Tales of the Tales – the story of the Tales of – #2 Tales of Destiny series
As is known from the past output, the position of Wolf Team studio, after some employees left with Yoshiharu Gotanda, were far from the best. In order to finish Tales of Phantasia, they had to hastily dial staff. In addition, Eiji Kikuchi, who was transferred from Riot Telenet Japan, was appointed as general director at Wolf Team. Since then, Eiji Kikuchi has become the head of the studio until its collapse. Tales of Phantasia showed itself well and a new game in the development series was scheduled. It was a real check for the newly assembled studio. Mutsumi Inomata, Motoi Sakuraba was also invited to design the characters, was still responsible for the music (which did not interfere with it at the Tri-Ace and two years in two years, Tales of Destiny was released in two years. Was Wolf Team to keep the quality bar – no, did she be able to prove that she could make good games – yes. The game came out contradictory in all respects and now we will figure out what is wrong with it.
Ophening “Yume de Aru Youoni”, performed by the Japanese group Deen.
A thousand years before the events of the game on the planet fell, a meteorite fell, scattering crystals called lenses on its surface, with the help of which it was possible to create incredible mechanisms and use in medicine for treatment. This event not only changed the climate on the planet, but also contributed to the acceleration of progress. As a result, the world was divided into those who lived on flying islands, and those who were born to crawl, which in turn gave rise to a war, as a result of which the second defeated the first. Currently, ancient technologies are forgotten, and Oberon Corporation is used by the lenses for its development, and it pays good hunters for lenses for their production.
These are all playable characters, though they are far from always striving for the team and, if not persistent, it is possible that you will have only four heroes before the last boss.
Our story begins with an ordinary boy from the village, whose name is Stahn aileron. He wanted to see the world and secretly crept on the ship Draconis, where vigilant guards grabbed him and took him as a spy. And on this his adventures would have ended if it were not for the attack of the monsters during which he manages to escape, grabbing a strange speaking sword, which apparently was the cargo that was transported on the ship. From this moment, the provincial guy became part of the whirlpool of events: we will find out what kind of swords are and why they are reasonable, what happened in the distant past and how to affect the present, we will bring to the team of interesting personalities with our history and character, and of course we will save the world.
Starting to play Tales of Destiny, I did not leave the feeling of Dejavu until I remembered the old anime series Slayers. This is the same atmosphere of something frivolous, cheerful and humorous. Even the main character is similar both externally and in character to Gauri, the same naive and stupid.
At first, this even https://gamblingdata.net/casinos/yeti-casino/ amuses, the developers do not hesitate to make fun of the player, show funny moments. For example, I was heated by one child with all my money and escaped so that this ban on violence against children in games falls out! I was pleased with the Demator Sword, who chooses to the owners of cute girls. In the course of the game, you can even meet a peasant and Archie from Tales of Phantasia, who will ask you 40 questions about Laura of the TALES series, Namco and its games (oh, this production playing), if you can give secret techniques correctly. In general, Tales of Destiny began promising and entertaining, but over time, all this goes into the past and the game tries to put pressure on feelings, introduces sad and tragic moments that Wolf Team mildly not work. Instead of summing up the player smoothly, they suddenly take off a huge weight with all this good. It’s simply impossible to sympathize with the character because of the surprise of what is happening and too fast the development of events, which is why the whole atmosphere is pouring like domino.
The love line here develops somehow sluggishly, but maybe it is me-the callous gingerbread and I do not understand anything in love.
And in addition, the main plot of the game is completely clicked, with huge logical holes that can not stand any criticism. Some ordinary priest almost alone manages to get as many things to do as a whole army of evil demons. Killing the next villain, it turns out that another villain was manipulated from the shadows, then you will find out that the manipulator was also manipulated and this leapfrog is repeated five times. Five times, Karl! Somewhere in the fourth, your hand is already crawling to the face, and on the fifth you demand to announce the entire list. You can go through on average in 35-40 hours and, even taking into account a short duration, the game seems protected, and all because it is not saturated with global events and essentially divide by only three chapters, in each of which you know the enemy, approximately where he is and what you need to do, but you have to run by the dungeons (which, in turn, are far from small) in search of the key, information or something else, to get there.Before him.
On the one hand, they made characters quite interesting, they have their own skeletons in the closet, their character and manner of communication. The developers tried to catch the drama around their past, but this was done awkwardly:
– Luke, I’m your father.
– Nooooooooooooo. Okay what we stopped there?
Some characters act illogically when the heroes proved their rightness to their old acquaintance, she … committed suicide, although she did not have time to do anything terrible, the heroes relate to her positively and lure in every way to their side, there were no prerequisites for this, but since there is an opportunity to kill themselves, then why not and not. And this is not an isolated case. The hero’s partners often braid, someone comes, someone leaves, some join almost at the end, you just don’t have time to get used to them in order to sympathize with them at the crucial moment. There is also a romantic line, maybe I did not see all the scenes or missed important videos, but it turned out to be some kind of torn and unfinished.
Kors and Archie from the last game of the Tales of Phantasia series are worried about the main character and in exchange for answers to their questions will be given out skills.
As for the graphics, today it is somehow inappropriate to scold the retro games for it, but at the time of PSX it was rather weak, this is an improved version of what we could see on SNES, but did not reach the level of PSX. In addition, the world map seemed to become three -dimensional, but it was done so disgusting that it is often difficult to determine where you can go there and where it is impossible. There is no way to turn it and look around. But there was an opportunity to listen to what the heroes are talking about if you stand a little. As for the stylistics, it was carefully transferred from Tales of Phantasia and, if you liked it in the last game, then there should be no problems with this. There are also reflections and developers in every possible way try to flaunt this, creating entire levels with mirrors and mechanics associated with them, but, alas, the time of these innovations passed, and in the end it turned out not as good as we would like. It is especially disappointing for some spells like Ray, which have in the previous game with sophisticated special effects, they are something unintelligible here.
For comparing graphics, he gave examples of the original game and remake. Even on PSX, panoramic views can be amazed, it is a pity that their units are for the whole game.
And so we moved to gameplay. From the time of SNES, practically nothing has changed, this is still the same classic JRPG, where our team, consisting of six people, staggering around the world, visiting cities and dungeons and fulfilling the instructions of local kings. Clashes with monsters occur in random order and are real -time fights, where the player can directly control only the main character, moving around the battle of the battle and using techniques and spells, your partners can only order Faurbol, use the subject or configure the behavior. Unlike the previous game of a series, where each character was unique on the battlefield and used his own style, here everything (or almost everything) is swordsmen. Our team has a mosque-mag, a meshchik-ray, a mosque-hiler and, ahem, a swordsman-ditch. Such a circus appeared thanks to the magical intelligent swords swordians, which the character can not only hit the enemy’s topic, but also use the spells. The idea is actually quite interesting, Swordians can also be pumped like the characters and becomes stronger, they have their own equipment for equipment. And it seems to be a great idea, let’s realize correctly, but not. The presence of these swords made the rest of the weapon useless. Why buy a cool hatchet if your sword is at a level, and even with the opportunity to use powerful magic. This made almost all the heroes the same, without the zest that was in Tales of Phantasia.
Each Swordian is a person with his offices, and, unlike similar items from other RPGs, not all of them will be readily fulfilled.
Another cherished feature is lenses. After the battle, the player, in addition to experience and money, gave lenses. The chip was that they can be sold to a special NPC, in each city its own exchange rate, thus you can find places where they are more expensive and sell them in bulk. The problem is that the money in this game is not needed, it is true that for the entire game at the very beginning I bought to the eyeballs with everything necessary and only occasionally replenished stocks and checked equipment in stores, which not only costs a penny, but also loses its relevance in the middle of the game (we get everything necessary from the chests in Dangeon). The bosses also did not please, almost all of them are monotonous and too easy. You just clamp in a corner and kick the poor man with your feet, even the last boss could not do anything with a brave team of gopniks. The food system is imperfect and is not needed in the form in which it is present in the game (food is formed in the bag and replenishes health with time). From the positive one can mention the opportunity to play with friends if you equip a special ring, but it is allowed only in battle, nevertheless, it is sometimes quite cool to play with a friend in JRPG, not so often the developers are bothering about this. The branded riddles have not disappeared anywhere, they are various, they are interesting, they do not force your brain to boil and there are enough of them to brighten up the passage of the next dungeon. There are miniigra in the form of Galaxian, where it is necessary to fight off the monsters attacking on the ship, or something resembling a Bombermen, a stone-tin-bum, a run for distillations.
I wrote so much negative, but at the same time at the beginning indicated that the game is contradictory. The Tales of Destiny is a strange situation, after its release, many journalists were divided into two camps: those who scolded the game and placed minimal grades, and those who praised it. No one remained indifferent, and the assessment on Gamerankings 73.38% is not objective, this is the average between very poor estimates and very good. The game is really controversial. On the one hand, I understand that the developers tried to realize a lot of new and interesting. I liked the funny puzzles in the docks, but on the other hand, the inexperience of the team is felt and, if not sadly, it greatly affected the game. Oil is poured into the fire and sales. Tales of Destiny is one of the sales leaders among all the games of the series, only for PSX 1139,000 copies were sold out and this, attention, after the release of Final Fantasy VII in the same year. I suspect that such a situation is similar to what was in Final Fantasy VI, the more carefully you go through the game, the more interesting things you are opened, so the assessment depends on the style of passage, whether you are ready to close your eyes to the disadvantages, finding enough advantages. So I can’t clearly advise playing it or not, it is quite possible that for you it will become a revelation.
P.WITH.
And why think at all, play or not, if you can turn to a universal tool – remakes. And they have them, Namco has released two remakes on PS2: Tales of Destiny and Tales of Destiny: Director’s Cut, which changed the combat system, replaced the entire graphic component, and the plot branch for Lyon and several new quests were added to the Directorship Kuta. All this happiness is overshadowed by the fact that there is no translation from Japanese and is not expected, so this opportunity to get acquainted with the game is suitable only for the most persistent.