(Actually, the first "Tales" title, Tales of Phantasia, was developed by current Enix affiliate Tri-Ace, those fan-worshipped folks who brought you the stellar Valkyrie Profile and the SNES classic Actraiser. Tales of Destiny part One, and now Two, continue the tradition of high-intensity, action-based RPG combat, mixed in with quality artwork and an epic story.)

Titled "Tales of Eternia" in Japan, Tales of Destiny 2 is the story of two worlds, Inferia and Celestia, who face each other from across a magical barrier in the sky. The archetypal hero of the game, Reid Herschel, is a hunter in a small Inferian village. When a stange vessel falls from Celestia and lands in his backyard, he and lifelong friend Farah Oersted set out to discover the truth that compasses both worlds, known together as "Eternia." Along the way, they'll pick up a motley crew of characters, Celestian and Inferian alike, discovering romance, tragedy, and all the other good stuff you've come to expect in a decent RPG.

The character designs are pretty typical for an anime-styled RPG, although the character personalities rely a little too heavily on genre cliches. Hero Reid, like Stahn Aileron and many more before him, is a slow-witted, good-natured hick with bad fashion sense whose amazing sword skill and pretty-boy looks seem to be his only real features. Farah, like Rutee Katrea (see where this is going?), is a rough-and-tumble tomboy who refuses to admit her attraction to the main character. Other characters include a "kawaii" female mage who speaks an endearingly cute alien language; a cold-hearted geek of a wizard; a "wacky" rebel warrior; a potentially traitorous knight; and of all things, an underaged female pirate with a disturbing love for machinery, peremptory speech, trap-laden huts, and handbags. Alright, at least the latter isn't a genre cliche. And truth be told, as the story progresses, we get to see characters a little more three-dimensional than those in the first Tales of Destiny. Farah, for example, reveals a painful past that drives her to dangerous acts of altruism, and an unlikely romance develops between two of the least-compatible characters in your roster.

A smart translation also helps make the cliches a little more digestable. While the first Tales of Destiny featured one of the best English localizations for its time, the sequel is just *that* much better. Perhaps it also helps that the story isn't quite as unoriginal as the first, and that the characters have a little more depth. The text is well-polished, and while perhaps the localization staff didn't go to Working Designs-style lengths to try and amuse you, they managed to keep much of the humor intact without introducing the sort of cultural awkwardness one feels when a Japanese-specific gag or reference receives a direct translation. The game also uses "emoticons" - little visual effects such as an exclamation point or a sweat bead - to humorously represent character feelings in a delightfully cartoony way. Although this is largely par for the course in today's console RPG titles, few series do this as well as the "Tales" titles do.

The voice acting, which occurs with regular frequency, is fairly dubious. Some of it isn't bad; the voice actress for Farah, for example, manages to convey her character's mercurial personality and headstrong mindset quite well. Reid and Meredi (the aforementioned cutesy-pie mageling), on the other hand, have fairly weak dubbing. Meredi sounds fine when speaking Celestian gibberish, but her baby-talk in English is a little too much to bear. The rest of the dub is simply unremarkable, which, in this genre, is damning with faint praise. Dub paranoiacs have the option of turning all character speech off, of course.

The graphics are drawn in eye-pleasing mid-res 2D, save for the overworld map, which is your typical Playstation low-poly fare. Towns and dungeons are segmented into small segments which scroll but a little; obviously, the combination of high-color, large bitmaps and the Playstation's meager RAM space made this a necessity. That said, Namco uses the limited real estate to great effect; each scene is detailed and brightly-painted, with plenty of animation and quirky visual stylings. Each location you'll visit is distinctly memorable.

Battle scenes are a big step up from Tales of Destiny 1 (which was originally conceived and half-developed as a SNES title) - the characters are bigger and better animated, the images have much better color saturation, and the effects are downright bombastic. Boss encounters border on eye-flaying, with screen-filling alpha-loaded spells firing off every few seconds and large sprites wreaking havoc on your party. First-time "Tales" players may be a little bit dumbfounded by the frenetic on-screen activity, but they should be patient; once you get a handle on the combat nuances, you'll appreciate the adrenalin-inducing visuals.

Musically, Tales of Destiny 2 is quite satisfactory. Some of the tracks loop a little too frequently, but the instrumentation is quite good without being ostentatious (for "ostentatious", think: Grandia 1), and never is a mood attained with the appropriate motif. When one character's hometown is destroyed, a subtle dirge plays in the background; at another time, when the team ventures into a bizarre dungeon filled with psychotic robots and references to previous Tales titles, the music assumes a quirky feel without undue overstatement. Restraint is employed without sacrificing the overall listenability of the soundtrack, and for that, Tales of Destiny 2 gets good marks in the audio category. My only mild complaint is that there are no real standout compositions, a la "one- Winged Angel" from Final Fantasy 7, or the entire Chrono Cross soundtrack.

Trivial details such as graphics and music aside (I'm kidding!), we now get down to the meat of any good RPG - the gameplay itself. First, it must be mentioned that Tales of Destiny 2 accomplishes its primary goal in good form: to create a fun, somewhat stereotypical RPG with a fast-paced battle system, polishing up the groundwork laid by previous "Tales" titles. The game itself is quite linear, as anticipated, although the occasional divergance from the main quest can reap some healthy rewards. Many areas you'll visit will have regions with high-level monsters ready for battle, where beginning parties guided by a confident player can net some extra Gald and maybe an advanced item or three.

If there's one complaint to be leveled against Tales of Destiny 2, it's that the dungeons are fairly mundane and simplistic, both in terms of layout, design, and puzzles. The hardest ones rely more on combat frequency than on clever design - if you're ever stuck, simply use one of your character skills obtained through the game (a sparkly blast of two varieties, mapped to L1 or R1) on any obvious looking doors or objects, and progress will continue. There are no challenging mazes or puzzles to be found, and the layouts are often amalgamations of the same 20 or so small screens, with a few rooms of significance featuring a simplistic switch game or item placement task. Boooring.

Most of the game's difficulty (and fun) can be found in the combat system, and especially in the boss battles. For non-"Tales" gamers, let me take a moment to explain the system - you crusty old vets from Phantasia and Destiny can jump to the next paragraph. Battles in Tales of Destiny 2 are action-driven affairs, which, in the default Semi-Auto mode, places you in control of the leading character. This character will probably be Reid (he's the easiest to use), but those averse to our halter-topped hero can swap to any other available member if they so choose. Pressing the D-Pad in a particular direction plus X will execute a particular attack if Reid isn't recovering from a previous attack sequence. By pressing certain well-timed combination of the D-Pad + X, Reid will execute limited combinations. At the same time, the CPU orders your teammates to battle, based on strategies assigned to them. These "strategies" are behaviors such as "Attack Weakest Enemy" or "Prevent Spell Casting," which your teammate will follow to some extent, provided he/she isn't in immediate danger. You can override their current attack by selecting a specific one after pressing the Square button and opening up the Command menu. In Manual Mode, anal-retentive types must specify the attack behaviors of each character, which requires a lot of time spent in the command menu - it's not particularly fun, this way, and the CPU does a pretty good job when left to its devices. You can also tell the CPU to conserve Technique Points (used for magic and specials) usage, or to go whole hog and blast the enemy with everything your team's got. Lastly, you can assign specials (or spells, if you're leading with Meredi or Keele) to O button plus D-Pad combinations - these are the beefy attacks you'll want to combo into from your standard attacks and which inflict the big hurt on bosses. If you run out of TP, though, you'd better have a TP-restoring Gel handy, or it'll be back to standard attacks for you.

As you fight with Reid, he will gain levels in "Slash" and "Thrust", which will boost the power of attacks that use those particular forms. Mixing up the two types of attacks is absolutely vital, since many of your Sacred Skills (special attacks) use both, and you'll miss out on some healthy damage if one form is neglected overmuch. If you're leading with Farah, you'll need to focus on "Punch" and "Kick", instead. Also, new Sacred Skills are learned when both forms reach certain levels, and certain weapons do far more damage when a particular form is at a certain level. Training is all about balance, grasshopper.

Some Sacred Skills are only learned in combination with other characters' moves/spells, and must be executed largely in tandem. Others are learned by using older Sacred Skills X number of times. Relying too heavily on certain skills will cost you in the long run, so use the random encounters to try out the your underused Sacred Skills.

The two mages come equipped with a few basic spells, but the rest are learned by equipping Craymels (elementals) and by the act of Fringing - crossing two craymels in separate "cages" to create a new spell. At the end of some battles, you will see a note that warns you of Craymel activity. When this occurs, you'll need to go to the menu screen and place the active Craymels into separate cages, and select the "Fringe" command. If you're lucky, a new spell of combined type will result. Craymels also gain levels, boosting their powers, and, when they reach a certain level of activity (generated by using their spells frequently), can be summoned with spectacular results. The Craymel Undine, for example, summons a geyser of water which hammers your foe for middling damage and heals the entire party; the Craymel Celsius, on the other hand, blasts the enemy with a high-damage beam and temporarily freezes it.

The key to defeating the game's brutal bosses and more difficult enemies lies in creating combinations, which also generate you additonal experience. Learn to link the attacks of multiple characters for spectacular results. Farah is often the key to the most damaging and rewarding combinations - you may want to have her lead, and then order up a multi-hit juggle spell from Keele/Meredi, followed by an aerial combo Skill type from Reid. When the enemy starts to land, do a three-or-more hit standard combo into a multi-hit Sacred Skill (Farah's Skills generally have the most hits, by far), and you'll watch the Combo Counter go through the roof, perhaps even doubling (or more!) your experience gain. The battle system takes awhile to get used to, but as in Valkyrie Profile, a little practice will lead to spectacular and flagrant abuses that'll leave you cackling with glee. Oh, and don't forget to equip your team properly - for example, when you're going into Volt's dungeon, it should be obvious that everyone should have an accessory slot filled with a lightning resist item (or death will be swift and certain).

And did I mention the bosses were brutal? Tales of Destiny 2 assumes that this game will be anticipated by series' veterans, and weights the boss battles accordingly. The first major boss, the Craymel Undine, will leave newbies whimpering and those used to Destiny One's weaksauce boss fights trembling and broken. You'll not only have to fight and combo well, you'll need to be outfitted properly. That swanky Ice Sword you found in Celsius dungeon may seem to knock your stats through the roof, but its ice affinity will leave you so much meat for her freezing attacks. Equipment management as well as in-depth combat skills are required, here.

Outside of battle, there's a lot to do. The game has a good menuing interface that allows for convenient categorization of items as well as multiple views of your inventory. Adjusting stats and changing equipment is simple, and evident feedback is provided as to performance gains and losses. That's good, because you'll be swapping equipment in and out a lot, to accomodate the difficult encounters you'll face.

Cooking makes its return, and it's much more comprehensible and useful this time around. As you progress through the game, you'll see strange items in certain locations; investigate them, and perhaps the Wonder Chef will appear to teach you a recipe. Each recipe requires specific ingredients, and, once concocted, can have impressive effects across the whole party, such as 60% TP restore. Other side quests include Lens Collecting, and certain special artifacts (no spoilers, here!).

Besides polishing the battle system and cooking components, Tales of Destiny 2 does little to advance the "Tales" series mechanically. If you've played Tales of Phantasia or Tales of Destiny, you'll feel right at home. Those looking for revolutionary - or even evolutionary - changes will be disappointed; apparently, Namco feels no desire to fix what ain't broken.

Complaints? Well, other than the rather dull dungeons and predictable plot introduction, the only other issue of note is the frequency of random encounters, which can really break up the flow of puzzle-solving (simple as it may be). To the developers' credit, the encounter rate has been lowered from Tales of Destiny (and can be lowered further by the use of the short-lived Holy Bottles), but it is still too frequent for this reviewer's tastes. Really, doesn't 32-bit technology (and better) provide enough horsepower to actually put our foes onscreen pre-combat, these days?

Overall, this game will take veteran RPG players around 40-50 hours to beat (10 for the first disk, 20 for the second, and 10-15 for the third). The pacing is largely solid all around, and if you're ever stuck, pressing "select" while on the overworld will bring up a character portrait which vocally suggests the next location. While the first half of the game feels a bit mundane with its "collect the elementals" plot device, the game swiftly changes gears at the halfway mark when the main villain is introduced. Lively character interaction is interspersed throughout the game during stays at camps and inns, and through a plethora of cut scenes. The occasional anime-plus-CGI FMV segment also adds a little cinematic spice to the whole affair. After completing the game, you'll have the opportunity to save and play through the game again in a sort of "New Game+" mode, with a new difficulty level and a new dungeon featuring an obscenely difficult boss and some incredible equipment.

Lastly, the game features a wide number of mini-games, both plot-relevant (raft racing, ship-to-ship gunnery) and just-for-fun (quizzes, balloon hacking, a bizarre game where erstwhile mages try to crush each other with a giant element-polarized beach ball). The rewards aren't exactly spectacular, but the games themselves are almost always goofy, stupid fun.

Taken altogether, Tales of Destiny 2 is probably the best console RPG released stateside this year, trumping such unspectacular opposition as Saiyuki and Breath of Fire 4. The fast-paced, fighting-game combat system might even appeal to those traditionally averse to the slow, menu-driven battles in more traditional role-playing titles. While it starts off a little hackneyed, Tales of Destiny 2 quickly develops an entertaining personality that's really hard not to like.

OVERALL: RPG fans shouldn't let Namco's latest "Tales of" title go unpurchased. With fast-paced and exciting battles, difficult boss encounters, astounding 2D art, and a likeable cast of RPG cliches, Tales of Destiny 2 is this year's Valkyrie Profile (minus the killer Tri-Ace character designs). It's a grand adventure whose small flaws in pacing and dungeon design shouldn't keep it from demolishing a week or two of your life.