Sometimes I wonder if the Tales series of RPGs from Namco-Bandai was intended as a bedtime tale or a sleep aid; all I know for sure is, they’re exciting enough to put me to sleep fairly swiftly every time I play them.

Maybe it’s because the titles are such paint-by-numbers affairs, a charge which certainly applies to the company’s latest PSP RPG offering, Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology. Although not as bad as some early PSP RPGs, Tales of the World simply doesn’t inspire a sense of wonder or exploration. Perhaps that’s because there aren’t that many places to explore, and those that are offered must be explored over and over and over again to complete the little mini-missions that push one through the tale and that allow you to advance, ever-so-slowly, in level.

While the level design tends to keep one cautious in the early going, as one can run into monsters capable of wiping you out, the experience is uneven at best, and long after you know a particular area like the back of your hand, you still have to make too many return visits to clear out missions and move on in the storyline.

Sporting an action-based battle system similar to those found in most other Tales titles, there’s simply not much new to be found in Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology that hasn’t been done over and over again in other versions. More than many series far older than it, the Tales series is in need of a deep and abiding reinvention, a complete makeover than turns the series on its ear and makes the games fun and refreshing and new again.

That sort of remix simply is not in evidence in Tales of the World, however. It is a perfunctory, “more of the same old stuff” outing that makes one wonder of anyone’s even at the wheel of the franchise anymore. While once a refreshing change-of-pace series, Tales RPGs are now run-of-the-mill and sleep inducing, and it’s a sad thing to bear witness to.

It’s also a terrible time for a title like this to appear in the PSP platform, as well. With sharp, exciting titles, including RPGs, making their way to PSP in the latter half of 2007, from Jeanne d’Arc to Dungeons and Dragons Tactics to Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions, the PSP is quite possibly this fall’s hot platform for RPG action. An asleep-at-the-wheel title like Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology will simply get passed over without a second thought, just like a book on mortgage life insurance sitting on the shelve next to the latest James Patterson thriller.