Experience a new Tale on a platform lacking RPGs.
Tales of Symphonia is about a young man named Lloyd Irving living in a land called Sylvarant. Lloyd lives on the outskirts of a town called Isealia. He goes to school and hangs out with friends. One of the those friends is Colette; a girl born to be the Chosen of Regeneration. The Chosen is destined to save the world by making a pilgrimage to each of the temples around the world and finally to the Tower of Salvation; a tower that goes on forever that only appears when the Chosen is meant to journey, to restore the land with mana; the land's life source. Suddenly, a bright light flashes in the sky, this light signals the start of Colette's journey. Lloyd's teacher; Raine Sage, goes to see what's going on.
When she's gone, Lloyd decides to go see what's going on as well. His best friend Genis Sage, Raine's brother, tries to stop him and fails. Genis and Colette go with him and they find out that someone attacked the Church of Martel, which is a place of worship for the Goddess Martel and the place where Colette is to start her journey. Lloyd fights back against the attackers but is unable to stop them. Just when all seems lost, a mysterious man named Kratos appears and saves the day. He offers the priests of the temple his service in protecting Colette for a fee. They accept his terms and Kratos and Colette head inside. Lloyd and Genis follow them and help them fight the monsters inhabiting the temple.
After, it's revealed that Raine will also be accompanying Kratos and Colette. Lloyd offers to go as well and is turned down. Lloyd and Genis head out of the town on the way back to Lloyd's house. Things happen and Isealia is attacked after Colette leave. Lloyd gets to the town too late and the town is ablaze. It seems the town was assaulted by the Desians, the same people who attacked the church earlier. It seems Lloyd is to blame for the attack and he is exiled. He and Genis then decides to chase after Colette and help her on her journey.
The story is entertaining and well written. The characters are also extremely likable and Lloyd, while somewhat your usual JRPG main character, goes through some great development and is a great hero. The story delves into different themes, mostly discrimination. It starts slow, not truly picking up until a good 10 hours in, but once it picks up it becomes fantastic.
The gameplay is where the Tales series shines. It plays like a mix between an action-RPG and a fighting game. You can visibly see the monsters on the map and bumping into them brings you to a battlefield. This means you can pick and choose what fights you what to fight. On the battlefield, you control only one character and move on a straight line towards whatever enemy you are targeting and attack with either the A or B buttons. The A button is basic attack and they change depending on where the left stick is pointing. The B button is the same in that regard but it's attacks are called techs. These are your special attacks, such as magic, and cost TP to use. You can do combos with the A button and end the combo with a Tech attack. It's entertaining, but like the story it starts off slow and eventually picks up. The AI for your partners is decent, except for the mage AI. You'll sometimes see them up physically attacking the enemies or casting a spell that the enemy is resistant to. As for the healer, early in the game you'll see her just sitting still since no one needs healing and you'll sometimes see her attacking instead of healing.
Other than fight, you'll be running around the environments talking to people in towns and exploring dungeons. Just like in any other RPG, you'll be doing a lot of both and nothing is as engaging as the combat. Thankfully, the combat is extremely fun and addicting. For completing either certain things in combat or for doing events outside of combat you'll earn Titles. Titles can be set for whatever character earned them and they affect stat gains at level up. Some titles will even change the character's costume. It's addicting to collect all these titles and you'll want to try find them all.
The game will last you around 40 hours on your first playthrough and there is a New Game + option where you can use the Grade you earn in battles to purchase bonuses for your next playthrough. Once you get into it, you'll love your time in Sylvarant.
The music is fantastic like a JRPG's music should be. It's battle theme is addicting and the themes for each town is fitting. The voice work is pretty great and every character is voiced fittingly. The sound effects all start to sound the same, but the music and voice work make you forget about that. The voice work really makes you care about the characters.
The visuals are extremely stylized. They are bright, colorful and have a form of cel-shading. The character models are in a chibi style and they look great. This is surprisingly fitting for the game, seeing the size of the world. The environments aren't as cel-shaded and are more in a basic 3D style but they still look great. The battles are fast and the framerate stays rock solid at all times. The framerate can drop a little outside of combat, however. The monster designs aren't the most creative but they all look great. There are skits in the game, little non-voiced scenes with anime portraits of the characters talking to each other and they look a little off from the rest of the game.
The animations are a little mixed, however. The combat animations for your characters look great, the monsters on the other hand look a little stiff. The animations are also really stiff outside of combat. Overall, the game looks really good and unique. There are a few faults but it's a great presentation style overall.
PROs:
- Great, interesting story
- Fast and engaging combat
- Fantastic music and voice work
- Unique, charming visuals
- Characters are lovable
- Lengthy quest and a New Game +
- Lots of towns to explore
CONs:
- Not much to do outside of combat
- Environments aren't as good looking as character models
- Mage AI can be annoying
- Sound effects can get repetitive
- Slow start
Overall, Tales of Symphonia is just what GameCube owners were waiting for. A lengthy, epic and addicting JRPG that should be put in every Cube owner's library. The story is great, the combat is fun, the music is excellent and it looks unique. It may start slow, but stick with it and you'll find one of the best action RPGs of the generation. I give the Chosen of Regeneration a 9/10.
Story: 9.0/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10
Audio: 9.0/10
Presentation: 8.5/10