Tales of Symphonia is just an amazing game. It's full of things that will stick with you, even after you've beaten it.
User Rating: 9 | Tales of Symphonia GC
The Tales series has always been on a par with Final Fantasy, in my opinion. Great characters, excellent story, sounds and music that stick in your mind. Tales of Symphonia continues this fine tradition. The story takes center stage in this one, mainly due to the fact that Everyone knows right from the start who the person is that's going to 'save' the world...and it's not the main character! That was an enjoyable twist to the storyline. As far as the rest of the story goes, all i can do is quote an old Weird Al song and say that, "Everything you know is wrong". The graphics are really bright and colorful. Everything is richly detailed, and you will find, there are no 'generic' looking people in this game. The overworld map is something that just nice to sit and stare at, and watch the clouds roll by. The characters and the monsters are all done very well, of course, you're both too busy trying to kill each other to notice. and the Spells in combat, specificaly the Summons, are jaw-dropping. The action/rpg series goes to the next level with it's combat. Not only can you see the enemies on the maps, the battles are in 3D, meaning you can run all over the place now(which is a good thing, cause some of those guys you don't wanna approach from the front.) the basic moves are still set and activated the same way, which has always been a little frustrating for me to pull off, but that's just me. The music is one of the best soundtrack's for a game that i've heard in years..so much so, that i..um..borrowed it from a ..friend..over the internet. Oh, and the voices! Namco did a stellar job on the voice talent. Each character's voice will stick in your head to the point at which someone will name a character, and their voice will pop in your head.....remember Meredy? It's like that. And if you watch Cartoon Network, there's a fair chance you'll recognise some of them.;) the only real problem i have with this game is that sometimes, it feels like the 'end of the world' has been put off, in the fact of sometimes the story goes off on a tangent for a while. But it always comes back, so that's only a minor quibble. I would recommend this game to anyone. Especially if you played Tales of Destiny II, you'll love everything about this game. Even if you didn't play any Tales games, this is a good place to start. 
