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« on: May 30, 2024, 09:51:46 am »
43. Tales of Eternia
This was a journey. To date, I've played through this five times. It's easy to forget how far the series has come since 2000. I want to talk about the bad, which isn't that bad given the game's history. First, the controls aren't as tight as I remember. I played on my PlayStation 3, which might have had something to do with what seemed like a slight delay. In a game where combat requires you to be up close and super personal with the enemy, that caused a lot of frustration. Speaking of combat, it's a shame that the game basically forces you to make Reid your main. Yes, he's the main character and has the most abilities but playing as Farah provided its own level of fun. That said, both Reid and Farah don't come into their own until you're passed the halfway point. Combat remains slightly cumbersome before that. It doesn't help that most of the enemies are small.
Taking it a step further, to get the most out of Farah, you have to really dedicate time to fight a certain number of battles (300!) with her and use her moves one too many times. I tried my hardest to stick with her for the entire journey but Reid's combos just flowed better. There's also a lack of a grade shop, a lack of new game plus, a lack of a warning that says "saving over this cleared file will start you over", tedious cooking, and close to zero story inclusion for Max and Chat. The lack of a new game plus is the biggest hit because there's some neat stuff that can only be unlocked on a clear file, but doing so means starting from ground zero.
All that to say, the game is still a solid entry in the series. The game still looks amazing. The art style is just *chef's kiss*. Mutsumi Inomata (RIP) toned down her character designs and the game is better as a result of it. Sakuraba's musical style is in full effect, too. The adage of "third time's a charm" really rings true. Funnily enough, this was my third game in the series, too. Tales of Eternia provided a lot of firsts for the series: cooking (it's still tedious, but man it's helpful), manual mode, spells that don't freeze the combat, Mystic Artes, combination skills, cameo fights, and probably more that I'm missing. It's easy to sink a good 40 to 50 hours in every playthrough. Once you get to a certain point, combat becomes fluid and addictive. I'd spend a good hour or so just running around a dungeon trying different set ups to see what did and didn't work. I remember the first time I played this I wandered into a hidden dungeon all on my own pre-GameFAQs. I felt damn proud of myself for doing so.
I still stand by the fact that this is the best entry in the series to start with. Others will recommend Symphonia. That's a fine choice, but to really see where the series got some good bedrock for what's to come, then I say Eternia. This is also the game that would benefit most from some sort of reimagining. There's a lot of potential here to fix the above mentioned flaws and make something even more epic.
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