This review contains spoilers
I have no idea what it is about this game, but something just clicked the moment I started playing it and it had me HOOKED. I've played a number of other JRPGs from around the same time Phantasia released and this is absolutely one of my favourites of the bunch.
The main story itself isn't anything revolutionary, in fact it's pretty generic, but there is something about the characters and how they interact with the world and the people around them that, to me, feels so unique for games of this era. I think the inclusion of skits in the open world definitely helped with developing the party and their relationships with one another in a really effective way that didn't require any tedious sidequesting or optional exploration to unlock.
I was honestly caught off guard by the game's main antagonist and how much I adored him. Dhaos, much like the main party, has so much more depth than I was expecting going into this game. I loved the parallels between his own quest to save his homeland and that of our protagonists. His goals were noble but so poorly executed, and the conclusion to his story was tragic because throughout the game he was presented as a villain, yes, but one that under other circumstances could have been a powerful ally.
I think the game stumbles in places for sure, especially in the latter half. The combat grows a bit stale after a couple dozen hours and the reused/recoloured enemy models that are used throughout the last couple of dungeons don't help with keeping battles all that engaging. I also found the unskippable magic animations to be incredibly frustrating as they slowed a lot of fights down to a crawl. I also think that the ending could have been improved slightly if we got to actually see flashbacks of Dhaos' backstory or even if we had him tell us his story himself before he died instead of the hard cut to the party standing by Yggdrasil which was pretty jarring.
All in all though, this was a fantastic introduction to the Tales of series and I'm so glad that I decided to start from the beginning instead of with the newer releases. I'm excited to see what's in store for me if this is the foundation that the series was built off of!
The main story itself isn't anything revolutionary, in fact it's pretty generic, but there is something about the characters and how they interact with the world and the people around them that, to me, feels so unique for games of this era. I think the inclusion of skits in the open world definitely helped with developing the party and their relationships with one another in a really effective way that didn't require any tedious sidequesting or optional exploration to unlock.
I was honestly caught off guard by the game's main antagonist and how much I adored him. Dhaos, much like the main party, has so much more depth than I was expecting going into this game. I loved the parallels between his own quest to save his homeland and that of our protagonists. His goals were noble but so poorly executed, and the conclusion to his story was tragic because throughout the game he was presented as a villain, yes, but one that under other circumstances could have been a powerful ally.
I think the game stumbles in places for sure, especially in the latter half. The combat grows a bit stale after a couple dozen hours and the reused/recoloured enemy models that are used throughout the last couple of dungeons don't help with keeping battles all that engaging. I also found the unskippable magic animations to be incredibly frustrating as they slowed a lot of fights down to a crawl. I also think that the ending could have been improved slightly if we got to actually see flashbacks of Dhaos' backstory or even if we had him tell us his story himself before he died instead of the hard cut to the party standing by Yggdrasil which was pretty jarring.
All in all though, this was a fantastic introduction to the Tales of series and I'm so glad that I decided to start from the beginning instead of with the newer releases. I'm excited to see what's in store for me if this is the foundation that the series was built off of!