Well it has a very rocky start, but if you can push through the first few chapters it can be enjoyable.
I kid you not, all of these thoughts ran through my head within the first hour of playing the game. I wasn't expecting much, but honestly if I weren't playing the game for my challenge, I probably would have quit and walked away within the first three hours of the game, it actually took until the last five or so hours of the game for the realization to hit me; at some point... the game had stopped being so terrible and I was actually getting some enjoyment out of it. I know it's probably really weird to hear but, I'm not sure WHEN exactly this transition happened, but it came to a point where I realized how much the main character had changed, and how much I actually grew to like him, and by the time the conclusion came, I was extremely interested in how things were going to play out for our hero. I can't explain anything about the ending because I want to avoid spoilers, but the ending actually changes depending on the events in one of the last battles, and I actually found it to be extremely creative and moving how they handled the whole ending segment, even if the battles themselves were fairly anticlimactic. (Surprisingly it's a JRPG where your last opponent DOESN'T transform 8 times).
The story isn't all that interesting for most of the game, you just kind of go from one place to another trying to find 8 'cores' that represent creatures called Centurions. Honestly it's kind of complicated and not at all interesting, so I won't go into it. But once you hit the last 2 chapters the plot suddenly changes and becomes rather interesting, sadly I can't explain how because that would ruin the best parts of the game. There are only two real main characters in the game, one being Emil, and the other being his not so subtle Love interest Marta. From the very beginning this girl professes her love to Emil and I hate to admit it, but I found the whole infatuation thing rather cute and entertaining. I'm sure many people would be annoyed by it because it's basically the center of half of their dialogue and most of the 'skits' that the Tales series is known for, but really, I thought it was nice to have a game with such a cute little love story put in that wasn't just TEASED at like in most JRPGs. Aside from these two there are the antagonist characters who I don't feel I need to get into, and of course, all of the main characters from the previous game return (except one, but I won't say who in case someone reading this hasn't beaten Symphonia yet). It really bugged me that most of the characters from the last game sounded REALLY different to me. I'll be honest, I didn't check to see if they were the same voice actors or not, and I get that the game takes place to years later, but it was still rather disheartening for me. The old characters really aren't important to the plot (With the exception of Lloyd) and they just seem to randomly come and go as they please. So yes you DO get to play as the characters from the first game, but you will learn not to rely on any certain party set up for too long.
Another huge addition to this game is the monster pact system. Essentially a poor attempt at a pokemon like monster catching thing. It's really a pointless addition because there are very few moments where you won't have party members from the previous game to help you fight and they are almost always more useful than any monster you can catch (unless you do a LOT of grinding.. and trust me this game does not lend itself well to grinding, I will get to that later). Honestly, it seems like a tacked on addition with little depth. The battle system is like the last game, but I found something about it really annoying, like the delay between combos I mentioned earlier. Once I got artes in the game I realized why it was made that way, it's trying to encourage you to make combos with regular attacks and artes, but there is a huge problem here; your normal three hit combo does MORE damage then pretty much EVERY arte you ever get in the game. Why in the HELL does your normal attack do more damage than you're special attacks? Same thing with the special Unison attack (essentially a limit break where everyone jumps has a percent chance of joining in on the attack) It very rarely did more damage than two of your normal attacks, making it so it was only really useful for stopping opponents from casting spells when you are in a bind. All in all, once you get the hang of it the battle system works.. it just doesn't feel nearly as smooth or complete as it did in the previous game.
One thing this game does differently than the original is world map travel. In the last game, I got REALLY sick of all the backtracking you had to do, it was worse than a lot of oldschool rpgs I used to play... but in this game, you literally pick your next location from a list, and since I'd explored the world before, this really didn't bother me but I know it will bother some. The only bad thing about this is that you can't really grind on the world map. Speaking of grinding, the main way to grind in this game is to take on extra missions from 'Katz' that are scattered throughout the world. taking on these side missions seems like a fun diversion at first, but it doesn't take long to realize the huge flaw. Every extra mission you can take on takes place in 1 of only 5 different maps... so you have to run through the SAME damn locations every time, fighting the same monsters with little benefit unless you are really underleveled. It really killed the whole side quest aspect of the game. It doesn't help that almost every location in this game is already recycled from the last one, (which is to be expected, it is a sequel set in the same world after all).
That's all I can think to say on the game for now. Honestly until the last few chapters, I was ready to give this game a score as low as a 5, but towards the end it came together to create something rather enjoyable... I just wish they'd made the game like that from the start. I would say if you are really into Tales of Symphonia and you find the game for cheap, you might as well try it, just don't have high expectations and you may be pleasantly surprised, on the other hand if you are new to Tales, PLEASE avoid this game... it is a terrible representation of what makes the series great, and it's only really enjoyable for fan service and the ending, but if you aren't interested in the old characters, you won't get that far anyway. I give this game a generous 6.5