I was thinking about purchasing these games and would like to get some insight from ya'll on here. I heard Tales of Destiny 2 (Eternia) is a better version of 1. What are your thoughts on these games? Any feedback would be appreciated, thanks.

I played Tales of Phantasia, Destiny and Eternia(Destiny 2).

Though I didn't finished any of those 2 titles. The best thing about of those games. Is that the battles are multi-player.
The stories aren't brilliant. But there's full of nerdy references.

The Battle system can be as fun as hell if you're playing with 4 people.

Fun games. My brother and I played ToD1 together and had a good time. Towards the end we got a little confused with the story line, so we didn't complete the game, but la~ Such is life!

I'd like to bring this back up about 1 and a half years later. LOL.

I still haven't purchased this game due to how expensive it is. But am still trying to decide which one to purchase. I only want one or the other so which is better in your opinion?

Thank in advance.

If you can only get one, get the second. Better voice-acting, better-looking skills, and generally all around more fun. You miss out on the Tower of Druaga dungeon in the first, though.
(Useless trivia: Tales of Destiny 2 for the PSX was originally Tales of Eternia in Japan, but was renamed. There was an actual Tales of Destiny 2 released in Japan for the PS2, confusing things even further.)