letsplaytalesof-blog

[letsplaytalesof-blog]

Part 1 (Tales of Phantasia, 1)

The journey begins with Tales of Phantasia. Originally released on the Super Famicom in 1995, the title didn’t come overseas until 2006 on the Game Boy Advance. The version I will be playing is the GBA version via the My Boy! emulator on my Samsung Galaxy S9+. The emulator is free but has a paid version with extra features. 

The game definitely shows its age with sprite graphics, but being a GBA title it has some voice acting which is impressive. The usual anime intro is not present, and is actually a gameplay montage complete with UI elements. 

The opening scene depicts four heroes defeating a villain via a spell “Indignation.” I’ve seen this spell in the late game of some other Tales games. The villain is trapped in a pendant of some sort and we jump forward in time.

The protagonist is Cress Albane, the son of a great swordsman who seems to posses the amulet from the opening. His mother is sick with an unknown illness. Chester, Cress’ friend, comes to visit so they can go hunting. 

Like most Tales games, and JRPGs in general, the very beginning of the game features a free healing spot so new players can experiment with the game and not worry about running out of items/money right away. The goal is to get the characters are much experience in the early forest level as possible before losing the free heal. 

This is where the emulators Fast Forward feature comes in handy, as I can set the characters to Auto and let them grind at high speeds. I just need to be careful that I don’t neglect healing, since neither Cress nor Chester have healing spells. Cress uses a sword and learns Demon Fang and Swallow Dance right off the bat. Chester uses a bow and arrows and learns Hell Pyre.

After grinding to level 5 I killed a boar and returned to find the village of Toltus destroyed. Cress’ Mom, still alive but just barely, tells him to visit his uncle in a city to the north. There’s a mountainous passage on the way there but I take the easy route and arrive in Euclid. Too bad Cress’ uncle hands him over to the bad guys that very night.

After escaping and meeting Mint, the healer and female protagonist, I’m met with a difficult first dungeon in the Aqueducts. I had planned on letting the Auto-battle handle things, as it is usually competent enough, but with this early game it simply cannot be relied on. Enemies will regularly box Cress into a corner and stun-lock him for nearly his entire HP pool. I took over and was able to defeat the dungeon boss and escape.

[letsplaytalesof-blog]

Part 0 (Intro)

In this blog, I’m going to chronicle my journey through the entire “Tales of” JRPG series. My first experience with this game series was playing Tales of Symphonia on the Gamecube with my school friends. I played halfway through Tales of Legendia on Playstation 2, completed Tales of Vesperia on XBOX 360, Tales of Xillia on Playstation 3 and dabbled in Tales of Zestiria/Tales of Beseria on my PC. 

Here’s the complete list of games in the series, as well as the method I will be using to play them.

Tales of Phantasia (Game Boy Advance via emulation)

Tales of Destiny (Playstation via emulation)

Tales of Eternia (Playstation Portable via emulation)

Tales of Destiny 2 (Playstation Portable via emulation)

Tales of Symphonia (PC)

Tales of Rebirth (Playstation 2 via emulation)

Tales of Legendia (Playstation 2 via emulation)

Tales of the Abyss (Playstation 2 via emulation)

Tales of Innocence (Nintendo DS via emulation)

Tales of Vesperia (PC)

Tales of Hearts (Nintendo DS via emulation)

Tales of Graces (Playstation 3)

Tales of Xillia (Playstation 3)

Tales of Xillia 2 (Playstation 3)

Tales of Zestiria (PC)

Tales of Beseria (PC)

Some of the play methods may change as I may be able to acquire a Nintendo DS or Playstation Vita for Innocence/Hearts. I already own Innocence R on Vita, but I do not have the console anymore.