We’re not going to beat around the bush with this one – Tales Of Eternia is not an original PSP game. Picked your jaw up off the floor yet? Now we’ll explain. Released in Japan in 2000 on the PSone, it was also translated for the US market and re-christened Tales Of Destiny II. However, us lowly European gamers were deemed unworthy of the title, so it is not without a considerable amount of irony that we’re getting the PSP version a lot earlier than our rotund cousins across the pond, if they get it at all. We don’t really care, to be honest. We’re happy to take what we can get; but if you feel so inclined, please take this opportunity to cackle with glee.

Whether or not you know anything of Tales Of Eternia’s history, the thought of playing a five-year-old game on Sony’s sexy little plaything may seem like a big fat waste of time. Certainly not something to get excited about. To some extent we’d agree – we’d much rather see new content on the PSP too – but when the game in question has never been released in Europe before, it’s not so much of a problem. In fact, Eternia is only the second game in Namco’s long-running Tales series to make it over to us, the first being Tales Of Symphonia on the GameCube. Luckily, Ubisoft has seen fit to rectify this situation. We can only hope that this change of policy extends to the two recent Tales games on the PS2. If so, we will be welcoming them to our rain-soaked shores with openarms.

The Tales series has always been a favourite with RPG fans in the know, marrying genre traditions with a unique real-time combat system. The frequent monster encounters in Eternia are still random in their occurrence, so you’ll be happily exploring a verdant forest when a big hairy monster crashes the party looking to end your pleasant day with a severe kicking. Once battles commence, however, you and your fellow warriors (up to four at a time) aren’t rooted to the spot as in many RPGs, but are given free movement over a two-dimensional battlefield. All actions can be accessed through a few simple buttons or the easy-to-navigate menu system, meaning that visiting pain on your attackers is not a complex task. In fact, it’s refreshing simple.

Your buddies are AI-controlled, though you have a few choices over the type of actions they perform during battles. Their contribution is always valuable, so it’s never left up to you to settle your differences with your enemies. However, the funky battle system is about as far as Eternia strays from its generic roots; but because it’s such a big change to what we usually expect to see in an RPG, it helps to keep everything feeling a little more progressive.

Seeing as so much time is spent fighting, it’s absolutely amazing that for once the battles don’t become tiresome and, more importantly, the game is balanced so well that there are no instances where power-levelling is required – by playing through the game normally you should be experienced enough to dispatch any boss with enough care during battle.

On all other fronts, Eternia is as predictable as they come, rigidly sticking to RPG conventions – the story, characters, pacing and adventuring are all comfortably familiar. Despite this though, Eternia is ceaselessly charming, with the well-translated script delivered by enthusiastic voice actors who really help breathe life into the characters. All the things you expect an RPG to do, Eternia does exceptionally well, so it’s blissfully easy to overlook the fact that it’s both a conversion and a by-the-numbers game. Best of all though, you can save anywhere, so you won’t have to miss your stop on the bus because you’re searching frantically for a save point. Tales Of Eternia may be nothing more than a conversion of a halfdecade- old PSOne game, but fortunately it has more than enough quality to rise above this stigma. And besides, it was a pretty good game in the first place. To have fitted it all nicely into the handheld is no mean feat.

Despite all this, if RPGs have never grabbed you before, then Tales Of Eternia’s distinctly retro feel is not going to do anything to change your mind. But, for those who have dabbled – or those who would consider themselves a ‘hardcore’ fan of this RPG staple – this is a game that will provide a long, satisfying adventure.

If this is the quality of RPG to come on the PSP, then it bodes well for the standard of other classic PSOne conversions. We would be thrilled to see a version of Capcom’s Breath Of Fire III, for example. Now all we need to do is convince Square Enix to port Final Fantasy VII.

Jude Salmon