The game still stands the test of time, even if it has been a bit worn down in the process.
Tales of Phantasia. The origin for the Tales series and a nice hallmark in RPG history as well. I had to buy the game, even though I'd played the original in Japanese form...still, I felt like I could go for another round on my GBA.
The first thing that struck me was the voice overs. In Japanese they sounded more fitting and...normal. The english version however...sounds sorta scary. For instance Cress (aka Cless) is 15 years old...but sounds like he's 50. 'I did it!'. I mean, one can't really blame the game too much...it is a GBA, what can you expect? Tara Strong?
The gameplay is basically unchanged. The game has the series famed battle system. The strange things about it however, and I apparently forgot this, is that when you attack you automatically run backwards. It's pretty annoying at times, when you want to laung more attacks but Cress runs away like a little girl. The battles are much slower than newer games and I also found the game's difficulty to be sorta erratic. In the same area you can fight bugbears and do fine, but then run into wolves or something and get destroyed. There's a run away feature, but still...for game that's rather easy overall this annoying spike in enemy difficulty is strange.
The story is about a young man named Cress who recieved a strange pendant from his father for his 15 birthday. While out hunting with his friend Chester his town is destroyed and he embarks on a mission of revenge that slowly broils down to uncovering the mysteries hidden in his world. You'll be joined by several characters, who while archtype and rather 2-dimensional, remain fun to be around and interesting. In battle your friends operate under artifical intelligence, and while it is no where near as advanced as modern Tales games...it holds up ok.
I also dislike that much of the game's dialouge seems dumbed-down for younger players. It annoyes me, and I wish they had just stuck with the original.
The game's graphics are actually the best part I think. For a GBA game the sprites are nicely done and the backgrounds are pretty. You can actually see differences in battle-held items and different effects in-game lead to a nice experience. It's of course not the best GBA game graphic wise, but it certainly holds it's own.
The sound, like I hinted at earlier...could have been improved upon. The seldom-used voice acting is horrific. Thank god this wasn't used on a console game and acted out half the dialouge. The music however, is a different story. It's midi-tastic and quaint, from dramatic scenes of death to harmonic forests of spirits.
In short, this GBA release of Tales of Phantasia may not be the best incarnation of the game, but it is the easiest to get your hands on. The game still stands the test of time, even if it has been a bit worn down in the process.