I originally played Tales of Destiny back in 1998 or 1999 when I
borrowed it from my cousin. This was my first Tales of game, since at
this point it was the only one to reach the American shores, but what a
game it was for me back then. 2D rpgs seemed dead in the water at this
point, there was Wild Arms, Suikoden, Legend of Oasis and a handful of
others, but Final Fantasy 7 created a wave of 3D. Tales of Destiny was
a throwback for me, and made me love 2D RPGs all over again. The battle
system was fun and original, the story was good, the dialog was
downright hilarious at times. I love puzzle dungeons in RPGs. I have a
few complaints, like the Text screens, the linear gameplay, the small
world, but all of those are forgiven for such a fun game.
----------Battle System----------
Tales of Destiny is a 2D Action RPG. The game is for the most part,
similar to any Final Fantasy title up to this point, but the battle
system is a 2D fighter in a sense. About 90% of all battles are
completely random, excluding boss fights. There are a few dungeons that
have visible enemies though. You can have up to 4 people in your
current party with 2 people as backup. When attacked, your team will be
sent into a 2D side-view, with your team on one side and the enemies on
another, and then you do battle. You only control one character, but
you can give demands to your three partners and they'll do them
instantly.
Each character has their own special skills, that
they learn after they reach a certain level. Stahn can gain extra
skills by finding gravestones that teach him secret abilities, but you
have to be at a certain level to read them. Some characters can use
magic, but only characters equipped with a Swordian, so they almost
make you use the Swordian characters in this game, and that pretty much
requires you to have a Swordian equipped at all times too, even though
you might find weapons that are stronger than your Swordians. That's
kinda limiting, but oh well.
There's a few under-developed
areas in the game I wish was fleshed out more. You gain a Food Sack,
but you can't really learn recipes like in most Tales of games. All you
can do is throw food in it, and as you walk you gain HP, it's basically
a second form of healing and almost pointless. It doesn't gradually
give you HP, but hands it out in a bulk form. Also the skill system
seems downgraded a bit from Tales of Phantasia, which also makes me
wonder if they tweaked the GBA port of Phantasia to fit with the more
modern Tales games.
The game is pretty simple, as far as the
fighting goes, but the dungeons and the puzzles within them can get
TOUGH. Some puzzles gave me a freaking headache at times too.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Stahn (Stan), a country boy who is looking for adventure.
He decides to stowaway on a dragon ship to see the world, but gets
caught. That's when he realizes that this ship is carries something
very special, but as soon as he learns this is when the ship gets
attacked. While looking for the nearest weapon, he finds a talking
sword, that only he can hear. This was the special item that the ship
was carrying and the pirates are after it. Stahn manages to escape with
his life. The game kick starts after that.
The story was good,
although very basic, and can be summed up in four or five bullet
points. Not that a basic story is a bad thing, I enjoyed it. The
characters all had strong personalties, although some were pretty
cliche. The story has a few strong twists, but nothing that will shock
you.
The most enjoyable thing about the storyline was the
lighthearted sense of humor. I like a nice dark RPG now and then, but I
LOVE lighthearted ones. Not saying this doesn't have its fair share of
dark moments, but my most memorable scenes involve the party goofing
off or talking to random NPC within towns getting stupid info. For
example, you walk up to a gardener in one town and initiate a chat with
him, he looks at a tree and says, "Ooooh, what a well-proportioned
tree!".
----------Graphics----------
The graphics are
pretty dated for the time, but it was a nice throwback to the 16 bit
era for the most part. Comparing this to Wild Arms, I think the level
designs, enemy/character models and towns are put together with a more
creative thought, also there is more in-game cutscenes and action
involved within the dialog scenes. With all of that said, I like nice
and simple 2D graphics, the load times are really short and almost
not-noticeable.
The game has quite a few anime cutscenes. The
game opens with an intro cutscene each time you start the game, also
there was 2 in the middle and 1 at the end. That's more than Wild Arms
had to offer atleast. My biggest complaint towards the graphics is the
lack of effort with the dialog boxes. There aren't avatars showing your
characters who is talking, just a name, so you're basically reading a
wall of text, and you have to make sure you read the characters name
each time. I like having an avatar above the text so I can just glance
at it and know who is talking. They do have a solid blue background for
good characters, a red background for bad characters and a transparent
blue background for Swordians, but that's not enough.
----------Sound----------
The music is freaking great. Very rememberable and catchy stuff. The
sound effects are really good too. Your characters all have distinctive
battle cries and grunts during battles. The voice work with these cries
are obviously done by Japanese actors, not native English speakers.
This makes some of what they're saying sound like gibberish, although
atleast half of what they say is in Japanese, like their victory cries.
Its cute though.
----------World Map----------
The world
map is a classic RPG overview map, most similar to Final Fantasy III
for the SNES. The graphics are decent at best on the world map, but the
lands are generic and unrememerable. The town avatars are really good
though.
You mostly walk throughout the game, but you can win a
Tricycle that lets you roam around the lands without any random
encounters, the only problem is it is slow. Towards the middle of the
game you'll get a boat, but you can only go to four regions, then later
you get a dragon that can take you anywhere on water. At the very end
of the game you'll get a plane.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
28:27
The game ends with a short anime cutscene, and then credits. Thankfully
after the credits there is a short scene with all the characters
reunited. The end.
