The Radical Child

A Tale Well Retold

Namco’s Tales of series began in 1995 with Phantasia for the Super Famicom, although Nintendo of America’s aversion to any game with “controversial” content prevented its localization, and North American gamers would get their first taste of the franchise with Tales of Destiny for the Sony PlayStation, although its English release occurred when Japanese RPGs in general were still niche, and the series wasn’t nearly popular enough to warrant translation of its many future titles. Destiny would eventually see a remake for the PlayStation 2, not to mention an updated rerelease, Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut, which too didn’t receive an official English version.

Like its original incarnation, Destiny opens with blonde spiky-haired narcoleptic protagonist Stahn Aileron stowing away on the sentient dragon ship, the Draconis, where he finds a special weapon in the form of Dymlos, an intelligent talking weapon known as a Swordian. He eventually crosses paths with other Swordian wielders, with those who infused their souls into the weapons from the ancient Aeth’er Wars, which threatens to repeat with the gradual creation of a second earth above the current world with the help of a powerful MacGuffin known as the Eye of Atamoni. The story is fairly enjoyable, with plentiful development largely thanks to the countless skits throughout the game, although there are some minor similarities to Phantasia and some narrative nods to the Star Wars series.

The PlayStation 2 version of Destiny, unlike the initial incarnation, features an encounter system similar to the third Shin Megami Tensei and Etrian Odyssey franchise where an indicator gradually turns lavender to indicate how close the player is to encountering enemies, with the frequency of encounters luckily adjustable with Holy and Dark Bottles, not to mention support skills (new to the remake) from sidelined companions. Rather than rehash the original game’s two-dimensional gameplay, the remake sports a new incarnation of the series’ signature gameplay known as the Aerial Linear Motion Battle System (AR-LMBS) that emphasizes aerial combination attacks against the enemy.

Furthermore, MP is gone, replaced by Chain Capacity points, where each of the four characters active in combat start with an initial account dictated by certain innate skills, regular attacks consuming one CC, and other skills and magic consuming different amounts. After a character has completely exhausted his or her CC, they refill, with their beginning amount increased by one, and having a cap that too special skills set up outside battle dictate. While the AI of the controlled character’s allies is mostly competent, it isn’t always foolproof, but mercifully, the player can pause the action of combat to use magic manually, or a consumable item (their use being strictly manual) after which players must wait a few seconds before being able to use another.

Outside combat, Swordian users can make use of the Swordian Device system to set special skills that require a certain number of points, with those equipped gradually gaining percentage points where, at a hundred percent, they “master” and unlock higher-level abilities. Another addition is the Rerise system where the player can use different Lens types, obtained from victorious battles, to raise their stats, with different branches that have divergent stat development paths. The system of food is different as well, players initially able to equip four different recipes that see their use depending upon certain combat conditions to recover the party’s health, with the Food Sack eventually leveling to hold up to eight recipes that too eventually see mastery.

The battle system is generally enjoyable, although the Chain Capacity system requires a certain amount of finesse to master in Semi-Auto or Manual control, and thus, I mostly relied upon Automatic control, with the AI in that regard generally being competent in spite of occasional hiccups. Combat speed is fast as well, and should the player yearn to control a character directly, switching enemy targets pauses the action of battle akin to other entries of the franchise, and players can see how much of their health remain, which elements they’re strong against, and those to which they’re weak. Difficulty is adjustable too, and there are still plenty of tough moments even on the easiest setting, yet the challenge is generally fair. On the whole, the developers did a good job assembling the game mechanics.

Control has its high points as well, with an easy menu system, skippable voiced dialogue (except during skits) and FMVs (luckily pausable as well, as is the majority of the game within and without battle), clear direction on how to advance the main storyline with indicators noting where the player needs to go next on the overworld, a suspend save function in addition to hard saves, an in-game clock that shows both total playtime and how much time players have spent in their current session with the game, and so forth. Granted, dungeon maps are absent, and there was one point in the last dungeon where I got stuck (involving an invisible staircase), but otherwise, interaction definitely rises above average.

The aurals are another highlight of the remake, beginning with the theme song during the opening anime, which has a sad instrumental version throughout the game, not to mention plenty of solid tracks from composers Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, for instance, with three remixes of the same battle theme indicative of the main game’s current act. The Japanese voicework largely fits the various characters as well, although the seiyū, as usual, botch the English names of abilities in combat. However, there are few to no complaints about the sound effects, and overall, the remake definitely sounds great.

The visuals are nice, as well, with a style combining two-dimensional and 3-D elements, the character sprites in towns, dungeons, and battles being 2-D and having good proportions wherever they exist, alongside colorful scenery that the developers occasionally prerendered, although there are occasional three-dimensional environs that move with the player’s visible character. The graphics are perhaps weakest on the overworld, where the model indicating the player’s active party is 3-D alongside the world map itself, which has a lot of popup as well. However, the visuals are good in battle aside from a few reskinned enemies, and ultimately the remake looks good graphically even today.

Finally, Stahn’s Side of the storyline takes somewhere from thirty to forty hours to complete, with Leon’s Side taking around ten, accounting for somewhere between twenty-four to forty-eight hours total, with plenty of lasting appeal in the form of a New Game Plus mode where the player can bequeath elements from previous playthroughs, not to mention sidequests such as an extra dungeon, and aside from the lack of in-game percentage completions, replayability is well above average.

All things considered, Namco Tales Studio did an excellent job remaking Tales of Destiny, which almost feels like a completely different game, given the major modifications to the core gameplay that work superbly, alongside solid control, an excellent storyline with two different perspectives, great sound, and pretty visuals. Granted, those who don’t care much for the idea of a game that’s a lot easier to allow to “play itself” may not appreciate it, and there are some minor hiccups especially in regards to the graphics, but the game definitely deserved an official localization, and those who don’t want to wait years for a port or remaster will be happy to know a mostly-complete English fan translation exists.

This review is based on single playthroughs of Stahn and Leon’s Sides, each on Simple difficulty.

The Good:
+Great game mechanics.
+Tight control.
+Enjoyable story.
+Superb soundtrack and voicework.
+Looks good even today.
+Plentiful lasting appeal.

The Bad:
-A lot easier to let “play itself”.
-No in-game maps.
-Skit dialogue unskippable.
-Visuals lack polish at points.

The Bottom Line:
A superb remake Americans missed out on.

Score Breakdown:
Platform: PlayStation 2
Game Mechanics: 9.5/10
Controls: 9.0/10
Story: 9.0/10
Music/Sound: 9.5/10
Graphics: 8.5/10
Lasting Appeal: 9.5/10
Difficulty: Adjustable
Playing Time: 24-48 Hours

Overall: 9.5/10

Nietzsche im Weltraum

Those who beat Squaresoft (now Square-Enix’s) science-fiction RPG Xenogears noted that the ending credits proclaimed it as the fifth entry of a larger series, akin to the original Star Wars trilogy’s chronological placement as episodes four through six, and a Japan-only book called Xenogears Perfect Works covered a timeline detaining countless events that never made it into the game. A console generation later on the PlayStation 2, developer Monolith Soft produced and Namco published a spiritual successor/predecessor to Xenogears, Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht, which definitely retains the spirit of the original PlayStation game, but is this a good thing?

Episode I opens with archaeologists in Kenya, sometime during the twenty-first century, uncovering a relic that enables humanity to travel space beyond the Solar System, the monolithic Zohar. Over four millennia later, humans would leave Earth to colonize the galaxy after a cataclysmic event, with a human scientist named Shion Uzuki the caretaker of an android dubbed KOS-MOS, able to materialize and defeat alien beings known as the Gnosis. The narrative in general takes inspiration from philosophers such as Fredrich Nietzsche, and is very-well told, if forced down the player’s throat due to unskippable voiced dialogue, and slightly derivative of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Much of the dialogue is well-written, although there are occasional hiccups such as the tendency of much of the battle dialogue, particularly with regards to characters shouting the names of their Techs in battle, to sound somewhat unnatural, and most of the lip movement during voiced scenes to be way off at times and indicative of the title’s Japanese origin. Probably the biggest localization change that makes a huge difference is the ability to skip voiced scenes completely, and there is occasional humor in the dialogue. Regardless, the translation somewhat seems unrefined at many points, with a little censorship of a few scenes as well.

For a game that allegedly emphasizes the narrative above the gameplay, the general combat mechanics are surprisingly well-executed, even somewhat addictive. Models indicating enemy parties populate the game’s dungeons, with occasional traps that the on-screen character can detonate to gain an advantage in the encounter triggered when contacting a foe, such as one boost point for each of the three active participants in battle to start with. Combat has a turn-based structure similar to other roleplaying contemporaries such as Final Fantasy X, with commands immediately executed after input, and each ally starting with four action points (six the maximum for each fighter).

Each action consumes a certain number of action points, which refill in between character turns, with characters having four AP able to execute melee and ranged attacks against enemies, each consuming two AP. A character can also defend to conserve AP, and when they have six the following turn, they can chain two attacks and execute a powerful Tech at the end of the combination, the player able to set up to four after different square/triangle button combinations in the game menus. With enough Tech Points acquired from winning battles, player can allow characters to use Techs after executing only one square or triangle attack with just 4 AP, with a maximum of two of these “shortcuts” per character.

Players can also use Tech Points to empower character Techs or reduce the wait time after execution before their subsequent turns in combat. Additionally, the player can use TP to provide increases to character stats outside combat, with each stat having a max that slightly increases when a character levels through standard RPG experience acquisition. Characters can also equip a weapon and an ammunition cartridge when available, along with a piece of body armor and two accessories. Using Skill Points also acquired alongside Tech Points from victory in combat, players can also extract passive benefits from accessories that provide benefits such as defense against certain status ailments, each ally able to equip up to three of these.

Each playable character in Xenosaga also has a “level” with regards to the aforementioned passive skills, with the acquisition of new ones from accessories gradually increasing it, level five seeming to be the highest tier. Additionally from combat do characters receive Ether Points they can invest into ability trees that allow them to execute EP-consuming magical attacks, with a cap as to how many they can use in combat. There are also certain Ether abilities that the player can only acquire through special means, although these may require referencing the internet to find, but mercifully the game is still beatable without finding them.

Another interesting facet of combat is the ability of playable characters to “boost” when they’ve acquired enough stamina from attacking enemies, with each ally having a maximum of three stackable boosts in battle, and can only do so when one character’s icon doesn’t appear in the turn order gauge at the bottom-right of the screen. However, these boosts are “use it or lose it,” and reset to zero with each new battle, with enemies able to boost for extra turns as well, although these seem to be spontaneous, and adversaries don’t seem to have any limit as to how many additional turns they can get.

One the main issues of combat is the need at many times for foresight, especially since the developers made the unusual decision, one that would repeat itself through the game’s two sequels, to have the turn order meter only show for up to four turns who goes next, with the gauge eventually running out of icons before “refilling.” It’s not a game-breaking design issue, and combat is generally fun (although a turbo mode, given some drawn-out Tech animations, would have been nice), with the various parallel systems being nothing short of engrossing, and accounting for a solid gameplay experience.

Control, on the other hand, could have been better. Most notable is the total inability, during voiced cutscenes, to skip dialogue, definitely not accommodating towards audiences such as hearing-impaired gamers who could only read. There are other issues as well such as the glacial menus, among their problems being their needless depth at times, for instance, with players needing to go to a character’s stat screen to change equipment. Autosaving, given the length of many cutscenes and sometimes-inconsistent placement of save points, would have been welcome as well. There are positives such as the ability to pause and skip cutscenes, but Xenosaga could have been more user-friendly.

Xenogears composer Yasunori Mitsuda composes Episode I’s soundtrack, which definitely has its share of good tracks, with some good cutscene pieces and a central theme that ultimately has a vocal iteration during the ending credits. However, most exploration throughout the game is silent except for footsteps and maybe whirring engines, and there’s only one standard battle theme until the final boss. The voice acting is largely solid, with voices fitting their respective characters, although allies whining and crying when they die, and shouting the names of their commands, can get tiresome. The sound isn’t solid, but could have certainly been worse.

For a game that’s around a score old, however, the visuals look surprisingly good, with well-proportioned character models containing good animation, anime designs, and expressions, lips moving as they should during voiced cutscenes. The environments are believable and contain nice coloring, and the designs of enemies in combat are good as well, with some occasional solid CG scenes, although as with most three-dimensional graphics, there’s an occasional tendency of environs to have blurry and pixilated texturing. Even so, a decent-looking game.

Finally, one could possibly make it through the game, skipping all cutscenes, in as little as twenty-four hours, although a playthrough with all cutscenes viewed and grinding occasionally necessary at times can push playtime up to around forty-eight (which was my approximate ending time) or beyond if the player really wants to grind their characters excessively, although there really isn’t much motivation to go through the game again, with no New Game+, a dearth of sidequests aside from tedious minigames, and most players likely wanting to move on to the sequel after a single playthrough.

Overall, Xenosaga Episode I is a competent Japanese RPG that hits some good notes, especially with regards to its surprisingly-fun gameplay systems, developed narrative, and nice graphics, although there are significant issues with regards to its glacial pacing, the notable waste of composer Yasunori Mitsuda’s talent, and absence of lacking appeal. A remaster would ideally resolve whatever issues it has, although the latest news of the series indicated an enhanced port wasn’t in order despite rumors, and while the first entry of the series was better than I remember, it certainly isn’t worth breaking out an old PlayStation 2 just to experience the game.

The Good:
+Surprisingly-good game mechanics.
+Well-written narrative.
+Some good music.
+Graphics look good even today.

The Bad:
-Battles would have benefitted from turbo mode.
-Glacial menus and cutscenes.
-Yasunori Mitsuda’s talent somewhat wasted.
-No reason to go through again.

The Bottom Line:
A competent but average JRPG.

Score Breakdown:
Platform: PlayStation 2
Game Mechanics: 8.5/10
Controls: 3.5/10
Story: 7.5/10
Localization: 5.0/10
Music/Sound: 6.5/10
Graphics: 7.5/10
Lasting Appeal: 0.0/10
Difficulty: Relatively Easy
Playing Time: 24-72 Hours

Overall: 5.5/10

Currently Playing:

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - I'm in Chapter 4, and spent an hour grinding quickly in missions, before finding thanks to the internet that it's apparently a better idea to change classes for characters earlier.

Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht - I don't know why, but I just had a strange itching to go through this game again, despite my mixed feelings on it from ages ago. It's actually a lot better than I remember it despite its flaws, and for some reason I've been having a blast grinding.

In My Backlog:

Baldur's Gate I + II: Enhanced Editions - Low priority.

Dragon Quest - Don't know when I'll get to this.

Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel - Depending upon the circumstances, this may be the next game I begin.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD - Another game my younger brother loaned me. He warned me that it has issues with its controls, and I'll probably hold off on it until I beat Three Houses.

Ultima II + III - Low priority too.