Tales of Phantasia (GBA)
2006 Namco
In a nutshell: If you’ve played any other Tales game, just give this one a try. And if you haven’t, still give it a try. Depending on your tastes, though, you might want to go with the DeJap fan translation…

As the return of the comic and my number one time sink nears, it’s pretty clear I will need help getting the game/demo together. As such, I’d like to see about putting together a crack team of people with nothing better to do. There’s not money involved, just some more technical minded folks than me, [...]

I was THIS close to finishing Izuna last night when a pack of those stupid bomb monsters cornered me and left me just alive enough to warp out of the dungeon. Oh well, better nurse my patience until I’m ready to take on howevermany floors of random garbage again. I did beat SRW W anyway.

All of this ‘new old school’ junk like Diebuster and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann have actually made me go back and check out the real old stuff, most of which is thankfully discounted these days. The entirety of Giant Robo, for example, can be had for eighteen bucks- six glorious episodes of dark, retro-style science fiction [...]