Any gamer worth his salt knows about Namco's Tales franchise. The series began over a decade ago with Tales of Phantasia for the Super Famicon and was later re-released for the original PlayStation in 1998. Since then several installments have followed and though many remakes are scattered in between there are many new adventures. As good as they may have been though, only Tales of Phantasia inspired an animated feature.

With a total of four episodes Tales of Phantasia was released between 2004 and 2006. The show found its home on DVD here in America with Geneon earlier this year and fans of the series gobbled it up. With slick artwork, familiar characters, and a story not entirely dissimilar from the original game, Tales of Phantasia proves to be a somewhat faithful video game to anime endeavor that satisfied me as a fan but newcomers will find it easy enough to get into as well.

The story is arguably very light and does not feature a lot of development. Characters tend to play their stereotypical roles in this fantasy tale and beyond their class boundaries they never really become memorable. You have the fighter, mage, archer, and summoner classes who make up most every generic RPG since the dawn of gaming. This is fine really because their roles play out decently enough in the story but it also makes the personality in Tales of Phantasia relatively stagnant.

The main characters are Chester, Mint, Claus, and Cress. It's these four heroes that are bestowed with the job of taking down the evil sorcerer known as Dhaos. This conflict actually began years ago as Dhaos and there is a fair bit of time traveling involved. With Dhaos' sinister plot in motion the characters have to journey back in time to set events in motion to save the future. Add in the necessity of some magical artifacts and you have a story that is ripe in role-playing game fashion and you'll wish you had a controller in your hand.

Unfortunately it's this "game related" sensation that doesn't allow Tales of Phantasia the opportunity to grow on its own. The story never really offers anything in the way of surprises and, like I mentioned already, the characters hardly develop. This leaves the four episode OVA feeling somewhat stale and boring. Some confusion also sets in as the time traveling starts and scenes tend to jump around without explanation or reason.

Still, Tales of Phantasia does prove to be entertaining. There are plenty of fine action bits which feature some epic battles between the heroes and villains. With the budget of an OVA this show received more attention to detail than you typically see in lengthy anime so many scenes throughout benefit from this. As safe and unoriginal as the story it is the plot has been realized well enough so that it remains entertaining. The pacing keeps up very well and despite the lack of development with characters the series moves along at a decent clip.

If you're a fan of the game franchise you'll undoubtedly want to check out Tales of Phantasia. With some previous familiarity to the world and characters you'll pick up on things that newcomers will probably be lost on. In that regard if you have never played a Tales game, Phantasia gets less of a recommendation due to its generic nature. It's a solid enough watch but the lack of originality does permeate most of the detail.

Tales of Phantasia was originally released between 2004 and 2006 which means that the production is fairly up to date. The show comes with a 16:9 anamorphic widescreen presentation and Geneon did a fantastic job with the transfer. Throughout the DVD the picture is nigh-flawless with impeccable visuals marred by only a few bouts of grain and compression. These instances were very minor but were noticeable while giving the show a hard look.

As far as the visual nature of the show is concerned Tales of Phantasia offers some incredible design. With characters and bits of the world pulled from the original game the show brings everything up to date. The colors of the world are vibrant, the animation is fluid, the action is intense, and though they may have generic personalities, the character models are simply stunning.

Geneon has included the original Japanese 2.0 language track as well as a 5.1 English selection on this DVD. The dubbing quality of both is very good though I felt the Japanese track had a more natural feel that fit better with the show. Technically speaking the English track blew the Japanese out of the water with a greater sense of immersion and sound effects that were picked up nicely by the rear channels. Both tracks offer clean and concise audio quality so there are no technical issues to be concerned about.

The extra features found on Tales of Phantasia's disc are simplistic but appreciated. Included here are clean opening and closing animations and a production art gallery with a lot of images involving the show. A comparison to the game would have been nice but if you are a fan of the franchise you probably know what's going on anyway.

Tales of Phantasia was an entertaining fantasy entry into the world of videogame to anime crossovers. Like most of these endeavors you'll appreciate the program more if you're a fan of the original but there's still room for newcomers to appreciate the material. The story is a little too generic and the characters do not receive much in the way of development but throughout it all this was a fast paced and finely produced show. If you're looking for some anime with traditional role-playing elements you could do far worse than Tales of Phantasia.

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