
Then I picked it up again today since my cable modem was down and I couldn't play Tetris online. And what do you know--Tales of Phantasia became insanely awesome ten minutes after I'd stopped, right after the point when
.
I played for six hours today and now experience and Gald are abundant, I can use nonstop special attacks in every single battle if I feel like it (and I usually do), there was a boss that slaughtered me in all of 18 seconds just like the bosses in ToS did at times, the music has continued being possibly even greater than in ToS despite the GBA's sound capabilities, and the game is succeeding on just about every level and I'd give it a 9.1 or so. (For comparison's sake, other 9.1 games on my scale are Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis, The Minish Cap, and the Pokemon Trading Card Game.)
ToP may not be ToS in my eyes, but by now I feel like it could be if Namco ever decided to revisit this game in the same way that, say, Nintendo revisited Metroid for Zero Mission, or SMB1 for Mario Bros. DX. I seriously believe that there are so many minor things Namco could do with ToP: cut out the slowdown at the end of every battle, make a more user-friendly menu interface (it took me a long time to figure out how to see the stats of weapons and armor), leave room for the full item/enemy names even in the English version, get better voice acting, allow diagonal movement everywhere, bring back the Japanese song, make the cooking system more like ToS where different characters are inept or skilled with different recipes, show enemies walking around, give an option for all text to appear at once, create alternate outfits, and so on. For my money, just fixing the slowdown, menu interface, name length, and voice acting alone would take this game into Secret of Mana territory (9.5).
But yeah... I love ToP now. I just wish that they'd taken the extra initiative for a five-star game rather than four and a half, and hope that they will at some point in the future. I'd be there to buy it again, personally.
Rather than playing ToP, I ended up beating Super Princess Peach 100%, playing Pokemon Trozei, still working in my daily Animal Crossing sessions, and finally letting Tetris DS dominate my portable time. In addition to that, I found Paper Mario 2 for $25 and played for 38 hours to beat everything. The number of games that took precedence over Tales of Phantasia is almost insane considering that Symphonia is my third favorite standalone game.
Then I picked it up again today since my cable modem was down and I couldn't play Tetris online. And what do you know--Tales of Phantasia became insanely awesome ten minutes after I'd stopped, right after the point when
you're sent back in time
I played for six hours today and now experience and Gald are abundant, I can use nonstop special attacks in every single battle if I feel like it (and I usually do), there was a boss that slaughtered me in all of 18 seconds just like the bosses in ToS did at times, the music has continued being possibly even greater than in ToS despite the GBA's sound capabilities, and the game is succeeding on just about every level and I'd give it a 9.1 or so. (For comparison's sake, other 9.1 games on my scale are Tactics Ogre: Knight of Lodis, The Minish Cap, and the Pokemon Trading Card Game.)
ToP may not be ToS in my eyes, but by now I feel like it could be if Namco ever decided to revisit this game in the same way that, say, Nintendo revisited Metroid for Zero Mission, or SMB1 for Mario Bros. DX. I seriously believe that there are so many minor things Namco could do with ToP: cut out the slowdown at the end of every battle, make a more user-friendly menu interface (it took me a long time to figure out how to see the stats of weapons and armor), leave room for the full item/enemy names even in the English version, get better voice acting, allow diagonal movement everywhere, bring back the Japanese song, make the cooking system more like ToS where different characters are inept or skilled with different recipes, show enemies walking around, give an option for all text to appear at once, create alternate outfits, and so on. For my money, just fixing the slowdown, menu interface, name length, and voice acting alone would take this game into Secret of Mana territory (9.5).
But yeah... I love ToP now. I just wish that they'd taken the extra initiative for a five-star game rather than four and a half, and hope that they will at some point in the future. I'd be there to buy it again, personally.
Tales of Phantasia
RPG - Playstation
Backup memory - 10 save slots
1 Player
Love-hate. That's the feeling I get from ToP. As the first entry to Namco's popular Tales series, I can definitely see how it sets itself apart from other RPG series. Yet, that doesn't make this title impervious to complaint. For every step of progress, there's a wall holding it back too.
I was immediately drawn into the game by its dark story. Maybe I don't play enough RPGs, but I can't remember any that began as tragic as ToP. Somehow, it pulled me in. As an anime-ish story, there are definitely a bunch of light hearted moments too. But the tone of the game remains grim throughout. Nevertheless, sometimes I felt like the situations were forced to keep that grim tone. What was initially refreshing became excessive.
I felt the same with the battle system. At the time of its release on the Super Famicom, ToP was cutting edge. The fights happen in real time on a 2D plane, where you have almost full control over one character, and can direct AI or manually use items/cast spells for your party members. I say "almost full control" because things still happen in "turns". They're extremely quick so it's -almost- like playing a hack 'n slash, but there are some slight delays that remind you it's an RPG. The unfortunate drawback is, this is a party-based game and you need to be able to manage your other party members while you're actively controlling your leader. Luckily, most of your party members will be magic users so it's easy to have them cast whatever you want via a menu. What's nice is they even allow you to queue up the next spell for the following turn too. Since it plays out in real time, characters need time to attack & cast spells. If they get hit within that animation, their turn is cancelled. So there's an urgency of hitting your enemies as fast and as much as you can so that their attacks/spells are cancelled, while not allowing them to be close enough to cancel your attacks/spells.
While all of this was fascinating at first, it quickly becomes a chore as you're thrown random battle after random battle after random battle. True to old school RPG form, you'll be facing random encounters as you walk around the overworld and dungeons. The nice thing is ToP does have a few enemies you see on screen. But random encounters are unfortunately the norm. Battles become extremely repetitive. Most require little other than mashing the attack button with your team leader, Cless. Even the boss strategies are easily reduced to: "Hit them over and over so they don't have a chance to attack." The later battles are ridiculously brutal to the point where if you let them get off a single attack, they will have you in a trap until your entire party dies. It's extremely frustrating to be juggled over and over with no hope of getting out. And that's the kind of game ToP ends up being: Juggle or be juggled. Neither of which are that interesting to me.
One area where Phantasia shined is in exploration. Most of the dungeons are layed out well, with some interesting puzzles that require some logic to it. There are a couple that I couldn't figure out without a FAQ, but they're generally clever. There are also a lot of secrets and optional quests you can do, including a multi-floor dungeon with some of the hardest enemies in the game. They are far more difficult than the enemies you face in the last dungeon even, so seasoned RPGer should have a blast.
I come out of Tales of Phantasia with mixed feelings. I can see how it during its time of release, it was a bold step to change how combat was done. I can also appreciate how Namco put a lot of effort into refining standard elements of the genre. But ToP retains too much of the old jRPG conventions for me to truly enjoy. My feelings toward the game shifted from amused to annoyed to satisfied to bored to frustrated. In the end, I'm somewhat glad I saw it through. But I'd definitely never want to touch it again. The amusement wears off quickly.
RPG - Playstation
Backup memory - 10 save slots
1 Player
Love-hate. That's the feeling I get from ToP. As the first entry to Namco's popular Tales series, I can definitely see how it sets itself apart from other RPG series. Yet, that doesn't make this title impervious to complaint. For every step of progress, there's a wall holding it back too.
I was immediately drawn into the game by its dark story. Maybe I don't play enough RPGs, but I can't remember any that began as tragic as ToP. Somehow, it pulled me in. As an anime-ish story, there are definitely a bunch of light hearted moments too. But the tone of the game remains grim throughout. Nevertheless, sometimes I felt like the situations were forced to keep that grim tone. What was initially refreshing became excessive.
I felt the same with the battle system. At the time of its release on the Super Famicom, ToP was cutting edge. The fights happen in real time on a 2D plane, where you have almost full control over one character, and can direct AI or manually use items/cast spells for your party members. I say "almost full control" because things still happen in "turns". They're extremely quick so it's -almost- like playing a hack 'n slash, but there are some slight delays that remind you it's an RPG. The unfortunate drawback is, this is a party-based game and you need to be able to manage your other party members while you're actively controlling your leader. Luckily, most of your party members will be magic users so it's easy to have them cast whatever you want via a menu. What's nice is they even allow you to queue up the next spell for the following turn too. Since it plays out in real time, characters need time to attack & cast spells. If they get hit within that animation, their turn is cancelled. So there's an urgency of hitting your enemies as fast and as much as you can so that their attacks/spells are cancelled, while not allowing them to be close enough to cancel your attacks/spells.
While all of this was fascinating at first, it quickly becomes a chore as you're thrown random battle after random battle after random battle. True to old school RPG form, you'll be facing random encounters as you walk around the overworld and dungeons. The nice thing is ToP does have a few enemies you see on screen. But random encounters are unfortunately the norm. Battles become extremely repetitive. Most require little other than mashing the attack button with your team leader, Cless. Even the boss strategies are easily reduced to: "Hit them over and over so they don't have a chance to attack." The later battles are ridiculously brutal to the point where if you let them get off a single attack, they will have you in a trap until your entire party dies. It's extremely frustrating to be juggled over and over with no hope of getting out. And that's the kind of game ToP ends up being: Juggle or be juggled. Neither of which are that interesting to me.
One area where Phantasia shined is in exploration. Most of the dungeons are layed out well, with some interesting puzzles that require some logic to it. There are a couple that I couldn't figure out without a FAQ, but they're generally clever. There are also a lot of secrets and optional quests you can do, including a multi-floor dungeon with some of the hardest enemies in the game. They are far more difficult than the enemies you face in the last dungeon even, so seasoned RPGer should have a blast.
I come out of Tales of Phantasia with mixed feelings. I can see how it during its time of release, it was a bold step to change how combat was done. I can also appreciate how Namco put a lot of effort into refining standard elements of the genre. But ToP retains too much of the old jRPG conventions for me to truly enjoy. My feelings toward the game shifted from amused to annoyed to satisfied to bored to frustrated. In the end, I'm somewhat glad I saw it through. But I'd definitely never want to touch it again. The amusement wears off quickly.
Fair enough. ToP's manual mode is also completely broken. There is one attack in particular only possible in manual mode that has such a high priority and such a quick rate of recovery, that you can essentially coast through the entire rest of the game without being touched.
Now that I'm done with ToP, I've started my Euro import of ToE for the PSP. It allows you to open up manual mode in the second "town" you visit. Since the entire battle system was completely retooled, they fixed the exploits in ToP, and as a consequence, the game is MUCH tougher, regardless of mode.
For the record, I wouldn't want the gameplay to play out in a more turn-based manner, since the real-time nature of the gameplay is one of the series' main draws to me.
Now that I'm done with ToP, I've started my Euro import of ToE for the PSP. It allows you to open up manual mode in the second "town" you visit. Since the entire battle system was completely retooled, they fixed the exploits in ToP, and as a consequence, the game is MUCH tougher, regardless of mode.
For the record, I wouldn't want the gameplay to play out in a more turn-based manner, since the real-time nature of the gameplay is one of the series' main draws to me.
Shouta
Member
Farore said:
There's three modes in Tales games (Auto, Semi-Auto, Manual) just like in Star ocean games. Auto is controlled by the AI. Semi-Auto is player controlled however, when you attack the movement to get into range is automated. If you hit attack from long range, you'll run in and slash the enemy. With Manual, you hit attack and your character will sit in place and slash rather than run in and slash. You have to control your movement all the way. Most folks play in Semi-auto mode but there's quite a few merits to Manual mode.
djtiesto said:Also, the battle speed is very slow, at least compared to other versions of TOP (the SFC version was extremely nimble)... it's really hard to move back and execute a running jump attack because Cless (sorry, force of habit) moves much slower in relation to the enemies. The whole battle system is killing the game for me, unfortunately...[/URL]
I have to echo djtiesto's sentiments regarding the battle system. I just got ToP, and I feel like I'm moving in slow motion during the battles. It's very frustrating. Now I'm wondering -- why in the world would a company do this? Why not just have smooth, regular-paced battles? I didn't think the goal was to make the gameplay experience frustrating.
I haven't played it that much yet, though. I'll have to play some more and see if it continues to bother me or I get used to.
Tales of Phantasia SNES/PS1 are my favorite games of all time, bar none.
This abominable GBA port is a horrible, horrible twisted bastard of the original that should never have existed. Incredibly shitty "voice acting" (hearing Cress say "AYEWHEEEN" in 40-year-old molestor voice at the end of each battle is unbearable) combined with a once-great combat system dunked into molasses to make it unbearably slow make me puke all over this pale shadow of the game I love above all others.
Bring on that PSP version (which better not suck or I'll literally demolish my PSP)!
This abominable GBA port is a horrible, horrible twisted bastard of the original that should never have existed. Incredibly shitty "voice acting" (hearing Cress say "AYEWHEEEN" in 40-year-old molestor voice at the end of each battle is unbearable) combined with a once-great combat system dunked into molasses to make it unbearably slow make me puke all over this pale shadow of the game I love above all others.
Bring on that PSP version (which better not suck or I'll literally demolish my PSP)!
Angels of a Wing
Banned
I picked up my copy the day it became avalible but I've only really just started to play it recently.
Hot damn is this game fun. Sure the battles are a bit slow but other then that it's held up very well for it's age.
I'm glad that the first tales game finally made it to north america, even if it took 10 years to get here.
I'm a little a bit after being sent back to the past. Just got the guy who wants to prove not only people with evlin blood can cast magic
Hot damn is this game fun. Sure the battles are a bit slow but other then that it's held up very well for it's age.
I'm glad that the first tales game finally made it to north america, even if it took 10 years to get here.
The GBA version, while still pretty old, is recent enough to be dubbed contemporary. And it's shit (comparitively). If you want to see something that's really held up well, so well that it trounces everything that came after it, go play the original Phantasia or, even better, the PS1 remake.Angels of a Wing said:
If the PSP version lives up to its promises it will indeed be the greatest thing ever and I will play it in the original Japanese if those worthless bastards at SCEA don't localize it.