Tales of Symphonia

Tales of Symphonia was created in Japan for the Game Cube (later, it was re-released for the Playstation 2, but only for Japan). Because of it's success, Namco began to release other Tales titles to North America. ToS is still considered the most popular of the Tales Of franchise. But, even so, there are a few problems.

Tales of Symphonia takes place in the declining world of Sylvarant. Sylvarant is running low on it's life-force, mana, and the only hope for the world is a sixteen year old girl, the Chosen Colette. Though, for the saviour of the world, she is pretty ditzy (she is known for tripping at just the right moments, usually saving one of her friends in the process). Even though she is the one who is going to save the world, the main character is Lloyd Irving who is a childhood friend of Colette. Their teacher, Raine Sage (who has an obsession with ruins and, when they find ruins along their journey, will go into almost a mania called 'Ruin Mode'), and her brother, Genis Sage (who is the top of their class and is later revealed in a side-quest that he was invited to enroll in an exclusive school for only the brightest in Sylvarant. He has a deep hatred for most humans besides Lloyd and Colette) also accompany them on their journey of world regeneration. A mercenary also accompanies them, hired by Colette's grandmother, named Kratos. Though, at first he seems very cold towards everyone, later in the plot you find that it's not that he dislikes the group, but is that way because of his past. Little do they know, but there is another world connected to their own and, while one world declines, the other flourishes. There are hidden secrets from both worlds, though. Secrets that could cost the lives of hundreds.

Now, there are a lot of good things with Symphonia. For one, you can get different costumes for each of the characters from various side-quests. The graphics are great in a chibi sort of way and the characters look cute in a kid-like way. The battle system is very fun and the attacks that each character learns depends on the way you develope them. But, in my opinion, the best part of the game is the story. At times, it can get pretty sad (for example, you can get a certain character back in your party but it costs the life of another who you have to personally kill. After he is dead, the party assumes that they had fought you because he knew he would die.)

But, like all games, there are some bad parts. The worst part of the games are the dungeons. They can take hours to beat because of all the weird, twisted, and confusing puzzles you have to go through in order to move on. And, even when you know exactly what you're trying to do, the rooms look so similar to each other that you can easily get lost. Also, some important parts of the game aren't voiced and loses the importantance to them. Also, with the voice acting, it can be pretty bad at times (usually only with random characters that have no significance to the plot) and the characters have some pretty cheesy dialoge ("I got you some hot coffee." "Thank you!" "I lied. It's cold coffee. I had Genis make it special for you." "Oh, I knew that. I meant cold." "I lied. It's hot."). Even though I earlier mentioned that I enjoyed the graphics, they also bug me because the characters all look like they're about twelve.

Overall though, this is a great game and I highly recommend playing it. Just make sure you have a walkthrough for those dungeons. ;)