About two years ago I did a review of the Retroid Pocket 3/3+, and still to this day I love that device! I originally bought it so I could stream my PS5 and PC on the go, but I found SOOO many other uses for it along the way. Basically backed up most of my game library to the thing for safe keeping, and so I could continue playing the games I loved. It also doubled as my PSP replacement, as my old PSP's battery is now completely shot, and has some other issues -- so the Retroid ended up being perfect for me. Well about a month ago I went ahead and replaced my Retroid Pocket 3 with a newer 4 Pro (which I guess I should really review some time?) and that opened me up to a whole new world. A world of running PS2 games!
While I had previously backed up my PS2 games to PC (something that's very easy to do, but no I won't go into how to do it), the first thing I did with my Retroid was transfer all of my Tales of games to the device. I LOVE the Tales series, and thanks to fans, games like Tales of Legendia now have undub patches that restore the voice acting in the second half of the game, and patches to Abyss that restore the original opening theme! It's pretty great, and for sure how these games were meant to be played. However, one thing I didn't expect to be able to do is apply an English Patch to the untranslated Tales of Destiny DC. And well, let's just say this game is amazing! I was instantly hooked from the moment I pressed start and saw that intro.
It's really a shame that it never got released outside of Japan. It's a 2D remake of the second entry in the Tales series, but it's battle system and gameplay mechanics feel completely fresh and provide a different experience from the original ToD on PS1. Considering it released after Tales of the Abyss, it's really no surprise that it's so refined, but man... Namco didn't give the west enough credit with this one.
Anyway, I could go on and on about this game (and I plan to soon), so I'll stop myself right there. It's the first game I've played using my new RP4P, and I feel like it's going to be something I'll always remember about this device. It allowed me to play this gem that was never released outside of Japan, and I can't wait to use it to revisit the rest of the series as well.
