Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology (テイルズ オブ ザ ワールド レディアント マイソロジー) is a spin-off of the Tales action role-playing game series for the PlayStation Portable. Like some of the previous games that bear Tales of the World in their titles, this game is a crossover title featuring characters from various Mothership Titles. Unlike other games in the Tales of the World Series, however, this one has been released in both North America and Europe.

Gameplay
The gameplay resembles in many ways that of an MMORPG, albeit without the online part. Players accept quests at the local guild office from a selection of five different choices at a time. Quests include defeating certain monster types, mining or harvesting certain raw ingredients, or crafting certain goods. Completing these quests rewards the player with Fame Points and Gald. Upon reaching certain levels of Fame Points, a new "Story Quest" is unlocked, which leads to new in-game events once completed. The player's character is fully customizable with the equipment available through quests and through stores, and changing it affects both stats and visual appearance. The typical "Tales of" crafting system is also in the game, allowing the player to further customize his/her equipment.

The game uses the Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System found in the PlayStation 2 game Tales of the Abyss. This system allows the player character to move freely across the field.

Job Classes

 * Warrior - Starter Class. Excels in melee attacks, and can equip powerful axes as well as swords.
 * Thief - Starter Class. A professional in quick attacks and stealing.
 * Priest - Starter Class. A healer that uses light and healing magic.
 * Mage - Starter Class. A magician that uses offensive magic to smite foes.
 * Swordsman - Elite Class. Uses sword-based artes used by many other Tales characters.
 * Fighter - Elite Class. Their most powerful weapon is their body. They attack with their arms and legs rather than with weapons.
 * Ninja - Elite Class. Assassin who specializes in stealthy strikes.
 * Magic Knight - Elite Class. A warrior who masters physical and magical artes.
 * Bishop - Elite Class. An elite magician who masters offensive and healing magic.
 * Hunter - Elite Class. Marksmen who snipe enemies with the bow.

Quest types

 * Story Quest - This may be different form for quests, but this is the kind of quest that has a role in the story, and need different amount of Fame Points to get. The Story Quests are colored in blue/light-purple.
 * Radiant Quest - After defeating Ganser the first time, the player may be able to unlock this special side-quest, which is about finding an ancient hero’s equipments from ancient times, called the Radiants, and fight them in order to obtain the Radiant Equipment. There is one complete Radiant user for each class.
 * Search Quest - This is usually a quest where you are told to go around and find information or items.
 * Eliminate Quest - This quest is about fighting and defeating monsters that have caused trouble for the townspeople. The amount of monsters is different, but it is usually one, six, eight or ten.
 * Recover Quest - The player's client has been taken away something from someone, and it is the player's job to get the item back again.
 * Craft Quest - This quest is about finding ingredients and make things the client wants the player to make.
 * Hunting Quest - The player will be told to go to areas and battle monsters in order to get items after victory that the client wants.
 * Rescue Quest - The player is requested to look for someone who has gotten lost or has been kidnapped by monsters.
 * Trial Quest - The player has to battle a character from the Tales of-series. The amount of people may be either one, two or three people. Two Trial Quests can only be obtained through certain conditions and will give special awards.

Original

 * Protagonist - The player’s own created character, the hero or heroine of the game. Born as a Descender to protect the world of Terresia, he or she becomes a member of Ad Libitum.
 * Kanonno — A girl that suffers from amnesia that is the story’s main heroine. She quickly develops a bond with the player and Mormo.
 * Mormo - A Descender from the world of Yaoon, who accompanies the Descender of Terresia on a mission to destroy the Devourer. He speaks on behalf of the hero designed by the player.
 * Ganser - The ruler of Ailily, the city that rests adjacent to the World Tree. His oppressive attitude towards Ailily's citizens provoked Ad Libitum to conspire against him.
 * Aurora - A mysterious woman who works with Widdershin.
 * Widdershin - The Descender of the world of Gilgulim, who plans to devour all worlds and merge them into one immortal being, and the main antagonist of the story.

Playable Characters
Tales of Phantasia
 * Chester Barklight
 * Arche Klein

Tales of Destiny
 * Stahn Aileron
 * Rutee Katrea
 * Leon Magnus

Tales of Eternia
 * Reid Hershel

Tales of Symphonia
 * Lloyd Irving
 * Raine Sage
 * Kratos Aurion
 * Genis Sage

Tales of Rebirth
 * Eugene Gallardo

Tales of Legendia
 * Senel Coolidge

Tales of the Abyss
 * Luke fon Fabre
 * Tear Grants

Non-playable Characters
Tales of Destiny
 * Garr Kelvin
 * Philia Felice

Tales of Destiny 2
 * Nanaly Fletch
 * Harold Berselius

Tales of Rebirth
 * Annie Barrs

Story
As always, the Tales of the World spin-offs add Tales characters from entries in the main installments. They will assist the player throughout the game to stop the villain from destroying the world.

The world of Terresia is under assault by the "Devourer", which seeks to consume its mana and leave it barren. A guild named Ad Libitum exists throughout the remnants of the world to protect it from the consuming monster, though not so successful. As a last resort, the world's life-giving tree (the World Tree) uses the last of its power to create a Descender, the player's own character, which is born to protect the world who gave it birth. The hero, after being awakened by a strange creature named Mormo whose own world was destroyed by the same threat, learns of the danger to the world's World Tree. Upon hearing a scream, the player rushes to discover that a girl is being attacked by a soldier. After rescuing the girl, she introduces herself as Kanonno, a member of the guild Ad Libitum. This guild seeks to help the people of the world, fighting injustice and oppression. With no better leads, the player and Mormo set out to join Ad Libitum, hoping to learn more about the location of the Devourer.

As the time goes, they eventually manages to defeat Ganser, who is terrorizing the town Ailily, and reveal the real master mind, Widdershin, another Descender from a world named Gilgulim, which is the Devourer. He tries to kill the player, but fails as the hero neutralize the power and destroys a node of Gilgulim. Widdershin then disappears, and will not be seen before later. Ailily is saved, and the road to Doplund is opened.

In Doplund, there have occurred a lot of earthquakes, and the Descenders go to investigate it, eventually finding more nodes all over the region. In the end, they meet Widdershin again when they are forced to fight and kill one from Mormo’s own world, Yaoon. When they get back, they find out that the road to Gavada is completely repaired, and head there to defeat a monster that is blocking it.

In Gavada, they encounter yet another problem; the government’s new assistant, Aurora, is giving the once poor town a luxurious state they will not take away. Because of this, Ad Libitum is not worth much than a bunch of handymen. The player and Mormo come here to look for a scientist there, Harold, who may help them in their quest of protecting the world. Harold, however, has disappeared and not come back for an awfully long while. Because of this, the Descenders start a search-and-rescue operation, and eventually find the female scientist. Later on, they are standing face to face with a Gilgulim node in Gavada, but after destroying it, Gavada falls down to its poor state like before, forcing people to once again live in the real world. Kanonno, however, has regained her memory and run away.

In hope to find the source of Gilgulim’s nodes, the duo goes back to Doplund, where they in the end find Kanonno, who tells them about her past; she used to be a Descender of a world called Pasca. In desperation to save her world, Kanonno destroyed the whole humanity there. Regretting the action later on, joined Widdershin, who promised her world back if she helped her to swallow other worlds. When she was about to weaken Terresia’s World Tree, however, it was too strong and sent her away, losing her memories. The player and Mormo are shocked about this, but it becomes worse when Kanonno's wish for getting Pasca back makes a new node of Gilgulim sprout out, and she challenges the player for a fight to protect it. After the battle, she returns and tells, realizing that it is with the player and Ad Libitum’s side she wants to be on.

When the player, Mormo and Kanonno go to the Foot of the World Tree to stop the mana consuming, they meet up with Aurora, who tells them about her own past as a Descender. After defeating her in battle, Kanonno says that she will try to stop the mana in Terresia from flowing over to Gilgulim while the player and Mormo go to stop Widdershin. They promise that they will meet again, and that Kanonno is sure they will make it.

After Widdershin is defeated, she meets up with them again, and they, along with all Terresians, witness the mana from the worlds Gilgulim consumed being freed. They now are making World Tree seeds in order to restore their worlds. Kanonno finds the seed of her world Pasca, and likewise Mormo finds the seed for Yaoon. After saying goodbye to the player, who is going back to the Terresian World Tree to sleep, Kanonno and Mormo leave Terresia.

Audio
The opening song for the Japanese version is named Hikari to Kage (光と影) by Kane Uemura, who also sings the game's theme song, Kamihikōki. The opening version outside of Japan is, similar to Tales of the Abyss, the same opening song without lyrics.

Most of the soundtracks in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology are from the Mothership Titles' soundtracks, but it does have a couple of soundtracks on its own, including character songs, location songs, event songs and battle music.

Trivia

 * This is the only game from the "Tales of the World" series so far to be released outside of Japan.
 * In Sound Test, there's an unusual amount of grammatical errors; mostly words not being capitalized.
 * Tales of Eternia, Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Rebirth, Tales of Legendia, and Tales of Destiny are the only game to have two of their songs put into the game
 * Even though Tales of Eternia is known as Tales of Destiny II in America, all songs from the game are classified as "Tales of Eternia battle music"
 * Even though Tales of Destiny 2 and Tales of Rebirth were never released in America, the game acknowledges their existence