I started going through the GBA version of this about a month ago, and then realized that I really wanted to play a different port of it on a TV, because the 4-button controls of the GBA were driving me crazy :P . Flake had brought to my attention a week or so earlier that you could play PSP games on the TV through a PSTV, so I fumbled through getting PSN cash onto my Japanese PSN account and bought the PSP remake of Tales of Phantasia on the Japanese PSN store, and boy was it ever worth it! I played through it in Japanese, on normal mode, and with only slight use of a guide to get past some of the less self-explanatory puzzles, it took me just about 36.5 hours. This is my 8th game completed in the main Tales series, so I have finally completed half of them :D

I'm unsure on if there's a translation patch available for the ROM or anything, but the PSP ports (a slight variation of this version is packed into the PSP remake of ToP's GBA sequel) are definitely the ways I'd most highly recommend playing through ToP. Fully voiced main-story dialogue really brought some emotion and life to the story that I'd really not felt in the GBA version. Quality of life features that were added after the SFC version like 8-directional movement and a lower encounter rate are also present. The music is also beautiful, as I believe it was taken from the PS1 port. The music and overworld as well as much of the battle sprites were taken from the PS1 version, with a lot of the in-town designs taken from the SFC version. However, most of the item placement is more like that of the PS1 version (from what I can tell from guides online XP). The 3D overworld is a bit hideous compared to the how pretty the 2D towns and dungeons, but it's far from a deal-breaker, as you spend far more time in towns and dungeons than in the overworld. Playing through it on a PS3 controller was way more comfortable than using the PSP or GBA controls ever would've been, and I never had any problems controlling it on the PS3.

The controls and battle system are very Tales but with some notable differences from later versions of the fairly familiar way the 2D games operate their battle system aside from the fact that only the main character can be played. The most notable differences are firstly that you cannot select your target and that "manual" control mode isn't a default control option. You just sorta need to point yourself at what enemies you're trying to fight, but the PS1's battle sprites are so big and well detailed compared to earlier versions that I never really had a problem with this. This does, however, also mean that you can't have a life-bar on any enemy unless you're actively using a Lens on them, which is annoying but not unique to this game (although it's something I would've liked to see fixed in an enhanced port like this :? ). It's also worth mentioning that even though this version still has the battles freeze while most spells are happening, the port of ToP found packed in with the remake of the sequel also on PSP allows the battles to keep moving during spells, which will likely make them move much faster but also I imagine would make them more difficult.

The semi-auto mode of control in this game has your main character running forward and back trying to automatically do doges and sprints, when mostly what it does is mean you're letting off pressure allowing the enemy to regain its composure to start attacking you back. You can only stop this by putting your character control on manual mode, but that can only be done while wearing the "Technical Ring" accessory, so you need to sacrifice an accessory slot to actually not play in a way that will kill you. There are some times where playing in semi-auto is more beneficial just because the game handles upward/aerial attacks so much better than you, but it's still a really stupid design decision. They did move the technical ring much farther forward in the game (you get it like 10-ish hours in instead of right before the end of the game), but that's another thing like how Lenses work that is just a stupid design choice from the original that really had no reason not to be updated for a modern release. The game controls just fine and the annoyances can certainly be operated around, but that doesn't negate that fact that those annoyances are still there.

The story is a bit rough, but the voice acting really helps carry it despite the fact that it feels disjointed and slightly unfinished at times. Given that the story was adapted from an unreleased book the creator had originally written, that's not to be entirely unexpected, but it's still an issue. Things like the relationships between the main party members and how sympathetic/unsympathetic the main villain may or may not be are done adequately but still feel rushed or incomplete at times, particularly the details surrounding the main villain's motivations and the party's speculations about them. Daos is far from the worst villain the series has had, and is more than serviceable even if it feels like he probably should've been given more screentime, and while the main cast are almost entirely archetypes the Tales series would come back to again and again, they're done well enough not to feel boring just as the other Tales games tend to portray them.

Verdict: Recommended. It's far from the best Tales game, but it's also very far from the worst. It shows its age and its being first in the series through annoyances in its combat system and gaps in its story, but they're far from deal-breaking. This is a fantastic port of Tales of Phantasia, but if you like retro ARPG's then this is definitely one to check out no matter what port you're playing :D