Not the Sequel It Said It Was

Tales of Eternia Remastered is out. Americans first played it in 2001 as Tales of Destiny II, which it isn't. The real Tales of Destiny 2 never came out in English at all.

Bandai Namco put out Tales of Eternia Remastered last week, on PS5, PS4, Xbox, both Switches and Steam. The original came out in Japan in November 2000. In North America it came out in September 2001, as Tales of Destiny II.

It is not Tales of Destiny II. It has nothing to do with Tales of Destiny: different world, different cast. According to its makers, the name change was “strictly for brand name and brand recognition reasons.” Americans had already played Destiny, and nobody had heard of Eternia. Fans had another theory, which is that Mattel owns Eternia, the planet He-Man lives on.

Then Namco made the real sequel. Tales of Destiny 2, set in the same world as the first one, came out on PS2 in Japan in November 2002 and never got an English release. So for 25 years, America has had a Tales of Destiny II that isn't, and no Tales of Destiny 2 at all. Europe got Eternia on the PSP in 2006 under its real name. That version never came to North America either.

The remaster ships in the US under its own title, for the first time. Eternia has had a rough year anyway: Amazon MGM spent nearly $200 million putting He-Man's planet on screen in Masters of the Universe, and in June it opened second, at $29.3 million, behind a comedy called Scary Movie (more on that one yesterday).