Escapist Reality: Review / Tales of Symphonia

Tales of Symphonia
by author name on Tuesday 12 July 2005

A final game play review on Tales of Symphonia for the Nintendo Gamecube.

A lot has already been written about Tales of Symphonia on escapistreality.net, so I?m not going to go too in-depth into my experiences with its game play. I?ve already described this game as, "easily the greatest RPG I have played in the last 10 years if not more." So, what's left is really a more technical description of the game.

I came across this game because I read reviews which harkened to a style of game play I wished to experience. For those of you who enjoy the Role-Playing Games genre, particularly those who enjoy sitting back and watching scenes in which character personalities and relationships are explored and developed, you'll love this game.

The game's visuals are stylistically cartoony. This game did not try to emulate real skin tones and as such create blocky looking nightmarish creatures that are suppose to be accepted as life-like. The graphics are great for this game and the acceptance of a limited graphical real world accountability probably contributed to the games overall success (i.e. they didn't spend all their money getting the water to refract the light just right when you pass by ponds or animate in ridiculous detail the handing over of an item from one character to the next. Instead they added more story and refined the gaming experience).

The game play is more Zelda/Secret of Mana in fighting style than Final Fantasy. When you battle you directly control one character in a side-scrolling battle ground and allow for the AI to control the rest (up to three other characters in a battle at a time) based on the AI settings which you can manipulate to your liking. You will have up to eight characters at one time so your four-person party will technically have upwards of 1,680 possible combinations, though for many major battles one plot character is required to be in the group, so in those cases it's only 210 choices (this includes the order of the characters in the party).

One of the many things this game does well is to increase all characters' experience even if they didn't fight. This is arguably a controversial move as it goes with the theory that if they didn't fight they don't deserve to go up, but, if they didn't go up they would be useless later on. Most characters (if not all, though at this time I can?t remember for sure so I won?t commit to saying all characters) are involved at some point or another with plot driven battles which may or may not be obvious in coming. So I stand by the decision to have all characters go up levels regardless of their contribution to fighting. Besides, there are benefits to playing a character in battle over simply allowing them to cheerlead from the stands. Each character can gain more abilities and stronger abilities based, sometimes, on how often other abilities are used. This is one of the many avenues of the game I honestly didn?t explore the mechanics of (but they are there for those who wish to).

One of the other options I didn't make much use of in Tales was the ability to play as any of the characters in the party. The main character is enjoyable to fight with and is your avatar in the world when it comes to decision making. However, players have the option to use any of the other characters in the party (the various mages for instance) should they prefer.

Tales of Symphonia allows for a decent amount of customization of characters and character moves, or at least it says it does. There is a lot within the game that I didn't really care to explore - the modification of battle formations, the trying to direct evolution of skills, winning first place in the, "Red Light/Green Light" mini game. However, that's part of what makes this game so great: there are things you can make use of if you want but you do not need to.

To aid gamers who don't have amazing memories and/or don't play religiously, the game keeps a log of events that have transpired and where you are to go next (plot-wise). Basically, it what you would do yourself if you were to write stuff done. But, gamers don't. The game designers knew this. So, instead of spending hours walking around a world trying to stumble upon whatever it was you were suppose to do next (and maybe never finding it), Tales offers you the ability to refresh your memory in a matter of seconds or reread your adventures and reestablish your connection with the overall plot.

This game is accessible for all levels of gamers. For those just starting out, it increases the challenges and complexity of game play at a slow enough pace to get use to the game controls without feeling overwhelmed. Then, usually through use of well-integrated character interaction, the game gradually introduces new skills (such as an advanced blocking technique), combat options (such as group combination attacks), and non-combat features (such as cooking).

For gamers who are well versed in the world of RPGs and enjoy the mechanics of game play, this game allows for more tweaking then I'd ever care to do.

For gamers who are sick of spending good money on a 12 hour long RPG, this game took me over 60 hours and I definitely didn't do everything.

For gamers looking for a great story, this game is it.

As with most RPGs, Tales suffers in replay factor based on the story already being known to the player. However, Tales does reward gamers who have beaten the game and are looking to revisit the world.

Tales of Symphonia is tribute to the classic RPGs of the past that relied on game play and story rather than flashy graphics and hours of cut scenes. Tales of Symphonia is easily a 10/10 for an RPG and a 10/10 for overall general game enjoyablity. With comfortable controls that allow for complex fighting styles, a great story, and a variety of tasks, Tales kept my interest through the entire game and, like all great RPGs, had me playing it again.

- Savage

Rating:

100%

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