Cless wakes up on his 17th birthday, ready to meet the day. His father has given him a special pendant for this equally-special occasion, but little does Cless know that this pendant will soon change his life forever. After a series of tragedies, and encounters with strange powers beyond his comprehension, Cless is thrown into a struggle for the fate of not only the entire world, but different time periods as well. He will meet many powerful people in his quest, some that would help him achieve his goal, and others that would see him dead. Come join in the battle that started the popular "Tales of" series!

Tales of Phantasia was released by Namco in 1994. Unfortunately, this release occured at the end of the lifespan of the SNES/SFC (Super FamiCon) systems, and the game didn't get as much popularity as it should have. Namco tried to compensate by releasing Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia. I haven't played either one, but apparently they were flops. However, in more recent years, Namco has released several wildly-popular "Tales of" games, such as Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of Vesperia, causing a renewed interest in the original Tales game, Tales of Phantasia.

Tales of Phantasia tells the story of a young boy who, by extenuating circumstances, gets thrown into an epic battle of good vs. evil. Classic RPG plotline? Maybe not... I've played dozens of RPGs, and this one's no rip-off or copy of Chrono Trigger or anything else out there (unless you count things like "Moria Gallery" and parallel that with J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy (by the by, there's an RPG out there for that, as well... I'll get around to playing it eventually)). Game-wise, it's quite ingenious, really. You control the main character, and the other party members are controlled by AI (Artificial Intelligence, for those of you lacking any ^~__*^ ). You can control them a bit, by going into their menus in the field and enabling/disabling spells, or by going into their battle menus while fighting. Anyway, on with the walkthrough!