Play Tales of Phantasia (J)(Eurasia) Online

You play as Cress, slashing through enemies in real-time while juggling special moves, then hopping between timelines with a crew of misfits to stop an ancient sorcerer—all with that classic SNES synth soundtrack punching way above its weight.

Genre: Role-Playing Game

Released: 2006

File size: 5.21 KB

Game Overview

Oh man, Tales of Phantasia on GBA—this was my first proper JRPG crush. You start as this kid named Cress who just wanted to avenge his village, but suddenly you're jumping through time with a ragtag crew trying to stop some ancient sorcerer from wrecking the world. The combat's this weird hybrid where you run around slashing in real-time but still pick special moves from a menu, which took me a while to get used to.

What really stuck with me was the music—those SNES-era synth tracks somehow squeeze so much emotion into bleeps and bloops. And that opening anime cutscene? Absolute flex for a 90s cartridge. Just don't expect deep character arcs—half your party joins because they're vaguely annoyed at the villain. Still, there's something charming about how earnestly it throws magic swords and time paradoxes at you.

Fun fact: I spent an embarrassing amount of time cooking random ingredients at inns just to see what bizarre dishes would appear.