Tales of Phantasia - SNES

 

I played Tales of Symphonia about 15 years ago on the GameCube. It was a fantastic game. After seeing so many different versions out there, much like the Final Fantasy project I started, I wanted to start from the beginning. 

There is a website that has retro games on it. This game was translated by De-Jap, so I was able to play it in its original form.

The story was great. A little bit of time travel and fantasy combat was involved here. The battle screen was not what I expected. I was thinking it would be more of a traditional JRPG type, but you could move left and right on the screen and do melee attacks and magic that way. Pretty cool, though I suppose playing Symphonia should have clued me into the battle style. 

Great game.

My rating: ***

Final Fantasy Project - Final Fantasy V

 

I started playing Final Fantasy V about 4 years ago. When I began playing it, I got into it fairly well. Then my wife and I had a little boy, which took me away from playing. Other games took over my life, but eventually I would start playing it again every night. 

I'll start by saying that this is definitely the weakest of the three SNES era games. (I played FFVI years ago). The characters don't have the level of development as IV did. And like FFIII, the job system was a huge part of the game. It limits the uniqueness a character can have when you can make them perform any role. 

Having said all that, FFV was a fun time. The story was easy to follow. Bartz, a simple adventurer, stumbles into a world crisis. An amnesiac old man, a princess, and a pirate captain join him along the way and discover that Exdeath is attempting to destroy all of the crystals that hold the world together, more or less. Worlds collide in the void, but Bartz and company (along with the old man's granddaughter), defeat Exdeath and put things right. 

The music in this game wasn't the best work for Nobuo Uematsu, but is was still great. In fact, I felt near the end I was hearing similar melodies heard in FFVII. That was cool. I should have noted them when I discovered it and tried to share that here. A quick look online and I found that others have noticed this, as well.

My Rating: ***

Next Up: FFVI

I'm five (or six if you count IV: The After Years) games into this project. A regret that I have is that it takes me so long between games. Up to this point, I have already played FFVI through FFX in their entirety, but in the spirit of this project, I will be continuing with FFVI, then VII, VIII, and so on.

I plan to blog about the other games I play between Final Fantasy entries, as well. Last night, I started Dragon Quest XI on the Switch, then I may try to get back to Fire Emblem: Awakening. Recently, I worked through Dragon Warrior 1-3, so I will need to play IV after I finish XI. I also intend to play the rest of the Fire Emblem games on the 3DS. Not to mention the other Switch, GameCube, Wii, WiiU, X-Box 360, and retro games I still intend to play.

I've got quite the backlog.