Tales of Symphonia Reviews

One of my top favorite games of all time.

[h1] A TIMELESS JRPG Classic! [/h1] Released in 2003 for the Nintendo GameCube, Tales of Symphonia remains one of the most beloved JRPGs of its era. As part of Bandai Namco’s long-running Tales series, this entry struck a perfect balance between storytelling, combat, and character development, making it a standout title for fans of the genre. [h3] Story & Characters [/h3] The game follows Lloyd Irving and his companions as they embark on a journey to regenerate the world of Sylvarant, a land struggling with dwindling mana and oppression from the mysterious Desians. However, the story takes unexpected turns, introducing complex moral dilemmas, and deeper themes of discrimination, sacrifice, and identity. What sets Tales of Symphonia apart from is its cast of well-developed characters. Lloyd grows from a brash young fighter into a true hero, while his childhood friend, Colette, grapples with the burden of being the "Chosen". Other characters, like the intelligent and reserved Kratos, the fiery Sheena, and the playful-yet-tragic Zelos, each add depth to the story. The game's extensive optional skits and side conversations flesh out their personalities incredibly well, making them feel very relatable to the average player. [h3] Gameplay & Combat [/h3] Unlike traditional turn-based JRPGs, Tales of Symphonia features an action-packed battle system. Players control one character in real-time while issuing commands to AI-controlled allies. The Linear Motion Battle System (LMBS) allows for free movement and combos, making fights feel fluid and engaging. Mastering special attacks, chaining combos, and using Unison Attacks adds layers of strategy. In my opinion, this is quite an enjoyable divergence from the monotony of turn-based battle systems that many other JRPG games have. Exploration is equally rewarding, with dungeons featuring puzzles that require thoughtful interaction rather than simple enemy encounters. Though some puzzles can be tedious, they add variety and a sense of accomplishment. [h3] Visuals & Sound [/h3] For its time, Tales of Symphonia boasted a charming cel-shaded art style that helped it age gracefully. The anime-style character designs and vibrant environments bring the world to life, though the overworld map feels a bit dated by today’s standards. The soundtrack, composed by Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, complements the game beautifully. Tracks like "Venturers' colony" and "Forest of the Treant" stand out, while the emotional themes such as "And thus, I can do it (Heroic)" enhance key story moments. The English voice acting is mostly hit-or-miss, but nevertheless successfully adds charm and personality to the cast. [h2] Final Verdict [/h2] This was my first Tales game, and by no means last. Despite some minor flaws, Tales of Symphonia remains a must-play for any fan of the JRPG genre. Its engaging combat, cathartic story, and memorable characters make it a classic that still holds up very well today. Whether you're playing it for nostalgia or experiencing it for the first time, it’s an unforgettable journey well worth taking. [b] Score: 9/10 [/b]

I was late in discovering the Tales series. I was always a FF fan. But I'm thoroughly enjoying going back and playing the past entries such as Symphonia. Its a great game with all the things I love about this series.

I was asked by a friend to play this game, and thinking nothing of it I did. 3 Years later I picked it back up and made good on my promise to give it more than just a couple hours. What Resulted was some of the best twists, and character writing I've ever seen in a game. Every character has wants and desires and opinions and they don't always align with their fellow adventurers. That along with secrets all throughout the game and loads of dialogue, and replay ability features make this a must play. Pick it up for yourself, you might just have a whole new series to try out.

The game crashed at the end of a very long puzzle and at the closing credits. Terribly repetitive gameplay and riddles outweigh the decent story and characters. This game needs a remake so bad.

one of the best "Tales of" game and has a character for everyone. It's also a good way to be introduced to the Tales of series and JRPGs in general

This game is insanely good! Amazing characters, amazing story, good side quests and world, that all especially considering it is such an old game. If you love old rpgs AND/OR the Tales series, PLAY THIS GAME!!! JUST MAKE SURE YOU USE LOSSLESS SCALING TOO TO BE ABLE TO PLAY IT AT 60 FPS OTHERWISE THE GAME IS CAPPED AT 30 FPS.

I thought I'd enjoy it more. The 30fps cap and N64 textures on terrain looks really bad and I wonder how in any way it can gobble up 3.2Gb of VRAM with 140p-720p textures. the 30% cpu usage makes sense since back in the day cpu's were much stronger than gpu's and games relied more on cpu performance, but even then, a i3-12100f being used at 30% on such game at only 30fps is a bit much for a 25 year old game (I expected bellow 5%), I play some games that are less than 10 year old at 1440p with 120-270fps and often sit at 10-45% cpu usage... I know it's been ported on ps3, then ported to pc from the ps3 port but... The graphics barely look like gamecube graphics, and that's with anisotropic filtering at x16 and MSAA x8. A strong con outside the vaseline visuals is the gameplay for me. I know what i was getting myself into from the trailer/video showing some gameplay and hoped to be less repetitive, but sadly it's just spam after spam with minimal changes. I know it's kinda rough to treat the game like this but I can't overlook these things once I'm too aware of it. I'm sure many people found great joy and it probably made their childhood better but it absolutely need a minor remaster to at least x4 the resolution of textures and unlock the 30fps to 60fps. A few months ago I played Persona 4 Golden, which is a PS2 game who got a minor remaster with qol upgrades and although it still looks like PS2 graphics, it's on a whole upper level than this

I remembered really liking this game on the Gamecube. I still do though not as much. It has all the distinctive charm you'd expect from a good JRPG including a grandiose story, endearing characters, nice soundtrack etc. I particularly like the cel-shaded art style. However, I wasn't expecting to get stuck on a boss fight this early. I temporarily put the game down once I saw I wasn't making any headway. Also, there's A LOT of dialogue in this, which can get a little redundant at times. I'll give the game a thumbs up for nostalgia's sake, but I do think the difficulty curve is too high in the early game.