"Among my favorite games of all time"

I know no one usually cares about the little mini-stories people tell at the beginning of their reviews about how they started playing the game or came upon it, but I'm going to tell mine for this story, because it will tie in to how great this game really is.

The time was early 2005. I was getting tired of my video games, because I had played all the ones I liked and there were no ones left. I had been playing video games since before I was 3, and years later I was getting tired of them.

Then my brother got this game for Christmas, and just to give me something to do, I decided to give it a shot. By the end, I was completely amazed by it. The final result of playing this game: I ended up becoming a fan of video games again, possibly even more than I was before. But I also finally found a genre of games I liked: RPGs. It also made me a fan of the Tales of series.

In short, this game revived my interest in video games, made me a fan of RPGs and made me a fan of the Tales of series. And to find out why, keep reading.

STORY
This is an RPG, so the story is a key element. After all, having a bad story could ruin the experience. That being said, the story in Tales of Symphonia (ToS) is awesome. Initially, it may seem to start out a little slow and cliched, but it gets better after the 15-hour mark. After that, the story becomes very interesting and incrediably deep and will keep you guessing what happens next.

The story starts off in a classroom in the world of Sylvarant. It is the day when the oracle is supposed to come and mark the beginning of the world's regeneration. A Chosen is to step up to the duty of reviving Sylvarant and replenishing mana, the matter of life, to the world. The Chosen is one of Lloyd's best friends, Colette. Her job as Chosen is to travel all around the world and visiting seals and breaking them. With every seal she breaks, the closer the world gets to being regenerated until the final seal is broken at the tower of salvation. Lloyd, his friend, Genis, their teacher, Raine, a mysterious mercenary named Kratos and many others soon join Colette on her journey to save Sylvarant.

There's just one problem: scattered around the world are Desians, an organization of evil people bent on making others suffer. Lloyd and his group have to do their best to dodge the Desians, especially since they seem strangely obsessed with a jewel in his hand called an exsphere. Not only will completing the journey of regeneration revive the dying world, but it will also seal away the Desians.

Like I said, I know the story seems simple and cliched, but it changes drastically as the game advances. By the end of the game, you'll find it hard to believe that you're playing the same game that you were at the start.

ToS delivers a truly epic story. It gets off to a slow start, but its complexity and several twists make up for it. Yes, sometimes the foreshadowing will be so obvious you'll feel insulted, but it doesn't take away from the fact the story is very well thought out and very well told.

GAMEPLAY (OUT OF BATTLE)
The gameplay in ToS makes this game a joy to play. The shining part of the gameplay is in the battle system, but I'll get to that later. Out of battle, most of the game is spent exploring or doing puzzles.

But that brings the one flaw to gameplay: there are simply way too many long and annoying puzzles. While some of the puzzles aren't too bad (especially the ones early on) there will be some that will aggrivate you or stump you for a while. The worst part is that you pretty much have to do a puzzle for everything, from trying to infiltrate a Desian ranch to (literally) trying to get a piece of fruit from a tree.

And since a lot of these puzzles take place in dungeons, you're obviously going to find yourself fighting a lot of enemies. Luckily, in ToS, you can actually see the enemies on the screen, so you can decide whether or not you want to engage in battle with them. But then, I don't see why you wouldn't want to fight, because the battle system is awesome.

BATTLE SYSTEM
This is what ultimately decides whether or not an RPG is fun: whether or not the makers can pull of the battle system. And in ToS, the battle system possibly contributes the most to the memorable experience this game has to offer.

Unlike other RPGs where fights are turn-based, ToS's battles take place in real-time, so there's no waiting to attack. Whenever you want to go up to an enemy and attack it, you can. The fighting takes place on a 3D field, so there's plenty of range and area to attack the enemy in. The battles are fast paced, but go at a good enough speed so that you can keep an eye on how you and your comrades are doing. Up to four characters can engage in battle at once.

There's some good news and bad news. The good news: the game allows multiplayer, allowing anywhere from one to three other people to team up and kick some butt in the fights. The bad news: it's executed poorly. Even if there are four people fighting at once, the camera will still only focus on player 1. This can get annoying, but it's the only flaw to the battle system.

Like in other RPGs, you get money and experience for the fights you win, along with a thing called GRADE. While it doesn't have a huge pupose during the game, it can be used to buy things at the end of the game, which adds replay value. (more on that later)

Basically, this game has one of the better battle systems I've ever seen. The 3D fighting and wide range make the battles very lively.

REPLAYABILITY
Just playing through for a second experience would be enough to make me want to go through the game again, but if you're a perfectionist, this game will keep you going for a while. You can unlock special costumes for your characters, so you might want to go around and try and collect them all. There's also a point in the game when you choose one of two characters who you will take with you to fight in the final battle. You can also unlock the difficulty mode "mania" where all enemies have twice as many hit points as they do normally. There are also modes where you can cut the experience you get in half, so basically, this game is as hard as you want to make it for youself after your first playthrough. You buy all these things with the GRADE you get after you win a fight. With unlockable costumes and allowing one of two parties at the end, this game will take you at least three playthroughs to do and get everything this game has to offer.

SIDEQUESTS
The game is a bit weak in the sidequest area, since most of them obtain a different costume or something like that. However, there are a few fun sidequests that end with you fighting a boss that will give you a run for your money. Most of the sidequests aren't activated until the second half of the second disk, so it will take a while to be able to play them.

GAMEPLAY OVERALL
Overall, the puzzles may be enough to drive you crazy, but the very fun battle system makes it all worthwhile. The battles make this game very fun and will keep you on the edge of your seat. The battle system is a huge part of what makes the game memorable and fun. The high amount of replay value and sidequests make this game worth going back and playing it a second time, if you didn't want to already.

Well, that just about covers the two major aspects of a good RPG: story and gameplay. So far, ToS excels in both sections, but keep reading to see how ToS does in the sections that seperate a good game from a great one.

GRAPHICS
ToS features cel-shaded graphics that make this game look like an anime cartoon. Before I played this game, I HATED anime. Still, I had no trouble warming up to the graphics. The character models look well done and there's a lot of detail on them that make them a pleasure to look at. Not much to say about the models other than they look great and they clearly seperate one character from another.

The areas around the characters also look very nice. The towns, dungeons
and all surrounding areas look are very colorful and are easy on the eyes. There's not much else to say. Character models look great and the landscapes look great. All in all, great graphics.

SOUND
Few things set the mood of a scene more than music, and once again, ToS delivers. All towns and cities and dungeons have their own theme, and that theme fits the area very well. From the peaceful and cheerful music of Iselia to the threatening music in Human Ranches, the music sets the tone of wherever you are. There are also a lot of battle themes in this game, and they all sound very good as well. (there's even Fighting of the Spirit from Tales of Phantasia in it) While there were some tracks I liked A LOT more than others, there wasn't a song in the game that I particuarly disliked.

Of course, music isn't the only thing in the sound category nowadays. There's a lot of voice acting in this game, and some widely recognized voice talents in North America offer their voices to the characters. (like Tara Strong and Scott Menville-yes, that's Robin from Teen Titans, so don't bother asking) The voice actors do a reasonably good job, even though they sometimes emphasized the wrong parts of the wrong words. I had no huge problems with the voice actors at all.

LENGTH
This game can get pretty long, especially since it's spread across two discs. My first playthrough took me just a little longer than 55 hours, which is a pretty nice amount of time. If you want to try to get everything this game has to offer, then it will take you a bare minimum of three playthroughs, so we're talking about a game that will last you a pretty long time. (even though you can do your later playthroughs in a much smaller amount of time) Even if you just want to play through this game once, it will last you a long time, and in this instance, that's not a bad thing.

PROS
+ Deep and epic story
+ Awesome battle system
+ Great graphics
+ Great music
+ Long length
+ Lots of replay value
+ No random encounters
+ Nicely done voice overs
+ An awesome turning point

CONS
- A bit easy
- Bad Multiplayer
- WAY too many complex puzzles

CLOSING NOTES
This is quite possibly the greatest game I've ever played. I know those problems would normally be enough to drop the score to a 9, but this game has made me an RPG fan and brought back my interest to video games. Plus, it's the only game I'm still playing, even though I finished it back in early April 2005. If a game can make me a fan of a series, a genre and of video games overall again and can keep me playing it and still have fun with it, it's definately worth a perfect 10.

RECOMMENDATION
This game is a Player's Choice, so you can find it for $20 now. It's definately worth that price. If you see this game and you have a Gamecube, don't hesitate to buy it. This is one of the greatest games I've ever played, and without a doubt the best RPG I've played. Absolutely worth buying; you would not be able to get the full value out of renting it.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/04/05, Updated 07/10/06