Tales of Symphonia
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Tales of Symphonia is the Gamecube-only entry in the Tales series, which is hugely popular in Japan. The series is known for its action oriented combat and anime-inspired story.
TOS opens with you, Lloyd, in school. It has that cliché innocent opening that sets the stage for the drama that is likely to come down the road. Thankfully, TOS’s story later becomes involved and interesting with a divine power struggle affecting the world as well as your party. The story is told mostly through in game cut scenes with some rare anime style scenes that are used so sparingly it’s a real treat when one comes along. You’ll come to know and sympathize with all the characters you meet and I would say the story and character development is on the better end of the spectrum as far as RPGs go.
The game is long. I probably played for around 50 or 60 hours my first play through. Luckily, the combat is fun and rewarding because you’ll be seeing a lot of it. You see enemies wandering around the world map or in the dungeons you explore and you have the choice to engage them. Once a battle is initiated, you’ll see your party and the enemies on sort of planes of movement. You can lock on to an enemy and then move left and right and carry out your commands such as basic attacks, spells, and abilities. Abilities and spells are learned as you level up and you can unlock them by using lower abilities a number of times. You can pause the combat any time to issue item or attack commands to your party. One of the coolest features is the fact that you can plug in up to four controllers and have your friends play as someone from your party. It’s ridiculously fun to share the experience with a friend and I wish all RPGs had this feature.
Experience is doled out at the end of every encounter and depending on your performance (factors like time and damage decide your rank) you will gain a certain amount of points that seem useless at first, but become very useful when you beat the game. After finishing the game, you can start a new game plus where you spend these points for modifiers such as keeping all your abilities, gaining 10x experience and other awesome tweaks that add a ton of replay value. The world is huge and you have the freedom to explore and find secret items and bosses that could extend the life of the game drastically.
The visuals and sounds of Symphonia are beautiful. The graphics are cell-shaded and the wonderful art style is a perfect fit for this technique. The melodies that play are area specific and bring back memories every time you return to an area.
With great presentation, a superb story and the option to play with your friends, Tales of Symphonia was a shocking Gamecube exclusive and one of the better RPGs I have played. Highly recommended.
TOS opens with you, Lloyd, in school. It has that cliché innocent opening that sets the stage for the drama that is likely to come down the road. Thankfully, TOS’s story later becomes involved and interesting with a divine power struggle affecting the world as well as your party. The story is told mostly through in game cut scenes with some rare anime style scenes that are used so sparingly it’s a real treat when one comes along. You’ll come to know and sympathize with all the characters you meet and I would say the story and character development is on the better end of the spectrum as far as RPGs go.
The game is long. I probably played for around 50 or 60 hours my first play through. Luckily, the combat is fun and rewarding because you’ll be seeing a lot of it. You see enemies wandering around the world map or in the dungeons you explore and you have the choice to engage them. Once a battle is initiated, you’ll see your party and the enemies on sort of planes of movement. You can lock on to an enemy and then move left and right and carry out your commands such as basic attacks, spells, and abilities. Abilities and spells are learned as you level up and you can unlock them by using lower abilities a number of times. You can pause the combat any time to issue item or attack commands to your party. One of the coolest features is the fact that you can plug in up to four controllers and have your friends play as someone from your party. It’s ridiculously fun to share the experience with a friend and I wish all RPGs had this feature.
Experience is doled out at the end of every encounter and depending on your performance (factors like time and damage decide your rank) you will gain a certain amount of points that seem useless at first, but become very useful when you beat the game. After finishing the game, you can start a new game plus where you spend these points for modifiers such as keeping all your abilities, gaining 10x experience and other awesome tweaks that add a ton of replay value. The world is huge and you have the freedom to explore and find secret items and bosses that could extend the life of the game drastically.
The visuals and sounds of Symphonia are beautiful. The graphics are cell-shaded and the wonderful art style is a perfect fit for this technique. The melodies that play are area specific and bring back memories every time you return to an area.
With great presentation, a superb story and the option to play with your friends, Tales of Symphonia was a shocking Gamecube exclusive and one of the better RPGs I have played. Highly recommended.
