Nice start to the series. My one real issue was how under development Chester is, he's gone for the majority of the game and when he does rejoin it feels like the whole cast has progressed past him, and they don't really address it much. Hoping the remakes give him something more.

Another issue is the fan translation sucks, but I'm not going to hold that against the game since it's not official. Just wanted to point it out as a warning, since it's the only way to play the game in English. The rest of the SNES version is amazing tho!

the game was pretty solid and i think the story had a degree of depth, but nothing too crazy. it definitely shows its age in quality of life areas and dungeon design (especially encounter rate) but plays pretty well considering it came out 30 years ago.

it's pretty cool to see a game take place in the same universe as symphonia, even though that game out a while after. the time travel thing was pretty cool, and though characters lack a degree of depth, i think that's partly because they are actually like 3x3 pixels with mostly combat focus

Absolutely gorgeous. Towns, dungeons, cutscenes, the world map, menus—everything looks incredibly good, particularly battles, which have some of the best spritework I've ever seen. In some ways, it feels more like an early PSX game than a late SNES one (the voice acting helps).

Unfortunately, it plays terribly. The combat isn't a brawler and sometimes barely even feels like an ARPG; it's more like a bizarre spin on ATB. That would be fine if it worked, but it doesn't; battles tend to play out the same way every time and you usually spend half the combat watching spell animations play out. It's also quite easy outside of a handful of sudden, brief, and absolutely brutal difficulty spikes: an early boss who spams an incredibly powerful AoE spell, a later boss who attacks incredibly quickly, a few segments where you're down a party member and have to contend with loads of enemies who inflict petrification, and (if you skip the side content like I did) the final dungeon. There are also a handful of bizarre dick moves, like enemies who absorb elements (which your allies will haplessly continue to use; you can disable the offending skills, but only outside battle) and status ailments remaining even after death.

Dungeon design is meh and the random encounter rate is obscenely high—not a great combination, especially with how dreadful the battle system is!

The story starts strong, but checks into Fillerville near the start of the second act and takes a long time to recover. By Moria Gallery, I was snoozing, and it didn't end there. The final arc is okay but doesn't quite live up to the first.

Kinda wild how you are accompanied by a party full of magic users for half of the game. Having their long spell animations play out every couple of seconds really messed with the flow of combat, but it was also the most effective method to just have them go all out, so turning their spells off wasn't really justified. You don't really have a reason to play anyone else besides Cless (I know the names are different in the other versions but I played PSX) since he was the most active and also the only one who unlocked better moves by performing the ones he already had. You could have easily done that with Chester or Suzu but it didn't happen.

Speaking of Suzu, she arrived so late in the game that she didn't get a chance to catch up to the others in level before the game ended. It would have been a welcome addition if it was more significant.

I really, reaaaaallly don't like how it uses an equipment slot in order to give you manual control in combat. It really isn't worth it to use up an item slot, but the feel of combat is so much better when you have complete control of the character, otherwise they will just evade unprompted at seemingly random points. I love the incentive of using artes to acquire combination moves, but having this available to only one character is a huge letdown. When I felt like I was in complete control of the character, battles were enjoyable.

The dungeons are absolutely the worst part of this game. They were long, indistinct slogs that made me go absolutely feral. When they weren't long they had some horrible gimmick attached to them, such as taking damage periodically, or, most egregiously, involving random chance in order to go through the correct door, that actively seemed to give me the worst luck imaginable.

The characters were all pretty solid. Tales characters vary in quality, so having a game full of inoffensive ones is welcome. Their dynamic with each other worked really well. There were also some genuinely funny moments which seems to be a hard thing to pull off for this franchise. The villain was pretty weak. The game's ending is quite weak, in no small part due to the inconclusiveness of Dhaos’ motivations. They just kind of get thrown out after the game is already over, and it only gets touched upon briefly, and ultimately doesn’t even seem all that important to the narrative.

For a first outing this sets a pretty attainable standard to exceed. You really see the improvements that have been made to this formula throughout the years, but it is a solid start to a prolific series of games.

Ce jeu est absolument magnifique, pour un jeu SNES les graphismes et gameplay sont TROP INCROYABLES WTF, c'est vraiment surprenant... Le jeu est tellement long aussi, ça m'a pris genre presque 30 heures, par rapport à Ys 5 qui m'a pris jsp 7 ou 8 heures (et j'aime bien Ys 5 aussi mais wow comment ils ont réussi à mettre autant de contenus dans un jeu SNES WTF ??)

Les seuls problèmes ont déjà été réglés dans les jeux Tales Of suivants alors c'est un peu injuste pour moi de les dire, mais bon, le combat est un peu lent par rapport aux autres jeux (à chaque fois qu'on jette un sort, le combat se gèle et c'est un peu chiant), le système de carte est merdique, et le protag est le seul perso jouable (malheureusement j'ai pas pu utiliser Arche...). Et Suzu est pas jouable dans cette version malheureusement :-( MAIS comme je l'ai dit, tous ces problèmes existent plus dans les autres jeux Tales. Alors c'est compréhensible, c'était le premier jeu (et la version SNES c'est la première version du premier jeu en plus)

Les persos sont sympas, j'adore Arche elle est trop mignonne, marrante, et elle est incroyablement OP. Non mais vraiment, je lui ai donné l'accessoire pour jeter des sorts plus rapidement et ça + Meteor Storm = OP... Elle est 100% mon perso pref du jeu. Kress et Mint je les kiffe aussi, alors que Chester eh bien... il a pas de character dev ou screentime dans cette version, et Klaas euhh je sais pas il est chelou. Le scénario j'avoue c'est TRÈS TRÈS BON ET DIVERTISSANT, wow ça m'a surpris car les jeux Tales Of un peu plus vieux j'ai pas kiffé leur scénario tant que ça mais ouah ! Et j'aime bien le côté voyage dans le temps

En résumé, c'est pas parfait MAIS si on considère que c'est LA VERSION ORIGINALE DU PREMIER JEU ALORS QUE C'EST UN JEU SNES, c'est pas loin d'être parfait !

Um dia decidi jogar algum JRPG, dei de cara com a série TALES OF, vi que eu já tinha um jogo de Tales Of na minha steam, mas não queria jogar ele, queria jogar o primeiro, então fui atrás da versão de SNES, e o que vi me surpreendeu.

História, gameplay, sprites, tudo é muito feito com o carinho, e tive que fazer 100% do game via RetroAchievements, vale muito a pena, tem outras versões do Phantasia, como a de Playstation one e GBA, com algumas melhorias e novas quests, vou ter que jogar ela um dia.

Tales of Phantasia is one of if not the best JRPG on the SNES. I knew Tales of Phantasia existed but nothing really other than that. I had no real expectations for the game but it quickly left an impression with it's beautiful spritework and lovely music, not to mention the voice acting that is presented right from the opening scene. It is a crying shame this did not come out in the west because it and Chrono Trigger would surely be mentioned together a lot more. Realistically the only issue is that by end game there is a decent amount of magic pausing, similar to secret of mana, but for the most part, you can turn off spells (which you likely will in dungeons to save mp) so if you are used to random encounter legacy RPGs, this still feels like on of the best.

there's a lot to be impressed by in this game, but it's unfortunate that its rocky development seemingly affected the story and quest design the most. stunning graphical effects and battle system execution for 1995 and the hardware, for sure, but some real old-school quest design (make sure you talk to random NPC in random town or else the next story point or dungeon won't unlock and you won't realize it until you're an hour deep in an annoying place) really drags the game down. there are also story moments that are just completely nonsensically resolved or brushed aside in really frustrating ways. i don't need an award winning unique story, but i would appreciate internal continuity and sense. overall glad i was finally able to play it and might be a kickoff to a tales series playthrough.