Tales of Eternia Remastered: choose your battles

You can switch off random encounters in Tales of Eternia Remastered, or begin on Extreme difficulty. Those options give this 2D action RPG two appealing routes back into Reid Hershel's adventure: spend more time following the story, or ask more of its battles. Reid and his companions travel between Inferia and Celestia, realms facing each other across the sky, to prevent the Grand Fall that threatens them both.

The remaster launched worldwide on 16 October 2026 for PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and Switch 2. Its day-one version is v.2.0.0 across all six platforms. That update adds Titles to the elements carried into a second playthrough and beyond, alongside text fixes and a Japanese-only font option. For a game with a further difficulty waiting after completion, carrying another part of your progress forward is a welcome addition.

Less interruption, more guidance

Boost adjusts experience gains and encounter frequency, while high-speed Auto-mode speeds up routine fights. Battle Retry gives you another attempt after defeat, and Quick Recovery provides another convenience for the party. These controls handle separate parts of the journey. Turning random encounters off clears space for exploration; changing experience gains adjusts character growth; retrying a battle lets you return to the encounter that just defeated you.

Destination icons can be switched on or off, and the markers have distinct jobs. Yellow exclamation marks identify main-story destinations, stars point towards key items, and hourglasses flag events connected to time-limited titles or items. Blue markers identify events involving new Artes. Some dungeon mechanisms remain unmarked, leaving room to work out how a particular space operates even with the guidance switched on.

In UnGeek's roughly 30-minute pre-release hands-on, Nicolo Manaloto welcomed those markers because flat dungeon layouts sometimes made usable paths difficult to distinguish. During that demo, he could switch between party members, block, use skills and pause for items; the other characters followed adjustable AI behaviour. The session ended with Undine, where lightning attacks helped. That small slice captures the appeal of assistance beside active fighting: a clearer route can lead straight to a battle that still needs attention.

Choose the fighting you want

The Aggressive Linear Motion Battle System keeps the action in fast, real-time 2D encounters, with Artes and party coordination at its centre. Extreme is available from the beginning, while Unknown opens after completing the game. A returning player can therefore choose tougher combat immediately and keep a further setting for the next run. Encounter controls and difficulty settings answer different preferences: the frequency of a fight and its demands deserve separate controls.

The launch update's title carryover fits that return journey. Its other addition, Font Style, offers Remastered and Classic choices when the game language is Japanese, with some text excluded. Bandai Namco recommends applying the latest update before playing. The language condition is useful to know before looking for the option: this particular presentation choice belongs to Japanese text, while the broader graphics and sound-effects toggles serve the adventure itself.

Those graphics and sound-effects settings let you switch between original and remastered presentation. Autosaves follow events and map transitions, scenes can be paused or skipped, and the skit player replays viewed conversations, with some first-run exceptions. Together, these changes make returning to a long journey easier to organise around the parts you want to spend time with. A familiar look can sit alongside newer saving and replay conveniences.

Eternia's strongest invitation is that combination of choices. You can follow the destinations more closely, reduce routine interruptions and still choose demanding fights. Or leave the icons off and work through the landscape yourself. The next encounter and the next playthrough each have their own settings to consider, giving Reid's trip between two worlds a useful degree of flexibility from its opening hours onwards.