Tales of Symphonia
Ever since the splitting of Nintendo and Squaresoft, all of Nintendo's home consoles have suffered through a severe lack of quality RPG adventures. Every once in a while a little game like Lost Kingdoms would come along, but it did little to quench the thirst for those that longed for a true, classic RPG game. And this is exactly why Namco's Tales of Symphonia is a milestone of sorts for the GameCube.
It not only fully satisfies the RPG craving that Nintendo fans have been enduring for so many years, but it does so more impressively than almost any other RPG in recent memory.
Tales of Symphonia utilizes the tried and true story of a group of young teenagers embarking on a seemingly impossible task to save the world. The land of Sylvarant is dying and must be regenerated by the Colette (the Chosen of Mana). The main character is Lloyd Irving, one of Colette's friends, and he must accompany Colette on her journey to release seals located in temples sprinkled across the land. To make matters more interesting, a group called the Desians are randomly attacking and terrorizing villages and seem to be after the Chosen. Sure, it doesn't seem like a revolutionary story, but rest assured that, as you progress through the game, the plot thickens tenfold as you are met with twists, conspiracies, and all that other good stuff of intrigue. As the plot becomes more and more convoluted it's sometimes a little hard to follow and there are more than a few questions left unanswered by the end. It's uncertain as to whether this is intentional or these errors are merely plot holes - either way they are a little annoying. Tales of Symphonia is also heavily saturated with morals and life lessons; the main one being about equality to all beings. Characters will often begin talking about things like this and, though it's good that a game strives to teach such an important message, at times it becomes overblown and even cheesy.
Though sometimes generic, the plot does carry itself at a steady pace, and is delivered via a mixture of text bubbles and spoken speech. When localizing such a huge RPG, a lot of people worry, with good reason, that the spoken dialog will suffer the fate of many games - namely, lame acting. Fear not, though, as Tales of Symphonia employs a cast of seasoned voice actors such as Tara Strong (Rikku from Final Fantasy X), Scott Menville (Robin from TV's Teen Titans), and Cam Clarke (Liquid Snake from Metal Gear Solid). Each character's lines are delivered well enough so that you won't be cringing in pain when you hear them. However, you'll still feel there's something preventing it from reaching the exceptional voice acting quality to be found in the Metal Gear Solid series. That ‘something' might just be the dialog. At times, it seems to switch gears from a normal, personable delivery to a completely informal patter. At times such dialog is okay, like when characters are joking around with one another, but there are instances when it simply doesn't fit. For example; in the middle of dramatically heavy scenes, someone might suddenly blurt out: "You're such a dork!", which all but completely ruins the atmosphere of the moment.
Tales of Symphonia also uses another interesting and original way to further its plot: static text and character portraits. Every now and then you will be prompted to press the ‘Z' button, which will temporarily pause the onscreen action and bring up a few representative character portraits of your party as they chat amongst themselves. These can be fully avoided and won't affect the main storyline in any way, but they do substantially build character personalities and relationships, as well as flesh out plot points and drop hints for progression. The little intermissions are usually fun to read through, and it's also nice to see how characters' portraits change depending on their reactions to the conversation. However, its one annoyance is that, even though none of the dialogue is spoken, you cannot skip through the text because it runs on its own timer, change in accordance to the length of each written block. It would have been much more fun if these little character chit-chats had received full voice acting.
In an RPG, the score can become almost as important as the voiced dialog. And, because RPGs rely so heavily on plot and the player's connection to the game, the music must do its best to immerse the player into the game's world. Tales of Symphonia delivers a pretty decent score, encompassing a few tracks that just manage to make it over to the "Wow!" side of the appreciation scale. Sadly, there are also some moments that seem a little too generic and reminiscent of a standard action game. It's also worth noting that the Japanese version of Tales of Symphonia has the game's opening sequence coupled with a track sung by a Japanese pop group, but the localized version's opening sees it replaced with a new, fully orchestrated piece. I must admit that I really like it when games bring out a track with singing in it. In an age when all big RPGs have some sort of vocalist track, surely Namco could have created a new English rendition of the song, or could have even left it in Japanese. Square-Enix's hugely popular Final Fantasy X had its main vocal track in Japanese, and fans loved it. But don't get me wrong about the new orchestrated piece; it's both high in quality and easily fitting to the game. It seems, perhaps, that Namco are attempting to remove as much of the Japanese essence from the game as it can?
Of course, Tales of Symphonia still feels ripped straight out of a Japanese cartoon, thanks largely to the cell-shaded characters. Designed by Kosuke Fujishima, a popular comic artist, the characters, backgrounds, and monsters all look fantastic. The game has a definitive style that's incredibly easy to fall in love with, especially if you are a Japanese animation fan. But, even if you're not, there's a charm to the game that's extremely hard to resist. The graphics do a good job of matching alongside the story, which is, by turns, pleasantly light-hearted, and frowningly serious. Characters have a range of facial expressions to fit every mood but, on occasion, it can seem that they are smiling a little too much - probably because the default expression for most characters is a small grin. But, besides that, the graphics are absolutely superb. It's a good thing that the in-game graphics engine can carry the story on its back too, because almost the entire game is told through in-game cut scenes. That's right: excluding the opening and closing animated cinematic sequences, all cut scenes are told in-game. Though definitely not a bad feature, it could be construed as a let down if you're accustomed to RPGs being inundated with dozens of lavish, fully animated cut scenes. And, considering Tales of Symphonia's beautiful character and environmental designs, who wouldn't feel a little let down? You'll be left thinking that certain scenes would have been so much more powerful if in-game models had been passed over in favor of gorgeously directed animation.
The character designs aren't the only graphical elements that are great, though; they're also very well animated too. This is especially noticeable during battles where characters will be flying across the screen, unleashing magic, and swinging swords. Spell effects range from simple fireballs to screen engulfing lightning storms, and it's all wonderfully realized. Sadly, however, when battles become overly hectic and massive amounts of onscreen effects are running, the game does tend to experience some serious slowdown, but thankfully, it does recover quite quickly.
Tales of Symphonia's battle system serves to elevate it higher than many recent RPGs. Unlike most traditional RPGs, a totally new and unique real-time battle engine is employed. Though you can't fight enemies on the main field, you will see monsters crawling around. Once you touch one, you will be sent to the battle engine via the, now classic, screen shatter effect. Here, you will be presented with various monsters, all of which you can fight in real-time. You are in direct control of one character during the battles (you can select to fight as any member of your party), and your remaining teammates are controlled automatically by the game's AI, which you can set yourself (unless you're playing with - up to - three friends in some multiplayer fun). With video games in general, computer controlled characters aren't that smart, but Tales of Symphonia really does an admirable job. Your teammates will usually know when to fight, back off, or heal, according to the routines you have set for them, and there are an absolute ton of routines to choose from. As for the character you are in direct control of, you can lock onto and attack one enemy at a time by pressing the left or right trigger. Once you've locked onto an enemy, you can move towards or away from it on, and though it might appear that you can move in full 3D - you cannot. You are locked strictly in the 2D plane of your enemy. You can attack using various normal and special moves. Pressing the ‘A' button in conjunction with different directions on the analog stick will result in varying attacks; whilst pressing the ‘B' button with different analog directions will produce numerous special attacks (which you can set yourself). Tales of Symphonia features a great combo system that first allows you to chain together a number of regular attacks then, directly afterward, chain together a number of special attacks. Special attacks each have a level allocation; you can always chain up to a higher leveled attack, but never a lower. So, for example, you can chain four normal strikes with a level-one attack, then a level-two attack, and then top it off with a level-three! It's a lot of fun to mix and match attacks and see which ones get the best results. You'll have to know the properties of each attack in order to create a good combo; some attacks will push opponents back too far, resulting in the miss of your next chained attack. Some will send your character flying through the air and completely over your target. To add polish to its already impressive combo system, Tales of Symphonia gives us the unison attack. During battle, the unison attack-meter builds up and, when it is full, you can unleash it by pressing the ‘Z' button. When the unison attack starts, you have a limited amount of time to input a button choice and analog stick combination in order to perform it successfully. If you input the correct combinations, two of your characters will combine their powers and unleash an extra devastating attack. The battle system's only failing is there simply aren't enough analog and button combinations to fit in all the attacks you want to use. You can set up to six special moves the ‘B' button and C-stick, but that never seems to be enough. You'll sometimes have to change them mid-battle in order to fit the situation, which can be a bit annoying. That gripe aside, Tales of Symphonia houses a battle system that plays like an action game, yet still contains the depth and strategy of an RPG. It isn't an exercise in arbitrary hammering on the attack buttons, but rather, the considered strategizing of your offense and defense. Pressing the ‘X' button will make your character block; a skill that becomes incredibly useful when challenging tougher enemies in the game. The strategic depth of the battle engine really shines through in the one-on-one battles that you are sporadically placed in. Here, you won't have your teammates to rely on for backup, so you'll really have to learn when to block and when to attack. It almost becomes a regular fighting game!
Tales of Symphonia's battle system is a great deal of fun, which is an invaluable asset, because you'll really need to engage in a significant amount of fighting if you want to level up enough to face the game's bosses. There are some seriously tough bosses in this game, some of which you will have to face sequentially…and without saves between, either. Luckily, the game does have ample save points littered throughout, and most are placed in locations right before a boss encounter.
One thing about the game that really boosts its replay value is the side quests. There are tons and tons of them. While most games will flagrantly boast about how long they take to complete, in truth, not many actually do take anywhere near their projected gameplay time. Tales of Symphonia's packaging proudly states 80+ hours of game time and, trust me, you will need to play for around 80 hours if you want to 100% complete this game. There are tons of things the game keeps track of, like the percentage of items you have completed, how many monsters you've met, and even a little book of figurines that you can make from characters you have run into. Even if you don't want to bother with all the extra stuff, a normal run through will still take some 50 hours, which is more than any RPG in recent memory.
Tales of Symphonia also offers a high degree of customizability for your characters. Each has a title that affects the stat bonuses at level-up time. As you progress through the game, choices you make or actions you take can result in acquiring a new title, which will affect stat bonuses in different ways. Characters can also equip EX Gems, which are gems that give bonuses such as added HP or agility. High grade EX Gems will even give personalized traits for your characters, such as abilities to charm girls into giving you items and money; the combination of certain EX Gems will give birth to other abilities as well.
Though Tales of Symphonialacks a truly original storyline, that's about all it lacks; the battle system more than makes up for any story shortfalls, and it's truly the first RPG battle system that I did not grow to loathe. At no time during all those gameplay hours did I begin to abhor the onset of battle. Plus, there are no random battles, so if you don't want to, you can avoid almost every fight in the game - though there's really no reason to because they're so much fun to play. Combine that with fun characters, great style, and beautiful graphics, and you have an outstanding game that'll make any RPG nut happy. I'd gladly take the Tales series as Nintendo's main RPG series. GameCube fans, the wait is over! Go get Tales of Symphonia and finally feed the RPG hunger that has been lurking within you for so, so long.
Review by Kevin Chao on 11 Aug 2004
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Members review score: 8