Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology

Come gather around, you hardcore fans of portable role-playing games and those who crave a different RPG experience that doesn’t start with Final and end with Fantasy, and I’ll tell you a tale about how the Sony PSP is now getting plenty of RPG love nowadays. It was a slow start, yes, but our patience has finally granted us the reward we all deserve. Quality role-playing games with a lot to offer and many of them walk their own unique path. This brings us to Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, an RPG that has a retro feel but still has enough to please fans of the genre.

The Tales series is no stranger to RPG fans and while they might not have been completely perfect there were plenty of good qualities that made games like Tales of the Abyss a worthwhile journey to take. Radiant Mythology takes all these good qualities and makes it a game that has all the right tools to make for a really good outing. The start of the game, for instance, begins with you creating your character from scratch using a limited number of creation options that include gender, hairstyles, a variety of faces and eye color. You’ll also get to pick from a few class types such as warrior, thief, Priest or Mage. From there the tale begins and you are transported to a world where your character must help save the land from a dark threat known as “the Devourer.”

You awaken near the foot of the mystical World Tree in the world of Terresia only to find yourself looking at a flying creature who calls himself Mormo. It doesn’t take you long to discover that you are a Descender - a guardian of good born to protect the World Tree and the world from those who wish to harm it, such as this mysterious Devourer that has destroyed Mormo’s own home world not too long ago. So it is up to you to find a way to destroy this threat. This, however, is not a task you will want to take on alone. In order to gain the trust of some local heroes, though, you must prove yourself by joining a guild known as Ad Libitum who comes to the aid of people oppressed by the dictator-like Ganser.

Upon joining Ad Libitum, your character’s life will change and the story will take a backseat to the great number of quests you will participate in alone or with other members of the guild as well as some extra NPCs scattered throughout the world. Unfortunately, you won’t even be spending some time learning about your character or getting involved in a complex romance with another character. What you will be doing is collecting a lot of items and bringing said items back to characters that requested the items as well as collecting items for you to use.

While going on a number of fetch quests might sound a bit too dull (and sometimes it is), there are a number of quests that are actually fun. The fact that there are about over 200 quests to complete will give you an indication that this game offers plenty and many areas to explore to the point that the experience won’t be over quickly. Radiant Mythology certainly gives you your money’s worth in this aspect. Many of the quests have you recruiting others to aid you but you’ll never be collecting comrades like in the Suikoden games. Still, it’s great to find yourself heading out into dungeons looking for those rare items with different characters for each given quest. The great news is that you can even pick the type of quests you would like to take on in the town’s guild.

As I mentioned, though, the story is held back because of the number of quests and this is the game’s biggest weakness. Still, even with this major flaw the game still manages to do many other things right like the real-time combat. Depending on your class, you’ll be granted weapons that suit your career. If you’re a warrior, for instance, you’ll start the game by wielding a battle axe and the focus is slashing attacks. If you choose to be a mage, on the other hand, the emphasis is on magic and attack spells. Instead of turn-based battles, you’ll be able to target enemies on the fly and attack in real-time. The companions you’ll recruit will also lend a hand in battle using their own unique abilities and while you don’t control them you can always attack in unison thanks to the Unison attack feature.

You can also craft your own items in this game. Although this isn’t a completely unique or original feature, the fact that you can create your own tools (shovels to dig up buried loot) and health items is great to have in an RPG. You can even create your own clothes to customize your character anyway you see fit. Want to combine the armor of a samurai with a pirate hat and eye patch? The options are plentiful and if there are items you don’t need anymore you can also give a friend the items wirelessly via the Ad Hoc connection.

Visually, Radiant Mythology looks great on the PSP and the visual effects are quite dazzling at times (especially when you use magic during battles). The environments are vibrantly colorful and nicely detailed throughout. As a fan of Japanese anime, though, I certainly got a kick out of the character models as well as the cutscenes that feature the character portraits that move more than just their lips. It’s a nice touch that should find itself in other RPGs on the PSP. There’s also a decent soundtrack, although to most seasoned RPG fans, it has a retro feel to it since the music does tend to recycle itself a bit too quickly. Thankfully, the voice acting is pretty good and great at giving the game its anime style. There are some sound effects but it’s nothing too spectacular.

Fans of the role-playing game will certainly have a good time with Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology for the PSP and it’s a game that shouldn’t be missed. Yes, the game’s story doesn’t make quite an impression and the various fetch quests will make you feel like you’re running errands instead of trying to save the world. Still, there are many highlights in this game that will keep fans new and old pleased with this enjoyable RPG.

Gameplay: 7.5
Yes, most of the 300 and something quests will have you collecting items and locating certain objects for people while many of the others will give you a good challenge. You can customize your character with a number of items or create your own items including clothing. The battles are actually handled nicely throughout.

Graphics: 8.0
The wonderfully colorful world and characters look good in the PSP widescreen as does the visual effects. There are some detailed backgrounds to enjoy and the anime-styled cutscenes are brilliant.

Sound: 8.0
If you like your role-playing game score very retro then you will enjoy the game’s soundtrack and while it’s not bad it could have been less repetitive. At least the sound effects are not bad and the voice acting in the game comes off like a great anime.

Difficulty: Medium
Many of the beasties and enemies you’ll face in the game range from easy-to-beat to come-back-when-you’re-really-leveled-up. This balance between easy and challenging is what makes the battles more of a welcomed challenge rather than an annoyance.

Concept: 7.5
The character creation opens are not deep but not bad either and you can always trade armor and extra weapons to a friend via wireless Ad Hoc. I’m a huge fan of the more than 300 side quests to complete but not a big fan of sacrificing the plot as a result. Oh and being able to recruit favorites from Tales of the Abyss like Tear or Luke is a real treat.

Overall: 7.7
Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology is a rather enjoyable RPG that has a lot to offer despite its weak story and numerous fetch quests. With literally hundreds of quests to take on and a number of characters to recruit along the way, Radiant Mythology will keep gamers really busy. If you like a retro-styled role-playing game with a lot of meat on it then do yourself a favor and pick this one up.