Phantasia vs Destiny

Phantasia vs Destiny is fighting game made by ASCII/Outback and another Japanese company. The game might be fan made or it might have been made some small company (which i guess would still count as fan made) The game uses characters from the Tales series, specifically from the games Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny. Below is my review of the game

 The game functions a lot like your basic fighting game. You have the option of going into either story mode or fighting a friend one on one (no internet capabilities, you fight on the same keyboard) What makes this game great is that you get to use your favorite characters from Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny, a big deal if you're a fan of the Tales series like I am.

The game has 13 playable characters, with about half from each game. They include the main characters from each game as well as some of the more awesome non-main characters. For instance you can play as Stahn, Rutee, Leon, Philia, Woodrow, Lilith and others from Destiny. Characters from Phantasia include Cless, Chester, Klarth, Arche, Suzu, and Dhaos. Overall you have a pretty good selection of characters from each game.

There are two modes you can play Phantasia vs Destiny in: Story and Battle. Story is, obviously, the story mode of the game. It's not really much of a story mode however. It begins with you selecting your character, then you go against a predetermined list of other characters you must battle. For example if you chose Cless then first you fight Leon, then Chester, then ... so on and so forth until you get to the end. At the end there are 3 Boss characters which everyone fights regardless of whom you're playing as. But like i said before, story mode doesn't really have a story, just fighting, and there's absolutely no dialogue. If you've played either of the games before then you might be able to get part of the story because of the match ups (For example Stahn fighting Liith),  I still cant.

The other mode is the really great mode which is the battle mode. Each player chooses a character and you fight. Pretty simple. However, its a great deal of fun. You can't play online and so if you want to challenge someone then you need to play in the same computer. Also you can only use one keyboard so before the battle starts you'll probably need to change the controls. But after you've done all that you're ready to fight.

The fighting system is kind of different from most other fighting games but it's not completely foreign. All matches are best two out of three, settling any disputes. You begin with a countdown, when the countdown ends the match begins. However if you're really hardcore then the match begins with the countdown, because if you press the right buttons during the countdown then you begin in hyper mode, a mode you normally achieve when your hp is 1/3 or less. During hyper mode you sacrifice some of your staple moves for hi-ougies. Once the countdown is over you can begin to attack your enemy. Buttons A,B,C,D,E,and F (which can be assigned to any keys on your keyboard) each do something simple such as slash, stab, kick, etc. However you'll rarely find yourself using these for two reasons: One is that they're really ineffective, and Two is that since you have no TP you can do each move an unlimited amount of times. So that one move which took up 30 TP in the game (cough*Rising Phoenix*cough) is now one of your staple moves. Moves, or ougies as they're referred to in the series, can be done by pressing the correct direction buttons and the corresponding move button. An example would be Down+Back+Down+B. However each character has different directional patterns and buttons for different moves. So Down+Back+Down+B might do something for one character and do nothing for the next.

Overall the game is pretty good because you get to use Tales characters. As a fighting game it has its flaws such as broken moves, severely unbalanced characters, and a very poor storyline or arcade mode. In the end the game is great for a fellow dispute over who's the better character or to play as your favorite Tales character, or boss (like Dhaos). Still if your a fan of the Tales series then you'll find yourself spending hours playing trying to get better, like me.