Ahem...
Tales of Symphonia is a JRPG and just like any JRPG there are colorful characters, plot twists and mysteries that unravel as you progress through the game. Symphonia is in a long line of Tales games and has been one of the favorites amongst hardcore fans and even casual gamers alike. This game was the first Tales I have ever played and it got me HOOKED to the Tales series. It's not like your regular "This is such a great game!" type of thing, it's more like "I don't care how many times I beat it, I'm playing it AGAIN!" ...well at least it was like that for me.
Okay so away from my fangirling scenario, I'll get to the essence and start attacking you readers with my critique.
The characters, oh those lovable characters! We have our usual hero who wields not ONE sword but TWO, and like most main characters he's the heroic type who won't stand down when it comes to anything he deems as unfair. Anyway, onto the rest of the characters... You have your cliched heroine who is just a big ball of kindness and naivete, but as you get to know her she's quite the card with her angelic powers. You can love her or hate her, but in my opinion, she's probably the bravest character in the entire game. Next is the hero's best friend, the child and quite the prodigy who uses his magic that practically slaughters monsters. He's quite the emotional case even though he's pretty mature for his age. Now we shall introduce the healer of the party who is BIG on ruins, knowledge and being overprotective of her younger brother. She's not all what she seems at first when they show her up as a teacher though. And when the plot gets moving, we meet our mysterious, (excuse the language~) badass mercenary who appears out of no where with his flowing cape and amazing ability to use both sword artes and magic.
More characters come into the picture, but those are spoilers so I won't give up anymore!
As for plot, like any other Tales games, it starts out as something that concerns only the party's THEN it blows out of proportion and it has a small group of people risking their lives for an ungrateful population of people! YAAAAAAY for helping ungrateful people who hate you along the way~! Oh but don't worry, they don't ALL hate the party as a whole, they just hate individuals and yes, there are higher powers who send their minions to kill you. But that's okay, that just means that you can level up without having to kill off random monsters. So it starts out with the hero and the already introduced characters to protect the Chosen One (everything is explained in a dramatic monologue in the beginning of the game that shows you the WOOOOOLRD. It looks like ours, but it's not. Ain't that amazing~?) And as said earlier, it erupts into a new scene when you discover something quite flabbergasting! But I won't say what, you'll have to play!
Combat system is real time, as in, move around or you'll get slaughtered by monster like animals that wanna kill you for no reason whatsoever. So swing your swords, throw you chakrams, cast that magic and go on a monster hunting spree to bump up your levels and acquire new skills and moves. There's a new little thing called a Unison Attack where you have to pretty much bash the monsters in to fill up a magical gauge then hit Z and press a series of buttons to control all four characters on the screen to attack a single monster. Then at the end, depending on the moves you chose for those specific buttons, two will combine at the end and come together to form some sort of flabbergastingly amazing move that you can't use outside of the Unison attack. There are also certain attacks that are conditional. There are two types of...how you say...well I don't know what to say for this, but there's something called "T-type and S-type" that you'll have to rely on for certain moves. I suggest using T-type for Lloyd (main hero) he has better moves with the T-type locked onto him. So much to say here! There are also items and a certain number of uses of certain number of attacks to unlock an arsenal of moves for each-yes EACH-character. Also, when fighting, you can have up to four players, but honestly, the camera always ALWAYS locks onto the first player so it gets quite difficult for the other people playing with you. Overall, the combat system is quite fun even though it's button smashing, but you gotta be smart with what your doing since it's a linear system instead of free run.
What else to bore you with...I mean INFORM you with. Yeah...
Other stuff that you probably won't find in other games, I wouldn't know so don't badger me about this. Okay so there are items that can heal you, but are they tasty to the characters? I'm pretty sure a Phoenix Down doesn't taste all too great or a regular Potion or...well whatever. So here-and other Tales of games-you have your own chefs! You can buy ingredients to cook different types of food from sandwiches to delicious looking steaks. Also, each character actually has their own taste, as in, each has their own likes and dislikes of certain foods. Example: Kratos and Lloyd both hate tomatoes while Regal loves melons. You can help increase a character's cooking skills by having them cooking the food for the whole party, but the cooking can fail (even if it does fail, it still heals your party...just not very well)
There are many, MANY side quests that have rewards like costumes and titles or even MORE history of the party members. A side quest helps develop the relationship between Lloyd and another party member in the American version, where as in the Japanese version there's side quests where other members get closer together, but y'know how America is, it SLICES out the better parts of a JRPG. Anyway, the titles are very fun to get, it requires conditional cutscenes and events that require certain characters to fulfill them and trigger them. Also, the titles come with...COSTUMES. So you can get the characters to cosplay! However, not every title as a costume, so if you want to get a specific title with a costume then you gotta either look all over it, accidentally stumble upon it or go on Gamefaqs.
Oh goodness what else to say? Oh how about the villains? For some reason or another, they usually have more fans than the heroes. Okay so the main boss is actually quite clever, you don't even REALIZE that you're dealing with someone who is supposedly on your side. Also, you actually gain like three antagonists ready to erase you from the face of the world, but don't worry, if you play your game right then you can take them down with ease. A lot of deceiving happens in this game, but of course you have your... PLOT TWISTS and frustrations. Oh for this kind of stuff, this game is actually full of cliches, but they made it well enough for you to completely forget about them and think that it stands on its own feet alone. Okay so even though I loved loved LOVED every character in this game--even the villains, there was about two or so that annoyed me though--the last boss was disappointing. He was really easy to beat, but there's a monster that's the strongest out of all your opponents, so that helps with compensation. HOWEVER, it's a conditional monster.
Forgot to add something, there are three endings to this game, or three different ways you can play this game. It's like you can choose how you play it by how you go through the towns like crossing a bridge into a new stretch of land that'll bring you to the hard pathway. Near the end of one playthrough you can gain another member or get rid of one.
OVERALL OUTLOOK.
Debatable lovable characters.
Complex ridden villains.
Many side quests, titles, foods, ETC that'll entertain you for long hours.
And everything else in between of getting lost on the world map and traveling not ONE world but TWO worlds doesn't lose the interest.
My heart sings to you Tales of Symphonia! Hahah. Honestly, no matter how much I love this game, I'll give it about an 8.5 or a 9.0 out of 10.
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