The first of its kind, an RPG, with action, anime, and elves who make sandwitchs. How good is it? Read on to find out.
User Rating: 8 | Tales of Symphonia GC
To sum up Tales of Symphonia in a couple of sentences in case you don't like reading, the game was by all means fun and well worth playing but it still has numerous ways to imrove upon itself. It was headed in the right direction but didn't quite make all the way. Still worth buying, because you can't be it in one rental. Tales of Symphonia - 40/50 Story - 12/15 The storyline of Tales of Symphonia is good but it has been done before and everything that happens sounds familiar, save the world from some great evil being blah, blah, blah. Fourtunatley a lightbulb went off in one of the writers' heads when they were writing the story and they came up with some unique and unexpected plot twists which for the most part I didn't see coming except for the last one, which was actually pretty obvious. The dialouge was usually good and original with some big words that you had to go and look up in the dictionary, but then tere were those cliched lines that you hear far to often in games like this, and those lines that just didn't need to be there. Graphics - 8/10 The graphics in this game are good but again there are areas that desperately need improvement. The level of detail is great in towns dungeons and most character models, but when it come to the world map this game comes up short. The anime cutscenes in this game are done phenomenally, but there are only 2, 3 if you count the intro. Then there are the special effects which in this game is only the shdowing which suprisingly good on the world map but a plain circle in towns and dungeons. Sometimes a certain spot on the screen looks blury and its not supposed to be. And sometimes the solid line around characters is not so solid. Almost all the time the walking is timed poorly, the animations get repetitive quickly not to metion that they transition unsmoothly often, which is bad for a game that relies alot on real time cut-scenes to convey the story. Sound - 6.5/10 The sound of Tales of Symphonia is original. It has good battle music which changes at certain points throughout the game which keeps battles fresh, not that it really needs to. On the other hand in this game you spend slightly more time in cutscences than you do in battles, and in those cutscenes the same music get played so many times you are sick of it by the time you get to the second disc. Also the voice acting is done well, unfourtunately there isn't that much of it, and almost all of time that ther some you have to time your button pressing so there isn't a pause in the speechmaking it sound unnatural. Gameplay - 9/10 The gameplay mechanics of Tales of Symphonia are very well done, especially when it comes to the battle system, which is amazing, its fast and not overly complicated, and it flows very smoothly. The amount of different attacks, spells, and summons are quite numerous and they are also quite unique. The controls are nice and tight and are never annoying or bothersome. My only problem with the gameplay is the way the dialouge is presented, it takes up to much of the screen so you can't see large chunks of the screen at times and you are tempted to read it when you don't need to because it is spoken dialouge, and on top of it you then have to press the A button to continue. Fun-O-Meter - 4.5/5 This game dispite its many imperfections is quite fun and well worth playing at least the first time through, the second time though is when you start to notice all the little things that make the game less fun. 
