A great rpg with a good story, battle system, and a ton of side quests. A game definitely worth buying for the gamecube.
So Tales of Symphonia is a pretty standard RPG game with a nicely done plot, a good line of characters, and plots and twists. This is probably one of the best RPGs to be released onto the Gamecube and to support its greatness it has a pretty lengthy gameplay, with over 60 hours of gameplay with all the side-quests, and a 2 disc set. The graphics might be outdated for certain gamers, but the cel-shaded graphics along with the chibi-ish character design fit the characters of the game and its story very well. This game along with the cel-shaded art has an anime feel to it as there are a few anime cutscenes with some standstill anime art. The story starts out with a character named Lloyd Irving who lives in Iselia along with his friends Genis and Colette. Iselia houses the Chosen One, Colette, in order to start the Regeneration of the World, which is to fill up the world with mana. Because of there isn't enough mana, the Regeneration of the World is required and Colette must step up to the task of taking the journey to regenerate the world. With some events that occur in the beginning Lloyd and Genis join in on the journey of protecting Colette while she regenerates the world and gains angelic powers. There are some surprising events and twists in the story that even the player does not foresee and brings somewhat of a suspense to the players. Unlike other RPGs that have the random battle generator system, Tales is very forgiving due to the fact that you can choose to run into monsters and fight them. Within the world map or dungeons there are monsters that move throughout the dungeon and you can choose to run into them to start a battle sequence. Also unlike some RPGs the battle engine is very unique because instead of being positioned in the same place and clicking attack, you as the player can move around in the battle map after your trigger the battle sequence. There's a standard button of A to attack but there is also the B button to unleash special moves. The character AI is also very easy to use, as you can set them up to the character's style of play, such as a healer can be positioned away from enemies so that they don't get hit as much. The battle system and its engagement is very advantageous to the player in some ways, because you have the opportunity to not engage any enemies when low on health. The dungeon and the battle areas have puzzle that are sometimes difficult and will keep the player going at it for a while. However, the puzzle isn't so difficult where you'll quit the game so the game is very good at keeping the difficulty of a dungeon to a minimum. While traversing throughout the various areas of the world a certain skit can be triggered. At certain times there will be a Z button flashing at the bottom left of the screen with a phrase. This activates a skit with characters talking. These can sometimes give hints, insight, and some humorous comments from the characters. It shows the character's head with their mouths moving, so you know who is talking, in an anime style way. There's no way to speed through the sentences so it can get somewhat tedious, but regardless it adds a little fun to the game. At certain times, such as cutscenes or an important event, a character will begin talking. The dubbing of the game is done very nicely as the voices fit the characters very well unlike certain games. Every dialogue isn't dubbed but the game puts out a great dubbing cast. The music fits with game, such as battle music or dungeon music, but some pieces of music are used multiple times therefore it can be somewhat tiresome, however the game does offer great sound-effects. The game is overall one of the greates games for the Gamecube with almost everything needed in an RPG game.