Wow.
I absolutely LOVED this game.
Yes, I know, I know. I’m like five or six years late on this one – to be fair, I’ve had a used copy and my trusty old GameCube for about four years now, but never got around to anything past Palmacosta. I even played the Wii sequel before I went back and finished the original (I was looking for a good Wii RPG at the time that made use of the WiiMote – while I liked ToS2 as my icon might show, it wasn’t exactly a top Wii RPG by any stretch).
So I finally made it a point this summer to dive into Tales of Symphonia and if it was good enough, to finish it.
I did end up enjoying it – enough so early on that my roommate (who ended up watching most of the game) and I ended up picking up a few of those ToS One-Coin figures while we were in Akihabara (somehow, out of eight figures bought between the two of us, we ended up with four freaking Lloyds, but that’s a rant for another day. 
)
The basic, spoiler-free version of the story is that a restless young man named Lloyd heads off with his best friend and resident wiz-kid Genis to help protect their friend Colette, who happens to be the Chosen of Regeneration – one descended from angels who must herself become an angel and awaken the world’s goddess, Martel. Only by awakening Martel can they reverse the world Sylvarant’s poor state and defeat the human-enslaving Desians.
That clichéd plot lasts you about 8-to-10 hours. You’ll have to play the game to find out the rest.
And without saying too much, I will say that was one thing I really liked about Symphonia – it set you up for a story you felt like you’d played a hundred times before, with characters that were interesting, but that could be paralleled with several other RPG casts. It started out feeling like “RPG Comfort Food” – nothing too new or innovative, just something you played if you wanted a simple fantasy adventure story. Then it took everything you were expecting and turned it on its head. I figure it may have been a little more effective when it first released than now, when games in general have made strides in storytelling, but I was still impressed with the plot twists in this game and the plot in general – it kept me interested.
The cast is a lot of fun too – and they all seem to experience decent amount of growth as they each come to terms with what they thought they knew about their world. Lloyd is of course the naive, yet sincere protagonist who struggles to balance his idealism with his harsh new reality and most of the other 8 main members of his traveling party must also confront their own challenges as they journey together. Probably the only complaint that I have about the cast is that, despite some of the potential explanations, the main villain’s motivations felt a bit flimsy and at best end up boiling down to something closer to “the villain’s just crazy at this point” – but maybe that’s not such a bad explanation.
I like the bright-colored, anime art style, but if neither of those descriptions appeal to you, this may not be the RPG for you. I think it’s a great style and I though, even for a GameCube game, it was beautiful to look at.
This music was pretty good – appropriately placed and serves as decent background music with only one or two tracks that have the potential to get annoying if left playing (fortunately those songs tend to appear only during cut scene/story sequences, rather than in towns or the like where you might be dealing with them for awhile.) There’s not really a stand-out song with vocals, mostly because the US version comes with a new instrumental opening rather than either of the pop-style openings by the band day after tomorrow that were used in the GC and PS2 releases of the game.
I thought the voice acting was pretty good, especially for a GameCube era RPG. Granted, there’s still plenty of lines with cheesy delivery or mis-placed over-dramatization (just look up “What is this ominous light that threatens to engulf us?” on Youtube – people have had a field day with that line), but on the whole I think most of the main characters were appropriately casted and performed. The localization features many animation and video game veterans, including Scott Menville as Lloyd, Cam Clarke as Kratos, Tara Strong as Presea, and Crispin Freeman as Regal Bryant.
On the whole, I thought the game was an entertaining and thoughtful JRPG. It’s probably not going to be the game that will convert you Call of Duty-loving friend, but for people who are or ever have been fans of Japanese RPGs, this game is a must! I’m not sure how easy it is to get at this point – I’ve seen it for as low as 40 and as high as 130 on eBay, but if you can find it online or used at your local game store, definitely give it a shot!
I give it four-and-a-half freaking Lloyds out of five!
