Ah yes, I remember first playing the DeJap version 19 years ago on my computer. Man, time flies...

The GBA version actually hurts to look at.

8:20 - The reason Cless does this (and this applies to all Tales of battle systems) is because he's set to "semi-auto" by default. Change him to manual if you don't want him to automatically move when attacking. Personally, I find semi-auto to be the best in 2D Tales of games while manual to be best in 3D Tales of games.

Discovered your channel because you and I share the same love for Golden Sun (also my favourite JRPG ever). I thank you for this dive on Tales of Phantasia, a game I like even I only played it on the GBA version. I'm rather unbothered by this port except that now I want to play it on the better versions because they look way cooler! Anyways, thanks for your hard work, long live the retro JRPGs!

Yeah this is easily one of the biggest examples of Namco's very spotty handling of the series outside Japan in a lot of ways. Not even the worst example either believe it or not... But yeah, the history of Tale Fantasia truly is interesting. Kinda wanna see the original vision get fully realized, even if not as a game but an anime or something.

I actually played this on a emulator way back in middle school, I later on found a copy for GBA it was loads of fun. The playstyle feels so unique and active

Dang I did not expect Tales of content but here we are. My first Tales of game was Symphonia (played it on my YT channel as an LP yeaaars ago. I liked it but there were things I didn't like.) Recently I decided to play Tales of Xillia 1&2 and I loved them. Exploration could have been better but the combat was a ton of fun. Not sure if you're planning to cover the whole series, but this was definitely refreshing to see. I might not watch all of them because I definitely want to stay as spoiler-free as I can. Good video dude :)

I love this game. One of my fave SNES/SFC games.

speaking of Zelda II, i like to joke it was the first incarnation of the Linear Motion Battle System. and the overworld enemy spawns look a lot like the dark shadow creatures later used in Tales of Symphonia. Link even has skills he learns with masters around the world.

The color saturation on the GBA version is 100% because of the fact that the original GBA didn't have a backlight, a lot of early GBA games had really high color contrast to compensate.

The GBA version was my introduction into the tales series. I had a lot of fun playing it, but I can see what you mean about us being robbed after seeing some of these clips.

I really really liked tales of phantasia. The only real thing i wish was different was controlling cless in combat. Whenever you swing it takes away control of the character.

You and I seem to have the same feelings about a lot of the same games, haha! My first experience with Tales of Phantasia was that GBA port and WOW, looking back was it not the best way to play! I actually played the iOS version as well, and gave up really early on. Looking forward to sailing my way to that English patched PSX version... Great video!

9:50 honestly, i miss that era, the battle pause let spells take their time, it was slow? yes sure, but nowadays we have the no pause spell tales of, and its a clusterfuck when you don't understand a thing what is going on. maybe im old, but i like my battles to give some time to breathe.

Awesome video! Hoping for more Tales content.

I got to play this in PS1, but in Japanese. I was already into anime in the 90s, so its appeal to me was very high. I played a few games in Japanese back then, and finished them without understanding any of the story. I just talk to all the NPCs over and over, hoping they would move the plot forward. Made me try to learn a little Japanese/Nihonggo as well, because I was very into it that I want to understand the story. Unfortunately, I was only able to read the hiragana and katakana texts, forget Kanji, I just can't. I remember having more or less 100 hours with Tales of Phantasia. It made me cry when I finished it. Worth it! I was finally able to understand everything when I discovered emulators in the early 2000s. I played the SNES version. Then later on replayed the game in PS1 emulator with English patched ISO of the game. This is my fave Tales of game, because of the hardships and effort it made me put forth, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

I remember playing this game waiting for the snes translation patch to complete. We'll worth it really great game

Amazing video! not enough people are talking about this awesome game.

I'm currently playing Tales of Phantasia PSX (Phantasian Production translation) and worked so hard to get the SD sword and Satsugeki Bukouken arte. It's so hard to pull off (I suck at fighting games) so it's been disappointing but the game is really good. It's held up pretty well after all this time.

the ios version infuriated me as a kid. growing up with the gba version and later learning of all the awesome remakes they didnt give us, it seemed like the ios version would finally be the proper western release it always deserved. but thanks to namcos greed it wasnt meant to be. the sad part is it was mostly a good port, but namco ramped up the difficulty to absurd degrees (the default difficulty was the same as mania on the gba mode which you only unlocked after beating the game). coupled with touch controls that sucked and riddled with microtransactions, a potentially good port was taken from us. ill always hold onto the hope that we’ll get a good version of this game (id be glad to pay for it) but until then im glad emulating the ps1 version. I even have a soft spot for the GBA version, as bad as it is bc it was my first proper JRPG and as bad as it was at least it didnt have artifical difficulty or microtransactions. It’s just a shame that namco never acknowledges this game or gives it another chance, when its due to their own laziness, greed, and poor release timing that this game never got a chance to shine. great video, glad to see some people still care about this game.

I wish we’d get a Tales of Phantasia, Destiny, Eternia, Destiny 2 and Rebirth remasters akin to Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster using the PSP versions (Destiny 1 didn’t have a PSP port but rather use its PS2 remake) as basis’s while we wait for the next entry. Probably won’t be until 2026 or later but I’m patient. That would be awesome. I felt that Symphonia’s remaster was somewhat disappointing because it omitted Dawn of a New World which is why I didn’t bother picking it up but I’m patient for a new entry. I want a remaster of Legendia or Abyss.

Thank you for this video this reminds me a lot of things playing this👌

i played the f out of the gba edition back then, the title is underrated, honestly if any tales series got the remake treatment, i hope it's this one

I played the SNES version first and only happened to encounter the mobile version by chance. I knew that I needed to play that as well. If I had known it would be unavailable not too long after I began, I would have attempted to progress further.

Even though Tales of Symphonia is my favorite game in the series (and I adore Genis Sage) Cless Alvein is my favorite fictional character of all time and i love phantasia and hold it dear to me for that reason

Its your battle mode. Semi-auto vs manual

Let me tell you about the SNES versions encounter rate. The SNES version of Tales of Phantasia is the one JRPG where I've hit the level cap without active effort on my part.

Great now I need to go play one of the other versions, because I played the GBA one only and didnt even realize how poor it was (until watching all this footage). Also, nothing gets me more heated than being reminded of the words "rerelease", "remake" and "tales of". Why they absolutely refuse to, in this age of ALL THE OTHER IPs doing it, bring over all the games we never got. Specifically for me, its Tales of Rebirth. Such an awesome freaking game, and there is NO fan translation mod of it yet. I played through it all in Japanese and used an external translation to get the jist of the story. But I want a way to replay it comfortably. Not to even mention a long list of other awesome older games they could remake, or even AWESOME REMAKES (like Tales of Destiny) we never got.

Secret to ToD, ToE, ToP. Or anything in that PS1 era. Manual mode and holy bottles are required.

Woah! It hasn't been 5 months since your last upload! Are you feeling ok?

I played berseria and totally didn't understand the appeal of the series. Seemed like generic jrpg to me. It's nice to see the roots of the series are so impressive. Sounds like Arise was the evolution the series needed too.

11:28 hahahahah oooh oohhh ... Yeah my thoughts when I saw that.. Cless.. cless what they have done to You my boy. Its crazy how badly compressed this game is and watered down.. imagine how phantasia or CT would look on DS :) upscaled and upgraded like Star ocean 2 on new engine. Call me crazy guys but square is so lazy that they might dig all old rps and coat them with same engine they are using for all gems now.

The only version I like is the SFC one, the PSX and GBA version aren't that charming

Tales of Phantasias ports suck... Tales of Symphonia ports suck... sigh...

love it too bad the Game boy advance version is CRAP and its the only one that actually LEFT Japan.