Tales of Destiny II

Written By Jesse Delgado

     Tales of Destiny II is a SNES RPG revisited. Tales of Destiny II is a blast from the past because graphically it looks like a SNES game. You encounter enemies, build levels, and find hidden treasure chests. After playing RPG's like Legend of Dragoon and Final Fantasy it's hard for someone like myself to play a game like this one. FMV and fully detailed environments have spoiled me. However, many traditionalists look not for graphics in an RPG but for game play and presentation. Tales of Destiny II gives you that.
Before going into detail about how the game plays let's first give a quick run through of the story. The story takes place in the village of Rashean, usually a quiet and dull town. All of a sudden a spacecraft hits the earth and two teenagers, Reid and Farah, go into the forest to investigate. When they reach the wreckage they encounter a mysterious girl named Meredy. Meredy brings with her a message of impending doom. Reid and Farah, being the good Samaritans that they are, are willing to leave their home of Rashean to help the girl. They find out that Meredy is here to prevent the collision of her world, Celestia, and their world, Inferia. To do this, they have to collect a set of elemental beings that can stop this impending disaster. Sounds cool, doesn't it.

     We have all played RPG's and understand how the typical battle system works. We select what we want the characters to do with regards to choosing attack, defend, magic, summons, items, etc. (A turn based system). In Tales of Destiny II, the battle system occurs in real time. This means that the player controls the character in the 2D environment against your enemies. Like a fighting game you move the character back and forth and control their regular and magical attacks. The rest of your entourage fight alongside you, controlled by AI. As a result, you will have to strategically set up each other's maneuvers one will use offensive based magic attacks while the other use healing attacks. The positive about this battle system is that it is fast paced and not as time consuming as some battles in the turn- based system.
Overall, Tales of Destiny II is a fast paced game that takes place in a 2D environment. Instead of the 3D background, this game's background seems hand painted and flat. Very traditional and a sight for sore eyes. This added a sense of nostalgia to the game.
On the contrary, the developers should have rethought the voice-overs. They were, in my opinion, very bad and ruined my gaming experience. The voices were too whiny and made my ears ache.

      Tales of Destiny II is recommended for those RPG fanatics. An individual who has played a plethora of RPG's and loves all of them. For an amateur to the genre it can give a negative first impression. For the enthusiasts this game can be fun and enjoyable. So if you love RPG's go ahead and pick it up if you are just getting started in the genre hold off for a bit.

Publisher   Namco   Developer   Namco    Platform   Playstation   One Player   Role-Playing Game

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