Developer: Tose
Publisher: Bandai Namco Entertainment
Platform: PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Switch 2, Xbox Series X/S,
Tested on: PS5
Tales of Eternia Remastered – Review
Tales of Eternia Remastered is the remaster of a classic JRPG from 2000. This game will let you explore a beautiful world and unique setting, with an interesting magic system and action packed battles. Tales of Eternia Remastered is developed by Tose and published by Bandai Namco Entertainment.
Story
The game tells the story of Eternia, a setting where two worlds exist right next to each other; one world is called Inferia, and the other is called Celestia. These worlds are separated by a barrier that keeps the worlds apart from each other.
The story starts on the world of Infernia. The protagonist named Reid and his friend Farah witness a mysterious object crashing near to their village. When they approach the object, they see it’s a pod made out of metal, and they find a unconscious purple-haired and dark-skinned girl wearing strange clothing. The girl wakes up, but she speaks a strange language, and while she seems to be trying to warn everyone, they cannot understand her. While trying to communicate, they do learn her name: Meredy. In order to learn her story, they set out to find a friend named Keele who studies at a university and might be able to translate.
After finding Keele, you learn the language Meredy is speaking is called ‘Melnics’, the same language which is being used to cast spells. Meredy is from Celestia, and tells you that Celestia and Infernia are crashing into each other because the barrier is weakening. If that happens, everyone will die. In order to avert this apocalypse, you set out to find the Greater Craymels, which are powerful elementals that could help to stabilize the barrier again.
Graphics
Tales of Eternia Remastered features beautiful retro pixel art for all locations you’ll visit, combined with a world map with simple low-poly style graphics. Cutscenes are in a drawn anime style, and the character portraits are, too. The menu UI is classic white on blue and is easy and intuitive to navigate. The graphic style will be instantly recognizable for anyone who played JRPGs around the 2000s. If you want to have the full retro experience, you can toggle the quality of the game back to the original version.
Sound
The game has a great soundtrack, which is a remastered version of the original game. Each area and the world map has its own theme, and battles have battle music. Tales of Eternia Remastered is fully narrated, and you can choose between English or Japanese voices. We personally loved both, and both casts do a formidable job bringing their characters to life.
Gameplay
Tales of Eternia Remastered is the remastered version of a classic JRPG which originally was released in 2000. The remastered version features better quality graphics and music, and several quality-of-life gameplay upgrades.
The game centers around the story. In each village you visit, you can talk to NPCs to learn more about the setting of the game and the characters, and to progress the story. Getting to certain locations usually requires you to explore a dangerous environment filled with monsters and some treasure chests. Between locations, you’ll travel on the overworld map, which will trigger random battles as you walk around. You can save anytime you want, but you’ll start at certain checkpoints which you’ll frequently encounter while exploring. You’ll also find campfire spots where you can set up camp, which will regenerate HP. When you are camping, the characters of your party will talk to each other, which is usually pretty funny and cute, and gives the characters some extra background flavor.
As you explore the world map and several dungeons, you’ll trigger random battles. Battles play out like a classic 2D fighting game, where you can fully control one of the characters of your party and attack the monsters by running up to them, hitting them, or using items or abilities. You can also jump to attack flying monsters and guard to deflect attacks, or chain attacks together to create powerful combos or stun-lock an enemy. All the other characters of your party are controlled by AI, attacking the enemies and using skills by themselves. You can speed up battles significantly, making them fast and easy to complete. You can even have your main character fully controlled by AI to make the battles even easier while still gaining the XP of defeating the monsters. If you’re fed up with having many battles, you can decrease the amount of random battles you’ll encounter by consuming a potion. Another potion will increase the frequency of encountering random battles.
Battles reward gold, items, and equipment. You’ll also find items and equipment in chests in dungeons and scattered around the world map, or you can buy these at shops in villages. Each character has their own equipment types, so it’s easy to decide who gets which items. You’ll be able to choose between weapon types, which changes the way a character fights and the skills they can use. Each character has their own class and specializations. Armor and accessories increase your physical and magical defense. You also carry a book that documents all items you’ll acquire, so you could go for a 100% collection if you’re a completionist.
All mages are equipped with a ‘craymel cage’, which houses elemental spirits you’ll need to cast spells. You’ll defeat and capture these spirits, and you can combine different ones to be able to use new spells. The craymels level up independently from your characters. It’s a bit of a confusing system, because you got two mages holding a cage each, and each cage needs to hold certain craymels in order to unlock a spell. You’ll need to coordinate which character holds which craymel to keep certain spells available for each mage, requiring you to specialize these characters in a certain type of magic. Using magic will build up power, eventually enabling you to summon the greater craymel for a powerful attack.
A quirky extra system in the game is cooking. When you explore, you’ll find hidden ‘wonder chefs’ who can teach you recipes. You will find ingredients as you play, and you can buy limited amounts at stores. Cooking a recipe will consume the ingredients, but cooking can fail as well. Cooking can restore HP and cure characters without using extra items or magic points.
Conclusion
Tales of Eternia Remastered is a fun game for anyone who loves the classic JRPGs. The remastered art and music are beautiful, and the battle and magic system is fun and challenging to figure out and to use. The story of the game is interesting and will keep you wanting to play further. The quality-of-life upgrades for this remastered version are very welcome, making the gameplay feel less slow and repetitive, while keeping the charm of the original game intact.
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