Tales of Eternia: Final Comments~

Alrighty then, not much say as of late. Because summer classes in college suck hard. But enough about that ^^; Time to discuss Tales of Eternia again. Cuz I beat it a while back. Like before summer school started. Twas a pretty good game I must say. I don't know where I would rank it among the Tales games honestly. It didn't beat Abyss for me I know that much xD But anyways~

The storyline revolves around two worlds, Inferia and Celestia. And together it's the world of Eternia. Hence the title of the game. In between the two worlds is like a space where the laws of matter and stuff like that don't apply. And also the Orbus Barrier that keeps the worlds from colliding with each other along with the Seyfert Ring that connects them. In the beginning most of what you're doing is collecting all the greater craymels. AKA summon spirits in this game basically. You need them to stop the grand fall which is basically the collision of the two worlds. Tis why Meredy came to Inferia and sought help from Reid and Farah.

They know some guy called Balir is causing the grand fall. Or so they think. But when they invade his castle they find out he's been dead for a while and his wife is the one running the show. She wants to destroy both worlds to return the planet back to the state of non matter that it once was when Nereid, god of destruction, created it. And it turns out, he's the one controlling Shizel too. Oh and did I forget to mention that Balir and Shizel are Meredy's parents? Yeah, crazy mixed up stuff going on.

The only way to defeat Shizel/Nereid is to gain the power of the aurora arte. There are two forms of it: the Dark Aurora Arte and the Divine Aurora Arte. Turns out Reid is capable of using this power. But he has to pass a series of trials to prove he's worthy of it. Basically it tests how true his beliefs are and how understanding he is of the people around him and the world in general. He passes all of them and is given the Divine Aurora Arte by the god Seyfert. Seyfert actually created Inferia which ticked Nereid off. It was kinda surprising that Seyfert came second since everyone just assumed Nereid interferred with him. Still, Nereid's ideas are whacked out so it's good that Seyfert did stop him all those years ago.

Reid and company make their way to the center of the Orbus Barrier where Shizel's castle is. How that even works being in a space where laws of matter and material stuff don't exist I don't know. But anyways, the final boss fight against Nereid (In Shizel's body) is fun as heck. There's two parts to it and you actually do use Reid's power to block his Dark Aurora Arte powers with your own. You just have to press the buttons at the right time and he'll completely shield the party from it. But he still had tons of other nasty stuff in both rounds of the fight.

After you defeat him, the party still has to find a way to stop the grand fall because defeating him didn't actually stop it. It's the Seyfert Ring that connects the worlds and is ultimately being their doom right now. So Reid gets the idea to just destroy the ring. It could either be disasterous or save both worlds. In the end, they decide to go for it though Meredy's life might be sacrificed in the process as she uses her own aurora power along with Reid's to destroy the ring. However, much to their surprise Shizel helps them in destroying it, which saves Meredy. It's really sad because all she wanted to do was protect Meredy but she was being controlled by Nereid all that time. But she was able to in the end. Balir wasn't evil either. It was all Nereid who wanted to destroy the worlds and Seyfert wanted to save them.

So, after they destroy the ring both worlds are pretty much cut off from each other. They are no longer connected and Reid and Farah end up back on Inferia while Keele and Meredy end up on Celestia. They end up separated. Sad I know. But the worlds are saved finally. At the end, after the credits and stuff, Reid and Farah are getting stuff together to travel to Celestia. Don't know how long after the fact they do this but they had to upgrade Chat's ship to be able to travel like that. Into space pretty much. And that's how it ends with them going into space heading towards Celestia.

So yay, everyone probably gets to see each other again xD And Reid x Farah and Keele x Meredy~ Everyone has someone to love. It was quite obvious that these pairs had things for each other. Anyways, good game was good and it was actually pretty challenging at times. Stay tuned cuz soon I shall give my initial impressions of Phantom Brave: We Meet Again. In between studying for Spanish ^^;

Tales of Eternia initial thoughts~

Alright, I've had this game for a while now. It's the imported European version for the PSP in case anyone was wondering. Cuz finding the original PSX game under the wrong title of "Tales of Destiny 2" would be impossible xD Anyways, I have played the game before. I just kinda dropped it and just now go back to it. After a few years ^^;

It's pretty much your standard Tales game. Not too different from the old games like Phantasia and Destiny in how it plays. Battle system wise it's quite simple. 2-D of course so you can only move left or right. You can run to position yourself behind the enemy. Basically, you'll just run right past them. Very useful to take down enemies hiding in the back that may be spell casters. Um, the physical fighters like Reid and Farah have two different stats you build up to learn new skills. Reid has Slash and Thrust and certain weapons utilize more over the other except for swords which are pretty much the balanced weapons. Farah has Punch and Kick. All the weapons I've found for her are just balanced in general. And like all Tales games, to learn new skills you also have to use the ones you've learned a certain number of times.

Spell casters in the group are different and have an even more interesting way to learn new spells. Another similarity is the gathering of "craymels" or as you've probably heard in other Tales games "summon spirits." You know, Undine, Efeet, Gnome, Sylph, etc. Yeah, those things. You capture them in this game for a purpose obviously in the story but this is also how your spell casters gain new magic. Meredy has a craymel cage and Keele has one. Depending on which craymel you put in their cage, and you can switch them around, your spell casters will have different spells. Not only that, the craymels level up the more you use their skills and you can summon them in battle when a gauge fills up. Also, there is something called Fringe in this game with the craymel cages. It's basically combining the craymel's power by putting them in separate cages to create new spells. It depends on what craymels you have in the cages too. As they level up, they gain new spells which you can fringe to create. It's really fun and interesting. You just have to decide what spells you want and which spell caster you want using it.

Okay, that's enough about the battle system. Because other than that it's just utilizing the right tactics to win. The boss fights in this game are rather challenging. The craymels certainly were. And one particular other fight too. Story line wise, it's reminding me of other Tales games once again. That's not to say it's bad though. There's a slight discrimination feel to it. And with it revolving around two worlds each with different craymels, it's reminding me alot of other Tales games. But the story is pretty good so far and there have been some funny moments xD No complaints from me about this game as of right now. It's fun and it's not boring so yeah.

I've had fun with every Tales game I've played. And I enjoy the series. When and if I'll ever get to play another one remains to be seen. But I shall update again after I finish Eternia~