This was posted on GameFAQS by me (PSOFreak07) a while back. Out of the nearly 20 things I submitted, they were all rejected but this one (because they are buttholes)

I walked into Gamestop, and found one last copy of Tales of Phantasia for the GBA. The asking price was a reasonable 11.99, but I soon learned the low price was for a reason. So anyway, I popped the game into my SP and turned it on. Moments after the title screen popped up and I started a new game. That's when this game started going downhill. I played the original version of this game on the SNES and it was wonderful. The opening fight video was ridiculously watered down, the sprites looked really condensed and the voice overs were terrible.

After the example battle, the scene commenced and right away the animations took a terrible hit along with the music. Instead of Dhaos looking intimidating when he flipped over and used his magic, he looked like a paper doll that was flying in the wind as his sprite was now just an image file, instead of a character model.

Graphics: |||| 4/10
Now the game officially started, with Cress and Chester going into the forest. Their character designs seemed to have stayed relatively the same, which is the only positive part about this game. A random battle ensued and I was shocked, the voices were muffled and spammed all over the battle and I had to shut them off in the options menu.

Game play: || 2/10
There's really nothing enjoyable about this game except for its familiarity and it bringing back childhood memories. Other than that, it's really not worth getting into it for a second round if you've already played it before. The really annoying part is that while this is a port, nothing has changed and there's no extra content for having to buy it for a second time, plus usually every port RPG from consoles to these handheld systems get the save points removed and swapped for saving on the menu. Nope, nothing new here.

Story: |||||||| 8/10
While now it's not much of a story, back then Namco pulled all the stops to make this story passionate and emotionally flooded with life. It's still an enjoyable story just hard to take seriously since it's a portable game, meant to be played in short bursts. Ultimately, I would rather have you save a ton of money and to get the nintendo-certified legal Emulator called "ZSNES" and downloading the Tales of Phantasia original on-line. You'll thank me later.

Replay value: X 0/10
There's absolutely nothing here to do besides go through the story again, and Namco did add a FEW little things but they're so small, they're nearly insignificant. "Let's go Arche" is a minigame earned after beating the game but it's wicked pointless and annoying.

Overall: ||||| 5/10
If you haven't played it on SNES before, be my guest and buy it now. However, if you beat this before, there's no real reason to buy it again.

Yeah I actually bought this game and have never played it once... one of the many games. Thanks for the review.

Basically ports are just cash-ins most of the time. Like this one.

From all I heard the game wasn't released in the US, so you played it on a pc via rom?

Tales of Phantasia was DEFINITELY released in the US, but as for the SNES version I did have to get the ROM and I have to say it was a blast . All the stuff in the GBA version is all compressed and ugly.

Eh, I don't know, I remember checking the game out as a rom, but all I found was the Japanese version and a translator.

ToP was released in the US, but not on the SNES.

just this GBA version which is complete blah...

I know it's out on GBA I have that version.

Doesn't it just.... Not feel right?

300 Viz.