Tales of Phantasia

Tales of Phantasia (or sometimes Tales of Fantasia) (Japanese: テイルズ オブ ファンタジア) is an Super Famicom game from Namco, released in 1995.

Namco has deliberately kept this game Japan-only, believing that Namco of America would not make enough money off of the game. However, the Super Famicom (SFC) version of the game was unofficially translated into English, French, Spanish, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Brazilian Portuguese, and Finnish (by various online translation groups under the supervision of DeJap Translations who made the English version).

Tales of Phantasia was developed by Wolf Team, written and programmed by Yoshiharu Gotanda, and scored by Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura. It was the first SFC game being 48MBit large and to feature streamed audio voices, made possible by sound programmer Hiroya Hatsushiba. The fan translators did not dub the voices, adding authenticity to the gameplay.

Tales of Phantasia was later remade for the Sony PlayStation (PSX) and ported to the Game Boy Advance (GBA). Some gameplay changes were made for the PSX and GBA versions. The GBA version contains elements from the SFC and PSX versions. The sprites and battle graphics were from the PSX version, while the opening credits sequence, map, and field graphics are from the SFC version. The PSX and GBA version includes an extra playable character, a new summon, and new sidequests.

Tales of Phantasia is regarded as a gem and an import classic by some RPG fans, because it is a quality game but is not well-known by average gamers (since it never left Japan), and because an emulator is needed to play it in any other language than Japanese. It had some of the most impressive graphics on the SNES/SFC, a memorable soundtrack, and also an innovative battle system (Linear Motion Battle System, similar to Street Fighter) that distinguished it from all other RPGs of the time.

Tales of Phantasia also makes extensive references to Norse mythology, with many locations named after Scandanavian mythical locations (Midgard, Valhalla, etc) and gods (Thor, Fenrir, Heimdall, etc), weapons such as Odin's Gungnir, the Tree of Life Yggdrasil, and countless others.

Other renowned RPGs from the mid-1990s, considered by many fans as the "golden age" of RPG gaming, include Chrono Trigger, Star Ocean series, Final Fantasy series, Terranigma, Dragon Quest series and Seiken Densetsu 3. In particular, Star Ocean is often regarded a spiritual successor to Tales of Phantasia, employing many similar inventory items, gameplay and battle traits. It was developed by tri-Ace, a company founded by members of Namco's original Wolf Team, who created Tales of Phantasia.

Tales of Phantasia is now also a series of anime OAV.

Storyline

Tales of Phantasia begins by showing a recount of a heroic battle between four yet-unknown warriors against an evil sorceror, Dhaos, whose outcome changed the fate of the world. The warriors were victorious, and sealed Dhaos away using the power of two pendants, thus returning peace to the world.

The adventure begins in the town of Totus ten years later, where a young swordsman named Cless Alvein and his best friend, archer Chester Barklight, live. The town is destroyed by a dark knight and his soldiers while Cless and Chester are out hunting in the forest. Every villager is killed in the attack, including Chester's sister and both of Cless' parents. While Chester is in mourning, Cless vows for revenge and proceeds to the town of Euclid in search of the dark knight.

Unfortunately, he is betrayed there by his cowardly uncle and is thrown in jail, captured by the dark knight. The heirloom pendant entrusted to Cless by his father Miguel is taken away from him, but Cless does not know of its significance in holding Dhaos sealed, nor that his father was one of the original four who sealed him away.

Cless meets Mint Adnade (a Mana healer) in the jail, and she joins the party and helps him escape. Soon afterwards, the party meets Chester again at Tornix Morrison's house, another of the four original warriors. Tornix informs the party that he knew Cless' parents and Mint's mother quite well, and they once fought together to seal away a great evil. But he is horrified to hear that Cless' pendant has been stolen, and immediately runs off towards a nearby masoleum. Cless and party figure out that the dark knight must be there, and follow Tornix without him knowing. Unfortunately, the dark knight manages to release Dhaos using the pendants before Tornix and party can stop him. With no hope of dealing with the all-powerful Dhaos for now, Tornix transports Mint and Cless back in time so that they can learn about Dhaos and acquire the skills to defeat him. Chester and Tornix are left behind to suffer Dhaos' wrath.

In the past, Dhaos is still causing chaos with an imminent war against the two largest human countries – Alvanista and Midgard. These events happened almost a century before he was sealed. In this time period, Dhaos' evil pervades throughout most of the world, and he even controls the prince of Alvanista's royal family. The party learns that the only way to defeat Dhaos is by using magic, but neither Cless nor Mint can practice magic – only Elves and half-Elfs can use the powerful magic spells. But they soon meets Klarth F. Lester (a summoner) and Arche Klaine (a half-elf witch), who join the quest. Klarth is a researcher of summoning (the act evoking a magical spirit or elemental) – and is thus one of the only humans who can indirectly use magic, by contracting with the spirits via rings. He suggests that the spirit Luna may be able to help their quest, and the party travels across the world to the deserts of Freland, the depths of the ancient dwarven caverns of the Moria Gallery, and to mountains above and caves below in search of rings and spirits to help them fight Dhaos.

Eventually, the party reaches Midgard and succeeds in helping fend off Dhaos' army in the war called the Valhalla Conflict. They continue to Dhaos' castle in search of the fiend, in the hope of restoring peace to the world and avenging the deaths of their loved ones. An epic battle with Dhaos ensues, and good overcomes evil. Unfortunately, Dhaos escapes.

The party travels back to their original time to interrupt the resurrected Dhaos from killing Tornix and Chester in the masoleum, and fight him once more. Good overcomes evil yet again, and the cave begins to collapse on itself. The party escapes and then decides that, with Dhaos most-likely dead, they have succeeded and can part ways so that Klarth and Arche can return to their original time. But at that moment, a traveller arrives from the future to inform them that Dhaos is still alive and is terrorizing the future. Cless and company immediately travels forward in time fifty years and have to deal with Dhaos and his minions once and for all.

Many other games have joined the Tales RPG series, but few have been released outside of Japan. Only the first game was translated into English through emulation.

Cast

• Cless Alvein (クレス・アルベイン): The seiyuu (Japanese voice actor) is Takeshi Kusao.
• Chester Barklight (チェスター・バークライト): The seiyuu is Takeshi Kusao for the Super Famicom version and Kentarou Itou for the PlayStation version.
• Mint Adnade: The seiyuu is Satomi Koorogi for the Super Famicom version and Junko Iwao for the PlayStation version.
• Klarth F. Lester (クラース・Ｆ・レスター): The seiyuu is Kazuhiko Inoue.
• Arche Klaine (アーチェ・クライン): The seiyuu is Mika Kanai.
• Suzu Fujibayashi (藤林すず Fujibayashi Suzu): The seiyuu is Taeko Kawata. Suzu appears on the Super Famicom original as a non-playable character, but she is playable in the PlayStation and Game Boy Advance remakes.