Play Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon Online

Summary

Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon, often just called Narikiri Dungeon, broke the series’ tradition by being the first true sequel in the Tales universe. It reimagines the franchise as a Dungeon RPG, a genre label the game itself coined, and leans on the handheld’s limits to deliver a compact yet deep experience. Combat uses a stripped‑down Petit LMBS, a turn‑based spin on the series’ famed Linear Motion Battle System, where you directly control only one character while the rest of the party is handled by AI. The title’s subtitle, "narikiri," captures the core mechanic of Mel and Dio’s ability to become anything they can dress up as – essentially a gameplay‑driven metamorphosis. Despite its modest hardware, the game sold about 136,000 copies after its 2000 launch, proving that fans were eager for a Tales adventure beyond the mainline storyline.

Storyline

Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon (often just called Narikiri Dungeon) opens 205 years after the original Tales of Phantasia. A shooting star lands in the mountains, where the player‑narrator discovers twin babies and adopts them as Dio and Mel. Thirteen years later, the energetic Dio and level‑headed Mel find a shape‑shifting creature they name Kruelle, and a winged woman called Norn tells them they have a doomed destiny, sending them to meet the half‑elf time‑warrior Arche.

Arche’s pink‑heart tower becomes the site of a trial that tests the twins’ hearts and bodies. After proving themselves, Norn enchants a painting of the sun into a portal that sends Mel and Dio to the year 4203, where they speak with Claus about the true cause of the war with Dhaos: magitechnology was draining the world’s mana. Subsequent trips—via enchanted paintings of the moon, a star, and a cloud—bring them to meet Chester, Cress, Mint, Suzu, and other spirits who each share lessons about responsibility, the balance of light and dark, and the futility of trying to change history.

The final segment takes the twins into a cave where aggressive copies of themselves appear, claiming to be their “true selves.” In combat they confront their past lives—Meltia and Dios Bundy—who were responsible for a magitechnology weapon that killed 150,000 people and devastated the planet’s mana. The battle reveals that Norn is actually Kruelle, the guardian of the dying Kharlan Tree, and that the twins must defeat her to complete the spirits’ trial.

Having won, the twins are reborn as babies once more, and the player‑narrator finds them again, completing the cyclical story of redemption and the impossible task of judging whether evil is inherent.