Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (PSP) review "Fan service games can easily be forgiven for being mediocre if they at least pull off their intended gimmick well enough. Unfortunately, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology fails on this basic principle, meaning the fans are left with a sub-par game. "

Fan service games can easily be forgiven for being mediocre if they at least pull off their intended gimmick well enough. Unfortunately, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology fails on this basic principle, meaning the fans are left with a sub-par game.

The gimmick behind Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology is the player can create his or her own character and go on all sorts of mystical adventures with his or her favorite Namco’s Tales of series characters. Unfortunately, these legendary heroes received inflated egos after spending 200+ hours fighting palette swaps of bats, slimes, wolves, and the rest of the hit parade from the generic RPG monsters handbook.

These intrepid adventures will not join you until you have proven yourself by joining their guild and completing several dozen mundane fetch quests by teaming up with generic characters, many of whom reject you occasionally as well.

As you progress, someone at the local inn will allow you to view Tales of characters’ facial expressions which is supposed to be a trust meter. Initially, these goody-two-shoes look like they would stab you if they caught you in a back alley. When their facial expressions finally look like they don’t want to murder you and your family, they might join your party. However, you are probably more likely to get that hot girl (or guy, in case you are one of those rare female gamers) you’ve always fantasized about in math class to go to prom with you than successfully getting a local Tales of yahoo to join your band of merry men. To top it off, your assembled party disbands as soon as you complete one fetch quest.

Thus the game fails completely. There is a generic story about saving the world from evil, but most of the game consists of completing more boring fetch quests than a poorly designed MMORPG. Namco Tales Studio churned out a sub-par game in which gallivanting around with your favorite heroes loses its luster. Everybody in the game hates you. Your favorite Namco legends don’t join you half the time. Even the generics don’t always agree to tag along. Also, some of the simpletons who give you all those boring fetch quests threaten you if you so much as think about uttering a word about their request to anybody else. This game has more angst and edginess than a forum full of anime fans upset over how the English dub ruined their favorite anime.

But there is one silver lining - You don’t need to spend $200 on a PSP and an additional $30 on this dreck of a game. To experience Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology in real life, simply meander around the streets of downtown New York City wearing as much Boston Red Sox gear as possible. Of course, this runs the risk of actually getting stabbed in a back alley in real life.

Featured community review by randxian (November 06, 2009) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.