The "Tales of" series just gets better and better. This game is no exception.
Gameplay/Story: Tales of Symphonia is one of the few RPG with a battle system that is actually fun to play. You will enjoy fighting battle after battle after endless battle which is rare in role playing games. It plays in real-time and is limited 3-D. You only move left/right, but the area is 3-D and the enemies are not all on a single row. All the characters are spread out when the battle begins so if you switch enemies, you will move in a different direction than another enemy. So, limited 3-D. Anyway, on to the actual fighting... when the battle starts, you are put in control of whoever is your lead character while A.I. controls your allies of up to 2 other people. The A.I. can surprising hold it's own in battles but will require your help. This, IMO, is the perfect balance of computer A.I. They won't be useless but at the same time, they will need your help. This is done better by a tactics system that you can apply to your characters. Before battles, you can deside basic things such as, how much they use magic, how much they heal, defensive or offensive, things like that. During battle, you can pause gameplay in order to command your people to do certain skills or attack certain targets. This ends up working very well and never feels like a burden. On to your character, you can do two different basic kinds of moves in battle. Regular Combo Attacks with the A button, and Special Attacks with the B button and different positions of the joystick. Before the battle you select which special attacks will be with which joystick movement. This makes for some incredible combos. For example, Lloyd (your main character) can pull off a 3-hit combo with A and then switch to a Tempest with up+B then end with a Demon Slash with just B. Also, your combos are linked with your teammates which can add up to 100 point combos! Also, the more you use each special attack, the more powerful it becomes and will eventually grow into a new attack. This is a great system because it forces you to use all your attacks and become good with all of them or else you won't be able to gain access to some of the strongest attacks. For those of you fans of the past Tales of games, the cooking system comes back better than ever. As one of the many side-quests, you are tasked to find a baker person who gives you new recipes every time you find her. The trick is that she hides herself as everyday objects. For those of you that don't know, the cooking system is basically, you mix ingredients (you can find them or buy them) together in order to heal your teammates in some way. You can do this out of battle or at the end of a battle to heal HP or SP (your special attack points). The storyline is just as original as the battle system. It starts off as a typical, guy has to protect chosen girl on her quest to save the world (Final Fantasy X fans will see a FEW similarities =P) however, after many twists and turns, the game turns out very VERY original and incredible. I'm not gonna spoil it for you, but I guarantee you won't be dissapointed.
Graphics: The anime-inspired, cell-shaded graphics are a nice change to the typical, serious-looking RPG. Tales of Symphonia has a nice, comedic feel to it which is supplemented by the funny dialogue and the "everyone-beat-on-Lloyd" speechs that really makes the game.
Sounds: The music is very well done and you will end up humming the tune by the end of the game. It does have a small repetitiveness to it but you will be okay with it as the music is very good. The voice-overs as well, are very well done and you will grow very attached to some of the characters.
Value: Do not worry about getting your moneys worth on this RPG, I clocked in at about 50 hours. Thats without doing most of the sidequests. You will be playing this one for a while. Guaranteed.
Tales of Symphonia is by and far the best RPG for Gamecube and is very likely, one of the best of all time. You will not be dissapointed with this buy.