GameSpot editors' review
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CNET editors' rating:
stars
Good
Detailed editors' rating
- Reviewed on: 07/30/2007
- Released on: 07/17/2007
- Originally published on GameSpot: Tales of The World: Radiant Mythology (PSP) Review
If you are a fan of the Tales series, you'll probably find some things to like about Radiant Mythology. A good number of characters from the previous games make an appearance, so if gratuitous references and wink-wink, nudge-nudge cameos are your thing, you'll certainly get your fill. For everyone else, it's a serviceable role-playing game that skates by on humor and personality but can't deliver a truly compelling story. The combat is equally drab, borrowing its core elements from last year's Tales of the Abyss but stripping them down to the barest button-mashing essentials. It's not bad, but it's cliché, and clearly meant to appeal to franchise fans willing to overlook its shortcomings in favor of in-jokes and familiar faces.
You begin by creating a character and customizing his hair, face, and other physical characteristics. You must also choose a profession, though you can change it later if you like. Once done, you're dropped into the world of Terresia, where you were just born--fully developed--to the kingdom's world tree in a ceremony best left to the imagination of botanists the world over. In any case, you're a protector whose sole purpose is to defend the kingdom from an evil world-devouring demon. You're joined by feline-faced Mormo, one of the most aggravating characters in RPG history--sort of the Jar-Jar Binks of high fantasy. The main story is a chestnut, so any entertainment value you get from it is from the random hysterical dialogue you get treated to. Luckily, there's plenty of it, and while there aren't many laugh-out-loud moments, the dialogue is amusing and enjoyable.
Let's talk turkey: The combat looks great, but isn't all that gripping.
Almost as if to remind you that the story is not all that great to begin with, Radiant Mythology sends you on a succession of fetch-this, kill-that quests that only generally relate to the main narrative. As a member of the secret society of Ad Libitum, you'll receive random missions that toss you into dungeons for the purposes of killing monsters, collecting stuff, or finding missing townspeople. You'll need to fulfill these quests for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to unlock story quests that move things along. Of course, they're good for grinding levels too, but more importantly, you need to earn fame points, which garner you a reputation and allow you to recruit up to three other party members before heading into a dungeon. The higher your fame, the better your chances of recruiting a high-quality member, though as long as you take on a few random guild quests before heading into the next story mission, you won't have difficulty pulling a decent team together.
The combat itself is real-time, but with a twist. As in a more traditional turn-based RPG, you initiate encounters in dungeons by making contact with roaming creatures, which takes you to the battlefield. Everything within the battlefield takes place in real time, though you can modify things in a few different ways depending on your preferences. Firstly, you can set the behavior of your battle companions, such as which enemies to target, or how reliant they should be on artes (the rough equivalent of spells and skills). You can also take control of any of them within battle, so if you are bored of your own character or want to try out one of the other professions before taking the plunge, you can test out one of the other party members in the field. Once you decide which character you wish to control, you can set it to manual control, or semiautomatic.
Neither combat option is all that great, though. The game defaults to semiautomatic, in which an enemy is auto-targeted, and pressing the X button will move your character toward the target and initiate attack. It's easy but it's boring, since you can complete at least half of your enemy encounters simply by mashing X and never paying attention to the screen. If you like a little more control, you can choose manual combat, but it's even more problematic. The camera tends to move around a lot, and the controls in this mode are a little stiff, so it's a pain just to get your weapon to make contact with enemies.
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