This game brings shame to the tales series....
The Good- Most of the old voice actors of the original game come back, gameplay is still solid tales style, new capture monster system adds a new twist.
The Bad- Graphics are horrible even for the wii, sound quality is brutal and actual hurt my ears, Storyline is garbage, way to much cut and paste of old areas, the main character is pathetic beyond belief.
Tales of Symphonia is a sequel to the original game from the GC, but clearly thats all there is to it, considering the shame this game brings to the wii. The game stars a new main character named Emil and his friend Marta who for some reason has a crush on him beyond belief. Emil is a pathetic lost his memories and family in an attack on his home town which was apparently destroyed by llyod the original hero of the last game. During Emil's travels he builds relationships with all the old cast, mostly because there is no other new characters besides Richard who plays more of a support role since you barly use him. So as you explore on a point and click map (yes this game doesn't have open world map like all the others) you travel to places exactly from the first game. Some things have changed since 2 years have pasted, but all the characters (including there clothes lol) havn't changed at all... It just seems like this game is a recycled mess. If anything makes this game amusing is the darker side of Emil which is like a demon going berserk killing things with an attitude to back it up.
The graphics look like a GC game, but possibly even weaker then the original game and just looks horrible. Some of the special attacks to look neat however.
The music is all cut and paste mostly, and all the good soundtracks from battle were removed adding new ones that are just horrible.
Gameplay is mostly solid. It covers the open concept of the last game and all the skills and items tales has to over. It adds a new feature however of capturing and using monsters. In some ways this is cool, but in most cases you most likely want to use real characters. Another horrible aspect of this game is you can only level up Emil and Marta, as all other characters just come in randomly and never gain any stat changes until they pop back in. You also can't play as the other characters unless you choose to switch into them while the battle starts. Overall its passable, but with all the flaws its still a mess.
Sound overall in voice acting was not bad, but marta was horrible and emil is pathetic. They brought back most of the voice actors from the original game, so it was preety solid, but the sound quality was so bad it actually hurt my ears...
Graphics- 5/10
Storyline- 3/10
Sound- 4/10
Gameplay- 7/10
Replay Value- 0/10
Overall 4/10
As a hardcore tales fan it hurts me to give any tales game a failing rating, but with so many flaws in this game its just a plain insult. Many users may not agree with my opinion if your a tales fan, but seriously compair this to other games and the standards of todays gaming standards and this is a recycled mess.