Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology reminds me a bit of Kingdom Hearts for the Tales universe, but without the Disney trappings. The title screams fan-service, mashing together various characters from a bevy of previous Tales titles (taking in everything from Destiny to Abyss) and is obviously meant to appeal to the "Tales Of" fans more than your casual RPG player.

That said, TotW is a pretty solid action RPG for the PSP, and shouldn't be completely overlooked even if you're not a big fan of the franchise. It borrows its battle system from the incredibly enjoyable Abyss game on the PS2, and even if you're not too aware of who everyone is, it doesn't really come off as some type of inside joke when it comes to getting to know who your characters are.

When you begin the game, you'll create a character using a limited set of options. I do wish they gave you a bit more to work with than five or six choices between each major body piece (head, hair, etc), so don't expect a great deal of versatility when it comes to making your character. You also pick gender and name, and then the game begins. The idea is that you're born from a World Tree, which is basically the center of life for your particular planet. All the Tales characters come from various worlds that have been attacked or devoured by the antagonist, who has now set his eyes on your home. You're also accompanied throughout the game by a small sidekick who acts as your narration vehicle thru the game (your character doesn't speak outside of one liners in battle).

The meat of the game is dungeon exploring, which is set off by taking quests from your quest hub in the major areas in the game. Quests are somewhat restrictive; you can't take on multiple quests at once, which would be nice to do, since you could easily finish more than one inside a dungeon. After taking your quest you'll bring together a party. Your party can consist of the major named Tales characters that you've already encountered, or generic characters. The Tales characters are a bit selective though; they'll only group with you if you've become famous enough. You can judge how well liked you are as you progress thru the game, and eventually you'll not have any trouble securing a group full of major players.

Dungeon questing takes place generally in three different areas on each world section. You'll do a variety of fetch quests that are usually used to unlock new recipes (there's a few crafting options in the game), and then you'll have your story based progression quests. These do get redundant after a while, but they're also effective for quick grinding. It is very possible to take on some super difficult quests far too early, and the game could use more variety in the over all type of quests available. Thankfully, the battles are not random but based on actually enemies you can run into on the map to trigger a fight, so you can generally get to the point of your quests pretty quickly. Also, the battle system is engaging to play, so it won't feel like too big of a chore.

Graphically the game is pretty impressive on the PSP, and while it obviously takes a step back from recent PS2 entries, it manages to hold its own against other RPG's on the system fairly well. The anime style simplifies the character designs, but the vibrant colors used in the style really help propel the overall look of the title. I couldn't give a damn about the music though; it doesn't do anything for me, and I couldn't even hum you a tune from it if my life depended on it. The voice-over work is pretty solid though, but I'm not familiar enough with all the Tales games to tell you how some of the older characters sound compared to their original titles.

So while Tales of the World isn't the best of the best when it comes to PSP RPG's, I can't really say it's a bad way to spend some time. Don't come in expecting an epic/grand/moving story, and keep in mind that this game is made for the big Tales fans. If you're not into the series at all, you might not have as much fun with this one, but there's still some solid RPG gameplay to be found.