Case Cover
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology
Case Cover
Game File
Publisher: Namco Bandai
North America Release Date: July 17, 2007
Number of Players: 1 - 16
Wi-fi Mode: Ad-Hoc
Hearing this game come to North America, I decided to get this. Having played only one old Tales game & watching the anime OVAs, I decided to get it even though people recommend playing the other Tales first to understand the characters here. I got this for a low price when it came out.
About the game
Tales of the World is an original RPG game for the PSP. It plays like a MMORPG game with most of the characters from the Tale universe in it. The game has its own main story with a custom character you can make. It offers some customization on your characters' armour & weapons in terms of appearances. The firmware version required to play this game is 3.30.
The world of Terresia is blessed by the World Tree that gives off mana. One day, a demon from another world called the Devourer enters into this peaceful world as it destroys the land. The World Tree fights off the Devourer. With little mana left, it creates you as its last hope. The fate of the world lies in your hands.
Graphics
The graphics are different than what I expected. It's still good, but the polygons are a bit rough on some of the edges. The character graphics are the same for both battles & cut scenes which is good. They look nice, but kind of flat at the same time. The character portraits are a bit of a shocker to me. The characters are drawn differently from what looks like from different artists. Not a bad thing, but the way they are drawn are a bit rough & flat. Reid's portrait is a bit worse as you can see a lot of heavy black outlines on his face. The others are fine.
The backgrounds are a bit rough as well. For some fields, I actually saw some backgrounds breaking up. There was a horizontal line running across a quarter of the screen as it chopped off a bit of the walls or skies. Although it's beautifully done with the way the characters are design, it kind of makes the game look weird when you see those cuts happening a lot.
As for movements, it's pretty flowing. There are some rough frames where the character actions look a bit strange such as the knock downs & some artes. But after watching the main character run around in the field, it started to look strange. It was like he/she was floating in the air a bit.
Music & Sounds
The sounds are pretty good as they were clean & crisp. There are some silly sounds in the game for some weapons & spells.
The voices are ok for some characters. The game only has the voices in English which is kind of a disappointment to me since I like original voices, which is Japanese in this case. Some of the actions & perform isn't too good as some of the voice actors don't perform the performs well for some situations. Also, some of the cut scenes have voices while some don't which is kind of strange to me. As for the time, sometimes they can be off cue. I actually zip through some of the texts in the cut scenes when I thought there was no voices in them. They actually came out a second late of so due to delay. As for the voices for your own character, I felt there was no difference for the male at least. It's like all the voices are done by the same guy using different ranges & sentences. By the way, the selection is very little as well.
The music is pretty good & fits the game pretty well. I'm not too sure if these are soundtracks from previous Tales games or they are new or a mixture of both.
Gameplay
Basically, you go out there & do your quests. The game plays like an MMORPG type of game as you go out there battling monsters & collecting items. Some people would say this game is a hack & slash type & I'm pretty close on agreeing with that since you go out there & hack away at monsters. However, the game is an action RPG & does contain RPG elements in it. But for the most part, the game is mainly quest based where you will be spending a lot of time hunting, delivering, & searching for items for clients. The game's storyline comes from certain quests & plays as an arc for each town. However, some of the quests are repetitive. You either hunt for a certain number of numbers that are the same but for or with different characters. The same applies to item searching as well. It can make the game old very fast. Keep in mind that this isn't a simple hack & slash game. Mindless button mashing actually gets you into trouble. I found myself getting chase by monsters 95% of the time. They rarely go after my party members as I got about four enemies chasing me in circles. Then I kind of discovered that the enemies go after the closest person.
The controls isn't too hard. But it can be hard to navigate at times. For the dungeon exploration part, I had a lot of troubles with the camera angle. Pressing the R button to fix it up would actually make it a bit worse at times. Plus, it rotates very fast as well. Using the L button was hard to navigate as well. It was more worse actually. For the battles, the directional pad was a pain to control. You really need the analog nub to move. Trying to got diagonal with the D-pad is not possible. My character was frozen there instead. Made me think the game was broken. The game does offer three type of battle modes where you can freely control your character or have him/her fight by him/herself. If you leave it on semi-auto, the game auto locks your target. However, the aiming isn't good if you perform the action too fast or the enemy moves away. Depending on the mode, your controls may change such as the jump command. You need to do some formations & character behaviours for your party member as well since they will act on their own as the game is in real time & you can't control so many players at once. The only times you can control them is to perform artes or use items.
The learning curve for the game is pretty level. I managed to pick up the game quite quick. I did have some problems understanding the unison system a bit. Need to briefly read the manual for it. Other than that, it's very easy. Play around with it & you'll be hacking at monsters in a breeze. Keep in mind that artes skills need to be "spammed" as they are required for some artes to appear when you master some of them. The game keeps count the number of successful attempts you make on the artes. Some new artes will appear when you are in battle instead of when you level up, which is kind of neat. However, some of the skills like the status abnormalities such as poison can be hard since you may not be using that skill a lot depending on the situations. I found myself spamming it for no reason to get it mastered. Overall, it's very fun.
The best thing about this game & it's selling point is the customization system. Although you can change the appearance of your characters with the weapons & armours, keep in mind the game isn't a fashion show. Each weapon & armour does have its strengths & weaknesses. You can't get carried away building a cool looking fighter or a sexy looking priest & sacrifice attack & defense power. However, the items are quite neat that would make your character into a cosplayer. For you cross-dressing fans, you can have your male character get into a dress which was kind of a surprise for me. I may consider it if I have enough Grade Points & feel bored. As for the physical aspects of your characters, I was surprised on how limited it was. Only four faces, hairstyles, hair & skin colour, & voices. I was a bit disappointed by it. What's worse was the selection on the male voices. It sounds like it's done by the same guy using different ranges & sentences. For the female, it seems to be different. But the voices are a bit annoying on some of them. As a side note, you can turn the voices on & off.
The game has a craft system where combine a number of items to form a different one. Some can come out successful or as trash. There are four categories: cooking, forging, attire, & tools. Each time you craft, you will get experience as your level increases. Some items can only be done at certain levels. The same applies to improving your equipment as well. As you progress further in the game & do some of the quests, you will gain some new recipes.
As for the game itself, you may need to spend a lot of time playing it. Level grinding to be able to kill bosses to advance & hunting for certain items in the way of farming at search points. However, keep in mind that this pretty much applies if you like to change jobs. If you stick to one job, it would be no problem. For me, I'm thinking of changing jobs at times & keep them in certain level ranges.
Another interesting thing about Tales of the World is the interaction system. There are scenarios that appear randomly in the game when you move into different areas inside a town. Analyzing the situation, you will be given choices on what to say or think about the situation involving some Tales characters. Depending on your answer, it will affection the relationship between you & the Tale characters involved. This plays a key in getting some of those Tale characters into your party. Sometimes there isn't any choices involved, but may improve on your relationship with the Tale characters. A lot of these scenarios are funny & witty with some sexual humour on the side. I really enjoy them. Sadly, some of them are voiced & some are not which is a mystery to me. One possibility is because of your character's name. Your name isn't voiced out by any character in the game.
The quests you take do actually affect your performance with the Tales characters. Die in one & your fame points decreases. This causes the Tales characters to look poorly at you. Quitting a quest while in the middle of it also decreases your relationship with the characters. Building up good relationships isn't easy as some of the interactions appear at random & the choices in the lists isn't too clear at times.
For gameplay, the action is pretty intense based on the timer & your life meter. Although it's fun, the game does have one flaw. It doesn't allow you to pause which I found surprising. To stop the action, you need to put the PSP into sleep mode. That's one major complaint from me.
The game does have lagging issues at times when you explore some dungeons that are a bit detailed. You can see the slowdown, but it doesn't hinder the game play much since it's just dungeon exploration.
As for loading, it's pretty fast. The transactions between dungeon exploring to battle mode & vice versa is smooth & quick. Pretty much like there is no loading at all. But the movement from one level to another in a dungeon takes around three to five seconds. This occurs when you enter to a new level. You can see the area, but you can't move. The reason for this is the game loading up enemies on the map. When I was able to move, some monsters appeared behind me, in front, or on me.
As a portable game that was designed for the PSP, the saving feature isn't too bad. The actual saving is in the town or world map though. When you are in a dungeon, you can't save at any location you like. You have to find save points instead. These save points are usually available in the upper levels of the dungeons; not on level one. Also, there's only one per level. This is the only part that isn't too portable friendly & you will find yourself using the PSP's sleep mode instead. Although some quests can be done in less than ten seconds, there are some that can take awhile. But they are suitable enough for portability play actually. But for people with very little time like me, it can be a bit of a problem.
The story is pretty simple once you hear it. Your main character is stopping the Devourer from destroying your world. Although it sounds interesting, many people I heard said it's not well developed. Since this is a fanservice game for Tales fans, I didn't expect a very good story from it. Besides, a lot of stories from anything today isn't very deep. As for the ending, it manages to have all the Tale characters done well. But for your main character, it felt empty. Without spoiling it, it seems that the Tales characters had forgotten about you & used you as a tool.
Extras, Bonuses, & Secrets
The game has a New Game + mode when you finish it. The monsters are a bit tougher once you set the difficultly level higher (can't be done when you're in a dungeon) & you get to keep all your equipment, items, & job levels from your previous game. Also, there are special maps of the dungeons that have hidden treasures & hard monsters with rare drops from them. Taking these maps to a Map Master will get you into those places. These dungeons are actually hard with high powered monsters with large HP. Plus, there is usually a special monster running around the area & can take a lot of time to look for them.
Replay Value
It depends on this one. It's mainly quest based. If you finished all your quests in the first play through, then you pretty much have nothing but the New Game + mode. Tales of the World is said to offer over 300 quests if I remember correctly. So, this game can keep you busy if you are determined to get 100% of your quests completed.
Overall Conclusion
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology is a very fun game & quite addictive. I had a hard time putting it down & my mind thinking about playing it a lot. I like these kind of action RPGs. However, because it's mainly a bunch of quests, it can get old fast as a lot of the quests are the same as others. Get three gold ores, get three silver ores, kill ten zombies, kill two killer bees, etc. It's like the creators had very little ideas. However, I would highly recommend getting this game if you like character customization & action RPG on the go.
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology gets a score of eight out of ten from me. The game can be addicting if you are one of those that like to customize characters & do a bunch of quests. Plus, the interaction relationship system with some of the Tales characters is a plus along with the humour involved. However, this game is one of those that you can play for a few minutes & get bored of it very easily. All the guest types are the same as they mainly involve hunting & searching for items. In many cases, it's basically the same item or monster either the same form or upgraded ones. This is the game's major downfall for people that don't like to do quests that are virtually the same across the board.
Last updated on April 1, 2008
All images shown on this website are copyrighted to their respective companies & owners.