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If you're from Japan, word on the street is that Tales of Destiny is the greatest Tales game of them all. It's a difficult truth to swallow, in light of the seemingly much better games in the series (prime examples: Rebirth, Destiny 2 and Abyss). Even Tales of Phantasia is subject to much more coverage, spanning across 4 systems, with an indirect sequel and an anime series. The truth is that regardless of whatever Namco produces, the crowd will always have a yearning for more Stahn, Rutee, Philia and co.
Being one of the very first RPGs for the PlayStation (yes, before FFVII), it automatically lodged a small soft spot in the heart of early PlayStation adopters, most notably those seeking to sink their teeth in a brand new RPG adventure. Still, it was a substantially flawed game due to tons of useless backtracking and, for North American gamers, an incredibly terrible localization. It was a decent game with a lot of charm, but fell short in the long run. In 2006, Namco remakes this tale of Swordians for the PlayStation 2 with hopes of addressing the gripes that held this game back 11 years ago.
The original 1995 hit made us play along the sides of Stahn Aileron, a young man seeking adventure that sneaks onto the Draconis, a military aircraft. Once monsters, in typical fashion, attack the ship, Stahn finds shelter in a cargo room, only to come across a magical sword, imbued with the power of fire and sentient thought, known as Swordian. He quickly grasps the blade with relative ease and does away with his foes in a matter of seconds. From there on spans the great adventure of young warriors and the ancient technology known as Swordians.
Visually, this game is a real treat. To be blunt, it's followed the same structure in presentation found in Tales of Rebirth. Towns are now in 3D and rich with color and NPC's running about. Sprites are no longer squat, giant-headed "chibis" and are instead more proportional like in Tales of Rebirth. But unlike the former game, sprites have far more animations and details in between attacks, spells, etc. Veigue's Shurenjin has far less frames and looks incredibly sluggish when compared to Stan's lightning fast Senkoureppa.
Sprites and scenery may have been revamped, but so has the battle system. It’s now possible to double jump, hover, and continuously lay a beat-down on foes with the Aerial Linear Motion Battle System (AR-LMBS), a variation of the staple 2D action-based combat system series fans know and love. It changes the dynamic of random encounters and boss battles, since it later on becomes crucial to continuously combo chain your foes in hopes of survival. MP was dumped for a more suitable and cost-efficient Chain Capacity (CC), which is more or less a stamina gauge that recharges and grows by initial value after each depletion.
Techniques performed in mid-air can become completely different from when performed on ground and tend to expand the character’s kenjutsu, jutsukengi and shoujutsu. Hi-ougis, another staple element from newer Tales games also make an appearance and can be triggered when a player’s Blast Calibur gauge is full. The hi-ougis in Destiny are well-animated with the same amount of mess and colors filling the screen from past games, only now in complete hi-res, and looking better than ever.
There's a reason why Destiny was and still is Japan's favorite Tales game. Many of the characters had a lot of charm that stuck with players despite the shortcomings of the original title's gameplay. In the remake, Rutee and Stahn are much more friendly than they initially were, Leon is still cunning and sharp, though he and Stahn seem to hold less grudges against each other. Many times, Stahn happily tries to befriend Leon, even if he has a shock collar wrapped around his neck. It's almost as if while you're playing, you're living in an alternate universe, where all these characters not only got along, but really liked each other. It's a pretty heartwarming experience for fans of the first Destiny. Not only due to the warmer approach your party members have towards each other, but also removing the memory of the god awful script in the North American PSX version.
Don't think that because this is a remake that it copies the same progression and difficulty, since Destiny is much, much harder than its notoriously easy ancestor. I remember not dying once when I played the original in high school and now find myself getting my butt kicked time and time again in Hard Mode. Needless to say, you need to be prepared, since this game is no joke. The game is only 40 hours long[Wasn't the original about 20 hours? –Ed.], which is a real drag, but after the credits roll, re-loading your Clear file opens up a mini-Grade shop of sorts, with several options such as Infinity Movement, Selector Mode and Single Player Mode, which are all really fun additions to add some challenge (or actually make things less challenging) when moving on to the second run. You can also speak to an uppity clown near the doors to the final boss to open up the Arcana Ruins, a secret dungeon towards the end of the game that offers some very, very nice bonuses.
Honestly, Namco does have to slow it down a bit with the amount of Tales games they can release within a year, but there's no denying that Tales of Destiny (Remake) is a very well-polished, fun and challenging experience. The hallmark of a great remake is when it can smooth out the kinks and flaws of the source material without losing anything, and make the original completely obsolete. If you're willing to go through the trouble of importing it, I say go for it, since it's very straightforward and simple provided you have some very basic Japanese reading skills. Or you could just wait for Stahn to ride the localization train of doom, but that may take some time.
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