Tales of Phantasia was released by Namco in 1994. Unfortunately, this release occured at the end of the lifespan of the SNES/SFC (Super FamiCon) systems, and the game didn't get as much popularity as it should have. Namco tried to compensate by releasing Tales of Destiny and Tales of Eternia. I haven't played either one, but apparently they were flops.

Tales of Phantasia tells the story of a young boy who, by extenuating circumstances, gets thrown into an epic battle of good vs. evil. Classic RPG plotline? Maybe not... I've played dozens of RPGs, and this one's no rip-off or copy of Chrono Trigger or anything else out there (unless you count things like "Moria Gallery" and parallel that with J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings trilogy (by the by, there's an RPG out there for that, as well... I'll get around to playing it eventually)).

Game-wise, it's quite ingenious, really. You control the main character, and the other party members are controlled by AI (Artificial Intelligence, for those of you lacking any ^~__*^ ). You can control them a bit, by going into their menus in the field and enabling/disabling spells, or by going into their battle menus while fighting. Anyway, on with the walkthrough!