It isn't too often that a handheld game flicks to in-game footage if you don't do anything at the menu. We've seen it plenty on console games, but it comes as a surprise to see snippets of what to expect from a game you just wouldn't expect to see it from.

When the game does start you are introduced to a few characters, and its a 3 on 1 battle to the death. The solo guy is winning so you have to presume he's the bad guy; with a quick spell he is transported to what looks like a temple and sealed away.

Twelve years later, you take control of a teenage boy called Cress. His dad urgently wants to talk to him about the pendant he gave Cress earlier, but, with your best friend, Chester, wanting to go out hunting, it's a conversation that will have to take place later.

It's in this early stage of the game where - if you walk around the town chatting to people - you learn a few of the basics. You get yourself a recipe for the cooking system we learnt to love from Tales of Symphonia, Chester earns himself a new title and you learn how to equip new weaponary and the ins-and-outs of pulling/pushing moveable objects.

After another brief cut scene, you and Chester head off into the forest to hunt some boar. The forest area is the training ground for the battle area, and at first the battle system may seem extremely confusing. While it looks like real-time battle, don't expect to have full control. Hitting the A button will send Cress forward with an attack, but if you think you can freestyle your moves, you will find yourself dead in no time.

Another move can't happen until the current attack animation has finished and he has run back to his starting position. While you can move left and right to adjust this 'base position', more often than not you will find your comrades running up behind you simply because you tried to tie a couple of attacks together. Take it slowly and you will find the battling a lot easier.

After returning from the hunt, you find your home town destroyed and the entire population dead, and after a few more twists and turns you find your pendant stolen to resurrect the evil ancient King, Dhaos. And this is where the story begins.

It's up to you and your comrades to find a way to defeat the evil King and return everything to how it once was, and this wouldn't be as much of a problem were it not for the random and numerous battles through which you will have to make your way.

It is not uncommon for RPGs to have random encounters, but to have them every few moments while making your way through a specific dungeon - especially when you're only making your way through to grab an item you missed before - can really deter you from turning on this game again. You can acquire bottle of 'holy water' that decrease the amount of battles you will come across, but these don't last long and go against the whole levelling-up side of the game.

Graphics are simple and include little touches that make the world feel a little more alive: a butterfly here, a fish swimming through the water over there. Namco even tried to fit in some 3D with the area map, and while it doesn't look great, it works.

Characters are hard to diferentiate from each other and if it weren't for the character bio's you can view, it seems that every character, despite their father-son relationships, look the same age. There is basically no way to tell the age/sex of the characters except by following the story, and there's plenty of that to go through. It isn't uncommon, in TOP, to have to tap through 10 - 15 minutes of text before getting on with the story (a quick suggestion: save after every big conversation).

It's not that the conversations don't help you stay focused on the job ahead of you, more the fact that if you happen to die five minutes after in a strangely one-sided battle, you're going to choose to switch off the GBA in favour of replaying the last 20 minutes. And be careful of the save function - the ability to save is originally described to you as "by standing on this circle". While the circle does sparkle and shoot little blue sparks into the sky, the game doesn't save until you enter the system menu and hit Save. Doing this will save much frustration.

Sound is exactly what you would expect from a Game Boy Advance title: standard midi tunes and some generic slashing and grunt noises. A good addition - despite being heavily compressed - are the voices-over for certain special moves. This is one of the many times during the game you will be reminded it's a Tales title.