Namco has been telling lots of Tales in the English-speaking world lately - from Tales of Symphonia for Gamecube to Tales of Legendia for PS2 to the recent Tales of Eternia for the PSP, the series seems to be everywhere at the moment. Now we're finally getting the RPG that started it all - Tales of Phantasia - on the GBA. Originally released on the Japanese Super Famicom (SNES) more than ten years ago, it was one of the last games produced for the SNES and was very advanced for a 16-bit game.

While still an excellent game, Phantasia shows its age through the vast array of role playing clichés scattered throughout, beginning with a story that's simple, predictable and could have come from any of a hundred RPGs made for every console in the last decade. You play as Cress Albane, a young swordsman who lives in a peaceful village and lives happily ever after. Ha! C'mon, you know the rest - his village gets destroyed by the forces of the evil empire and Cress and his best friend Chester are orphaned and alone, left to uncover the plot behind the destruction and seek revenge on the perpetrators. Along your quest you gather up a bunch of anime-inspired adventurers and mages, ultimately saving the entire world from the clutches of an omniscient evil force! But there are some twists and turns along the way - in just the first few hours, aside from your village being destroyed and family getting wiped out, you get locked up, escape from a dungeon and even travel back in time!

Traveling through the world is done in the very familiar tradition of all games in the Final Fantasy tradition - your party is represented by the single main character and you wander around an isometric world meeting up with random unseen groups of monsters as you travel from place to place. Even though the random encounters are typical of the genre, the battles represented a new twist, in the form of real-time, side-scrolling combat. You view the action in 2D side-scrolling fashion as you make the main character run left and right, plus jump and slash at enemies, all in real time. It's almost like a fighting game, just without all of the elaborate controls.

This battle system really is the centerpiece of the game, and during battles you control a single character, with the CPU handling the rest. You can assign your party members' aggressiveness, weapons and spells at any time, and even give commands during battle that tell someone to use a certain item or spell. You move your character from side to side, using attacks and special moves that are triggered by a combination of button-presses. The learning curve is a bit higher than in today's RPGs, and if you get boxed in during a battle you're sure to die - so save often! Due to the game's age, battles are a bit choppier and clunkier than the more recent installments. Players who are used to the greatly improved battles in the more recent Tales games may be disappointed.

A few updated features have been added to the GBA version, things that are common to the more recent Tales games, such as cooking, where you can collect recipes from chefs and food items from shops and also from monster drops., which you can then combine to create items that heal and fortify your party after battle. There are special tasks you can perform that give you items to enhance your stats and can be equipped like a weapon or armor, as well.

One thing that really stands out in Phantasia is the quality of the visuals; it clearly looks better than the SNES version. Not only did the developers squeeze every last bit from the hardware, they also show an attention to small details that really add to the experience - Nice things like butterflies fluttering around and fish swimming in ponds as you explore, which add to the feeling of a living world. The audio stands out as well - but not in a good way. The music is typical for this type of game, but not particularly memorable; the tracks are appropriate for the current area and situation, so the music usually just blends into the background. The developers admirably included a ton of voice acting throughout the game, but they probably shouldn't have bothered; while the dialogue in non-combat situations is fine, in battle it's all muffled and garbled and you can only understand about half of what is said.

Controls outside of battle are a mixed bag - moving the player is fairly typical for this genre, in that it can be a bit cramped and twitchy but generally works well enough. Play control is decent, though there are some quibbles with menu navigation. It's cumbersome to find simple things like how much money you have, while words that represent selected items are just a tiny shade of lighter white than the rest of the text, making it hard to tell what you're selecting.

Despite these minor issues, and the fact that it can be a bit difficult to know where to go next, especially if you put it down and don't come back for awhile, Tales of Phantasia is still a very good game - even a decade later. It provides an experience that is simultaneously old school and fresh feeling, making it an easy recommendation for fans of the genre. If you can get past the minor quirks of a ten-year-old RPG, or if you loved the GBA ports of the older Final Fantasy games, then you'll definitely enjoy going on an adventure with Tales of Phantasia, because despite its age and despite the prevalence of clichés, it doesn't feel 'by the numbers' or like a retread - it manages to retain the feeling of being a true original.

Reviewed by Michael Anderson for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).