Tales of Eternia is a traditional console-style RPG with some action elements during battle. If you've played any of the Tales games, for example Tales of Symphonia for the GameCube, then you should be quite familiar with the mechanics of this game. Tales of Eternia for the PSP is actually a port of the PS game of the same name that came out a few years ago in Japan.
Gameplay and Controls
Anime fans may appreciate the comedic elements such as 'emotion bubbles' that display graphic responses to discussions / activities in the game. A nice surprise was the voice talking in the game. Obviously limited to certain scenes, but it certainly adds to the level of depth.
Movement in the game works both via the analog stick and the D-pad with the Triangle accessing your items, equipment, options etc. The Circle button is your talk button and the Square button allows you to camp when outside. In battle, you can use the X and a variety of D-pad buttons to use special attacks and combat maneuvers which you gain more of as your character progresses.
I did find the battle scenes to be a little awkward as your characters are constantly on a 2D plane and can only move backwards/forwards to fight enemies. Personally, I would've preferred a more traditional Dragon Quest / FF style turn-based battle engine where you're not required to do lots of button mashing to level up and progress. Finally, when in the outside map, you can rotate the view with the Left/Right shoulder buttons. Enemy encounters are random and the enemies are not visible.
Loading Times
With the dissapointing loading times in Gagharv Trilogy and other early PSP titles, it's a pleasure to see Namco put a nail in the coffin of slow loading times. Moving to/from towns takes only a second or two. The same can be said for getting into and out of battles. For all intents and purposes you feel as if you're playing a console RPG.
Graphics
If you've played Tales of Symphonia first then you may notice a slight downgrade in graphics and gameplay. Oddly, some text was anti-aliased while other text was pixelated. The latter of these looked the best while the anti-aliased text gave me the impression that they simply did a bad job of converting the game to the PSP's screen. Having just recently finished Tales of Symphonia for the GC (easily an 80+hour game) this new Tales adventure was a slight step back in terms of fluid graphics, but the gameplay and vibe are definetly there.
Language
Language, while definetly not something that has stopped true fans from playing import titles, will undoubtedly be an issue for those less passionate. Being a Japanese RPG, text is abundant and despite the slightly more kiddy feel (in comparison to FF) there will be no Furigana to help you along. Those of you who aren't entirely fluent but are learning may find this game to be a great learning tool. The Kanji / text is generally simple and if you have a basic grasp you should always have at least a rough idea of what is going on.
Overall
If you're hungry for a console style RPG and have either some interest in the series, knowledge of Japanese or are learning Japanese, then this game is a great buy. If other Tales series games are anything to go by, the adventure is incredibly long and there is a lot to do aside from the main quest. With the lack of Japanese RPG's being imported on any console, it's highly possible that this may never come out in English, which would be a pity.
Thanks very much to Lik-Sang for providing this game for review. Don't forget that Lik-Sang has free shipping on all PSP games.
this game is great DECODED if you are a fan of rpgs this is a must have. I know the graphics are kinda dated but everything else is good. Amazing Storyline
I liked the older "Tales of ..." series with the 2D Plane Linear Motion Battle System so this is great for me. Tales of Symphonia was a little weird with it's free roaming view with LMS battling...
This is, unfortunately, no Tales of Symphonia. The graphics are not quite as sharp as they could be (in fact, much of the game seems to have a soft blur to it) and battles are somewhat crude and also 'soft focus'.
Battles are 'tripped' by walking under branches and such, where you may or may not encounter an enemy, sort of like Pokemon or older Phantasy Star games where just walking through a field would trigger a random encounter.
There's a nice iso view to the game, actually slightly more at an angle than others and gives it more of a cinematic feel. Water has reflections and ripples, grass waves in the wind. The environmental touches are certainly nice, though overall the gameplay can't hold a candle to a 'mere' GBA game like Zelda: Minish Cap.
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