Amazing story, beautiful graphics, stunning gameplay and more. Tales of Symphonia is everything an RPG should be.
This is a full RPG, you have control over a number of characters that come into the story, you will travel towns, fields and dungeons only as one with the avatar of one the characters, mainly Lloyd (the protagonist) When you touch a monster or when you encounter a boss, you will enter a fight where a maximum of four characters can fight, you control one, and the other 3 the AI, but of course friends are welcome to play. As you advance in this (I repeat) amazing story, your characters will be leveling up, you will upgrade them with equipment such as swords, dual swords, axes and more (of course the weapon depends on the character, Lloyd will use dual swords, while Kratos will use swords). Also clothes and items that will raise their stats. You will be also capable of manipulating how the characters feel about Lloyd (affection system) saying the right things, or doing the right things will make them like you more. There will be of course times a decision will make someone like you more, but at the same time someone like you less. Be careful, because this could ultimately affect the story.
In the looks of the game, the characters have anime all over them, still when playing the game will turn to a little more cartoon but at the same time you will love the towns, scenarios and all. The sound is great, the voice acting is really good, as well as the dialogues, the music is awesome.
The game is super super large, just the main story will take you about 60 hours, plus the amount of extra things you can do, and once you finish it, you may be wanting to start it all over again because you will want to see the story developing by making other decisions, doing things different and all that.
So you can have an idea, but not getting into things too much, the story goes like this: Lloyd is a boy who lives in a town with his friends Collete and Genis. The world of Sylvarant is in a state of crisis, The Desians are making trouble and capturing people all over the cities, and the mana of the world is fading. So here where our heroes enter: Collete is the girl known as the Chosen One that will complete world regeneration to to restore the balance, so Lloyd, Genis and his older sister (Raine), and a mercenary named Kratos decide to help Colette with her mission.
To conclude, Tales of Symphonia is a game not to be missed by anyone, a gem that will keep shining for years to come and (at my criteria) has made itself honorable enough so that it can be put between the best games of all time.