When Bandai Namco kicked its Tales franchise remasters into overdrive a few years back, I dared not hope that they'd touch the 2D entries. After all, if you ask five JRPG fans in the West when the series began, there's a very real chance that at least three of them will tell you "Tales of Symphonia." It was that GameCube entry's splashy 3D cel-shaded presentation that lit a bit of a fire with many players, relegating Phantasia, Destiny, and Eternia to distant memory at best.
Perhaps it's because Japanese gamers don't have this issue. Perhaps it's simply because they feel like it. But either way, it appears distinctly likely that Bandai Namco is looking farther into the past for its next remaster—or, at least, one of its upcoming remasters—than I would have thought probable. And thank goodness for that, because Tales of Eternia rules.
Tales of Eternia might not even ring as immediate a bell for you if you've actually played it. That's "thanks" to Namco's decision to label it "Tales of Destiny II" in the West, a decision which would become all the more unfortunate when an actual sequel to Tales of Destiny debuted two years...
