Tales of Symphonia is definitely the RPG of record on the GCN.
User Rating: 8.9 | Tales of Symphonia GC
Before I even start writing this review, month behind the actual release of the game no less, I already know that I will come across as being fanboyish and biased. Nonetheless, Tales is an excellent RPG, one that every GCN owner who claims to be a fan absolutely must pick up. The story begins in the town of Iselia, home to the game's main hero and heroin, Lloyd and Colette. You quickly learn that Colette is the Chosen of the dying world of Sylvarant and must head on a journey to regenerate the world. You quickly set off on your journey and form your first party consisting of Lloyd, Colette, Genis, a young elven friend of Lloyd and Colette, and Kratos the mercenary. The characters in the game help the story immensely. On its own, the storyline is not too original and is riddled with cliches and there really aren't too many twists that you can't see coming. However, the text and voice acting really make the characters interesting so you're never really bothered by the unoriginal storyline since you'll often be intrigued or amused by what the characters do or say. Each of the characters function differently in battle. For example, Lloyd fights with a quick, somewhat reckless style using twin blades while Kratos uses a single sword and can casts spells as well. You've got the obligatory mage in Genis, and his sister Raine is the all-important healer of the party. You'll be able to have eight characters in your party, though you'll only be able to fight with four at a time, and they're all unique ranging from a young noble who's more interested in pimping the girls than saving the world to a convict who refuses to remove his handcuffs. Another element that adds to character development are the little skits you can activate at certain times by pressing the Z button. These little dialogue sessions usually involve multiple characters and can be about pretty much anything and don't necessarily pertain to the main storyline. The bulk of the gameplay comes in traveling all across the world and then entering dungeons and cities to collect items, fight bosses, talk to certain people etc. Pretty standard RPG fare. I found the dungeons to be pretty interesting. The puzzles are usually not too difficult to solve although trial-and-error is definitely required for some of them. None of them really jump out as freakishly impossible and you'll probably be able to get past them fairly easily. The enemies in the dungeons serve as pretty good gauges of how prepared you are to face the boss. If you're struggling to defeat them, you'll want to exit and fight some enemies on the world map first, which is not too much of a chore as the battle system is addictive and flat out fun. I've heard and read many complaints about the difficulty of the bosses and how you need to train for hours just to be able to stand on even ground. I have to say that that is utterly and completely false. Through much of the game I went fairly fast and was a bit under leveled yet I still did not have too much difficulty killing the bosses although there were some fights I had to use multiple life bottles on my characters. After you defeat the boss of a dungeon, you generally get either a certain item or something happens to a character. Basically, an event occurs and you're allowed to progress in the game. I'd be out of my mind if I didn't commend the battle system in the game. The battles are fast-paced and you never feel like you're bored with it. Each character has many skills and attacks they can learn. The skills the characters will learn is affected by usage of known skills and also if the character leans towards "technical" attacks, moves that have high hit numbers and are good for combos, or "strike" attacks, moves that focus on doing a great deal of damage in fewer blows. There are also some combination and hidden techniques that characters can learn. As mentioned earlier, every character brings something different to the table during battle and you can use each character as often or as little as you like except for certain times when certain characters must be used. The graphics and sound are nothing too special although they are indeed solid. Personally, I liked the cel-shaded graphics and the anime cut scenes were excellent although I would have liked to see more of them. The soundtrack of Tales is pretty good. Nothing exceptionally stellar but I thought the composer did a good job and I feel that each melody matches the environment well and gives it its own mood and feel. The voice acting cast is filled with familiar names that have experience is cartoons and other video games. True, sometimes the dialogue and voice acting can come across as a bit awkward, but everything else is fantastic. Overall, Tales of Symphonia is an outstanding RPG worthy of the Tales name. There's so much to be said about this game. In this review, I didn't even discuss all the things that make this game a dream for completionists. Figurines, recipes, mini-games; it really exemplifies how Tales is a game built on the little things that make this game work. At first glance, the game appears simple, but you can't truly understand how deep the water is until you dive in. If you own a GCN, do yourself a favor and pick up Tales. Or, if you own a PS2 and can read Japanese, the PS2 version available in Japan has several things that were not included in the GCN version and might make that a better option. Either way, the message is clear: get ToS. 
