bit-tech Shopping: Namco Bandai Tales of World: Radiant Mythology (PSP)

Rating: 8

Time with product:

Strengths: Another solid entry in the Tales series

Weaknesses: Monotonous quests in order to advance the story

Summary: Tales of the World Radiant Mythology is in many ways a typical Tales game. It features a real-time battle system much like that in the last Playstation 2 Tales game Tales of the Abyss and the just released Xbox 360 Tales game Tales of Vesperia. Like those, enemies are visible in the overworld and you can choose to engage them or not. Impressively, the load times on the PSP are pretty good, which helps when you need to undertake 100's of battles. This game differs from other Tales games, though, in that you actually create your own character in the beginning instead of controlling a fixed set of pre-exisiting characters. It also features cameos and story elements from many other games in the series making for some good nostalgia for fans of the series. The big downfall of the game is that most of the missions you get assigned in order to progress through the story are fairly mundane fetch and monster eradication quests. You need to progress through a certain number of these to propel the story. Completionists will want to finish them all, though that will take some perseverance. All in all, this is an excellent Tales game and one of the few available for a handheld system in the U.S. (the only other one is the Game Boy Advance Tales of Phantasia).

Rating: 8

Time with product: 3 Weeks

Strengths: Character customizationColorful art

Weaknesses: Repetitive quests

Summary: I really like RPGs like this one that have real-time combat instead of the old school turn based format. The controls are also easy to learn plus travelling through the world is easy with monsters shown on-screen, no more random encounters! Like other Japanese RPG, the art style is "anime" and looks very good on the PSP screen. The ability to customize or even swap out your character with another is very cool. The game does suffer from too many quests to collect an object of kill a monster, at least they are optional! The combat system is pretty good, I really like the "unison attack" combo but I found the camera difficult at time to control. This is a good RPG on the PSP

Rating: 6

Time with product: 2 Weeks

Strengths: Interesting characters and customization.

Weaknesses: Unexceptional.

Summary: Don't ask me why but a number of good but great ROPGS came out at the same time. Brave Story, Valhallah Knights, and Radiant Mythology. It's not a bad game. It's done well and has some good points. But it's typical in quality and nothing really stands out. If you're a RPG completest, give it a try. Otherwise there's better out there.