Tales of Destiny

STORY

It's been awhile since I played this game so bear with me on the lack of brief description. The story starts off with the main hero, Stahn Aileron, taking a ride on a giant dragon ship. During the flight, the ship is attacked by pirates. Stahn looking for a weapon to defend himself found a sword. Now this isn't just any sword. It turns out that the sword is a talking sword called Dymlos. Dymlos is a swordian of ancient times. Dymlos has been awaken from his sleep due to the fact that the world is in grave danger. So after defeating the pirates, Stahn and his new talking sword (Dymlos) set off to explore the world to find out what threatens the world that would have awaken Dymlos. Along the journey, Stahn will meet up with others who have swordians as well.
Okay, this wasn't a great brief description of the story but I will say that the story is a great one. It's long and in-depth with plot twists. Don't let the story fool you. Just when you think it's over, it's really only beginning.

Score: 10/10

CHARACTERS

Ahh, great characters are feature in this game. You'll be introduce to many characters as well as those in our party. Each party members have his/her own unique characteristic and background. You'll learn more about them all as the game progresses. You can't help but fall in love with the characters here.

Score: 8/10

GRAPHICS

The game consist of a beautiful 2-D rendered background with short small little sprites. Okay, the graphics looks more like 16 bit graphics than 32 bit but it's the best looking 16 bit graphics I've seen. The colors used in this game is incredible. This shows you that not everything need to be in 3-D to have great graphics. Too bad there aren't any real anime cut scene added to the game other than at the beginning intro.

Score: 9/10

MUSIC

If there's a weak spot on this rpg than it's the music. The music is decent with some good tunes but one would hope that there are more tunes than just a few. All the tunes are average only with nothing really standing out as something that will move you to remember the game.

Score: 6/10

GAMEPLAY

The gameplay is pretty simple like with most rpgs. Explore the world and talk to townspeople to progress in the game. There are lots of extra stuff to do in the game though. Most of the fun stuff comes from the battle system. Now the game uses random and non-random fights. For non-random fights, you can see the monsters moving about. If you touch them then you will go into a fight. Simple enough. There are some puzzle solving throughout the game though. Most of the puzzles are pretty easy. Now for the battle system.
Battle System: The battle system or screen consists of a 2-D background side to side with sprites. Basically all your fighters are on the left side of the screen and the enemies are on the right side of the screen. You can only have up to 4 members in a fight. Now the battle system is a free style fight. Basically you can control only one fighter while the other 3 fighters you have to assign them what you want them to do. Assignments range from No Quarter (fighter attack with the strongest attack possible) to Use No Skills ( attack but don't use any special skills). Each fighter has his/her own special attacks and magic. When a fight starts the fighter you control can move back and forth attacking the enemy in an action like sequence while the 3 fighters will back him up with magic or special attacks. This is a great battle system. It's fast and fieriest. Nothing beats having your fighter hitting the enemies with special attacks while your back guys hitting them with magic. The system is very much like that of Star Ocean, only Star Ocean battle system is in a 3-D environment. This is the best part of the game.

Score: 9/10

EXTRAS/REPLAY

There are lots of extras stuff here. Too many to mention. You have mini games to cooking game to searching for special items that will give you secret magic or special attacks. There's even a hidden side quest where you can climb the 60 floor Tower of Druaga. While the game doesn't give you much in terms of multiple endings, you would definetly want to replay this game. Besides there's no way can you try out all the extra stuff without having to replay it at least once.

Score: 9/10

My summary is pretty simple really. This is an rpg game that you don't want to miss out on. This is one of the best rpg games that I've played. If you enjoy Star Ocean than you will enjoy Tales of Destiny and vice versa.

Final Score: 9/10

~Chi