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| Tales of Symphonia |
| Rainbow Cat and N1NT3ND0 |
| · This is Raine. She ownz. 'Nuff said (And so does this game). |
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| N1NT3ND0 The newest RPG to hit the shelves for the Gamecube is Tales of Symphonia. Developed by Namco, this video game is another ‘hack and slash’ role-playing game. Personally, I have no taste for turn based, because it does not deliver enough action. Finding out about Tales, I decided to try it. To my surprise, it ended up being another hack and slash game that I enjoyed. Like other high-quality RPGs, Tales of Symphonia focuses on the storyline. The game begins in a schoolhouse, where your character, Lloyd, learns that his friend is the ‘chosen’ one. Her name, which is Colette, must unlock seals on her quest to regenerate the world. Throughout your adventure, Lloyd will meet a good amount of other people who join his group. In my opinion, I thought the tale was excellent. With all the mixed plots and twists, I never lost grasp. However, an irritating concept of the story was that the narratives were too long. What I mean is, different conversations between characters would frequently occur. Almost all of the time, they dragged on, and did not have any affect on the story. Just a minor flaw, though. Now, while the gameplay is solid as well, I had more gripes. Before I get to them, I will explain the battle system. As you already know, it is a hack and slash, which means instead of attacking by turn, you physically move around and attack your foe. The action in these battles is intense, especially when you have three other groupies battling aside you. On the other hand, with progression through the game, some of the characters become ultimately useless. I rarely used many of the magic users, except for Raine. This is because they are weaker than the other members, and creating a spell takes time. Too much time, to be exact. These spell users need much protection in order to be effective, and it is difficult to accomplish this. The overall gameplay still provides a great experience that no RPG fan should miss. The finest portion of Tales is the graphic presentation. Once again, the Gamecube produces another cell-shaded masterpiece. Namco decided to approach the game with an anime feel, hence the choice of graphics. In general, it worked out very well. Every part of this game is rich in color, and the models are creative. Onto the sound, I suppose. Well, in the end, most of it was good. The voice acting was not too shabby, and some of the characters will have recognizable tones. On the other hand, the music was a bit repetitive. Do not get me wrong, they were catchy tunes, but they all had familiar beats to them. Finally, the use of sound effects was successful; everything sounded the way it should have been. With everything including, I was amazed by the time Namco put into Tales to make it a step better than additional role-playing games. For a RPG, Tales of Symphonia has a nice replayability value. It offers multiple endings, eight to be exact. Obtaining a certain ending depends on what choices you made, and what character the plot focused on. A surprising factor is that this is a multiplayer game. Yes, you heard me correctly. Multiple people can choose a character, and battle with you. Even though the first player is the only individual that can move around and select different options out of battles, it is still fun to cooperate with your friends in Tales. The value of this game is nowhere near a Final Fantasy game, but it does include a multiplayer feature that can take itself even further. Tales of Symphonia is not the best role-playing game on the Gamecube, but it does come very close. With releases such as Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door, Baten Kaitos, and Phantasy Star Online Episode III: C.A.R.D. Revolution, Tales may be pushed aside. Do not worry, though. Expect to see a future installment of the Tales series, especially from the major success of Symphonia. Final Score: 86/100 (Silver) |
| When you think of Nintendo, chances are the first word that comes to mind isn't RPG. Since Square left Nintendo over half a decade ago, the N64 and the Gamecube have been on the shallow end of the RPG pool, save for the few waves that splashed upon them, such as the Paper Mario series. Even when a sub-company of Square-Enix made FF:CC for Gamecube, it didn't have the true feel of the RPGs of old. However, Namco has put up a beacon of hope for the RPG-lovers, and it is called Tales of Symphonia. First the visual and aural appearance. Even if you’re not a fan of anime-style graphics, you have to admit that this game looks good. The characters are silky smooth and show expression really well, and the battle effects are dazzling. Trust me, once you see Genis or Kratos cast Thunder Blade for the 50th time, it’ll still look cool. However, there are a few things they could’ve done to make it look even better. As for sound, the sound effects are decent, but they aren’t completely fitting. The music, on the other hand, is quite fitting for the situations. There are also some ok voiceovers in many of the cutscenes. The initial story may seem a little clichéd to some hardcore gamers or animé enthusiasts, but the somewhat straightforward “quest from important place to important place to save the world” plot gets more complex and enjoyable as time progresses, and most of the characters are quite complex as well. I’d describe this more in detail, but I’d hate to spoil the story. However, during the interesting story and questing, you have to fight monsters, which is where the game truly shines the brightest. Unlike most RPGs, the battles are done in real time, which means you’ll be hacking and slashing and casting your way through lots and lots of fights. Fortunately, however, the real time battle system makes for fun and engaging battles. Up to 4 characters fight from 1 to 5+ enemies at once, and you are given the option of changing your control from Manual (You control everything your character does,) Semi-Auto (same as Manual, except certain aspects are done for you, like, for example, when you press A to attack, your character immediately runs to and keeps track of the target enemy,) and Auto ( almost complete CPU control.) Fortunately, the CPU characters are fairly smart, and their attack strategies are customizable in a way similar to Kingdom Hearts, so you won’t have to babysit them, and there’s little danger in setting all characters to Auto and letting the computer fight your battles, though I do advise making sure you have a healer if you do set it to Auto, since the CPU doesn’t use items or other menu things. Another interesting feature is the fact that the first position character isn’t the only one that can be manually controlled. Up to 4 people can plug in controllers and control the other 3 characters, which gives the game a multiplayer option. It isn’t the best, but it is enjoyable to be able to fight all the monsters and villains with your friends backing you. Also, there’s some customization for your characters in the form of EX gems. These little gems allow you to add special effects to your characters, as well as determine whether your character will try to learn S-moves- moves with stronger, but fewer, hits and limited area of effects- or T-moves- moves with weaker, but more, hits and can better effect multiple targets. However, the game is not without faults, since the battles, even though they aren’t random, can get a bit tedious. Also, the magic system can get frustrating, since you are forced to wait for a long time to prepare most spells, and one tap from an enemy will ruin all the progress your character made in casting a spell, making it difficult to play as a lone magic user until later in the game. With the few noticeable faults it has, Tales of Symphonia is quite an enjoyable game. The 60-80+ hours you’ll spend on this 2-disc RPG will definitely give you your money’s worth, and that’s without the fact that there are multiple endings in the game. I recommend this game to anyone who likes RPGs, owns a Gamecube, or even someone who isn’t that big of an RPG fan. (Like N1NT3ND0.) Graphics: 4.5/5 stars Sound: 5/5 stars Gameplay: 5/5 stars Story: 5/5 stars Overall: 5/5 stars |
| RCAT |