Further Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2 Info

Further Info: "Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2" was released for the GBA (GameBoy Advance) in Japan on October 25th, 2002, selling 184,000 copies. Although the game's title includes the words "Narikiri Dungeon", this game is not a direct sequel to the previous game in the series, Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon, but is similar in various ways. This game has its own individual story and two main characters (detailed below), and features characters from previous "Tales of..." games (Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, and Tales of Eternia) who fight alongside the two main characters. This game is not multi-player, and one can only switch out Frio or Kyaro for the first slot in party formation, and the character in this first slot will be who the player controls during battle. This game focuses more on battling and its quest system than any sort of a deep story or even necessarily character-depth. Much of the game is spent going on quests for townspeople and "Tales of..." heroes, and fighting and growing stronger throughout the process.

Story Info: Something shady has occured that has begun to strip the Great Tree--the tree that provides life to the world--of its energy, and as a result, monster activity worldwide has picked up. Two goddesses in the town's nearby temple, Ada and Stella, need to contract help to revive the Great Tree, so they turn to our two heroes Frio Sven and Kyaro Olange and offer them "Narikirishi" power. This power means that anyone that puts on certain types of clothing takes on the characteristics of that clothing. The entire game's premise is that our two heroes need to collect costumes, train, go on quests and do things for the people of its community in order to grow stronger as people, and eventually become strong enough to beat back the forces of evil threatening their world. In addition to this main plot, characters from previous "Tales of..." games--Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, and Tales of Eternia--also make appearances and fight alongside with and counsel our two heroes to help them in their pursuits.

Characters:

Frio Sven
Kyaro Olange
This game also uses characters from Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, and Tales of Eternia who fight alongside the two main heroes

Skill/Spell System: Regarding the two main characters, they learn spells/skills depending upon what costume they are wearing, and they learn new moves by leveling up. Regarding the other cameo "Tales of..." characters in the game, they mostly have their spells/skills that they learn from the original "Tales of..." game from which the character hails, and they learn new skills/spells when they level up. With skills/spells, one configures four skills/spells to be used in conjunction with the "B" button and a combination of a D-Pad direction and the "B" button, for the human-controlled character in the first slot. i.e., one skill is performed by pressing the B button by itself, another skill is performed by pressing the up button+B button, another with down button+B button, and another with left or right+B button.

Battle System Info: Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2 features the beloved Linear Motion Battle System (LMB), original to the "Tales of..." series. The brand of LMB offered in this game can be thought of as "Condensed Linear Motion Battle System", and feels very similar to the LMB system used by Tales of Eternia (but it is not the actually the same engine, by any means). That having been said, in battle, the party fights on a single plane with enemies. The human character can fight with an attack button, use skills/spells, enter the menu, block, and target enemies.

When one presses the Menu button (Select), one can pick "Spells/Skills", "Strategy", Item", and "Formation".
As stated above, every character in the game has spells/skills of some sort. With the human-controlled player in the first slot, one configures four skills/spells to be used in conjunction with the "B" button and a combination of a D-Pad direction and the "B" button, for the human-controlled character in the first slot. i.e., one skill is performed by pressing the B button by itself, another skill is performed by pressing the up button+B button, another with down button+B button, and another with left or right+B button. Choosing a non-human controlled character allows you to command the character to cast a spell/perform a skill.
Choosing "Strategy" allows the player to individually set AI-controlled characters' battle strategy (how the character moves, attacks enemies, etc.)
The "Item" option allows the player to enter the item menus and choose an item to use during battle. New to this game's battle system is that the entire battle pauses whenever an item is being used.
The "Formation" option allows the player to set the physical location of each member of the battle party.

The D-Pad allows the player to move the human-controlled player in the first party slot.
The Select Button enters the menu.
The Start Button pauses the game.
The L Button blocks.
The R Button allows player to change targeted enemy.
The A Button attacks.
The B Button is used for skills (detailed above).

Audio/Music: The music played in this game seems to be remixed versions of, or really similar to the songs played in Tales of Phantasia, Tales of Destiny, and Tales of Eternia--composed by Motoi Sakuraba. Honestly, some of the town music and battle music can grow old after a while, though.

Graphics: Following in the usual trend at the time in the "Tales of..." series, Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 2 uses classic 2-D, colorful, splashy graphics. Die-hard "Tales of..." fans do not mind such graphics.

Difficulty: For the most part, the battle system is fairly inherent if one is remotely familiar with the series. However, the sometimes cramped-feeling of the buttons on a handheld device, and occasional fights where enemies (such as bosses sometimes, especially) can cast spells very fast can prove challenging at times.

Replay: As the game is made up of mostly quests that randomly cycle, the game has a lot of replay value, as it forces the player to jump through hoops to collect everything, and all of the available data in the game. In some ways, the player is in control of how quickly he wants to beat the game, as the game's storyline is very basic and not very involved. So if one wants to shoot right through and beat the game, one can do so. However, adding more to the game is veering off into the many quests and side-quests the game offers, and taking time to meet other "Tales of..." cameo characters and taking a variety of different actions.