85%PC

Very fun game, but very hard to navigate at some points of the game. It May be because my focus has been so good lately, but a good game with a good story and interesting characters!

75%Emulated

Outside of a few very dumb story beats the story is pretty good. The combat is fast and while level and gear are the deciding factors you can win underleveled with proper blocking and dodging (and item spamming off cooldown lol). There are three bad dugeons in this game which require too much time, one involving fish, a multi-layer sliding floor puzzle, and a guessing game in the woods that really requires a map to get through in a timely manner. Overall a great hybrid of rpg and action genres that leaves you wanting more.

70%PC

For its time, this was beyond fantastic but upon replaying it, I found so many flaws. the story pacing is just bad quite often, the affection mechanic makes no sense, stuff is so easily missable, combat is kind of repetitive. I do like the dungeon riddles though. The cast is still pretty neat but some are just way out there and a bit gimmicky. Also took a lot of fiddling around on the technical side to get it working properly. Still, it's a lot of fun and I guess, a first time player will still really love this game. But for me, this was my third overall playthrough knowing all the story bits and all that probably made it less enjoyable than it would've been.

80%Wii

when lloyd in smash

100%Nintendo GameCube

This is the first game in this challenge that I thought was a masterpiece and I have never played this game before. This was a wild ride and such amazing character development. The combat felt good and the story was amazing. It had a great flow from beginning all the way to the end. It was one of a few games where I was like "Yes! This is how to start the game and ended it feeling satisfied." I did not want more and I did not want less it was just the right blend of things. Every single Character had their own story to complete their mission. Not one that was just there for the ride. The only character that felt to me was okay was Genis. I grew liking him more towards the end but that is about it, he was more annoying than cool, but maybe that was the vibe they went with. Best Girl was Sheena... for reasons... lol. I recommend everyone that is a fan of action RPGs and a great story. It's not that hard but there are some fight where it can be a bit tricky. 10/10 game for me! It was a great adventure and maybe one day I will play it again because it is just that good of a game. (Thanks Sam for submitting this to my stream early on and having a great time with this one)

90%PlayStation 4

Joguei agora no PS4 a versão remaster, só joguei a história principal e algumas sides quests.

95%Xbox One

Game didn't age well, and the remaster does it no favors whatsoever. This is the game that really put the "Tales" series on the map and thus I'll always have fond memories of playing this on the Gamecube. I just don't understand how the game can no longer run 60 FPS (which it did on the gamecube), and how this version of the remaster actually has loading in between battles. Just bizarre. The combat was great in 2004, but with the series evolving so much, it's clearly dated at this point. If they ever come out with another remaster for the PS5/XSX generation, it will need a big overhaul to warrant playing again.

70%PC

Story and characters are fantastic. The characters are all unique and interesting, which makes it easy to want to include all of them in your party. You can use any combination of party members as they are all viable. The games lacks many quality of life mechanics that are present in modern games. Voice acting is pretty good. Music is good. There are a few annoying, generic environmental sounds that loop over and over again during some cutscenes. For example, imagine escaping a prison and hearing the loud generic alarm over and over and over again, even during cut-scenes. Or having a lengthy cutscene near a waterfall and all you hear is a loud generic white noise coming from it. I highly recommend TSFix to fix this game. Patching the game makes it look much better, but at the end of the day, it is still a PS2/GCN era game. It's sadly a half hearted port on PC.

60%PC

Tales of Symphonia didn't age well. Its main plot twist is laughably predictable, especially nowadays, Lloyd and Colette are as basic as they can be, and the rest of the party, while better written, are still one-note. Curiously, the only characters with genuine depth are the ones who betray you at least once. Combat is okay, but its lack of features, compared to later games, is obvious. Dungeon design is fine, but some puzzles are incredibly annoying. Music is great, but graphics are terrible, especially considering the competition. 6/10

100%Nintendo Switch

剧情非常精彩的王道JRPG。或许可以在我心中的JRPG榜上排第一名。
以前玩过steam版，因为汉化补丁到后面翻译质量糟糕到玩不下去就弃了，这也是我多年来的一个遗憾。趁着NS版发售还自带官方中文就拾了起来，实际打通后觉得幸好一直记挂在心头，它真的太优秀了，值得为它在心中留一个空间永久珍藏。
顺带说一句，NS版bug很多不是很推荐，但是游戏质量本身是摆在这里的。建议可以买其它版本或者等更新补丁进一步完善（不能抱太大期望）。

以下为带剧透的剧情评测，涉及到通关为止的完整剧情和核心设定，建议通关后再点开。

游戏分为三个部分，西尔瓦蓝特篇、提瑟亚拉篇、世界统一篇。

西尔瓦蓝特篇
第一个部分讲作为神子的柯蕾特接受神谕踏上了世界再生之旅。这部作品的初心是出自一个疑问“即使作为祭品的人心甘情愿自我牺牲，但这么做真的是正确的吗？”打完后可以这么说——这部作品为其交上了一份满分答卷。
柯蕾特自始至终都是一个非常善良且甘愿牺牲自己的角色，但她绝不是麻木，正相反，她害怕，她想和重要的人在一起，但是她为了大义可以牺牲自己的一切，只求换来一个能让重要的人幸福活下去的世界。
为此她首先牺牲了作为人的身体，接着是心灵、记忆……
她为了世界牺牲了太多太多，好在身边的人一直都非常重视她，想方设法拯救她，这才能让她在最后说出那句感悟——
“不能再有那种……只要牺牲自己就好的扭曲想法了。”
这个篇章很虐也很戳我。我对这种逐渐失去一切却无能为力的故事根本无法抗拒。
印象最深的是雪地里洛伊德递上咖啡试探她的那一幕，当他喊出那句“你到底是从什么时候开始变成这样的？你根本就什么都感觉不到了啊！”让我有点想哭。

提瑟亚拉篇
这部的重点是放在了刻画失去了人性的人类，以及充满了歧视的世界上。
那个开开心心给每只旅途上遇到的狗取名字的柯蕾特失去了人心后，甚至狠狠地踢开了路上遇到的小狗，让我看得目瞪口呆。
普蕾榭雅无法感知到父亲已经死亡，麻木地照顾着床上已经死亡的父亲尸体那一幕也让我受到了不小的冲击。
好在两人最后都恢复了人性，但是，就如同普蕾榭雅所说的——我失去的时间，又有谁能还给我呢？
她失去了整整十六年的人生。

另一个主题“歧视”，虽然主要是人类对半妖精的种族歧视，但也有贫富差距所带来的歧视。
前者刻画得很深入，空中都市的半妖精们每个人都有一段不堪回首的痛苦回忆，最终驱使他们躲到了漂流都市。即使如此他们也没有过上幸福的生活，有人终日被痛苦回忆束缚，有人无时无刻不心惊胆战，还有人得了失心疯。
对于歧视，主角们也给出了自己的答案——是人心的脆弱所造成的。因为害怕与自己不一样的人，所以才会去迫害对方。不正视这一点，只想着世界都统一成一个种族就可以消除歧视是绝对不可能的（毕竟同种族之间都会互相歧视，只是换了个名义），米特斯到死都没能理解这一点，只固执地执行着自己的解读，还嘴硬即使再来一次他还是会这么选择。可以说这也是失去了一切伙伴的心灵支持的一个必然结果。
关于贫富差距，有个小支线刻画得不错：一个贫穷的小男孩骂杰诺斯作为神子不作为，放任穷人被欺负。杰诺斯怼回去说不服气你就应该想办法改变自己，好好工作赚钱，最后还给了小男孩妈妈一份工作。他的想法很棒，怨天怨地继续穷下去那一辈子都不会有改变，要先迈出第一步以后才有未来。

世界统一篇
我猜到了少年米特斯是勇者米特斯，但是没有猜到尤克特拉希尔的全名是米特斯·尤克特拉希尔。
甚至一直以来都是敌对阵营的尤安和库拉托斯还是当年勇者小队的一员……所以这其实是个希望拯救世界的正义人士因为遭到极度恶意迫害的情况下扭曲了心灵选择了报复一路的故事，着实令人唏嘘。
尤克特拉希尔做的事肯定是罪无可恕的，但是他的出发点又很可怜。说到底都是这个世界种族歧视太严重了，连拯救世界的勇者一行人都要迫害至死。
这一篇回想起来最令我吃惊的是杰诺斯的背叛，虽然之前确实觉得他好像心事重重，但没想到会出现这种情况。当时我的心情就跟那句话一样“要是能在先前发现他笑容中藏着的心事就好了”。

剧情就说到这里，其它的话大概就只剩下琐碎的游戏感想了，随便说几句流水账一样的感想——
刷钱一时爽，赌场输光火葬场。我到最后都不敢赌了，换好筹码直接兑换想要的物品走人，美好人生从不沾赌博开始。
柯蕾特的靴子是被上帝吻过的靴子，专门用来绊倒她触发各种奇迹的（？）其中觉得最好笑的是她的盗窃技能全都是在敌人面前跌倒实现的，末了还要在称号那里无辜地说一句，不是我偷的，是别人给的呀。
柯蕾特和洛伊德的相处好可爱。我很喜欢动画版第一季两人互相吓唬的那一幕，像是两个关系亲密的小孩子在闹着玩，特别特别可爱。
游戏中洛伊德送给柯蕾特加了要之纹的吊饰时还特别伤心，说这是迟到了的生日礼物，没想到会以这种形式送给你。后面吊饰要被夺走时柯蕾特突然恢复了人心，大叫这是洛伊德送给我的，你不能抢。那一刻我觉得我的天都亮了。柯蕾特后来还跟洛伊德道歉说收到礼物时特别开心，只是当时被夺走了心灵没法表现出来也很可爱。
克菈菈和巧克菈能救回来也真是太好了，没想到随处乱晃居然能遇到克菈菈，这个游戏总是能给我惊喜。
我很喜欢这个支线系统，不会跟人事先说或者给支线列表，这种给了就会让人觉得都知道了不做很亏，但是如果不给的话，那每一次的触发都是意外之喜。对于我这种只想走主线不想被支线绑住的人来说是很友好的设计。

最后吐槽一下NS版。我大概40小时玩的1.0版，15小时玩的1.3版。bug严重得可怕。比如第一个火精灵迷宫就卡得移动都一顿一顿的，非常影响游戏体验。还有一个遗迹观光村，进门卡半天还会游戏卡死，到最后我走几步就回去存个档，实在是怕了。即使是1.3版还是有不少问题没修，比如拉长游戏时间的大地图战斗后读取六七秒。还有游戏黑屏卡死的问题让我回了一段时间的档。NS版的移植做得很烂。但胜在有中文和可以躺着玩，也算是有一些可取之处。

80%Emulated

Oh yeah, this is a solid [8/10] game.

This map exploration or the "world map" is a huge plus, and in the beginning of the game, it gives a good sense of travel, especially with the optional detour to the Tower of Mana. And speaking on that the route split towards Palmacosta was something I did not expect, the option to just walk was just amazing, and it gives you something to do on a second playthrough (although the tower of mana route is far more fun than the other). Ex Skills as well although I understand why they couldn't be in DoTNW were a huge miss for that game and made this one even more creative even if I didn't completely understand the Tech and Strike bar.

Now the elephant in the room, no free run. It's bad, especially with magic-using enemies, being trapped in the X-axis and body blocked by my companions, thunderblade and the like were impossible to escape. And do not bring up Guardian that is not a solution to the magic spammed by enemies, sacrificing a move slot for a block that costs TP is outrageous early game. But I guess this is really only a problem for enemies who use magic, any other time you just get pushed up an invisible wall with your sides open.

And a couple of little nitpicks would probably be the map points lacking names, similar to the SMT IV map. The camera is wonky at points on the world map while on foot, and customization items being set at certain shops instead of being universal.

Finally, the story is perfect in my opinion, this game itself and Aselia as a whole. Characters are kinda relatable and all have their arcs. I can't go into more of the story without spoiling it but it is great and you should really look more into it, the game does not go over the whole story, and you'd be missing out on the full story. [8/10]

100%Nintendo GameCube

I've tried Tales of Symphonia a number of times but the HD ports have been so lacking that they actually felt kind of bad to play. Finally decided to play the Gamecube original and the difference is night and day the second you start the game. It is so fun to just play and the world is extremely interesting and lived-in. The twists are pretty apparent but the characters are written so well and with so much heart that you want to follow their journey and root for them up until the credits roll. Also, playing Tales of Phantasia is by no means a requirement, but it helped to make the story of both feel like a grand epic when placed together.

80%PlayStation 3

Not my favorite in the series but I get why so many people consider this the best game in the Tales Series—Janky at some points. The story is really damn good I didn't really expect it to be as good as it was but hot damn was I wrong. Good game, but if you have played any of the later games in the series (Vesperia, Arise, Etc.) Don't expect this one to be as polished as those.

70%Nintendo GameCube

this game is FFX but good, there's a lot to be appreciated here and the branching paths for each characters learned artes is genuinely a pretty neat concept at its core.

50%PC

Convoluted Story, Boring Battle System, Out of Date Features, Annoying Puzzles, this game needs a remake.

100%Nintendo GameCube

This is probably the best sixth-generation RPG I've played so far.

60%Nintendo GameCube

The story gets so convoluted that I gave up on caring. Serviceable gameplay and world exploration. It goes on for so long, and there are parts that feel like it could've been a more impactful ending there.

100%Nintendo Switch

A couple of days ago: I finished my replay of Symphonia. While it hasn’t aged as well as other games visually and mechanically (though that doesn’t bother me since I love this game and I think it plays and looks great); The story aged fantastically and it feels a lot more nuanced with its themes (like it doesn’t handle it naively unlike a certain recent in the series) and the characters are amazingly memorable and relatable, I can see why my teenager self fell in love with this game.

70%PC

Carried heavily by the story

80%PC

Pros:
-Good story overall
-Graphics hold up well except for character faces which are blurry
-Enemy design is varied with some interesting designs here and there
-Good voice acting, although some important story scenes lack voice acting
-Party members all have interesting backstories
-Main themes and sources of conflict are dark topics, such as racism and human experimentation, that are handled well
-Protagonist grows and changes throughout the journey with a balance of positive and negative traits.
-Combat is fun enough with character style variety
-Plenty of hidden secrets, side missions, and optional bosses
-Music is good although only a few songs in particular stand out

Cons:
-Started dragging on in the second half.
-Major twists were blatantly foreshadowed so they lacked any surprise.
-One party member is the perv archetype which gets annoying really fast.

Story: Overall neat, but they foreshadowed everything anywhere from an hour to 30 hours before it happened so few surprises happened. Pacing could have been tightened since it started padding out with like 3 unnecessary dungeons and such. Also the life lesson cheese really started kicking into high gear in the last hour.

Characters: All generally good and memorable beyond just a general trope. Lloyd was a good protagonist and grew as a character which was nice. Some party members were a bit more developed than others, but none were explicitly bad. Also Zelos sucks bc he spouts pervy stuff 90% of the time he talks.

Gameplay: Combat was alright, but very samey. Lloyd is the super strong sword protag and was the most fun to play of the bunch since he seemed to be the fastest and had the best flow with my playstyle. Cancelling enemy attacks by using your special moves seemed to be the main strategy in most boss fights. Never really used unison attacks since they were a bit wonky and I didn't want to memorize the combos. Exploration in the first 20 hours was mostly on foot and felt more fun than later. Dungeons can be a bit back-tracky, but are often only 1-2 hours long

Graphics: Good and still hold up fairly well other than blurry character faces. Houses and such are fully decorated and look nice when they didn't have to be. Dungeons looked good enough to be interesting, but nothing in particular stood out and made them great. Animated cutscenes were sparse and thus more impactful when they popped up at the big plot points. Enemies were varied enough to be interesting with some interesting designs here and there.

Music: Good game music, but often too simple and repetitive to be something good to listen to outside the game for me. That kind of fantasy JRPG music where a few songs stand out, but most are just alright. The main battle themes were alright, but I guess I tuned them out after a while.

Main downside to the game is it felt too long for what it was. Especially toward the end, the last 10-15 hours of the main story could have been condensed. Its not good when you go "what do you mean there is ANOTHER dungeon?!" and dread how much is left.

100%PlayStation 3

all characters are cute, they are my children (esp zelos <3)
storyline was also great (a lot of changes in climax; the reason behind 2 worlds' chosen ones)

80%PC

Not my favorite Tales game, but still really good. It's best to think of this game as a 2D Tales game like Eternia and Phantasia instead of a 3D one like Abyss and Vesperia. Overall, I still like Eternia and Phantasia more than Symphonia. As the first 3D game, it is in a weird place. The animations and cutscenes are so stiff and cheap. You can see how objects interact just by moving around instead of actually being connected at all.

The story and characters are decent, but nothing particularly special, especially with how much it has to borrow from Phantasia, being a 4000-year prequel to that game. Many reused ideas from that game. The story is too focused on pointless racism that the game never really justifies, and it's never made clear why the main cast is so amazing at not being racist (except for Genis, who says he hates humans even at the end of the game even though he lived in a village of all humans and his best friend is a human. What?). Villain's reason for being evil is pretty thin.

Gameplay is good though. It helped going into it expecting a 2D game this time compared to my first time, which I played after Abyss. Weird difficulty. It would alternate between me getting my ass handed to me wondering if I'm underleveled to absolutely spanking them without need to heal. Playing as Lloyd is a blast, although none of the others are particularly fun. Until like the halfway point, your options are a boring caster, the healer, the world's slowest melee hybrid, or another good swordsman that oftentimes is playing heal backup. By the time I got others to play around with, I didn't feel like experimenting anymore. Would have been cool to make the others as fun to play as the main character.

The dungeons were mostly good too, although at the end it had some real stinkers. Moving blocks was so slow. The dungeons all had their own gimmicks, which sometimes mean that they just didn't work out like the devs intended.

For being a "remastered" version, there sure were a ton of typos! Bamco gets an F for this port. No modern improvements, such as retrying at bosses or even skipping cutscenes, which could have saved me like 30 minutes of frustration in all.

50%PlayStation 3

Mediocre and bland. This was my first Tales game, and being considered one of the best in the series, I probably won't be trying any others. Combat is repetitive and unintuitive, characters and plot are either unoriginal or just muddled, and some dungeons in particular are truly awful. The world itself doesn't have any sense of character to it - could be any dime-store RPG world.

I give it some points for occasionally bringing a sense of JRPG adventure, sort of like a feeling of childhood. The music, characters, and pointless dialogue fluff triggered some childhood JRPG nostalgia, I suppose.

As a big JRPG fan, I always wondered if the Tales series were really as bland as they appear to be on the surface. They are.

100%PlayStation 2

Best rpg ever

80%PC

eins der ersten coolen tales of teil, jedoch in heutiger zeit leicht clunky. aber story mega nice. kampfsystem auch im vergleich zu manch anderem tales of.

80%PC

I really enjoyed the story, specially for the characters. But I did feel the antagonist not being as interesting as it should be.

60%Emulated

mid af

80%PC

DECENT 8

70%Nintendo GameCube

Great art style and very detailed story.

30%PlayStation 3

The most overrated game I've ever played. The story is moved multiple times by having a main character trip and fall on a computer revealing the way forward. One of the NPC for whom you break into a concentration camp to save, turns you back to you because she believes her captor when he says that you killed her grandmother and goes back to her jail cell. No body knows about a parrallel world and once you discover it, everybody talks about it like its common knowledge. The plot makes no damn sense, with plot devices and macguffins appearing out of thin air to make the story progress.

They give you a system a bit like materias and they tell you to experiment with it, but even when exploring everything, you don't get enough to fill in your character slots and the "materias" get deleted when you remove them from the slot, forcing you to load.

The game forces you to look shit up online to know what you are doing as you are not given the resources to experiment.

The second half of the game seems halfbaked and looks empty, which, to me, would justify to high rating it gets.

Playing two players sucks. The camera follows the first player and often times, the second player is caught in a dimensional limbo because in combat you can only move back or forth towards your target. So if the second player's axis is perpendicular to the first player's axis, you can't move.

There's an escort dungeon with shadows that keep getting caught in walls.

There's so many shit in this game that I can't wrap my head around how much others like it. I've played and completed more than 170 RPG games and it is the only one which I am extremely in disagreement with the general consensus.

There's so much more shit I could say about this game...

The only good thing about it are the character design.

Oh the music... while it is not bad in itself, the same few tracks are used for the whole game and most of the time, especially later in game, the music doesn't match the situation.

Oh shit this game is bad.

90%PC

An amazing adventure, I got it for 5€ on steam and i feel bad it was so cheap because I enjoyed it so much. First Tales Of game I finish and I'm planning on playing the others as well. Hope they are as good. The game has it's flaws (it might get repetitive at times) but overall it was a great experience, the characters were great and the story was good too.

60%Nintendo GameCube

A neat lil RPG with some fun characters, yet I feel like i don't remember the plot as well as I should have for a game of this length. Its cool that the gamecube gets to have some RPG fun of its own, and while this game probably isnt going to be my absolute most favorite RPG, it really doesnt have to be since its just an overall chill lil time hanging out with your bros stoppin the big bad with some angel shenanigans or whatnot

80%PC

Man, it's been a while since I've played a game of this length but I'm really glad I did.

Tales of Symphonia begins as your classic "chosen one" sort of story but eventually turns everything you expect it to be on its head and becomes something very unique. Tales of Symphonia deconstructs multiple tropes and clichés and tells a more character-driven story through them.

Speaking of characters, they're almost all excellent. Despite Lloyd being a bit of your stereotypical dunce with a heart of gold and the desire to change the world, I found that his growth was never overshadowed by that. He's forced to come to terms with a lot of difficult things and always finds a way to overcome them. Colette was the ditzy hopeful girl who never could see the bad in anyone. I thought that the things the game did with her were great and she's one of my favorites of the cast. I do wish she didn't get kidnapped like 4-5 times as she's the member of your party that is always disappearing at random intervals. I didn't like Genis. He was the typical "asshole" friend character who is a total hypocrite in his racial prejudice. His growth feels randomly spurred and he ends up causing serious issues for the party because of withholding information. it left me wondering what Lloyd saw in Genis. Raine was your typical "mom of the group" in the sense that she often tried to be the voice of reason. Her infatuation with archaeology schtick got old after the third time she did it but it wasn't that bad of an issue. Sheena was awesome and it was incredibly vindicating to see her overcome her fears of forming pacts and grow to be one of Lloyd's best friends. However, despite all of the story significance she got, she was by far the absolute worst when it came to battles. Her stats were just terrible and many abilities were too conditional to be considered useful. Zelos is a character I feel torn on. On one hand, I think his revolting comments about women are creepy but everything else about him is as charming as he believes himself to be. The dude just wants to live his life and be free from the regulations of being "the chosen" . I feel a better character arc would've been him growing disinterested with all the attention he's received his whole life and grow more in touch with a peaceful lifestyle. Presea was awesome and horribly tragic. The sudden realization that hits when she gains awareness of her circumstances is incredibly sad. She also was a beast in combat. I also really loved Regal for just how good of a person he was. I also found his story to be incredibly sad and his relationship with Presea is one of my favorite things about this game.

The villains were also great. Forcystus could've been great if he wasn't absent and not talked about for 35+ hours of the game after first meeting him. Pronyma had like no presence outside of her stellar design and Rodyle was by far the best of the 5 Grand Cardinals. I really do wish he succeeded in taking Pronyma's place because he was a much better villain than she was. I do want to draw attention to the worst character in the game, Kuchinawa. This fucker suddenly betrays the party out of nowhere for something that occurred 10 years ago. His reasonings are childish and he feels less like a character and more like a plot device. The main villain Yggdrasil was incredible however. You come to understand his reasons but they're never presented as being acceptable. He's a fantastically written antagonist that solidifies this game's story as the masterfully written narrative that it is.

Presentation is where this game falters the most. I'm usually not a stickler for graphics, but even I can't ignore how awful this game looks. For a game released in 2003, it doesn't get the pass for all of its blurry and muddy textures. The character models suck and, aside from Rodyle and Regal, fail to communicate the character personality in any way. The world map looks like it's being held together by duct tape with you often able to see the seams between the textures. Worst of all however is this game's terrible and lazy animation. The combat animations are smooth but everything else is either nonexistent or more wooden than a log cabin. It felt like a prototype that never got out of beta testing and it feels like more should've been done to smooth out the look of the adventure. It gets to the point where emotional scenes lose a lot of their impact because of how poorly it ends up being communicated.

Combat is tough to get used to but is good fun once you get the hang of it, even if the over limit system is garbage in this game. This game also has too many dungeons, with not all of them being good. There were too many backtracking dungeons that only wasted your time and the Temple of Shadow has some of the worst escort mission A.I. I've ever seen in a video game. The game also really drags out in the end, and would've benefitted from being like 7-ish hours shorter.

All-in-all, I do recommend this game.

100%Nintendo GameCube

Groundbreaking battle system, epic co-op story, gripping story, one-of-a-kind game.

70%Nintendo GameCube

Some outdated game mechanics, missing quality of life stuff that other games around the same time, or before had but still a solid game. Cute graphics, a fun battle system that is intuitive and a decent story Zelos is awful, Genis is annoying but the other characters are pretty cool.

100%PlayStation 3

Best tales of game

80%PC

Nice game but the gameplay felt a bit outdated

80%PC

What a huge adventure! It took me over 34 hours. It was really fun, and I love how this era of late PS1/early PS2 games had some sequels acting like quasi-remakes of their 2D predecessors- this game recreates locations from Tales of Phantasia (same setting) in 3D and it was a joy to see.

While the game has a few very glaring flaws, I enjoyed it enough that I didn't mind them much. The combat is extremely smooth and was never a slog for all 34+ hours, and that's the most important bit. The AI was surprisingly good too! The only part of the gameplay I really disliked was the vehicle controls, they were simply not good and while there is an option to use the right stick to make your ships just move without any of the tilting and turning, I wished there had been better vehicle controls so I could appreciate the overworld more.

The story is decent. The overarching plot alternates between good bits and parts where it's just barely hanging together - understandable for a game that's very large in scope, but still something worth noting. Not that it's bad - but it's not great either, and there are a few 'okay dude' moments there where... yeah. You just go through them and accept that this is what the story is now. But the ending was satisfying! I also thought the subject of racism (against half-elves kek) in a fantastical setting was handled very well, showing both perspectives. Valkyria Chronicles did that better, of course, but then again Valkyria Chronicles does everything better. But this game did good too.

But imo! the broad-strokes story of Tales games isn't the main draw, it's the characters, their interactions, and the humour. And in all these departments, this game did very well! I liked most of the characters, especially Zelos, Kratos, Regal and Genis. Some parts of the game, especially the interaction with gnomelettes, made me laugh aloud. I loved those little guys.
I'm a bit 'eh' on the graphics. I like the overall look of the game from a distance, how battles look and all. But I don't like the 3D models of the characters, this kind of pseudo-chibi style. Just not my thing, and imo it was especially bad on the female characters (this is not me being 'haha im sexist thats so funny', this is legitimate. Their round faces made them look like Chucky dolls. The male characters had more square faces which was all right). The PC re-release doesn't seem to have done anything in the way of cleaning up the muddy textures either.

The animation in the cutscenes was probably the stiffest I've ever seen in a major-publisher video game. Heck, it's even stiffer than I've seen in many low-budget games, and for a game released in 2004 it's not really acceptable. If it was 2000 or 2001, maybe. But when even PS1 games have better-animated cutscenes that's just trouble. I didn't think this was a MAJOR flaw, of course, and it did give rise to a funny moment when my sister visited and we cackled loudly at how the angel Remiel was standing completely stiff with his feet on invisible ground, despite being suspended in midair. So there was that. But it should have been improved upon.

The music was great, and after I'm done writing this essay I'm gonna search up the soundtrack to see if it's on Spotify. I recognized some pieces from Phantasia which was cool; the theme against some of the later bosses was a standout. The voice acting was mostly good too; Crispin Freeman is in this game, God bless him.

So overall, a very enjoyable adventure that - despite a few flaws - is definitely worth going on. The PC port is decent, it did have one bug where scrolling too far down in the options menu would crash the game for me, but nothing else caused any issues. Overall, I give Tales of Symphonia an 8/10!

70%PlayStation 3

Note: I played the PS3 "Chronicles" version of the game.

I find it a bit difficult to give this game a final rating. If I had played Tales of Symphonia at the time of its release, it would have been one of my favorite games of the time. Had the PS3 version been the first Tales game I played at the time, it would have been significantly less good compared to then current titles like Ni No Kuni, but still a fantastic entry into the Tales series. However, now that I've played through it today (mid 2021), I inevitably have to compare it to all the later Tales games I've played since then (all of the ones that have come out since then, except for the portable parts).

In this comparison, Tales of Symphonia still scores high in story and character design, but falls short in game design, pacing, and especially graphics. Upgrading characters and equipment seems very basic compared to the more varied options of later installments.Particularly in the middle part of the game, you're shooed over and over again through already familiar areas for long periods of time, and the dungeon design fluctuates greatly in quality and fun factor. Graphically the game certainly looked good in PS2/Gamecube times, but I find it a shame that the PS3 re-release (I don't want to call it a remaster) didn't take the chance to improve the texture quality, lift the whole game to 60fps or at least 1080p resolution.

Tales of Symphonia Chronicles is definitely not a bad game, but the praise as one of the best Tales titles ever is definitely coming from gamers who played it at the original release. That's perfectly fine though, as it's been said that the personally best rated Tales game is always the one you played first.

I think 75% is fair.

90%PlayStation 3

Story 10/10
Level Design 9/10
Characters 9/10
Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 8/10
Music/Sound 8/10
Voice Actor 7/10

Battle System 9/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 96%

70%Emulated

Tales of Symphonia exceeds on many fronts. Much of the same frenzied combat remains in a slightly differing perspective, but adds new features and mechanics to keep it from becoming stale. Namely the ability cancelling system now enhanced by a wider selection of special attacks counterbalanced in creative ways. While combat stays fast and fluid, movement - in comparison, feels all too sluggish yet slippery however. Another notable enhancement lies in its dungeon-design, taking several cues from Zelda's tool mechanics and utilizing them to form interesting dungeon gimmicks and puzzles.

Beyond combat upgrades, Symphonia also displays a knack for storytelling and slow-paced character building. Much of Symphonia's roster of characters can actually come across as as bland and generic, but there lies a sheer amount of care given to their personalities and motives. Story moments touch upon topics in surprisingly effective ways despite its rather bombastic fantasy-heavy themes. Much of these characters face plights such as government corruption, racial discrimination, and village exile. The subplots involving party members like Presea, Regal, Colette and Sheena especially highlight the the game's writing strengths, and are textbook cases in how to deftly instill tragedy into otherwise uninspired character designs. A massive success.

However, the plot does fall victim to JRPG stereotypes in a few ways, and ends up overstaying its welcome with an obnoxiously preachy tone late-game. Despite this, Tales of Symphonia is a well-crafted rarity that excels in its story/gameplay balance.

70%Nintendo GameCube

This is my first Tales game and I absolutely loved it for my first 10 hours but was pretty bored and over it by the end. In spite of some great visuals and music, the story and characters are REALLY cliche, with the story being Xenogears-lite plus the sacrificial maiden trope. It's unfortunate I played this right after Xenogears as it was obvious where everything was headed. Most of this game feels very inconsequential as Symphonia doesn't do enough with its massive main plot twist, countless villains are introduced and quickly tossed aside, characters get kidnapped again and again, etc. Very little of this story is engaging or consequential and it all feels like a juvenile Saturday morning cartoon.

The combat is great but it can be very frustrating when you get stuck in a corner, take the wrong strategy, or your team just doesn't do what you tell them to. There are perhaps too many RPG mechanics in this game as well. A lot of its systems felt needlessly complicated or just outright unnecessary. It was fairly overwhelming and challenging at first but flipped to being an easy, mindless button-masher once I figured some things out and set up my party correctly. I was still learning new things about the game in my final hours but none of it was necessary to win. I also noticed that enemies barely give more XP as you progress, which seems to have limited character growth.

My biggest beef with this game is that it's a good 10-20 hours too long. By the time you're halfway, Symphonia is just a dungeon gauntlet. There are 8 elemental dungeons, half of which need to be played twice, half a dozen "Ranch" dungeons that all look and feel identical, and several other dungeons as well. They're all fairly short and enjoyable but few of them stand out, few of them meaningfully advance the story, and there's just far too many. Around the disc 2 switch, the game throws you its worst 4 dungeons back to back, which are all mazes with heavy backtracking and respawning enemies. This was the lowest point of the game where my affection for it had completely evaporated. It rebounds a bit after this but then the game has a false climax where everything is seemingly resolved, but then it just keeps going for 3 more hours. This was pretty emblematic of my time with this game: really strong in some areas but massively overstays its welcome. I'd like to try out Vesperia, Xillia, or Bersaria but I'm in no hurry after this underwhelming first impression.

100%Nintendo GameCube

95

50%PC

I gave this game an honest shot and dedicated a good 35 hours into it. I finally decided that it was not worth continuing as I just wasn't enjoying my time when playing. I found the characters to be truly engaging, and I genuinely cared about them but the combat, the world travel, and the dungeons just all feel so dated. They did not age well which made it difficult to convince myself that the story was worth finishing the game for. Overall, maybe if I had a friend to play with that it would've changed my opinion on the game but as it currently stands I don't think this game is worth the 47+ hours you have to dedicate just to experience the story.

100%Nintendo GameCube

My favorite game on the Nintendo Gamecube

90%Nintendo GameCube

Geweldige ervaring destijds. Een van de eerste echte JRPGs

80%Nintendo GameCube

Really good game and solid gameplay. The only thing that is annoying are the collectibles

100%Nintendo GameCube

This is a classic and it still holds up! I really enjoyed the story and I liked all of the characters. The game is beautiful (for 2004) and the music is awesome. I highly recommend this one!

90%Nintendo GameCube

GOTY 2003

Story 10/10
Level Design 9/10
Characters 9/10
Gameplay 9/10
Graphics 8/10
Music/Sound 8/10
Voice Actor 7/10

Battle System 9/10

Difficulty MEDIUM

Overall 96%

70%PC

Slow start, dated combat and anticlimactic finale.
Other then that this game is absolutely phenomenal, and ahead of it's time (initial release in 2003 keep that in mind)