Tales of Symphonia 
Category: Entertainment > Games
Good
101
After much waiting, wailing, and gnashing of teeth from its owners, the GameCube finally got its own RPG. And what an RPG it got!
GAMEPLAY: SUPERB
This game is absurdly fun to play. Control in both the overworld, dungeons, and battle is effortless, with the controller utilized to good effect in almost every instance. Item use and character development are easy to control. However, if you want, you can get very particular about your character's growth thanks to the 'title' system. The Strike/Technical divide, which is poorly explained by the manual and the game, also allows for a more general way of controlling your character's growth. The application of EX gems and their associated skills allows still finer control of your character's abilities. But again, you can play the game very well and have a lot of fun without getting too deeply into any of this.
The real-time battle system will be a bit confusing to those used to the more standard turn-based gameplay of other console RPGs. The learning curve is pretty shallow, however, and the inability to directly control the other members of your party is not as much a handicap as you might think. The AI is reasonably intelligent (though the characters sometimes position themselves oddly or run around for no apparent reason), and if necessary the player can command them to use particular skills using either controller shortcuts or the battle menu.
The learning curve for controlling a given character, as I said, is very shallow... you can learn to control Lloyd, Kratos, Zelos, and Sheena in only one or two battles. Regal, Presea, and Collette require a bit more work (or at least they did for me), and Genis and Raine will be hardest (mainly because they're useless as melee fighters, and everyone else is either primarily melee or at least useful for it). Carefully assigning your battle skills to your controller and preparing unison attacks will allow you to create combos and special attacks that look awesome, but it's just as fun to assign a few stock skills and wail away on your opponents.
Again, battle strategy is as deep as you want it to be. The game sets defaults which are reasonably useful, but if you desire it, you can adjust strategies to fit your own approach to battle. Also, you have the ability to adjust individual strategies in battle through the menu, or switch the whole group to an alternate strategy through D-pad shortcuts. As with other aspects of the game, battle strategy is scalable to your level of interest and expertise.
I have not tried multiplayer, but I have seen complaints that the tendency of the camera to zoom in on Player 1 in battle detracts from the experience. Multiplayer for this sort of game is an iffy prospect anyway, and the AI is sufficiently competent that you don't NEED your pals to pick up controllers, so I don't view this as a weakness.
The gameplay unites RPG strategy with good old-fashioned button-mashing fun, and that makes for a great experience, IMHO.
STORY: SUPERB
With the caveat 'for a game', as always. Despite some cheesy lines (and I mean REALLY cheesy), the story of the game is nicely plotted, and most of the characters behave believably. The twists in the story are both interesting and plausible, and the game makes effective use of foreshadowing without being ridiculously heavy-handed about it. The only problem is that you have to devote some time to the game before the plot picks up; the first part of the game makes it seem like it's going to be the standard 'beat the dungeons and save the world' story that's been standard on consoles since the first Legend of Zelda game.
GRAPHICS: EXCELLENT
Cel-shading. Some love it on general principle, some hate it on general principle. If you belong to either category, I can't help you. However, if you like a game that just looks good, then you won't go wrong with this one. The overworld graphics are rather bland (and the black-blob monsters in the overworld are atrocious), but everything else is very nice. The choice to use blurring as a method of introducing perspective was a mistake, but this is the only complaint I can level against the cutscenes and town areas. The character designs are pretty standard (slender build + narrow chin + absurd hair) for anime, except for Regal. Monster designs, however, are generally good, and the appearance of the special moves in battle is good overall and fantastic in a few cases. As long as you're not a cel-hater, this game will be lots of fun to look at.
AUDIO: EXCELLENT
Most of the voice acting is good (the post-battle exclamations particularly so). However, the guy playing Kratos sounds like he has a head cold, which makes his delivery fairly weak. The music is passable; not really inspiring (until the end credits, which inexplicably have much better music than most of the game), but not distracting. A few places have really catchy tunes associated with them, however (Katz Village), and generally the music is at least nice to listen to. The main weakness, however, is the z-skits, which should have had voiceover (and apparently did in the Japanese version). A few lines here and there are over-emoted, but generally voiceover quality is high.
REPLAYABILITY: EXCELLENT
An abundance of side-quests and mini-games (although these tend to be of little interest to me), the Grade system, and the ability to reshape the story in several places makes this game a lot of fun to play multiple times. Winning it once might take 60-80 hours, but in all likelihood you'll want to win it at least twice, and maybe more times than that.
OVERALL: SUPERB (92%)
Hours of excellent gameplay and an engaging story are paired with eye-pleasing graphics and surprisingly good voice acting. If you have a Gamecube, this is an excellent choice. Hopefully Namco will be releasing future 'Tales' series games over here as well.
42
I have edited this review after finishing the game. (...)
A long time ago, the tree of mana whithered away because of a ferocious war that raged across the lands. A hero gave his life to save the tree. This so grieved the goddess of mana that she left for the heavens asking her angels to awaken her for if she slept the world would whither away like the tree. Thus the angels job became to guide the "chosen one" to the heavens so that she/he may awaken the goddess and regenerate the world. Now A young girl named Colette the Chosen One, has recieved her calling and she must journey to regenerate the world. Her Best friends Lloyd (the main Character of the game), and Genis decided to go with her to protect her.
The plot starts off feeling eerily similar to Secret of Mana. Not only that it seems like a cheesier version of that to begin with. But as you delve deeper into Lloyd & Colette's journey it starts to come into its own. This game has depth. It deals with issues of politics, religion, discrimination, & friendship. There are many twists and turns all supported by a brilliant & complex cast of characters. Further every so often you have the option of following conversations between your characters as they journey which help add more depth to their characters.
Now on to the graphics & sound. The visuals are gorgeous. The Colors are bright, and the locations are lush. The animation is smooth, and after some major events you are treated to a hand drawn anime cut scene. The sound is pretty good too. Characters taunt and chatter as they battle. You can also hear them recite incantations as they cast spells. The music is nice but I felt the game lacked that one memorable piece that every single final fantasy (FF) game seems to have. My major complaint with the sound is the voice acting is pretty cheesy. It has its strong moments but for most parts I think it could have been done a lot better.
The Battle System is awsome. You can see enemies on the overworld map, or in dungeons. They will chase after you but you can avoid them 85% of the time. Once you do fight, it's a lot of fun. You can move around the field, choose a target and execute attacks. Its almost like SOM except cooler. You can jump to avoid attacks, or block if you wish. Further you have techs (magic attacks & skills) that you can execute, and you can unleash combined attacks on enemies using your party for super damage. And lets not forget combos! You can string together techs to hit the enemies a huge number of times. My highest is 72 hit combo but if you link your party's attacks properly you could go higher. Your party members do a pretty good job of fighting along with you, and even using techs (spells) to heal you etc. You can customize their behaviour using a myriad of options to set AI priorities for each of your team members.
Ok some negative things now. I think one thing that this game really lacks is that its missing that one great event, like the opera house in ff6, or the ballroom dance in ff8 that really made those game memorable (atleast for me). I wish there was that one great scene that I could go back to my GC, reload the game and watch over and over again. Regardless the game is still amazing and memorable as a whole if not for one event. I would highly recommend this game. It is a lot of fun. (...) Stop reading and start buying!
18
The game is an rpg where you go around fighting monsters, gaining levels and such, and battling huge and very hard bosses. Inthis game it is very easy to dodge the enemies so you don't get into a battle, but that also means you'll die very easily against the boss. The game has 2 difficulty modes and 1 mor unlockable one. The battle system is what makes the game shine. It's a real time action battle where you control 1 person in the battle. The rest are played by computers. But, if you have 3 friends and 4 gamecube controllers, you can do multiplayer. No GBA used in this game. There are nine characters in all but you only get to keep 8... The world is huge and theres many sidequests to do. This game also has anime cutscenes. The game is 2 disks long and takes around 60-80 hours to beat. All the characters in the game have english voice acting with over 10000 lines. Your characters can have relationships and that will change the ending.
17
OK, this really isn't a review; it's a run-down of things that I've found out from various sources (Gamespot, Namco, etc.). First of all, you HAVE to see the graphics. Cel-shading is used for this game, but it's the best I've ever seen for the Gamecube (Budokai 2 for PS2 has AWESOME graphics, though). Go to Gamespot for movies and such and check out how beautiful it looks; I decided to preorder the game just by going through screenshots. You should also know that the game has anime cutscenes, which look really clean.<p>Anyway. This game promises a lot; it promises to be upwards of 80 hours in length (just for comparison, the Wind Waker was advertised as 40 hours) thanks to its two discs. It's an RPG, but only a few will recognize the name (the Tales series was never really big here in the US). Changing the standard, turn-based RPGs, the Tales series has stood out because of its real-time battle system. It adds a lot more depth to the battle system than normally possible (sorry, Final Fantasies), and with the presence of a huge number of spells and complex combos that are available, you will actually enjoy the battles even after a month of playing. Also, the enemies are actually visible (think Earthbound), and if you get near them, you go to the battle screen and fight. The last little thing about battles is cooking; it seems that this is a complex "little" idea that lets your party members make some kind of food with a variety of ingredients. It also serves as one of the MANY side quests in the game, for there are 24 recipes in all for different types of food (you can even add your own ingredients to the recipe!).<p>The game's voice acting is also pretty top-notch. While the lip synching isn't that great (mouth moves in some random way) and the motions look the same when a person's talking (some characters just stick their hands out in the same way every time they're talking), but the fact that the ENTIRE script is read out to you by top-notch actors is pretty amazing.<p>Another, pretty unique feature of the game is that your characters are customizable to the extreme; if you use a certain type of magic (healing, etc.) a number of times, you advance in that category alone. This lets your characters develop into specialized fighting machines.<p>Normally, I would talk about the story now, but since the game hasn't come out yet, (...) Thanks for reading, and you better get this awesome RPG if you know what's good for you.
Add Opinion
Bad
-3
There was a time when I loved rpgs. Starting with Final Fantasy III for SNES as my main introduction to the genre, I began to go through each release after that like a drug addict. Games that had actual plots other than "do this and you win", leveling up characters how you want, hidden areas with special items or weapons, alternate endings for some, and more, I really loved the genre. Then, Final Fantasy 7 came out, and began what continues to be the popular standard for the genre- typical cliché, predictable sub-par rpgs. Once FF7 came out, rpgs were released like they were nothing. Do I have to mention Legend of Mana? How about Silver? Or what about Sudeki? Squaresoft has really lost it in recent years, and I began to lose interest in rpgs. When I got my GameCube, I knew that Nintendo was pretty much screwed when it came to the genre as well, having what, 3-4? Tales of Symphonia though, was regarded as -the- rpg to play if you had the system. So I bought it without much hesitation, and gave it a shot. Then, I lost interest after a few hours, left it for dead, then gave it another shot some months later. Repeat that process until earlier this year, when I just plain quit caring about it in general and sold it. ToS continues the trend of easily predictable rpgs with no redeeming qualities what so ever, aside from the novelty of having a fun combat system. Yeah, it's great not having turn-based fights for a change, but do you really want to just focus on combat in what's otherwise a genre that's supposed to focus on story and character development? Namco and Nintendo sure wanted you to think so, as ToS sprouted countless fanboys that can't seem to look past the combat and character designs. I'm happy to let you know that this review will contain no bias that typical rpg-fanboys give.
ToS begins with the would-be hero, Lloyd, waking up (surprise surprise) from a nap in school. He fell asleep while his hot teacher, Raine, talks about a "Chosen" and how they're sent to save the world from complete destruction from what sounds like a completely random and silly event regarding a tree and angels that decide to destroy the world if certain procedures are not followed. Lloyd's friend, Colette, just so happens to be the Chosen, and embarks on a journey to save the world, which isn't really in much jeopardy from the looks of things. They run into some trouble from an army who have their own ambitions for world domination, and use helpless townsfolk as guinea pigs for their tests, turning them into hideous creatures that destroy everything in sight. Of course, being your average hero, Lloyd can't take this and makes it his duty to put an end to this army while saving the world with Colette. More or less, take Final Fantasy X's plot, make it even more linear, and that's what Tales of Symphonia is. Colette would be Yuna, and Lloyd and the others are Yuna's guardians. They visit various temples/towers in the world, while at the same time learning of a corrupt religion that has everyone fooled. Sound familiar? But ToS decides to take a few turns in the plot, and has numerous double-crossing by both characters in the party, and side characters. There's also a very stupid plot device regarding dwarves and elves, and them being enemies, but it's not really a big deal. Raine and her brother, Genis (god, if you could just change one letter there...) are half-elves, but there's no point in saying anything about it, since it doesn't give them any benefits over non-elf characters. One of Colette's guardians is Kratos, a well-known legendary knight *cough Auron cough*, who gets quiet whenever Lloyd mentions never knowing his real father. Gee, I wonder what that could mean. He only gives a hint about it in the first 20 minutes of the game when you first meet him. Later, you meet your standard female ninja character who can summon spirits, standard brawler male character with some manners for the heck of it, an alternate to Kratos in the form of a ladies man but still a legend, and an emotionless little girl who can swing axes like they're feathers, who later becomes herself thanks to the power of friendship. Hey, it sounds like 30+ other games right there!
What ToS lacks in characters and plot, and that's A LOT of lacking mind you, it somewhat makes up for in the combat system. You can control your characters, and actually allow other people to play the 3 others in your party. You can attack freely, using skills with the flick of the C-stick and melee attacks with the A button, while being able to block and dodge easily. It's pretty cool, and good to see that it's not real-time disguised as turn-based like some other modern rpgs have. One of the fun parts about this is that you can create combos that rank in the 6 digits if you're really good. Though the game came out several years ago, many people are still outdoing each other when it comes to combo counts. It gets crazy. But this is really the only good thing I can say about the game. Everything else is just a waste. The wannabe "innovative" Cook skill allows you to create meals to heal the entire party after fights while the experience count racks up, or from the status screen as well. It costs a lot to create meals, as you need various types of food for each one, and really isn't worth it when you can just use healing magic or rest at an inn and get the same effect for even less money. But, I guess there's some fun in finding the chef who gives you these recipes, who is hidden in each town. The back of the game's box leads you to believe that there are many animated cut scenes done in "anime" style, but in reality, there are maybe 3, including the opening movie montage. ToS is on two discs, but most of the game...about 70% is the first disc. If it weren't for Nintendo choosing mini-discs for the GC's format, it could easily fit on one dvd instead, as the game isn't graphic-heavy. One more thing regarding the plot- you can ignore most of it, and it won't matter: characters verbally say the meaningful plot points, but you're just given text to read when it's something minor, or just a clue for where to go next. Hint- when you hear the GC loading a new track or something, pay attention to the dialogue...if you think it'll get interesting, which it doesn't. Ever. Really, I found myself predicting the lines and being 95% accurate. This game is for rpg-newbies at most, and even then, there are much better games to start out with. Add in some forced, obligatory puzzles in each temple [some that force you to restart the whole thing if you screw up once at any point], and you've got yet another generic rpg.
Visually, it's nothing special, but gets some things right. Characters are given a nice cel-shaded look, but are VERY blurry when you get a close-up shot of them. I don't understand why this made it through production- it's that annoying. You can see it in any pictures of close-ups of the characters' faces. Check it out and see what I mean. The backgrounds and everything else tend to look decent to pretty, depending on the place. The world map however, is just a joke, reminiscent of a PSone rpg's like FF7. Wait no, it sometimes looks like the Mode-7 stuff from the SNES days. Hoo boy. As for the soundtrack, there are some good themes, but most of it is unmemorable. Aside from the map theme, which you'll hear a lot, I can't recall any from memory this very moment. But a lot of tracks are used frequently, like the "sad" music, or the "angry" music. After playing the game for 5 hours or so, you'll begin to know when each one will be used during the cut scenes/story parts. The voice acting though, is a mixed bag. There's some good talent here, but they're not used properly. The voice of Lloyd is the same guy who plays Robin on Teen Titans, and it really sounds like he's reading right off the script rather than expressing each line. Kratos' actor doesn't seem to know what range is, Genis only knows happy and WAAAAAAAGE!!, and the others are tolerable. Except for stupid Colette. God I hate that character. Nearly every line she says is an apology for nothing.
If you absolutely NEED an rpg for the GC, I guess ToS is worth a purchase, as long as it's for under ten bucks. Anything over that is robbery. Besides, you could give others like Paper Mario and Baten Kaitos a shot, which are both better than this thing could ever be. But keep in mind that this won't be anything special unless you lie to yourself and keep waiting for something cool to happen, never getting said thing, and not being able to admit that ToS wasn't good at all.
