while it is jank and a lot of the enemy attacks feel kinda bullshit in how hard it is to react to them, when you really take full advantage of the game's mechanics (the cancel mechanic in particular) it can make it difficult for enemies to even get a hit on you. actually has a good amount of combo flexbility, though boss design is kinda wack and the way enemies can literally instantly grab you with no time for you to react whatsoever is extremely rude design. still fun regardless, especially messing around in training mode.
I often see comparisons to fighting games but I'd say it most resembles a platform fighter in the way it handles, as there are normals to cover each direction (including nair, fair bair, and the up air and all) though the special cancels are something seen less often in the more prominent platform fighters.

very good music

gameplay balance wise it felt like a wildly teetering seesaw between various elements, including the difficulty, trying to avoid blatantly overpowered chips, an extremely generous dodge maneuver, and being under/overleveled depending on how many sidequests you do. I never found myself hitting a sweet spot or feeling satisfied with the combat personally, and most bosses were just alright. I never felt like I was compelled by an encounter to play in a more interesting way than just dodging and smackin dudes with my lil crit sword, and all I got out of turning the difficulty up was being punished harder to an annoying degree whenever I'd react to an attack cue slightly too late, rather than not changing my playstyle.

I don't really have anything to say about the story. I had trouble following things as I couldn't get myself as invested in the characters as much as I did when playing NieR: Gestalt, and sort of checked out on the B ending playthrough until I decided to amuse myself by getting through it by using exclusively hacking in every combat situation.

I find it funny the ps2 version is listed as the same game given how I ended up playing this
I went into this game SPECIFICALLY because I saw gameplay of tales of destiny 2 and thought, "wow that's rad, and tales of destiny 2 is on psx too? golly, guess I better start with the first since it has the same name!"
I actually ended up enjoying this more than I thought I would despite how similar it is to phantasia, which I'd dropped because the bleak art style kinda made me uncomfortable while playing it. anyway after beating this I went into "tales of destiny 2" for the psx and boy was I ever in for a surprise. even so, I ended up enjoying tales of eternia as well. (seriously though it's fucked up they called eternia destiny 2)