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Written by Astantine Staff

I remember just a few weeks ago, I was discussing Tales of Symphonia with fellow Head Astantine Administrator DarkChronic. We were quite excited about the release of a new RPG for the Gamecube - there was basically no RPG's worth playing besides Skies of Arcadia. But I had my doubts, and I asked him all about it, and eventually I was convinced I would get this game. I ventured out to my local GameStop one Wednesday afternoon. I slapped down my cash, and even as I was purchasing my copy - the cashier wouldn't stop ranting on about how great this game was. Heck, I got one of the last 4 copies in the store, and this was the first day it was out. Needless to say, I was pretty damn excited to play. I didn't get to play the first day, since I was out renovating the house - we were getting the den upstairs hardwood floored that day. But the second day I excitedly ripped the disc out of its case (2 disc, mind you) and clicked into place in my cube. I turned on the power button, and already, I was amazed. The opening scene is a GORGEOUS anime-style cutscene, and you can see an example in the header above. So anyway, that begins my journey into the amazing game of Tales of Symphonia.

Plot + Storyline
The thing I entirely love about this game is the fact that the plot is absolutely amazing. There's so many plot twists that it may even leave you confused, but most of the time it'll just leave you thirsty for more. Sometimes there's so much plot that you don't even have enough time to play through any battles. So here's a basic rundown of the plot. You are Lloyd, a 17 year old Iselia resident. You start in a local school as a student of Professor Raine, being the usual dunce and sleeping in class. When a bright light fills the town, the Professor explains it is time for the chosen to begin her quest. The Chosen is an individual who is placed with the fate to save the world by replenishing mana in the world. To do this, the Chosen release four seals and travel to a "Tower of Salvation" to release mana upon the world. And you think that's all. But you'll see why this game lasts eighty hours.

Gameplay
A near perfect, I don't think I've been addicted to a game this much. 14 hours already and it's only been three days. The game is tons of fun to play, and it does it in a very innovative way. It may not be innovative to the Tales series, but as this is the first Tales adventure in the US, it is something I have never seen before. Like a traditional RPG, you gain EXP points by fighting enemies, you go to shops to purchase weapons, upgrade weapons, shields, whatever. There's even food shops you can go to. However, Tales throws in some great features that I can't find in too many RPG's. Instead of regular class names like "Warrior", "Assassin", you can get some pretty funny or cool ones, like "Turbo Waitress" or "Chosen". Which brings me to the battle system, where you can get these titles. To begin a battle, you run into an enemy. Say no more to random battles. Like in Paper Mario, you see an enemy, and when you run into it, you begin a battle. No first strikes, sorry. Looking at popular games like Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, Paper Mario, you have to choose your attack, wait for the other person to attack, and watch the CPU duke out all your moves for you, while you watch. In Paper Mario, you could press the buttons to ensure high attack damage or accuracy, which was pretty fun. But in Tales, even the CPU doing the attack is cut out. You move on a "Linear Battle System", which means you can move around, slice your sword, cast spells, heal, whatever. No battle is ever the same. Just imagine Legend of Zelda in RPG style. You start off a battle on the opposite side of the enemy, and run towards them to attack. There are two types of attacks you can use - just simple slashing, kicking, whacking, or special B-button moves. You can kind of think of the attacks as in Super Smash Bros. Melee. You can also guard against opponent attacks with special guarding techniques, or the X button. All in all, the battle system is great and it hasn't got boring after 14 hours for me. The in-game menus are great, and everything is neat and orderly. It's extremely easy to control your character, and all actions are carried out through the A button.

Graphics
This game is drop dead gorgeous. Not the best of the best, but it is still quite amazing. To capture the anime-feel of the game, the characters are cel-shaded. You barely notice it, in my opinion, and after a while they look pretty damn normal. The environments are perfectly done, and the over world is beautiful. The only gripe I have is that the far landscapes fade in in a rather not-so-pleasant looking way. The battle animations are smooth, beautiful, and amazing. Watching a character cast a spell is pretty darn spectacular. One spell, Photon, has light shining from the caster, and then the camera pans onto the enemy, who is being diced and thrown about by the shining rings of light. Everything in the game looks like it should, and I love it.

Sound
Possibly the only real biggie I have to complain about. And it's not even that bad. The dialogue is entirely voice acted, which sounds spectacular. That's fine. But some of the battle music is horrid. They sound like midi's - which are not too good really. But they're decent enough, and they fit the mood quite right. Could have done a better job with music, and that's my only gripe. Sound effects are perfect, with the clanking of swords, the sound of your feet on the ground, grunts from your character as he/she gets hit, it's all great. I love the voice acting though. The voice acting is probably one of the reasons the game spans two discs. And kudos to Namco for doing such a great job.

Playability (Replay + Difficulty)
This game doesn't need replay value - I'm quite certain of that. With 80 hours of gameplay you can have, you'll be playing this for quite a while. And you might even play it again because it's so great. There are tons of sidequests and stuff you can do, and they're all great. As for the difficulty, I think Namco may have mixed it up a bit. The beginning is actually quite hard, and I found myself dying a couple of times in the first opening scene dungeon. Already by the time I got in the dungeon itself, I had one character alive. The boss after wasn't any better. And another hour of playing later, I meet another boss I take two tries to defeat. When I got to the third boss, it was quite a pushover and I wondered why it had been so easy to defeat. I assure you it was not that with more playing time I had gained more experience. But the difficulty in this game seems to go backwards.

Closing Comments
This game is teh rox. Go get it now. Final Score 9.8

Firefox, this is a review, not a guide.

Post it as the June Game-of-the-Month (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif).

Wow, FF. I'd never see you liking RPGs, they just don't fit you... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif)

But still, this is very accurate, and I don't think I could have said anything differently.

Why do RPGs I play always last much shorter than people say they do?
Maybe its because of my amazing RPG skills......

D: O noes, a ToS fan. I found the game to be a simple button masher that was fun for the first hour. The characters were not overly good, excluding Persea and Regal. Genis was the god-damned most annoying character ever! Sheena was well thought out, but how many times have you seen this kind of character? A lot. The plot was O.K in some places, but cliched in many places. Can you say, "Chosen." Wow, so original!

Final Rating: D+