December 7th 2019 archive

Somebody loves Tales of Phantasia.

I remember when Tales of Destiny came out for the PlayStation. By that time, Tales of Phantasia had already been out for the Super Nintendo, and it seemed incredibly unlikely that it would be translated. It wasn’t until DeJap finished a fan translation of the SNES port that fans of the franchise, especially that one game, went wild that they could actually play and enjoy Tales of Phantasia in their own language. I was one of them. I was only a child when it happened, but I was a fan of the franchise, I desperately wanted to play the game, and it was huge that I — as well as many others — could finally enjoy the game in the English language. Sure, it took getting used to playing the game on the computer, but the learning curve was quick for me, and I enjoyed finally being able to play the game and listen to the soundtrack as I did so. And although the official Gameboy Advance port of the game was additional sweetener, it didn’t quite compare to the time and the effort that DeJap put into giving us English-speaking (and reading) fans of the game the most authentic experience possible. Still, though, a game is a game, and I enjoyably played it with my youngest son, Bub, while he was still a baby. It may have taken us a little while, but we did it… we defeated Dhaos.

The blow was only softened when we found out that we defeated someone who only came to our world — albeit in an extremely hostile manner — desperate to save his own world from destruction. I mean, he had his motive, even if it would have come at the cost of our characters’ home world. You have to recognize that.

Personally, I have always been a fan of Mint Adenade. I almost always have a soft spot for the healers.