Tales of Phantasia Review
Here, I give my own opinions on the game. I won't say that you'll agree with me, but you're not the one who's running this website.
Story and Plot
Well, hardly anything about this game can be called completely original. Time travelling was already done in Chrono Trigger, and much of the original source material is drawn and referenced from Norse mythology. The story also seems heavily unbalanced, with the majority of the game taking place in the past, almost no time in the present, and a minimal amount of time in the future to wrap things up. For a game that was under development for so long, you'd think they'd be able to even things out a little bit more.
However, the one thing that the Tales series has always shined at was its character development and interactions. While not as nearly as well-developed as the later characters in later Tales installments, the majority of the characters in Tales of Phantasia have outdone their SNES peers on this battlefield. For instance, Arche has to be one of the most well-developed characters in any SNES-based game I've ever seen, with the amount of attention she receives in the game.
However, in its defense, Tales of Phantasia's world of Aseria has been expanded many times in Japanese-release-only games, including Tales of Symphonia, Summoner's Lineage, and Narikiri Dungeon. All things considered, Phantasia truly in a landmark that isn't to be missed in this regard.
Gameplay and Graphics
To be honest, I got this game almost right when it came out, played about two minutes of it, and then didn't touch it for another thirteen months. I'm a terrible gamer; the previous Tales games that I've played, I've always set it on Auto (and Tales of Phantasia's Auto system is really slow... slower than Legendia's). However, once I saw the Animation, I was motivated to pick up the game again and actually try to play it.
I'm not too enthuasiastic about the Tales battle system, as I've always played it for the characters (and sometimes storyline). However, that's not to say that gameplay has never been a factor for me; I absolutely love Tales of Legendia, but refuse to play it because of the battle system (man, if only the battle system for that game was like FFXII or Grandia III...). I actually managed to play Tales of Phantasia, for the combat is bearable.
My only real complaint about the battle system would be that it made me hate spellcasters; every time I was attacking enemies, the spellcasters' spells would make me wait a few seconds until their spell is done being cast so I could continue my rampage... and then even then they never cast what they're supposed to when they're supposed to. There's a reason why my battle party was Cress, Chester, Suzu, and Mint.
As for gameplay outside of battle, Tales of Phantasia doesn't stand out to me. If you've played Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI, you'd know what to expect on field maps and such. The Sorcerer's Ring is, of course, in its first state, so it's not as well utilized as it is in future installments.
As for graphics, the graphics themselves aren't as nice as the newer GBA games, given that this is a port using mostly SNES graphics (though the PSX battle sprites are used). However, the designer is one that I've fallen in love with since, like, forever; the character designer is none other than Kosuke Fujishima, well known for the anime and manga series of Ah! My Goddess and You're Under Arrest!; he was also responsible for the character designs in Tales of Symphonia and Tales of the Abyss. For the time, I believe that the sprite renders of his skilled artwork were doing justice.
Sound and Music
The sound and music simply isn't a highlight in this game. I'm sure that the music sounded much better on the SNES and PSX, but Motoi Sakuraba's music simply does not stand out to me. However, it isn't distracting or horrible, either; the music fits the mood of the game. It just does not personally stand out to me.
The voice clips aren't exactly wonderful, either, though they were state-of-the-art back in the days of the SNES. The English voice acting isn't exactly unacceptable, though... it's just kinda... there. Then again, it's not like this game was localized by Capcom to keep the Japanese voices.
Overall
Tales of Phantasia is a fun game if you want to see the origins of the Tales series. It's nostalgic in a way since it's an old-school RPG, but if you're expecting something full of prettiness and sex, you're not going to find it here. But it's still fun, regardless.