Tales of Phantasia: An unlikely franchise starter

Gaming often moves in mysterious ways. Games that are critically praised sell only a handful of copies, consoles and games that are snubbed at the time of their release gather a cult following as time passes, games that no one of would have bet two cents on become massive hits; and last but not least, games that don't have a shred of originality in their code become the starting point of a thriving franchise that's still going strong twenty years later.

That last sentence perfectly applies to Tales of Phantasia. First released on the SNES in 1995 and then on a slew of other systems, ToP is the prime example of a game that should have remained a one-shot yet somehow miraculously managed to give birth to a whole series. They say hindsight is 20/20; but hindsight is no help at all when trying to understand how an RPG so unremarkable and cookie-cutter could become the founding ground of what is today one of the most recognizable JRPG series. ToP is a lacklustre potpourri of all the 16-bit RPG tropes under the gaming sun and could as well have been called "16-bit RPG 101". It has your nondescript 16-bit-ish pixelated graphics that should elicit nostalgia yet fail partly at it because of the colours being on the dreary side of the spectrum, your mandatory Mode 7 map that stopped being impressive long ago, your strident soundtrack that tries to sound mysterious and inspired and fails utterly at it, your peaceful home village that will inevitably end up burnt to the ground and kickstart the whole adventure in the process, your cast of colourful characters that join the hero a mere five minutes after meeting him, your everything that screams 16-bit RPG. I don't think I've ever played an RPG that felt so utterly familiar and derivative and borrowed so much from its forebearers (except maybe for Tales of Hearts R; but more on that later). This shameless borrowing actually verges on plagiarism, with the story being a pared-down rip-off of Secret of Mana sprinkled with a bit of Lord of the Rings. I guess the only reason why Squaresoft didn't sue Namco into oblivion at the time was the fact that all RPG stories were pretty unimaginative back then and tended to recycle the same elements ad nauseam. Now that I think of it, they still do so nowadays — but I digress.

So if ToP is that run-of-the-mill, uninventive 16-bit RPG, how could it achieve what countless other more original 16-bit RPGs, from Bahamut Lagoon to Secret of Evermore, failed to achieve? How could it warrant no only a sequel, but fifteen of them — and that's without even counting the spin-offs? Well, I have my own theory about the matter. I'd wager that the first and most minor reason ToP became the first entry in a series rather than a mere one-shot is its very title. The Tales of- structure can lend itself to all sorts of variations and potentially give birth to a infinity of games, and it carries an aura of mystery and whimsical sophistication to boot. Now that may seem like a petty and silly reason to transform an isolated game into a full-blown series; but let's be honest, stranger things have happened in the gaming industry, and we all know how important a striking title is in establishing a gaming series' brand.

But not wanting to waste a perfectly good title is obviously not the only reason ToP became the founding ground of its own series; in my opinion, the second and major reason this happened is ToP's fighting system. Pompously dubbed the "Linear Motion Battle System" by Namco themselves, this fighting system is all at once the game's saving grace and its only genuinely original feature. It revolves entirely around position and timing, the key to fighting prowess being to move around nimbly and to trigger attacks at the right time in order to strike foes without being hit. It also has a steep learning curve and requires a lot of practise to be fully mastered, but it only gets better as the game progresses. Although it's prone to the occasionnal bout of clunkiness, with Cress being sometimes as easy to move around as a 36 ton truck, this fighting system is overall a true gem that stands halfway between the hecticness of action-based fighting systems and the deliberation of turn-based fighting systems. I'm quite convinced that this highly technical and demanding fighting system, which is still pretty unique and unrivaled to this day, is the jewel in the series' crown and its main selling point. It's not a coincidence if Namco have been refining and honing this fighting system with virtually every Tales entry; it was a huge asset in 1995 and still is nowadays, all the more as no other mainstream RPG series has dared tread on that ground.

In a way, even ToP's utter genericness may actually be a strength, thanks to its all-encompassing quality. This is the kind of genericness that stems not from a lack of inspiration, but rather from a true love for its own genre and a desire to be inclusive and comprehensive. I already commented on the fact that Tales of Hearts R felt like a compendium of all modern JRPGs; and since the same holds true for ToP, I'm starting to think that this is an overall characteristic of the Tales series. That makes that series a perfect flagship for the JRPG genre; as a matter of fact, if I had to recommend a JRPG to someone who never played any, I would probably go for the Tales series. Tales games pack all the tropes and trappings of the genre while offering a compelling fighting system that should draw in players allergic to turn-based combat, they involve little to no level-grinding and last but not least, they are mercifully shorter than your average Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, clocking at roughly 35 hours on average. Heck, you could easily get your regular fix of over-the-top JRPG-ness solely by investing in the Tales series.

I've poured 14 hours in the GBA version of Tales of Phantasia so far, and a future run report is obviously in the pipeline. I'll keep the suspense intact by shelving my feelings about the game until then — which basically means that this post is a wrap. See you soon for a more personal take on my ToP experience, dear fellow gamers! Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!