Tales of Symphonia (GameCube) Second Opinion Review

Upon loading up the main adventure and finding yourself playing the role of a child in a school scenario might throw memories of Illusion of Time/Gaia to the forefront of your mind. Then, when you discover that Lloyd, the young rascal under your guide, is somewhat of a rebel, you may indeed scoff at such a regurgitated idea. But you will quickly realise this is nothing compared to the fact that the Mana Tree (*cough*Secret of Mana*cough*) that protects the fantasy land of Sylvarant is dying and the immature female character and friend of Lloyd's, Colette, turns out to be none other than the 'Chosen', who must head off on a pilgrimage to reawaken a Goddess, regenerate the world and fall madly in love with Tidus...oh wait, sorry, thought I was reviewing Final Fantasy X there for a second! Cliché it may be, but it just passes as palpable.

Does anyone recall the hullabaloo surrounding The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker when it was revealed as utilising a wonderfully (then) under-used graphical technique called ‘cel-shading’? Well, despite all the nay-sayers out there condemning the visual method, Wind Waker ended up looking stunning and ever since every one and their dog have jumped on the cel-shading bandwagon in one way or another, Namco’s Tales Studio included. Now this came as a major shock to long-term Tales fans such as myself as the games have a reputation for being beautiful beyond comparison largely due to the hand-drawn look, bright pastel colourisation and magnificently rendered cut-scenes. Thankfully, Namco has not dropped the past completely as now we have the lovely 3D cel-shaded characters, all residing in a magically-crafted environment that still manages to retain the personalised touch that garnered Phantasia so much laudation on the SNES. In addition it manages to move everything around at the lightning speed of sixty frames per second, totally abolishing the dreaded slowdown experienced in the SNES and PSone releases!

There has been a lot of discussion over the voice acting in Tales of Symphonia and many different opinions banded about. But all you have to do is look at the progression over the series to see that from the humble SNES beginnings (which did have lots of digitised speech, which made the cartridge too expensive to localise for the West) and through the PSone versions, the voice work has become far stronger with the majority of the voices being appropriate for their characters' personalities and only the odd 'bad guy' sounding too cheesy for their own good. Sure, you have to press a button to continue the conversations, but at least that means if you need to dash off for a minute, you will not miss anything at all. It is a crying shame, though, how English voices have not been used for the special skits in the game, with just a text representation remaining now...

But is the musical soundtrack that will have you praising the game from the highest mountaintops, or at least saying it in your mind. From watching the animé intro with its melée of musical styles you know almost what to expect an extravagantly composed soundtrack that toys with your emotions on a regular basis and takes you on a ride from which you will not want to dismount. And that is exactly what is delivered to you. Want to know how spiritually moving the score can be? Just skip tom the title screen, turn up the volume, sit back and relax for a while with your eyes closed…and then do the same in areas such as the Ossa Trail and the Fooji Mountains tune, when you reach Tethe'alla.

The Tales series has progressed marginally through its lifespan, with the core style remaining almost exactly the same. In comparison to other RPGs it is quite an oddity as it neither falls into the turn-based approach adopted by the infamous Final Fantasy series from Square Enix, nor does it head along the well-worn path that Nintendo’s very own Legend of Zelda franchise travels time and time again – the free-roaming, action-RPG route. This is because the Tales games do not take the player into a scenario where you deal out a hit and then wait for the enemy’s retribution, yet you do not simply wander around slashing freely at any oncoming foes. Normally what happens is that you take your character through dungeons and across the world itself, randomly encountering enemies. Then the crazy, fun-filled battles commence.

However, in the case of Symphonia things are ever so slightly different. The main point is that the annoying random factor has been removed and replaced with techniques lifted straight out of Zelda II: Adventure of Link and Chrono Trigger. This means that as you walk around the world map, rather than having to fight every five seconds, two types of enemies appear around you, á la Zelda II – small ones that lead to simple fights and larger ones that are obviously the tougher encounters. When it comes to dungeons, however, all the enemies are already in place and should you choose to fight them, you can…unless you are lazy or in a hurry (a technique found in Chrono Trigger and Paper Mario, to name but two). However, this can lead to under-achievements in the Levelling Up department, causing issues in the later stages. So it is advised not too miss out too many enemies!

So, anyway, once an actual encounter begins you are thrown right into the thick of it all, choosing one of the four allies allowed on-screen at any one time and starting to frantically press buttons to stop what seems like inevitable death. However, with the correct key depressions you can quickly rack up some mighty clever combination moves using both your weapons and specially obtained magical manoeuvres. All the while the three other members run around, controlled by computer AI or by three other friends who have set their favoured character to ‘manual’, trying to aid your impending strife by using their weapons, spells or healing arts (in the case of the AI, all depending on how you personalised their attack settings in the main menu prior to the battle).

What helps to ensure the game never grows too tiresome is mainly due to each battle being frantic, hyper-fast affairs that can sometimes last as little as five seconds (each battle shows a timer at the end so you can double-check your time!)! Even the major boss battles are relatively brief, weighing in at a miniscule couple of minutes...something that will definitely appeal to those frustrated by long-winded Final Fantasy fights. But little touches such as the Wonder Chef (a crazy guy that disguises himself as various objects across different towns, teaching you new recipes for useful items that can be cooked at the end of battles), the humorous skits (small extra sections of conversation that can be activated by pressing 'Z' when prompted), the mini-games dotted around (such as the memory game where you work as a busy waitress...), the fact that you can rebuild a devastated town by giving donations and, of course, the hilarious violence teacher Raine openly shows towards her students (even spanking one of them early on!), all add to an already overall pleasing RPG romp.

Length is another side of Tales of Symphonia that needs no sleep lost worrying about it, as this particular Role Playing Game, like any good role-player, gives you easily around the fifty-plus hours of normal play time mark and dishes-up far more if you wish to head around the world map finding all of the hidden extras. The battles may be brief and the dungeons might seem a little on the short side, but the sheer amount packed in to Symphonia prevents gamers from wrapping this up and saving the land before you get your money's worth, that is for sure. Throw in the ability to have three friends playing in battles alongside you and the plethora of side-quests that you can undertake (like finding all the status titles for the team, collecting all the recipes from the Wonder Chef or uncovering secret costume changes) and the fun factor is cranked-up massively!