Tales of Phantasia [GBA]

It takes a tough man to seek revenge after suffering the slaughter of his parents, and an even tougher man to admit to knowing the recipe for quiche. Tales of Phantasia deftly manages the culinary arts with the deadly ones, and in the process emerges as one of the Game Boy Advance's most intriguing titles.

Tales of Phantasia originally saw release on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System way back in the 20th century. A cutesy, anime-style role-playing game, Phantasia never saw release in North America. It's been shrunk and ported over to the Game Boy Advance and its creators at Namco have added some new features for its handheld debut. Now, the characters can collect ingredients such as fresh milk, seaweed, cheese, chicken, and pork to create foodstuffs that, when consumed, will either sicken or salve the soul (and perhaps even help a character recover some lost health points in the process). A new monster encyclopedia has been tacked on, too, and players can consult it to find an enemy's Achilles' heel.

As the hero Cress Albane, revenge is the order of the day. Adventuring in Phantasia consists of walking or dashing around a top-down map in a series of indoor and outdoor environments. Non-player characters wander the world providing clues and idle chatter, peddlers hawk their wares, and other heroes await recruitment to Albane's cause.

It's a decently pretty world that Phantasia presents, one filled with highly detailed gray-and-brown dungeons, towns that are labyrinthian in their design, and verdant forests. Its miniscule characters adhere strictly to the Adorable Japanese-style Cartoon Character's Handbook, and are plainly some of the most well-animated on the Game Boy Advance.

Although exceedingly yappy and verbose, the game is also quite endearing. There's a genuine moment of sadness when Albane and his pal Chester wander into their ruined hometown and slowly begin to realize everyone in it has been slaughtered. The revenge plot seems at once real and fresh, and its characters remarkably true-to-life despite their cartoonish appearances.