Save a Tree, Kill an Elf; Let's Play Tales of Phantasia!

"If there is evil in this world, it lies in the hearts of men."
-Edward D. Morrison

I forget who suggested this game for a Let's Play, but when they did, I pretty much knew I had to do it. I've beaten this game at least ten times, but it's actually been well over a year since I last went through the whole thing.

Anyway, introduction time, I guess. I don't need to go describing the history of this game because Mightyblue already did it. And he knows more than me. So go ahead and read it if you want!

I was thinking of polling people on which version to play, but the PS1 version would definitely win. That's actually good, because even though I don't like it as much as the Super Famicom original (the remixed music doesn't sound quite as good, and I like the old battle system and sprites more) there's ultimately a bit more to talk about and see, particularly an extra party member and a few more sidequests.



Sound Mode lets you play the music. It's in all versions except the English GBA. I forgot to check it first, but I know on SFC you can transpose the music in real time, which is awesome.

Anyway, we do have something to decide.



This is _______ Alvein. "Cless" is the default name, widely accepted by the community even though the GBA version's "Cress" basically makes more sense and sounds a little less weird. (This doesn't make that version's localization overall not crappy) So! A name! What will it be?

The "Random" feature is pretty damn crazy, by the way. The hacking on this was done by the same guy who hacked the Innocent Sin patch and the random names dig up tons of names from other RPG series, names spelled "wrong", and tons of other random nouns. For example:


Disappointingly, playing with this for a good 45 minutes didn't yield either "Ashley" or "Pants." But I'm not sure they're not in there.

Anyway, we need a name! Go! You people are much better at coming up with names than I am.

(And his dad's name is "Miguel", so don't pick that)

Well boo.

Anyway, you should keep the name as the default "Cless". The last thing a game like this needs is for it to have any and all dramatic tension ruined by naming him after types of PANTS.

If random megaten names are getting mentioned, I'm going to go ahead and throw Katsuya into the ring. Because Katsuya is awesome.

As long as at least one person is named Tequila I'll be happy.

damn it.

I finished this version last year sometime, and it's one of the few Tales games I can actually stand.

Anyway, name him Cress just to be a jerk. Or change his name every update. You can namechange at any point in this one, can't you? I never bothered, but I think you can.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment.

Name him Bloomers.

Cless, Cress - either works for me, really.

That's because you're wrong.

Name him Dhaos. I think it'd be funny. SNES version ftw

Tales of Phantasia is an interesting game. It's great, and since then the Tales series has not evolved at all. And Namco keeps making money off of it somehow. It's incredible.

Cless -> Chess -> Rook

Name him Rook, or maybe Bishop.

I think you mean "Bulma."

As long as it's phoenetically similar to a kind of underpant.

But, yeah. That's not entirely true. Like DQ, the other games in the series are different enough to say that they've at least been refined over time, even if the most very basic mechanics are the same. The difference is that the newer Tales games absolutely do not have the charm that the older ones had. Much less the charm and polish that DQ has.

What I played of Vesperia seemed like they were just taking the plot way too seriously for how generic it was, and it just came off as insipid instead of charming.

I've barely played this version, and not at all in English. I did play on GBA a few times, where you can't change Cress' name at all. But I'm familiar with some of the other changes because of it. (For all I know, the infamous "tiger" line is still in, though based on what I've gathered I'm pretty sure it's not.) So I don't know about changing names whenever.

At any rate, the fact that the PS1 version pretty much plays like all of the later games is the main reason I like the original more. Though I have to say, controlling Suzu is a pretty strong case for the remade versions.
I thought it was you, but I decided I'd look dumber if I said it was you and then it wasn't, than just saying I forgot in the first place.

Anyway I'm not convinced I'll be taking this as seriously as I did with most of Persona 2. I actually like the plot in this game a lot, but the pacing sucks pretty badly and most of what happens is rendered largely irrelevant in the later bits of the game. (Kind of like Persona 2!)
Unless what Spoony said is true (I'll check later tonight) this may be something of a problem, since you certainly don't get to name the other characters on joining, if at all. It's stupid, I know.

Considering I've played every Tales game except for the Japanese only entries, the ones that really deserve a playthrough are these:

1. Phantasia (SFC or PS1, but not the GBA ver.)
2. Destiny
3. Destiny 2/Eternia (for the best battle system in the series hands down, less so for the Engrishy localization)
4. Vesperia (For the best 3D battle system and 1/2 of a generally charming plot before it gets all serious and crap)

It turns out the game is still on my PSP, so I just went ahead and checked this.

Yes, you can rename Cless and everyone else.

Oh man, excellent.

I know who's being named Tequila!

Also, I've played a lot of Rebirth and aside from working through the menus and cutscenes being a chore in Japanese I'm quite fond of it.

(fun story: at one point there's a menu option to warp instantly back to Sulz, the town from the beginning of the game. I used this and had to walk for about half an hour to get back to where I was.)

I vote Bishop. And then we can name everybody else after X-Men characters too.

I really enjoyed Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny, but by the time I was done with Tales of Eternia and Tales of Symphonia, I had lost all interest in the series. It's the same game with the same characters over and over again. There's The Girl, The Tough, The Street Smart, The Hero, The Anti-Hero...it's ridiculous. Each Tales game is every RPG cliche rolled into one, but with a great battle system. That's one thing the Tales series does have going for it. Fighting is never boring. But that can only go so far when the story that's built around it is an absolute turd.

That said, this is probably the best one so let's all enjoy it.

I don't see why people dislike the GBA version so much. Yeah, the translation is wonky and the music's a bit different than the SNES version (less so than the PS1 version, though), but the gameplay's largely intact. It does suck that they took out sound mode in the US release, though...

Also, Tequila? That, right there, is an awesome name for a hero. Though you would have to follow suite and give everybody else alcohol names too. I wonder who would be Guiness?

The music is horrible. The gameplay is sort of buggy and is a half-assed mix-match of the SFC and PS1 versions.

...aaaand that's about all really, besides the cruddy localization.

The GBA one was inexcusably sluggish. The only version of Phantasia I spent much time with was the PSOne version so maybe it was similar on the SNES, but it felt like everyone was moving through molasses. Being so combat heavy a Tales game absolutely depends on its battle system, so having it be so slow and unresponsive kills the game for me.

Alcohol themed names is the way to go! Cless should be named Tequila, especially since his dad's name is Miguel.

Mint should be Julep or Mojito.
Klarth should be Bourbon or Whiskey.
Suzu should be Sake.
I don't know about Arche and Chester, though.

Cress= Tequila
Chester= Vodka
Mint= Gin
Arche= Sherry
Claus= Bourbon
Suzu= Soda

No I don't watch Detective Conan why do you ask ohohohoho

I'm liking the liquor names thing. Because Grim Grimoire also did that and Grim Grimoire is awesome. But I think we'll change up the names at least a couple times.

The SNES and PS1 versions have roughly the same speed of combat. Based on what I've played though, you die faster in the original version if things go wrong, which makes it feel a bit more exciting. And it has a better Hard mode overall, since it just raises enemy damage instead of health and damage like the PS1 version. Though admittedly, it makes getting the fourth party member a pretty obnoxious grind since the two bosses in that dungeon are pretty horribly difficult even on normal, and unlike the later versions you can't downgrade at will.

The funny thing about the series overall is that this one has always struck me as simultaneously the least goofy and the least brooding. Which goes about the same for tri-Ace as well since they split off after working on this game. It's one of the most melancholy game stories I've really seen work because until the end, it's never too self-satisfied.

Chess-themed (i.e. Bishop) would be fun but you'd have to rename people "Pawn" when story-appropriate. Like through most of Vesperia, Estelle would probably bear that name.

Drinky-theme is okay though.

I vote for a good balance between Chess and Alcohol names at all times in accordance with their respective behaviors throughout. (The idea of naming them all pawns when story-appropriate is highly appealing to me as well)

Maybe the craziest feature of this hack is this:

It lets you decide how the skill names are displayed, and let me tell you, I can't tell which of these is less useful to me. The translated names are still all literal and don't match Namco's official ones, while the romanized kanji, despite being nonsense to my gaijin brain, I can keep track of just as well having heard them all yelled hundreds of times playing this game repeatedly.

Anyway, the game begins with a short-ish prologue. (This is the only tri-Ace game before Valkyrie Profile 2 to get into the actual game in a remotely reasonable time frame) Four people are fighting an exceptionally large blonde man in a cape. Three are still standing. One chants an incantation.

A huge bolt of lightning comes down and zaps the huge guy, who turns into a small spark of light and vanishes.

That spark then travels through a blue haze, with a particle effect, a really nice music track, and the opening credits going on. On the SFC version, this all looks a lot different, and the credits are for the main people who worked on the game. In this version, it just gives all the voice actors and the characters they voiced.

The man reappears in a dimly lit room, where a coffin lies open. He gets trapped by a magical triangle, which forces him into the box. It gets shut, and two magical pendants are revealed.

Ten years later, in the village of Toltus...


PANTS (yes, I'm starting with PANTS names, just for the very beginning) is talking to his father Miguel. Miguel wants to talk to him about the pendant he gave PANTS for his fifteenth birthday...but PANTS has some plans for today. Also, the venerated sword master Tristan is visiting the village today.

Meanwhile, his friend Chester Barklight is leaving his house, telling his sister Ami (why isn't it just "Amy"? Oh well, not like she's a major character or anything) to watch the house. She tells him she has something to give PANTS. Chester comes over to the Alveins' door and calls for PANTS.

Miguel tells PANTS they can talk about it at dinner, since the two boys are going to go hunting. Chester gets renamed "CHAPS" for now. (He was going to be "BRITCHES" for the purpose of terrible punning, but it was too long) As they leave the house, PANTS' mother Maria comes out of the house and tells them to be careful, then gives them an Apple Gummi (30% health restore).

Ami's gift for PANTS is a little doll that looks like him.

It's completely useless, but amusing and this is *cough* the only time in the game when you can get it. (I'm also pretty sure it's not in the original version, and I think the text that indicates it exists is also absent from the GBA translation) Chester gets a bit jealous that there's nothing for him, her brother, so she also gives a "Channeling" ring, an accessory that...I'm not sure does anything either.

On their way out of town, they see Master Tristan again, who says that he's been called away urgently by two people. He tells them again to take care on their hunt.


This is the overworld map. It looks okay, I guess. The hunting ground is the forest just southeast of Toltus.


The pair find their mark almost immediately, a large boar. Chasing it through the woods leads into the game's first battles. (Unless you run around grinding for a while on the map)


This game uses random encounters, some of which are occasionally really mean, but early on they're pretty straightforward. Especially since your only move is attack, at first. You get a bunch of different attacks, but they're still all attacks.

First, if you're far away, the character you're controlling will run at the enemy. There's three main attacks from long distance. Up and attack will cause PANTS to jump and stab upward at the end of the run, hitting flying enemies and knocking ground enemies into the air (unless it misses). Down and attack causes him to jump up into the air and descend toward the enemy for a powerful stab. Pressing to the sides or not touching the D-pad at all causes him to do a similar jump, but with a downward slash at the end.

If you're close, then pressing attack twice will perform a two-hit combo. There's three versions of this too, all determined by which direction you press with the first attack. Up causes him to slash upward, then jump up a bit and slash downward. This is the most important combo if you really need to avoid enemies hitting you (basically, playing the beginning of the game on a higher difficulty than normal), since it has the quickest recovery and stops enemies both on ground and in the air. The down combo is a low stab, followed by a slash upward that knocks the enemy into the air. Sometimes. The neutral combo is a plain slash, followed by a daring thrust forward. This gets you a couple steps and can be used to hit enemies who are standing next to each other, but it leaves you vulnerable to those same enemies.

In this and all later versions, you can switch to control any character you like, but CHAPS isn't a whole lot of fun honestly; he's slow and can't combo, plus the line-based battle system makes playing the range game a whole lot less interesting since PANTS will just meatshield for you no matter what. Most of the other characters are even worse, as spellcasters who you can control manually just as effectively by using Menu Magic.


At level 2 PANTS will learn his first Technique, or "Tech" for short. Techs cost Tech Points (TP) no matter which character you're using. You get back a bit of TP at the end of each battle, a percentage of each character's max. The first tech is Demon Fang, a projectile attack that runs along the ground, until it hits something. The sword swing that accompanies it delivers a second hit if you're in melee range, but...well overall the skill is pretty weak. Still, there's nothing else to spend TP on so far. This screen lets you set four techs, so you can use different ones depending on which direction you hold when pressing the tech button. You can also change them in battle if you want, and an accessory you can find later in the game removes this restriction entirely by changing all of the tech commands into Street Fighter moves.

At level 3 CHAPS learns his first tech. Actually, he doesn't get them at all in the original version. CHAPS' techs are really good. Just from the start, his fire arrow hits for about 30 damage, when any other hit is lucky to do 10.

Anyway, at a clearing in the woods, the boys realize they've lost track of the boar. CHAPS looks around for it, while PANTS finds himself drawn to a rotted, old tree. (Guess what? It's central to the plot!)

Suddenly, a spirit appears near the tree. It appears to be a woman in a dress, and she implores PANTS to "do no harm" to it. He looks up to see a fleeting vision of the grand tree in its full splendor, then CHAPS returns and tries to get him to pay attention again.

The boar shows its face again, which means it's time to fight!

The battle is against one huge boar, who has a little less than 200 HPs, and three little boarlings. The young ones don't do anything except run away after about 10 seconds. If you can kill them (which is awfully difficult) you get little strips of bacon or something for your characters to eat. I don' remember. The big one hits pretty hard. Still, the battle's mostly a matter of pushing him backwards into the corner and then mashing him to death.

The "stun" status here is the most powerful in the game, basically (aside from Petrify on your characters, but you can't cast it on enemies, so it's not too relevant). It's randomly inflicted by physical hits, and prevents enemies from blocking said hits. Unlike the 3-D games, it doesn't go away when you hit the enemy; you're supposed to keep wailing on them as hard as you can while it's up.

After the battle, the two are satisfied with their work and consider the hunt finished, since they won't need any more food. Suddenly, they're startled by a loud din, that stretches even to the serene depths of the forest.

They race out to see what's happened, and...

That is not good.

I've finished playing the whole beginning (this is like 15 minutes out of the first hour) but that took forever to write since I was trying to explain so much so the rest is going up tomorrow I guess. Also, I had to make a second post for this because there's still a character limit? I thought that got taken out.