User Rating: 6 | Tales of Symphonia GC
Let me be a voice of decent. First, for fans, I did only rent this game. There may be a lot more to it. I was however, disappointed. On the plus side, the graphics and sound were beautiful. Good voice acting and great cell-shaded graphics make this game visual and aural candy. But, with only a few hours of play under my belt, I found nothing interesting about the story or characters. Now, I am a fan of RPGs and anime normally, so a lot of the plot and characters seemed cookie-cutter to me. This is well documented in many of the reviews I've read. I think this has a higher impact on the score in my review than others though. This is because I am looking for a redeeming factor besides the graphics that would merit some of the high scores I've been seeing for this game. I watched every skit that came up while I was playing. I was disappointed in these as well. They didn't seem funny to me or further the characters and story much. Maybe it's just a matter of taste, but I got a kind of been-there-seen-that feel from these story elements as well. The most disappointing thing to me however was the battle system. A good battle system can go a long way in an RPG, as we all know. I afraid I didn't get involved with it enough to know whether it pans out in the long run, but if it does, I would definitely take away the "simple to master" moniker from it. The character I controlled was great. He would kick it pretty good. The other character who joins your party and is also a fighter seemed good. The other weaker characters I had a hard time with. I changed the AI settings a few times to keep them as far away from combat as possible, but they still always seemed to charge in and get themselves killed. (Collete and the mage dude.) I could find no way to keep them from killing themselves, and I couldn't find enough healing items to keep them alive. On the plus side, once those two weak characters were dead and gone, Lloyd and the other warrior dude could pretty much take out anything in their path. I just like a battle system where I can keep everyone ALIVE without too much trouble. Maybe an AI tutorial would help? None of the other reviews I've read have addressed this, so I'm kinda curious what the solution to this problem is. I definitely wouldn't say this is a bad game, just decidedly average. Even if the combat works out in the long run once you master the ins and outs, the story and characters don't do much for me. Personally, I may pick this up once the price drops, just to give it a another chance because of all the good reviews. I am glad I didn't drop $50 for it though. 
