I've always loved the "Tales" games, ever since I played Tales of Destiny for the first time. I always found the odd mix of turn-based and action role-playing. The graphics were always inspiring and pleasant to behold, and the music was just top-notch.
It didn't take me long to discover that Tales of Destiny was not the first game in the series, just the first one to make it to North America. The first game, Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicom, was nothing short of a technical marvel. It was a Super Nintendo game with voice. But what really wowed me was the first time I fired the game up and was treated to the unbelievable opening song, it was upbeat, inspiring, catchy and it had voice. For those of you who joined the gaming scene in the Playstation days, you may not see this as anything special, but back in the 16-bit cartridge days, it was just unheard of.
I have had that enchanting and beautiful opening song in my head ever since the first time I played that game, and I jumped for joy when I heard that it was finally making its way to the United States on the Game Boy Advance.
Not five minutes ago, I just popped the game into my DS and called my wife over to witness the amazing opening song. She blinked and nodded politely instead of smiling in blissful agreement that it was a wonderful song. And well she should...
To Namco: WHAT THE HELL IS THIS!!!?
They replaced the awesome opening song - one of the game's crowning moments in my estimation, with this sad uninspiring NES-quality beep-boo-beep tune. I could have cried. I couldn't even play it. All these months waiting for greatness, and I get a steaming little plastic turd.
The game was published by Namco in Japan and Nintendo in the US. Shame on whoever ruined it. The GBA is technically superior in every conceivable way to the SNES and this is actually a downgraded version of the game. What gives? Shame on whoever did this. Whoever it is, you just gave me a reason to go out and get the ROM of the original game and play that instead.
You may think I'm blowing things out of proportion, but the original song is really THAT good, and the one they replaced it with is really THAT bad. As far as first impressions go, this one was plain awful....
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