Line #35 YMMV/TalesOfPhantasia


1	!![[center: [- [[AlternativeCharacterInterpretation/TalesSeries Alternative Character Interpretation]] \| [[AndTheFandomRejoiced/TalesSeries And The Fandom Rejoiced]] \| [[AwesomeBosses/TalesSeries Awesome Bosses]] \| [[BrokenBase/TalesSeries Broken Base]] \| [[Monster/TalesSeries Complete Monster]] \| [[DieForOurShip/TalesSeries Die For Our Ship]] \| [[GameBreaker/TalesSeries Game Breaker]] \| [[MoralEventHorizon/TalesSeries Moral Event Horizon]] \| [[Narm/TalesSeries Narm]] \| [[PlayerPunch/TalesSeries Player Punch]] \| [[RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap/TalesSeries Rescued From The Scrappy Heap]] \| [[ScrappyMechanic/TalesSeries Scrappy Mechanic]] \| [[ThatOneAchievement/TalesSeries That One Achievement]] \| [[ThatOneAttack/TalesSeries That One Attack]] \| [[ThatOneBoss/TalesSeries That One Boss]] \| [[ThatOneLevel/TalesSeries That One Level]] \| [[ThatOneSidequest/TalesSeries That One Sidequest]] \| [[TheScrappy/TalesSeries The Scrappy]] \| [[Woobie/TalesSeries The Woobie]]]]-]
2	----
3	* AluminumChristmasTrees: In 2006, when the game received an official translation by Nintendo, many thought that changing "Cless" to "Cress" made no sense since they didn't know "Cress" was actually a word referring to a type of plant in the cabbage family.
4	* AntiClimaxBoss: [[spoiler:After defeating Past Dhaos, in a battle that could possibly be ThatOneBoss because of how fast Dhaos can kill Cress, Dhaos just escapes to the future. Past Dhaos doesn't have to be such a hard fight, either, since -- as the intro to the game shows you -- he is critically weak against Indignation.]] Also, it's a ForegoneConclusion that [[spoiler:Dhaos will escape into the future -- otherwise, you get a paradox, since why did you go back in time in the first place?]]
5	* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: [[AwesomeMusic/TalesSeries Starting a series tradition]], there are a few songs in particular that stands out.
6	** Take Up the Cross, the regular battle theme. It gives a sense of awareness that the party is in danger.
7	** Fighting of the Spirit, which plays on certain boss fights. It was that popular that it reappears in some subsequent Tales series.
8	** Yume-wa Owaranai, the opening theme. All variants of it. But the SNES version takes special mention for being the first SNES game ever to have a fully voiced opening theme, which was unheard of at that time.
9	* BaseBreakingCharacter: Rondoline, '''''full stop'''''. Fans are divided whether her [[spoiler:(or rather, Derris Elysion)]] addition to Phantasia's story is necessary or not and whether she essentially rendered one part of ''Katararezaru Rekishi'' moot thanks to [[spoiler:her being Dhaos' MoralityPet instead of the novel's version of Winona]]. Some also don't like her [[{{Fanservice}} fanservice-y design]] which clashes heavily with the original ''Phantasia'' cast, though she doesn't look out of place when she's put alongside Dio and Mel.
10	* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The wild goose chase across Freyland for Edward.
11	* BreatherBoss:
12	** Pluto, a secret summon set up as a {{superboss}} at the end of an incredibly difficult BonusDungeon, is supposed to be incredibly tough. Which, sadly, he's not. Due to programmer oversight, he flinches and is pushed back nigh constantly when hit with Demon Fang, Cress's ''first move''. The entire battle ends up being Cress sending [[BeamSpam endless arcs of Demon Fangs]] at Pluto and the rest of the party nuking the crap out of him, all while he sits ineffectually off in the corner, presumably crying about CherryTapping bastards.
13	** Wyvern in the SNES version. He appears at the end of an extremely brutal and long BonusDungeon, but his only attacks were a physical attack that was strong but could be quickly healed by your cleric and creating a pair of stationary fireballs in front of him that would kill Cress in seconds upon contact, but could be absorbed by the armor found earlier in the dungeon and was harmless if you didn't try to jump at Wyvern while the fireballs were active. In the PSX-version, he TookALevelInBadass and took one up to eleven. His fireballs are no longer stationary but were shot across the entire field and could penetrate your meatshield to hit the characters behind him.
14	* ClicheStorm: This game features a time-travel journey to save the world, starting with a DoomedHometown scenario. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools Doesn't stop it from being extremely well regarded by its fans, however.]]
15	* DemonicSpiders:
16	** Snakemen, who have a chance of petrifying anyone they hit. And one of them usually spawns right behind your party.
17	** Iron Men have insane defense and HP, regularly block physical attacks and will easily slaughter anyone in range in just a few hits. And sometimes they're backed up by Druids, who can cast barrier and almost fully heal any enemy at will, and still beat the crap out of you if you get too close, and charons, who are healed by any magic spell except the non-elemental Maxwell summon.
18	** If two Ekim appear in battle during the party's trek in the game's ice dungeon, you better hope one of them doesn't cast Judgment. If it does, you're looking at a TotalPartyKill.
19	* FanNickname: Similar to how [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia Mithos Yggrdrasil]] had a nickname of "Disco Lord Yggdrasil", Dhaos's final form has been nicknamed "Disco Dhaos".
20	* GoddamnedBats:
21	** Ninjas and Assassins have an annoying tendency to use the NinjaLog technique when hit, then reappear right over your head to counterattack. A ninja teleporting right in the middle of your party can either be a blessing or a curse; either you manage to pin him down with melee attacks and beat him to death, or he uses the NinjaLog move repeatedly to carve huge chunks of health out of your entire party.
22	** The Bigfoots in lower Moria were DemonicSpiders in the Super Famicom version who had quick and powerful kicks, could summon a magical hailstorm and could adopt an (almost) invulnerable defensive position by crouching down and extruding icy spikes from their body...killing Cless in seconds if he got too close. In the PSX version, their attacks have been nerfed, they've lost their hailstorm ability, but they respond to every attack (or even a character being in semi-close proximity) by taking his defensive position for several seconds. They have a lot of HP and you usually have time to hit them once before you have to wait out their defensive crouch. If Arche isn't in your party to break through their defense, be prepared for an EXTREMELY drawn-out fight.
23	* GoodBadBugs: At least in the SNES version it's possible to place Cless behind the final boss' second form, making him completely unable to hit you. Made all the more satisfying by the boss normally being really cheap.
24	* ItWasHisSled: [[spoiler: We all know Dhaos was just trying to save his own people]].
25	* MagnificentBastard: [[FallenHero Dhaos]], the "[[BigBad Demon King]]," was once the beloved prince of Derris-Karlan who cultivated a prosperous and peaceful kingdom that prided itself on the value of diplomacy and dialogue. When neighboring kingdoms came to arms, Dhaos kept his land out of the war and organized mass aide toward the ailing when the war seemingly approached a conclusion. With his World Tree destroyed and Derris-Karlan threatened, Dhaos was spirited away to Aselia to find a new World Seed to save his land. Gaining an audience to the King of Migards, Dhaos narrowly convinces him to cease all magitechnologcal advancements through the sheer strength of his rhetoric. Framed and coming into conflict with Migards, Dhaos forged a pact with Daemonium and orchestrated a series of brilliant military campaigns meant to subvert their magitechnology for his own gain. Sealed in the Catacombs of Euclid, Dhaos manipulates Mars Uldole into freeing him and subsequently restarts his attempts to destroy Aselia and its inhabitants. Hardships weathering him in his onerous quest to save Derris-Karlan, Dhaos would later express regret for his actions and christen himself as the series' inaugural but eminent WellIntentionedExtremist.
26	* MemeticMutation:
27	** A phrase in the FanTranslation got minor fame on the internet: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQjZ8SYEgww I bet Arche fucks like a tiger]]."
28	** Thanks to the [[SoBadItsGood So Bad]] [[NarmCharm It's Fantastic]] voice acting of the English release, "''WHAT the HECK is THAT?!?!?!''" and "This ends HE-YAHHHH! IN-DIG-NAY-SHUN!"[[note]](mis)spellings may vary[[/note]] are popular in certain circles.
29	** To a lesser extent, referring to [[spoiler: Dhaos's third form, Plume Dhaos]] as [[spoiler: Disco Dhaos - due to his white suit]] that is similar to [[VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia Mithos Yggdrasil]].
30	* MisBlamed: The official translation is often bashed for such things as "removing" adult humor that was ''never in'' the original. The only things that were the translation's fault, however, was "Kangaroo" instead of "Ragnarok" and some inconsistencies with ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia''.
31	* {{Narm}}: The Playstation and PSP ports carry voice acting for the main characters in dialogue sequences, which is cool -- but the Playstation version ''only'' has major characters voiced. So as soon as the game's fancy intro is over, Cless gets each line of dialogue voiced in-between his teacher and father talking to him with nary a peep, and this weirdness will throw you out of it for the rest of the game.
32	* NeverLiveItDown: The English GBA version translating "Ragnarok" as "Kangaroo", apparently due to a spellcheck error.
33	* NightmareFuel:
34	** The Magitech Cannon. Aside from [[spoiler:nearly killing the WorldTree,]] it has enough destruction force to cause its victims to decompose ''instantly'' after they die. Imagine how much getting hit by it must hurt...
35	*** The OVA steps this up significantly with animated decomposition and ''the clouds disintegrating around the beam''.
36	** Arsia the woodcutter. [[spoiler: Actually a powerful sorceress, she has gone bonkers since the Elves have [[FantasticRacism banned Half-Elves from their village]], meaning that she can't [[StarCrossedLovers visit her Elven lover anymore]]. So, when the party asks for help, she turns CuteWitch Arche [[TakenForGranite into a statue]] to force you to bring her lover to her. When he refuses to stay with her now that she's all psycho, she turns him into rock too. But at least Arche gets freed. Oh, the kicker? When they first arrive at Arsia's manor, the [[TrueCompanions party]] notices a whole lot of "really realistic and detailed statues". AAAUGGGHHHH!!!]]
37	* OlderThanTheyThink: Many people think that this game is the first Platform/SuperNES game with a vocal song in-game, but it's not. The infamous unlicensed game ''VideoGame/HongKong97'', which came out a few months before this game, has an [[BrokenRecord uninterrupted 5-second loop]] of ''I Love Beijing Tiananmen'' complete with vocals as the only sound in the game. Most people still agree that ''Tales of Phantasia'' does it much better than ''VideoGame/HongKong97'', though.
38	* PortingDisaster: The worst part is that both of these ports are the only ones which have an official English translation:
39	** The GBA port: graphics, music and framerate suffered a downgrade because of the handheld limitations, not helped by the poor voice acting and the BlindIdiotTranslation of the English version.
40	** The 2014 English iOS port, an AllegedlyFreeGame, managed to be worse than the GBA port: it has an [[http://kotaku.com/theyve-turned-a-classic-jrpg-into-an-always-online-fr-1510608500 always-online requirement]], an [[PayToWin in-game purchase system]] (necessary, as the difficult was increased, and grinding takes more time than in other versions), the controls are overly sensitive (especially on an iPad), and the opening song and all the skits were removed. The final nail in the coffin was Namco pulled the plug on their server only six months after its release, turning every single copy of the game into a virtual paperweight and screwing over anyone who spent time and money with this.
41	* PolishedPort: The Playstation and PSP versions steal the show, not only using ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny'''s engine for smoother gameplay and combat but generally adding more on top like Suzu as an OptionalPartyMember. They're also notable for the more in-depth Skits, the Manual Ring allowing you to take total control over the battles, and actual voice acting, especially the PSP release with the [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Full Voice Edition]] filling in ''all'' of the cutscene dialogue. ''Cross Edition'' also souped up the combat system ''again'', being an even more overhauled version of the same general game.
42	* RatedMForMoney: [=DeJap=] thought the script was dull, and since they didn't actually know Japanese ''that well'', they thought that they would spice it up by putting in a bunch of swear words and adult humour. Several of these changes became [[MemeticMutation very popular.]] This was actually [[ValuesDissonance very common practice at the time]]: a lot of fan translations at the time-- not just for video games, but for ''any'' Japanese media (regardless of its target audience)-- would add in gratuitous mature elements (e.g. swearing, sex jokes, and other adult-oriented embellishments) and pass them off as being aspects of the Japanese script that got {{bowdlerize}}d in official localizations. Much of this stemmed from a backlash against the conservative mainstream in the 80's and 90's, which led to countless works of imported Japanese media being subject to overreaching localizations that would try to reorient them as family-friendly (most infamously with [[Creator/{{Nintendo}} Nintendo of America's]] rigid censorship standards prior to the TurnOfTheMillennium).
43	* OnceOriginalNowCommon: This game is still playable today but it's shown its age. A lot of the stuff that made this game stand out were later done better by later VideoGame/TalesSeries games or became commonplace.
44	** ''Tales of Phantasia'' was called "The game that sings" originally because it had a theme song. Mere years later, almost every game could easily include both songs ''and'' voice acting thanks to advances in data storage technologies.
45	** The Linear Motion battle system was also ''really'' cool and innovative for its time; but compared to the other Linear Motion Battle systems (Especially the 3D and pseudo-3D ones) it is bare-bones. Even compared to ''VideoGame/TalesOfEternia'''s LMBS, this game's LMBS can frustrate people with how chuggy it is.
46	** Also, this game's major twist was that [[spoiler:Dhaos was just a WellIntentionedExtremist]]. Nowadays, it's a MetaTwist if a ''VideoGame/{{Tales\|Series}}'' game ''doesn't'' have this. (However; Dhaos is still one of the most memorable VideoGame/TalesSeries Villainous Blondes)
47	* StoicWoobie: Mint is fully aware that her mother is dead for most of the game, but stays strong regardless.
48	* TearJerker: This is a Tales game. Expect it. This one's particularly nasty because it slams one in your face within the first 5-10 minutes of the game.
49	** The opening of the second OVA, showing exactly how much damage has been done thanks to Reisen's Mana Cannon... from Reisen's perspective. To say he's experiencing a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment would be an understatement.
50	** Suzu's backstory as a whole.
51	* ThatOneBoss: Demital is the first one to qualify as such in the game. He could not only attack with very deadly techniques, but can also summon to heavily damage your party.
52	* ThatOnePuzzle: The door switches in Castle of Dhaos in the Past. There's a total of 8 switches, four on each side of a dining table, and they must be pressed in pairs at the same time. It would be significantly simpler if it weren't for the fact that Arche's erratic movements will see you fail this sequence repeatedly. It IS possible, albeit insanely difficult, to eventually pull it off, but chances are, after 10 failures, Mint and Claus will get sick of your stupidity first and do it for you.
53	* {{Woolseyism}}: The localization of the Game Boy Advance version is considered pretty dull (taking the MisBlamed bit away) but Dhaos delivers a rather humorous line in a completely ''deadpan'' way:
54	--> "Do I look like a tree-hugger to you?"
55	** The De-Jap translation is also well loved for adding more lewd humour or making lewd subtext text.

Context YMMV / TalesOfPhantasia