![]() Meanwhile, you can’t cancel out of your own attack animations once you initiate them, which incentivizes you to take it slow and be selective with timing and skill usage, yet the overall fast pace of combat pushes you to fight reactively and recklessly. Compared to games like Ys VIII or Kingdom Hearts II, which feature similar hack ‘n’ slash combat, Tales of Symphonia feels like it’s a few steps behind.įor example, it can be irritating trying to dodge attacks from multiple enemies because you can only move in two directions while their attacks can come at you from various angles. Once you build up a nice collection of abilities-called artes-for your characters, the combo system really starts to come together, but by today's standards, battles feel awfully stiff. Your character is always locked on to an enemy and is restricted to a 2D plane where they can run either towards or away from the enemy in a straight line, while attacks are designed to be chained together in short combos based on directional inputs paired with button presses. Plus, each dungeon introduces some new idea or gimmick, which helps to differentiate them and create a more concrete sense of progress as you move on.Ĭombat in Tales of Symphonia is action-based and bears a lot of similarities to 3D fighters like Tekken. None of these go much beyond the torch-lighting or block-pushing kinds of things that have been done to death by now, but they help break up the monster battles and give you a little more of a challenge for reaching certain chests. Dungeons are a highlight of the overall gameplay loop, bringing to mind the likes of Golden Sun with the use of puzzles before you reach the boss at the end. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, but we feel that the pacing here is good at pushing you through content before anything starts to overstay its welcome. Gameplay follows the typical JRPG conventions of exploring a big world map, visiting towns, and exploring dungeons nearby to keep the plot moving. Still, it's a great ride all the way through, and we’d say that story is overall Tales of Symphonia’s strongest suit. Suffice to say the uneven writing holds back the overall story from reaching its full potential. In some ways, the unwieldy exchanges certainly add to the charm of Tales of Symphonia, while in others they blunt it. Some of these cutscenes cover a ridiculous range of emotions in just a minute or two, and dialogue rarely feels natural-it’s the epitome of a ‘video game script’. The downside to all this, however, is that the writing itself is quite stiff and often unintentionally hilarious. ![]() Admittedly, several of these twists are telegraphed in advanced, but we were still impressed by the narrative ambition on display. ![]() What initially seems like a run-of-the-mill exercise in tired tropes soon gives way to a much more interesting adventure featuring some shocking plot twists. Tales of Symphonia tells quite a compelling tale, at least in the broad strokes. Lloyd is the headstrong son of a dwarven smith, and after he inadvertently causes a terrible tragedy in his village, Lloyd sets out with his best friend Genis to accompany and protect their friend Colette on her journey to fulfill her Chosen duties and save the world from destruction.Ĭaptured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld/Undocked) You take the role of Lloyd, good friend of the current Chosen, Colette. The only hope is for the Regeneration to take place, in which a person dubbed “The Chosen” opens various seals across the land to awaken the goddess and return life to all things. A critical shortage of mana caused by the lingering effects of a war from thousands of years back means that the world is itself dying, and time is running out fast for the inhabitants. The story is set in the land of Sylvarant, which is experiencing a bit of an ecological crisis. Now, Tales of Symphonia Remastered-which is based on the 2013 PS3 rerelease, which in turn uses the PS2 Japan-exclusive version as a base-has brought the classic experience to modern hardware and while it still remains a charming adventure, it’s definitely showing its age. Sporting an attractive cel-shaded visual style and packing enough content to last for hundreds of hours, there was a lot to love about this release back when the pickings were much slimmer for great RPGs on Nintendo consoles. Back in 2004, Namco (no Bandai yet) was only on the fifth iteration of the Tales series, which made the bold transition to full 3D with the release of Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube. ![]() Though it’s never quite had the popularity of the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest franchises, the Tales series has set a good reputation as the ‘other’ classic JRPG series that’s consistently maintained a decent quality for quite some time now. ![]()
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