When Namco released ToE PSP they were aiming for the new Tales fans brought in this generation who never played any of the SFC/PS1 games in the series. Well I jumped on the Tales ship this generation so ToE PSP was the perfect fit for me supposedly; the best Tales game of last generation and the potential to be the best handheld rpg ever. As you can see in my frustrated review of Tales of Rebirth I have kind of a love/hate relationship with the series so I wasn't sure what to expect going into ToE.
Battle-wise I think ToE is pretty darn solid. Lots of skills (with the usual skill progression), lots of magic, easy juggling, and lots of flash. I'm not really sure how the PS1 version was in the department of slowdown but the PSP one has only mild slowdown until the last 10% of the game where multiple HUGE spells are going on and you're doing combos in the middle of them. Visually the wide-screen look of the PSP battles is pretty appealing and just looks cool in the palm of your hands. That being said I think the battle system does have three real faults:
--Airborne enemies. About 70% through the game Reid finally starts getting upwards skills that attack vertically and hit flying enemies. The problem is that the game starts throwing lots of flying enemies at you around the 30% mark. This means the middle section of the game often has you running and jumping around trying to land a single hit on a flying enemy and then knock it down to do some damage. But since they are invincible for a few secs after hitting the ground they just fly back up. This means you really have to rely on magic for attacking them and I dunno, waiting for spellcasters to throw out spells while you're running around doing piddly damage is pretty annoying and not very fun. Once you get the airborne skills this problem is taken care of and the battles become really fun again, but I'd say the battle system isn't really very fun during the middle 10-15 hours of the game.
--Running through enemies: I'm glad that you can go through and get behind enemies in ToE but with the slowdown and chaos going on it's often really hard to attack while running and NOT go through the enemy and hit the air on the otherside of them. Especially in cases like the final boss where so much is going on you can't really even see your character having no sense of solidity with the enemies makes the battles a bit wierd.
--Caramel Cage system. Not really a fault but not really a good system either. The idea that you can only have 50% of the magic spells in the game available for use at any time is feels limiting and the whole leveling up + fringing thing doesn't really feel that satisfying. Each Tales game seems to have 1 original idea that they try out in the battle system and it just doesn't work; this is ToEs'.
Both the battling issues were taken care of in all 3 games this generation so I guess that's just what happens when you play older games. Basically the battle system is good but it lacks the deep skill extension system of ToDII (still the deepest battle system in the series to datE), and the multiplane movement and enemy solidity of ToS/ToR; so as would make sense, the battles system of Tales has evolved nicely over the 5 years of this generation and in retrospect ToE is a bit dated in gameplay.
Also just like ToR the Title system is pointless. In ToR at least it was worth getting them for the stat bonuses even if there was no point in changing them, but in ToE they do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so unless you're into collecting things there is no incentive to even bother getting them. ToS still did it best with the bonus stats at level up depending on what title is equipped.
Story-wise it's really a weird mixed bag. Tales games are usually really bad and cliche in their stories and like ToR they can often be filled with awful plots that make you cringe. But to their credit, ToE's story is perfectly fine. It's not some great epic tale, no it's just a little short story that you'd see in an American comic aimed at teens. But see for the thumbs up it gets for not having a total cliche stupid plot, it gets a big thumbs down because ToE seems like it's the shortest rpg I've ever played plot-wise. The game is about 20 hours of collecting summons with no real plot elements other than "we must save the world so lets collect summons!". Then when that finishes and the real story comes in...there are 3 dungeons and game ends within 5 hours ^^; Seriously the entire plot of the game could fit into 4eps of a TV show and nothing would need to be cut. So yea, the plot isn't bad but it's like really really really short and for the majority of the game it's non-existant. There aren't even really mini-stories. Normally in Tales games or most rpgs when you are doing the collecting summons/crystals quests you get involved in mini-stories at each town along the way. You meet characters, encounter situations, help people and their lives, fix town problems, etc... In ToE you go into a town and just buy equipment and go to the nearest dungeon. The world of ToE is basically dead and completely boring, there really are no lively NPCs except for one town near the end and everytown is forgettable. Not too mention that there are only like 5 towns in the entire world (or 10 in two) which makes the world feel very small and short, just like the game length.
So then you come to the characters. Tales games are always about the characters and their good character development. Well it's here that ToE lives up to it's reputation. Farah is probably the best female character in any rpg I can remember and Reid is a likeable guy though he's probably the least developed of the main four. Keel and Meredy are kinda stock characters but they aren't annoying and it's still enjoyable to hear them talk in the group chats. The summons are also great characters and their chats are some of the best in the game. Before I said "main four characters" which might feel a bit wierd because there are 6 playable characters in the game, but the other two are such undeveloped thrown-in characters that they could be NPCs for all that counts. Besides their one or two scenes when you meet them, they have no point in the story and only playable to give the game some more replay value. Compared to the 6-8 full party from ToDII/ToS/ToR and the upcoming ToL it does feel a little dated that you're basically playing an rpg with a determined cast. In the ones this generation you could do the all mage party, or all fighter party and mix up your playstyle but here you're pretty much stuck with 2 fighters and 2 mages.
Other odds and ends are that the game has ZERO loading. You'd easily think you were playing a cart based game with ToE PSP and since the PSP has a lot of LOADING so far ^^; this really makes the experience. Music/Voice acting sounds really fantastic through headphones and the control...is passable. For the most part the control is fine but when you need to jump over someone hitting the up+left/up+right angles doesn't always work and I had a lot of times with Reid just jumping straight up. The AI is good! I messed with the settings quite a bit and was a little let down because it's not as in-depth as modern Tales AI settings. But despite this when in actual battle the AI is pretty good and knows when to cast slow spells/fast spells/heal. Sure they'd still die here and there, but for the most part they'd keep themselves alive to the point that I wouldn't have to worry about them so overall I was satisfied with the AI. The 3d map has been completely redone for the PSP and is a smooth 60fps and really looks gorgeous.
In the end you have a storyline that's non-cliche but ridiculously short and un-epic, a set of 4 great characters but at the cost that they are the ONLY real characters in the game and no one else (friend/enemy/npc) is developed in the slightest, a small and uninteresting world and a really short game (I finished in about 28 hours with all bonus dungeons and subquests done that you could do before beating the game).
This is coupled with a battle system that works for the most part and is pretty fun, but at the same time feels shallow and has problems when compared to it's PS2/GC brethren.
Together you get an rpg that I can see how maybe it was the coolest thing ever back 5+ years ago, but today it feels pretty dated. People often hold ToE up in the spotlight when talking about modern Tales games but I think a lot of that is nostalgia. IMHO the game doesn't really hold up in any way to the current Tales games. The closest it comes is with its characters, but even they are underdeveloped in comparison.
That being said ToE is probably the best handheld experience I've had since the original Zelda on GB. Being able to play a real rpg with voice acting and modern gameplay depth on the go is fantastic. I played it on the 11 hour plane back from E3 and after an engrossing playthrough I looked up to see that there was only 45 mins left on the flight. Namco made this game for the new Tales players, and it definitely comes through for them. If you haven't played ToE before you'll have a really fun rpg to play on the go.
Now if someone could just make a good original rpg on the PSP
Overall grade:
B-
Battle-wise I think ToE is pretty darn solid. Lots of skills (with the usual skill progression), lots of magic, easy juggling, and lots of flash. I'm not really sure how the PS1 version was in the department of slowdown but the PSP one has only mild slowdown until the last 10% of the game where multiple HUGE spells are going on and you're doing combos in the middle of them. Visually the wide-screen look of the PSP battles is pretty appealing and just looks cool in the palm of your hands. That being said I think the battle system does have three real faults:
--Airborne enemies. About 70% through the game Reid finally starts getting upwards skills that attack vertically and hit flying enemies. The problem is that the game starts throwing lots of flying enemies at you around the 30% mark. This means the middle section of the game often has you running and jumping around trying to land a single hit on a flying enemy and then knock it down to do some damage. But since they are invincible for a few secs after hitting the ground they just fly back up. This means you really have to rely on magic for attacking them and I dunno, waiting for spellcasters to throw out spells while you're running around doing piddly damage is pretty annoying and not very fun. Once you get the airborne skills this problem is taken care of and the battles become really fun again, but I'd say the battle system isn't really very fun during the middle 10-15 hours of the game.
--Running through enemies: I'm glad that you can go through and get behind enemies in ToE but with the slowdown and chaos going on it's often really hard to attack while running and NOT go through the enemy and hit the air on the otherside of them. Especially in cases like the final boss where so much is going on you can't really even see your character having no sense of solidity with the enemies makes the battles a bit wierd.
--Caramel Cage system. Not really a fault but not really a good system either. The idea that you can only have 50% of the magic spells in the game available for use at any time is feels limiting and the whole leveling up + fringing thing doesn't really feel that satisfying. Each Tales game seems to have 1 original idea that they try out in the battle system and it just doesn't work; this is ToEs'.
Both the battling issues were taken care of in all 3 games this generation so I guess that's just what happens when you play older games. Basically the battle system is good but it lacks the deep skill extension system of ToDII (still the deepest battle system in the series to datE), and the multiplane movement and enemy solidity of ToS/ToR; so as would make sense, the battles system of Tales has evolved nicely over the 5 years of this generation and in retrospect ToE is a bit dated in gameplay.
Also just like ToR the Title system is pointless. In ToR at least it was worth getting them for the stat bonuses even if there was no point in changing them, but in ToE they do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING so unless you're into collecting things there is no incentive to even bother getting them. ToS still did it best with the bonus stats at level up depending on what title is equipped.
Story-wise it's really a weird mixed bag. Tales games are usually really bad and cliche in their stories and like ToR they can often be filled with awful plots that make you cringe. But to their credit, ToE's story is perfectly fine. It's not some great epic tale, no it's just a little short story that you'd see in an American comic aimed at teens. But see for the thumbs up it gets for not having a total cliche stupid plot, it gets a big thumbs down because ToE seems like it's the shortest rpg I've ever played plot-wise. The game is about 20 hours of collecting summons with no real plot elements other than "we must save the world so lets collect summons!". Then when that finishes and the real story comes in...there are 3 dungeons and game ends within 5 hours ^^; Seriously the entire plot of the game could fit into 4eps of a TV show and nothing would need to be cut. So yea, the plot isn't bad but it's like really really really short and for the majority of the game it's non-existant. There aren't even really mini-stories. Normally in Tales games or most rpgs when you are doing the collecting summons/crystals quests you get involved in mini-stories at each town along the way. You meet characters, encounter situations, help people and their lives, fix town problems, etc... In ToE you go into a town and just buy equipment and go to the nearest dungeon. The world of ToE is basically dead and completely boring, there really are no lively NPCs except for one town near the end and everytown is forgettable. Not too mention that there are only like 5 towns in the entire world (or 10 in two) which makes the world feel very small and short, just like the game length.
So then you come to the characters. Tales games are always about the characters and their good character development. Well it's here that ToE lives up to it's reputation. Farah is probably the best female character in any rpg I can remember and Reid is a likeable guy though he's probably the least developed of the main four. Keel and Meredy are kinda stock characters but they aren't annoying and it's still enjoyable to hear them talk in the group chats. The summons are also great characters and their chats are some of the best in the game. Before I said "main four characters" which might feel a bit wierd because there are 6 playable characters in the game, but the other two are such undeveloped thrown-in characters that they could be NPCs for all that counts. Besides their one or two scenes when you meet them, they have no point in the story and only playable to give the game some more replay value. Compared to the 6-8 full party from ToDII/ToS/ToR and the upcoming ToL it does feel a little dated that you're basically playing an rpg with a determined cast. In the ones this generation you could do the all mage party, or all fighter party and mix up your playstyle but here you're pretty much stuck with 2 fighters and 2 mages.
Other odds and ends are that the game has ZERO loading. You'd easily think you were playing a cart based game with ToE PSP and since the PSP has a lot of LOADING so far ^^; this really makes the experience. Music/Voice acting sounds really fantastic through headphones and the control...is passable. For the most part the control is fine but when you need to jump over someone hitting the up+left/up+right angles doesn't always work and I had a lot of times with Reid just jumping straight up. The AI is good! I messed with the settings quite a bit and was a little let down because it's not as in-depth as modern Tales AI settings. But despite this when in actual battle the AI is pretty good and knows when to cast slow spells/fast spells/heal. Sure they'd still die here and there, but for the most part they'd keep themselves alive to the point that I wouldn't have to worry about them so overall I was satisfied with the AI. The 3d map has been completely redone for the PSP and is a smooth 60fps and really looks gorgeous.
In the end you have a storyline that's non-cliche but ridiculously short and un-epic, a set of 4 great characters but at the cost that they are the ONLY real characters in the game and no one else (friend/enemy/npc) is developed in the slightest, a small and uninteresting world and a really short game (I finished in about 28 hours with all bonus dungeons and subquests done that you could do before beating the game).
This is coupled with a battle system that works for the most part and is pretty fun, but at the same time feels shallow and has problems when compared to it's PS2/GC brethren.
Together you get an rpg that I can see how maybe it was the coolest thing ever back 5+ years ago, but today it feels pretty dated. People often hold ToE up in the spotlight when talking about modern Tales games but I think a lot of that is nostalgia. IMHO the game doesn't really hold up in any way to the current Tales games. The closest it comes is with its characters, but even they are underdeveloped in comparison.
That being said ToE is probably the best handheld experience I've had since the original Zelda on GB. Being able to play a real rpg with voice acting and modern gameplay depth on the go is fantastic. I played it on the 11 hour plane back from E3 and after an engrossing playthrough I looked up to see that there was only 45 mins left on the flight. Namco made this game for the new Tales players, and it definitely comes through for them. If you haven't played ToE before you'll have a really fun rpg to play on the go.
Now if someone could just make a good original rpg on the PSP
Overall grade:
B-