Tales of Phantasia

aka: Huanxiang Chuanshuo, Tale Phantasia
Moby ID: 10905
SNES Specs
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Description official descriptions

In Tales of Phantasia the player controls a young boy named Cless, who lives together with his parents in a quiet village. It was a day like all the others when Cless decided to go hunting with his best friend Chester. Chasing a wild boar, Cless discovered a strange talking tree in the forest who was pleading him for help. But as soon as it stopped speaking, the two friends heard the sound of an alarm. They returned to the village and found it burnt down, and all its inhabitants murdered. Before Cless' mother died in his arms, she told him this terrible massacre had something to do with the pendant she and her husband gave Cless for his birthday... what connection could there be? Cless decides to visit his uncle who lives in another town, but he doesn't realize his journey will take him to much more remote places than that.

Tales of Phantasia is a Japanese-style role-playing game with an unusual combat system: the battles are action-based and are fought on separate side-scrolling screens. The player directly controls one character, while other party members are controlled by AI. It is possible to pause the game at any time and use magic, items, or choose an overall strategy for the allies.

Spellings

  • テイルズ オブ ファンタジア - Japanese spelling
  • 幻想传说 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (SNES version)

74 People (69 developers, 5 thanks) · View all

Voices
Character Designer
Game Design
Total Programming
Expression Programming
Graphic Design
Sound Programming
Music Composition
Solo Piano
Based on "Tale Phantasia" written by
Package Designer
Sales Promoter
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 24 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.6 out of 5 (based on 65 ratings with 6 reviews)

Quite possibly better than CT.

The Good
I approached ToP thinking this wasn't going to be a good game. I was totally wrong. I love the graphics. The background images for the battles are amazing, the town art is wonderful, the sprite art is also beautiful, everything about it is amazing. The score for the game is breathtaking. If anyone has ever played Star Ocean: The Second Story will automatically feel the same about the score for this game. The battles are incredibly astounding for the SNES. They allow you to move freely around the battle area and you have the freedom to attack when you wish. Your characters also have the ability to gain battle abilities which are greater in power than the normal attacks. The story is gripping. When it comes to parts in the game where towns get destroied and a group of people die, you really start to feel bad for the heroes and anybody else who was involved.

The Bad
The only real thing that irritated me was the voice acting. I found it to be an annoying aspect to the game and it gets really annoying when a song with voice overs starts playing while you are playing the game. The opening quote really doesn't have anything to do with the game as far as I can see.

The Bottom Line
This is a definite must have for any hard core RPG player. You'll think twice about dissing another RPG of this calibur again.

SNES · by Roo (4) · 2004

One great Import from Japan

The Good
This game has if not the best, than one of the best graphics, Towns looked like they should, the graphics really set the mood.

The music composition for this game will blow you away. There is no better composing team than that of Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura.

The battle system is unique, while it is action like Secret of Mana, but still the attacks are randomly generated by the programming, like Final Fantasy.

This game pushed the Super Famicom to its limits with memory, music programming, and graphics. It is a 48 Megabit cartridge, Star Ocean is the only other RPG that has this cartridge.

The Bad
The AI sometimes got annoying, there was nothing worse than casting a spell that was of the strength of a monster you were fighting (casting ice spell on an ice creature, yeah that would be the day).

The programming was good, except for fighting Gnome, where you have not even half a second to attack him before you cant hit him again, or when Maxwell can kill you with a molecular attack by driving right over everyone.

The speech system was particularly annoying at times.

The fact that the geniuses behind the game quit the company after it was released, and the went to Tri-Ace.

The Bottom Line
This game is unique in many ways, the battle system in particular. Any RPG player should play this, its got amazing everything, for a Super Famicom game.

SNES · by Scott G (765) · 2004

One of the greatest SNES games of all time

The Good
There were so many implementations that went into this game. The graphics were 48-bit and only one game shares that which is Star Ocean also made by the same group of people. Tales of Phantasia, has engaging driven storyline, which places you with a weapons master named Cless, who has a variety of moves to learn, pair that up with a healer, a magician, and archer, and you got yourself a team of combatants to face against the horrid multitudes of monsters.

The combat interface is simple, it's set in a sidescrolling mode rather than isometric, and you press the corresponding buttons to do a move or combo it up with a special. There's many possibilities.

The music score is one of the best and sometimes very catchy and melodic. Especially when the composer is Motoi Sakuraba. The game features a special option menu to listen to all the sounds and music of the game. A full mixer set and equalizer to play with the music.

There are many comical reliefs in the game that'll keep you laughing and entertained. Most of it is sexual innuendo jokes and puberty lessons. It's more anime-ish with the reactions showing up as a tear or angry red face anime style.

The Bad
With most RPGs its an annoying gripe; random encounters, every 3-4 seconds you'll run into one, and there usually the same type of monsters in that area. It gets harder down the road to the point where the monsters are hitting you with petrify spells.

The combat layout is lousy, most of the time in the side scroller your character will get stuck behind the others and get pummelled relentlessly until he dies. Some monsters attack alot faster than most and can daze your character alot, and it's really hard to get him out of that situation.

There is some voice acting, but not alot and they sound like blips here and there. Not much, though I heard the PS version of it went overboard...



The Bottom Line
A great adventure RPG game worth having either in the original cartridge (good luck with finding one) or through emulators you can experience the joys of playing this magnificent game. It'll keep you on your toes and challenge your wits and reactions to situations. The music score is a keeper and have their own soundtrack somewhere in Japan. Remember this is the same publishers who've done Star Ocean series. So you know this game is worth it!

SNES · by Twilightseer (252) · 2006

[ View all 6 player reviews ]

Trivia

Super Famicom version

The cartridge size of the game for the Super Famicom version is quite impressive (48 megabit), and the game even has some voice acting.

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  • MobyGames ID: 10905
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Unicorn Lynx.

Game Boy Advance added by pedantic. PSP added by Fleshgrinder Bloodpack.

Additional contributors: chirinea, Alaka, gamewarrior, Ben K, Neville, DreinIX, Caelestis, Thomas Thompson, darkpilot.

Game added November 6, 2003. Last modified September 17, 2023.