I rained on myself. / Tales of Symphonia

So...the swing Lucy and I sit in has an awning over it. At some point, that awning collected several inches of water. I’ll spare the details of how, but when I cleaned out the water, it soaked the chair. So, I didn’t read. Sure, I could have read elsewhere, but it wouldn't be the same. Instead, I opted to camp some spells in Crowns of Power. I found nothing, so I only have regrets about today. Since I don’t know if I’ll have time to read tomorrow, I’ll assume I won’t. Rather than a day of nothing, here’s an old review of my least favorite game ever, Tales of Symphonia. I ripped it from Steam.

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I heard a lot of good things about Tales of Symphonia, but I heard a lot of good things about college too, and guess how that turned out. Also, expect spoilers here. I'm not interested in saving stories in a bad review.




In Tales of Symphonia, you play Lloyd, a good-natured slacker, during his journey to restore his dying planet. His friend, Yuna Collette is the one actually in charge of it, but every main heroine needs her guardians to protect her. Lloyd sucks at this as Collette gets kidnapped about five times. But there are six other people who didn't help either, so it’s not totally his fault.




The story starts off reminding me too much of Final Fantasy X, which, to be fair, probably stole its story from elsewhere. The woman dressed in whites has a destiny is to save the world and needs a bunch of people to protect her as she ventures from holy place to holy place. In the end, she dies, only for it to be a temporary peace. Also, the religion is total BS and fake, and racism is cool. It breaks from FFX when you travel to another world and uncover the mysteries of why the two worlds are connected. There is an abundance of plot twists, but some of them are obvious if you’re being cynical due to not having fun. There are so many twists that even the game developers forgot a few of them. There's a major plot point ten hours in where the wife of the mayor is a monster who gets free and is never seen again. She seemed important, so you'd think we'd return to that at some point. There's the kidnapped store clerk who allows herself to be kidnapped because she hates you, and then spends the next 25 hours in jail despite you being able to free her, pretty much, whenever. When you do free her, your actions cause her family to die. She then disappears from the game. At least I think they die. It’s not mentioned again, even in passing. A lot of points end like that. The sacrifice of that one guy or the giant world destroying cannon. Where’d the Pope go? Why is the legendary hero a 12-year-old? There's a lot of plot points that are never concluded. I guess there is the sequel...




Moving on… As you venture, you meet your assorted cast of characters. All of whom are terrible. Besides the downright stupid MC, Lloyd, and Princess Peach wannabe, Collette, you have the white mage who’s abusive to her black mage brother (who's the only good character). There's a stuck up paladin, and the ninja summoner who sucks at everything. You have a suave debonair who might be a child molester, as well as the emotionless little girl who carries a giant axe. Finally, there's the convict who turns out to be rich. And that's just their personalities! Once you get into a battle, everyone sucks. Lloyd, Genis, and Raine are great. Kratos and Child Groomer are decent since they can do basic heals. Regal, Presea, and Sheena, though, are just too slow to be effective fighters on their own. In the case of the first two, they hit hard enough and have enough tank to warrant putting them in your team, but Sheena is a waste of a character. She's slow, has a long windup on her attack, and is squishy. Even her plot relevance is subjective. Ninja summoner sounds so cool too. She shows her bra the entire game, so, if you’re into that, she's legal, so good news!




While we're on the topic of battles. Did you know you can get stuck in the corner of a circular battlefield? You see, while the game is “3D”, the axis are decided by the enemies, and you can’t go up or down (background or foreground) on the y-axis. Only the bad guys can. If they turn, then you can change your alignment, but otherwise, you’re stuck on a 2D plane. Often, you can jump over the mobs, but the taller ones can stun lock you in a corner (of a circle). It is needlessly frustrating and makes a few early bosses take more tries than necessary. Also, for some reason, it's impossible to make your mages stay away from the boss's massive AOE spells. Dooming your entire team because your white mage needed to get her staff hits in today doesn't make sense. The good news is she'll fill in for your actual attackers who run off all the time, anyway. Again, needlessly frustrating. The excessive blocking is another needlessly frustrating mechanic. Pressing square/X allows your characters to block and lake less damage. Do it for too long. and it gets broken, and you’re stunned, leaving yourself open to critical hits. Enemies can also block (even those for whom it doesn’t make sense for), for much longer, and don’t get stunned IF you break them. They can also block when you’re in the middle of a combo. That iconic four hit/sword rain combo you love? Easily blocked by a wolf using its neck to blunt your blades.




Moving on to the less gameplay focused stuff:

The music is by Motoi Sakuraba, of Star Ocean, Golden Sun, and the other Tales of games fame. He also composed some Mario sports games, Dark Souls, and at least one of the Smash Bros Brawl games. You’ve probably heard his work without realizing it since he doesn’t get the credit he deserves. The games OST is four disks and, while there’s nothing super memorable (at least so someone who hates this game), is fairly good. It’s hard to describe music to most people, so here’s an RPGFan preview/review.




Graphics seemed to have gotten a slight overhaul (as the Steam version is based on the PS3 version), or I underappreciated the GameCube's engine. Some of the cooler cutscenes are top notched anime, and, even 15 years later, look amazing.




The sound quality is...odd. When it comes to voice overs, it almost sounds like they recorded in different rooms with different mic quality. While most sound fine, Collette, and some minor characters, sound like they were recorded on a budget.




I don't know if the game just hasn't aged well or if people only liked it because it’s the only RPG the GameCube had, but Tales of Symphonia isn't a good game. While the story isn't terrible, and the puzzles are only mildly annoying, there's just an abundance of terrible calls. Getting stuck on random edges of paths would suffice to that alone. It took me 60 hours to beat, sometimes with a guide, so there’s plenty of bang for your buck, but that 60 hours can drag on far too long. It's filled with terrible characters and lost plots. If ToS is the best the GameCube has, then I’m glad I skipped it. Don’t hate the game because it’s capped at 30 FPS, don’t play the game because, while I can see the charm and nostalgia feel to it, it's lacking a lot of substance and meaning.