Tales of Symphonia Remastered is 30 FPS on ALL VERSIONS, not just Switch.

Twisted Voxel

Tales of Symphonia Remastered will run at 1080p and 30fps across all consoles, including the PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.

Based on a specs comparison on the official Japanese website for Tales of Symphonia Remastered, the game will target a frame rate of 30fp and a resolution of 1080p on all consoles. This comes as rather surprising, given the significant difference in horsepower between the Nintendo Switch and the more modern PS4 and Xbox One.

The Nintendo Switch version of Tales of Symphonia operates at two possible resolutions, depending on whether the console is docked or undocked. When it is docked, the game runs at a native 1080p. However, when undocked, the game runs at a native 720p, which is the native resolution of the Nintendo’s Switch’s display.

While the game does appear to support both the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X, Tales of Symphonia still operates at a native resolution of 1920 x 1080 on both mid-gen consoles. The same goes for the frame rate, which remains capped at 30fps. Meanwhile, the game runs on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S via backward compatibility with no graphical or performance enhancements whatsoever.

Tales of Symphonia is an action role-playing game that was originally released for the Nintendo GameCube on August 29, 2003, in Japan. It is the fifth main item in the Tales series and was released by Namco. On July 13, 2004, the game was localised and released in North America. On November 19, 2004, it was released in Europe. On September 22, 2004, the game was ported to the PlayStation 2 with new content in Japan.

The game follows Lloyd Irving and is set in the fictional world of Sylvarant. Colette Brunel, a friend from their youth who is destined to embark on a mission to save their world, travels with Lloyd. As their journey goes on, they discover that preserving Sylvarant puts Tethe’alla, a world that exists side by side with their own, in danger.

And of course, cue revisionism of the base console of Tales of Symphonia's initial release, because "that was 60 FPS". But let's just ignore that the Japanese only PS2 version has the extra content (which kind of matters in an RPG), and I bet you if that released in the west back in the day, no one would give a damn about the lower frame rate issues or what ever and go "buy the PS2 version, f*** the GCN version". It happened with another former GameCube exclusive to PS2 (Resident Evil 4), with subsequent ports being based on the latter version, rather than the former.

Digital Foundry's own John Linneman's response...

But besides that, so long as it's playable. Fine! Whatever. I can deal with lower frame rate. I'm numb to these re-releases not being perfect unless it's ungodly bad.

Frame rate is still a foreign concept in Japan.

@nintendoboy16: From what I've heard, the source code got terminated or lost (anyone's guess) is why they can't replicate from GC and so they went for the resolution boost over framerate. I don't believe the PC version ever got to 60fps now that I think about it. If they're gonna charge full price for this, they lost their Goddamn minds.

Either this, or whatever the f*** GC version is going for.

I had to check the date on this, I seriously thought it was a necro thread 😂

For a game that was released during the GameCube era, would an increase in frame-rate makes it look better?

The frame rate doesn’t matter in this game.

Only reason why I am passing on this remaster is because it doesn't come with the sequel. Regardless of how fans felt of the sequel, it is why I liked the original remaster so I'll probably go on and get that version.

Too bad the sequel kind of blew rocks.

A little unfortunate but it is what it is. I’m fine with it myself. Played this originally on the GameCube and am looking forward to playing it again.

If I remember correctly the PC version was also 30 fps and the port was based on the PS3 version which was 30fps. So the remaster is still probably based on the PS3 version and not the GC's.

Isn't that the preferred framerate for Sony fannies?😎

I'd be like WTF but it looks like it's 8th gen builds and no 9th gen upgrade offered to remedy the issues. Still, baffling performance balance. Maybe they could do better if they offered a 9th gen performance upgrade, but given that's not even planned at this point there's no guarantee that's happening.

@nintendoboy16: Figured this would come up, hence the "regardless" comment. No disrespect, but this is where I kind of don't care of how the game turned out, it is part of a saga and thus I do feel it should be a part of it instead of having to pay $40 to $60 for only one game. The PS3 version did it right and felt like a definitive edition. Plus, I never played Symphonia or its sequel, so I would like to experience it and see if I like it because, ultimately, it comes down to personal enjoyment.

I remember when I used to think that framerates didn't matter all that much and I was fine so long as I could play the game. Then I built a PC and started experiencing games I had played at low framerates with 60+ solid fps. There was no going back.

Compromise is something you make when you don't got much of a choice in the matter of gameplay performance. Gamecube wasn't a strong selling platform so no shit people were willing to take a hit in performance to get Resident Evil 4 on PS2 despite it looking and playing far worse. Like if the choice is no Resident Evil 4 or an ugly version of Resident Evil 4 most are gonna go with the option that gives them Resident Evil 4 in some capacity.

Having said all that it should come as no surprise to anyone that nearly 20 years after the release of the original on the Gamecube people are wondering why the **** we can't hit that original performance and have to pick and choose between more content or better performance. There's literally no excuse for a Gamecube game from 2003 to perform better than the remaster coming out in 2023.

Personally I'm sick of this "good enough I guess" mentality when it comes to re-releasing games and taking advantage of modern hardware. Lazy port jobs is what this boils down to. Cut some corners to maximize profits because enough people out there don't care that this will make money.

Sorry I'm not in the habit of supporting just good enough projects.

Also extra content matters if it actually adds to the game and its story. Getting a new title theme, some new outfits, a few new moves, and such don't really change up much of anything for something like Tales of Symphonia. So not really a huge win to get that but 30fps is where things are capped despite the original running silky smooth which made the combat system all the more enjoyable.

From gimped the Elden Ring version on PC because they thought if consoles can only get to 60fps than so should PC.

Was fixed in 5 second by modders but too much effort for Japanese devs I suppose.

That is simply all kinds of fucked up.

Even funnier we already had a PS3/PC remaster of Tales of Symphonia, that one was already 30fps but atleast it included the sequel!

The country that was still making more 60 frames games, while the rest of the console space was hitting us with 30 frames in action games? Shit take.

I'm just sick of the fraud-stans for that system, given it is where the game came from and showed in the reactions I read in reaction to the news.

Exactly, we were used to 30fps and we didn't know any better. Also 30fps is different in a 2D game than a 3D game: it's mostly the fast camera movement that puts me off most in 30fps games and is most distracting.

Our consoles and PCs are more than capable now and have been for a while, who on earth is gonna sacrifice a smooth experience for some bullshit like graphics or resolution, that matter not when the experience is hampered.

Exactly!

This is nothing but a lazy cash grab. If the PS3 port came with the sequel Dawn of the New World there's no excuse for it to not be present in this port. Even if I buy this I'll still have to boot up my PS3 to play the sequel.

@valgaav_219: I’d be pissed if they put that pos game with my copy of ToS.

@mesome713: To each his own. Enjoy paying more for less. That seems to be the norm these days.

Nah, they seem to go with whatever "feels good" for the player. Not even sure they know the reason behind it. Hence why you get bizarre shit like current games with uncapped fps with frames going from 15 to 55. Ports from years ago somehow still being locked at 30fps on far more powerful hardware, and no concept of what v-sync, buffering, and torn frames are.

While westerners are annoying as shit with their 30fps cinematic crap, they get what this means. In Japan it just seems to be random and nobody knows what the **** it is.

Hell, look no further than the various shit ports of Ninja Gaiden. It's all over the place.

I knew it. The gamecube is more powerful than he switch, X1 and PS4. What a machine! Truly a technical wonder. Bow to the Gecko and Flipper! /s

I was about to say getting a 30FPS GC to run at 60 was probably too problematic (too many hacks and wierd crap going on)...but the og ran at 60 on the GC? that's very strange that it's not running at 60 on the new systems.

The Series S is holding gaming back again.😎

@jg4xchamp:

Is funny how that's always lost on him. Like he's the only person out here who actually liked the Gamecube, everyone else just fake lol. Not like 20+ million others might have liked it, and sometimes like to make posts and content online about it. NO WAY! REVISIONISTS!1!!

And yeah, maybe some people do view it differently in hindsight. So? Shit happens all the time, in and out of gaming. Some people finally coming around on thing you like, how terrible. Nintendoboy gets all tight and shit about gatekeeping, but then we get this shit.

The Gamecubes commercial standing seems like it would be such a simple thing to understand. System came out over a year later against a PS2 that already had crazy momentum coming off the PS1, had all the big third parties on board, and was a DVD a player at a time when that shit really mattered. Had to contend with that monsters head start along with the Xbox release. At a time when the largest swath of the gaming demographic was in their "sooo hardcore mature gamer" years.

No shit it didn't put up the mainstream numbers against all that. Of course the teen normie isn't gonna opt for the Fisher Price box with the family friendly games. This doesn't magically erase the core crowd that did buy it in the tens of millions.

nah brah, its revisionist history. No one liked Metroid Prime or Melee lol.

As someone who played the original, the PS3 chronicles version, and the PC version, the last two at 30fps felt very noticeably choppy, had input lag, and generally felt worse to play than the original. The PC version (which I assume this remaster is a port of) was nearly identical to the PS3 remaster aside from resolution and AA.

Sometimes 30fps can be tolerable, but for this game it actually killed my enjoyment.