Besides the mammoth Final Fantasy series from Square-Enix, the “Tales of” series from Namco is also another set of popular long running RPGs which have been gaining its own fans since the very first game “Tales of Phantasia” was released in Japan for the Super Famicom. Now fans can enjoy the latest and first title to reach the DS, “Tales of the Tempest”.

The land of Areulla was once ruled by a powerful and advanced race known as the Leymon. The Leymon appeared just like normal humans but they could also change into a ferocious werewolf like form to give themselves immense battle power. Now, a whole century has passed and rule has been taken over by humans. Legend has it that a great civil war known as the “Weremen Battle” drove them to the Leymon to their destruction and the survivors now live peacefully hiding themselves amongst the humans. Worried that the survivors would one day gather together to take back their land, the Church establishes a task force known as the “Heretic Hunters” to track down the remaining Leymon and execute them.




It all begins with an Imperial Guard arriving in the village of Fern.
One of the Leymon survivors was a man named Ramrus who lived in the quiet village of Fern on the borders of Areulla. Life was steady for him and his little boy, Caius. But one day, a badly wounded Imperial Guard arrives just as Caius and his childhood friend Rubia was heading out together to have some fun. Later that night, Caius is handed a red stone by the Imperial Guard and suddenly, the village is attacked by a large group of dark monsters which is where the gameplay and story picks up.

Early in the game, you only have Caius, a melee fighter and Rubia, a magic casting priestess in your party but as the story progresses, more characters are added to the roster of characters. Enemies are encountered randomly as with most RPGs but as with all “Tales of” games, the actual fighting takes place in real time allowing you to jump around freely on the battle field whipping out whatever attacks you wish on the enemy.

Battle fields are basically split into three invisible horizontal rows which you can jump to and fro from which, pretty much slows down the pace of the game in comparison to the single row battles in ToP. Not to mention that there’s a slight delay between your weapon swings and that you get knocked away a lot. However, special moves that make use of TP (Technique Points) are still there and as each character levels up, they get a new move added to their list. You can then assign these moves freely to any of the four special move slots so that you can use them in battle easily using the B button. What makes things slightly more interesting is that more powerful moves can only be executed by performing a series of weaker moves in a certain order. This means you’ll need a bit of skill to avoid interruption by the enemy.


Your AI party members are pretty good at following commands.
Using the in-game menu, you can also arrange your party members beforehand so that you can choose who takes part in battles. Only three characters are allowed into battles and once they begin, you can’t switch the others in. Whoever, you put first in the list is the character you have direct control of while the other two are controlled by the AI. This doesn’t mean the other characters will go about doing random things however because there are three sets of commands you can tailor to make them take a passive or aggressive stance during battles such as “watch your health” or “go all out”. Generally, the AI commands work very well. With the right commands set, I found that I didn’t have to use any healing items at all throughout most of the game while I played melee using Caius because the AI done such a great job being healer! It’s just too bad you can’t actually feel the impact of any of your attacks.