Analisis Tales Of Symphonia (By IGN & Gamespot)

July 06, 2004 - The GameCube has been without a solid, original RPG for far too long. Some will cry out for Skies of Arcadia Legends love -- but as good as it is, it's really nothing more than a director's cut. Others will demand recognition for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles -- but it's not really a RPG. This leaves us with nothing until Namco steps up to the plate with two RPGs later this summer -- both exclusive to the GameCube. The first is Tales of Symphonia.

Back it up. Across the Pacific Ocean, Tales Studios (responsible for the popular Japanese RPGs Tales of Destiny and Tales of Phantasia) was working on the next Tales installment -- Tales of Symphonia. However, regardless of the series' Japanese renown for its action oriented battle system and beautiful 2D art, Tales never took off in the Unit[/center]ed States. In fact, most US gamers were never aware that Tales existed. Namco had a dilemma. Should it release this hot new Tales game in the previously unreceptive but potentially larger US market? And if one were to release it in the US...how do you break a Japanese RPG series out in the States? The simple solution? Put it exclusively on a RPG-starved system.
But just because it's exclusive to GameCube and comes from an acclaimed pedigree doesn't automatically make it good. A lesson we've already learned this year. Should GameCube owners invest time and money in TOS or continue to look to other consoles for their RPG needs?

It takes no more than a glance at the side bar to know how we feel about Tales of Symphonia. It does not disappoint. It's fun and endearing... and holds up after an eternity of play [equivalent to around 80 hours] by continually changing locals, revealing new conspiracies, and introducing elements that solve major annoyances right when you're ready to "set down" your controller out of frustration. But Tales isn't perfect.

The tale of Symphonia takes place in the land of Sylvarant -- a land suffering from mana depletion. As the amount of available mana decreases, the amount of monsters roaming the world and the amount of humans suffering (primarily at the hands of the enslaving Desians) increases. In order to restore mana and peace to the land, a Chosen is born every generation. This soul is charged with regenerating the world by opening/praying at a number of seals that have the power to bestow the Chosen with various angelic attributes. Once all the seals have been opened, the Chosen will become a true angel. This newborn angel will then ascend the Tower of Salvation and wake the goddess Martel, who will regenerate the world. It's a tall order -- especially when there are complications.

Sylvarant is bound to a mirror world -- Tethe'alla. Sylvarant's prosperity means Tethe'alla's demise. As the Chosen progresses through her quest, the more she learns of her mission's repercussions. It's up to the Chosen and her party (here's where you come in) to learn how to save both worlds.

Not necessarily an easy plot to follow, but it is basically a typical "must save world from imminent doom" scenario. While it's not without its surprises -- there are several instances where those you think are evil aren't and vice versa -- but once you're about 20 hours into the game it gets predictable. By the time you reach disk two, you'll find yourself wanting to skip most of the dialogue because you "know" what it says. And that's a big problem -- especially for a story heavy RPG. It's not that the story is boring because that's not true; it's simply not as engaging as it could be.





This lack of attachment is easily attributed to one thing -- dialogue (both spoken and written). While Namco spent a lot of time and money localizing Tales of Symphonia (hoping it would shed some its Japanese-only appeal), it didn't get it quite right. The dialogue is often awkward and drawn out. Word choice ranges from overly formal to random slang -- the style is all over the linguistic map with little regard to who's speaking. This same quality is shared by the voice acting. While the talent is good (including Tara Strong of Power Puff Girl fame), the delivery is flat and stilted. Emotion is often expressed at the wrong times (or not at all) and conversations rarely sound natural.

Luckily you can turn off the voices and instead pay attention to the score, which is pleasantly decent. A lot of the music sounds the same -- and two scores are played most of the time (one is a battle score and the other appears on the overworld) -- but there is a broad range of powerful crescendos, quiet melodies, and the occasional burst of techno. It's just unfortunate that most musical variety corresponds to a dialogue-oriented event.

However, the story elements have never been the Tales series' strongest attribute, and it's far from awful (simply not great). And while many play RPGs for the storyline/character development, Tales is a game solidly focused on the gameplay mechanics -- which makes it easy to overlook the story's faults.

Tales of Symphonia is composed of three parts, the overworld, dungeons/towns, and battle screens. The overworld is essentially a 3D map. Here you'll find basic representations of dungeons, locals, and ghost-like images of enemies. It isn't particularly pretty or detailed (the presentation resembles a PlayStation game), but it does give you a good sense of the size of Tales. The overworld is huge -- and there are essentially two of them. Several missions make the vastness of Sylvarant/Tethe'alla even more apparent because your party needs to backtrack through previously visited areas. This can be annoying (it begins to feel like sailing around the vast world of The Wind Waker). Fortunately Tales continually introduces new methods of transportation (once you're about a third of the way through) that thankfully speeds up this process.

Dungeons and towns share a similar art style -- which is the predominate choice throughout the game. Although Tales has now moved to 3D, it still recalls its 2D sprite based heritage with a cel-shaded anime art style. While everything looks distinctly cartoony, it's also very detailed. Each town and dungeon has a distinct look regardless of whether it's a port town or a fire shrine. An amazing amount of detail shows off wood grains, speckled flagstones, creepy undergrowth, lapping waves, and light refracting off stained glass. Characters are all well modeled and unique. The somewhat clunky animation (complete with Harvest Moon styled emotion bubbles) perfectly fits the art style. Tales of Symphonia is simply a piece of art.

The towns themselves are places where the storyline progresses, clues are unearthed, and Ex Gems, status supplies, armor and weaponry, and save points can be found. Within each town, it's also likely that you'll be asked to run various errands (such as obtaining a potion for someone), need to dispatch the occasional villain, and partake in a few mini-games.
Mini-games are only uncovered by thoroughly exploring areas (which includes talking to all the NPCs). While they do serve as diversions, for the most part you'll be more than happy to continue on your journey rather then sit through simple quizzes, memorization challenges, or the stunning game of red light green light.

Which leads us to one of Tales' largest problems -- the difficulty. Instead of a steady curve, you'll find a scatter plot. It's all over the map. You'll encounter rather stupid mini-games and dungeon challenges late in the game, but early on you'll be confronted by brutally hard boss battles that force you to spend an hour simply leveling up your characters. You might have just solved a tedious block pushing puzzle, fought your way to a seal, battled a boss for 20 minutes, defeated it, and are about to exit the dungeon when you suddenly have to fight another boss. All without saving.

If you die -- either because you didn't have enough experience or used your items too freely -- you'll have to play through the entire dungeon again (and most likely again). It's frustrating, especially because you're hit with this one two combo on multiple occasions. What makes it worse is that Tales' linear but relatively free to roam around nature allows you to enter dungeons in various orders. It's quite easy to be confronted by a dungeon whose mere minions can kill your entire party. Unlike RPGs that feature random encounters, you can choose whether or not to egage in battle (if you avoid an enemies' movement pattern you don't have to fight), which means there's no way of gauging how many enemies you should be killing.

Fighting is fun though, which makes the requisite leveling up for certain bosses enjoyable. Unlike your typical RPG, Tales of Symphonia uses a real-time battle system. You still have to initiate fights. You still fight with your party. But instead of using a command input system, you're directly controlling one of your character's movements. Different variations of a directional and the A and B buttons initiate different attacks. You can also block, counter, and recover from blows. What's interesting is that while TOS' battles are in 3D, you're locked to a 2D plane dependent on who your character is locked onto (you can really only move forwards and backwards on one plane until you switch targets)



Depending on your character, you'll either have magic or strike skills (special attacks), which consume technical points and are generally more powerful than your normal strike. Once a gauge is filled, you can use these technical skills to unleash a unison attack on a targeted enemy (all characters attack at once). Certain combinations of techs will result in powerful new moves -- which means that you're encourage to experiment with attacks (and there are a lot of combinations)

Character's skills are developed in a couple ways. Traditional experience points will give you access to new moves and statistics. Installing Ex Gems -- performance enhancing jewels that give your characters super human strength -- occasionally unlock new attacks and always bestow some new skill whether its better accuracy or a new combo. But the most interesting inclusion is the ability to learn skills. By using certain combinations of attacks and repeatedly using the same attack, characters learn new abilities (often times a combination of two frequently used skills). You have full control over what skills characters use in battle (useful when adjusting to various elemental bosses), unison attacks, and hot spells (c-stick activated healing or attacks) in the menu system.

Computer controlled character actions can also be set to different levels of aggressiveness, attack styles (magic vs. strike), and how willing they are to assist you in battle. This helps with adjusting to different boss types and difficulties. Or if you have friends about, up to three others can join in for battles. It's plug and play technology -- simply plug in a controller to activate multiplayer. But even though multiple people fight, only one player can move about Sylvarant/Tethe'alla -- which can leave long periods of boredom for players two-four who aren't invested in the story.

Even though Tales features a real-time battle system, which at first seems a lot like button mashing, it involves a lot of strategy. Knowing your enemy and your party's fighting styles is key to victory. Adjusting elemental spells, choosing powerful attackers vs. support types, or even whether to hang back and use items or be the leading attacker are important decisions that can turn the tide of battle. The action heavy battle system offers more than simple playability.

All this fighting is augmented by simple puzzle solving in dungeons that is somewhat reminiscent of The Legend of Zelda. You'll be confronted with various block or switch pushing puzzles that must be completed to reach new areas or unlock doors. You'll have to fill pots with water, light torches on fire, push invisible blocks, shrink so you can walk along tiny pathways, or navigate a labyrinth of warp pads. Each dungeon is accompanied by a new sorcerer's ring attribute that might reveal hidden items, shoot an element (water, fire, wind, etc.), create an earthquake, or interact with doors/vehicles. All are associated with various puzzles that, for the most part, require some thought and are rewarding to solve (although some seem to be included simply as busy work). It's a nice break from non-stop exploration and fighting -- and opens up Tales' appeal to a far broader audience than your typical turn based RPG.

However, some of these puzzles (especially later in the game) send you on numerous fetch quests. You might need to use a certain ice producing plant to get across a lake of water, but the only way to touch the plant is by wearing special mittens. You have to find the correct materials, find someone that can make the mittens, and then find the plant. Or, to get past one dungeon obstacle you'll have to travel to another dungeon on the other side of the world and give an item to someone. These instances feel like they were included solely to make the game longer.
But, it's easy to look past these faults. Sure close inspection reveals a pockmarked surface, but if you step back, these blemishes practically disappear. Tales of Symphonia can be annoying and frustrating, but even with multiple moments where the difficulty or lack there of cause pained sighs -- it's still fun and you'll want to keep playing up until the end.



Closing Comments

I've played far too much Tales of Symphonia... in both English and Japanese. But, it's a testament to the game that I still plan to buy it. I'm not sick of it yet. And that's what makes rating this game so difficult. This descriptor has been used far too often, but it's true -- Tales is a lot of fun. Plain and simple. And, due to its hybrid RPG/adventure game nature, it's got the customization, strategy, and experience system that RPG fans admire, as well as a battle system and puzzle solving elements that appeals to action/adventure oriented gamers.
Tales of Symphonia has a broad appeal and its excellent art style and score tie the whole adventure together. But it's not perfect. There are some truly evil, frustrating moments. And, if you didn't get vehicles later on that cut travel time between locations by 3/4, I probably would have given up. I don't mean to directly equate Tales of Symphonia with Wind Waker (they're very different games), but they share many of the same annoyances -- namely traveling gets old and both seemed abnormally lengthened thanks to fetch quests.

That said, for those able to look past the game's faults, Tales of Symphonia offers one of the best experiences on GameCube (RPG or otherwise) and is an excellent way to spend those precious summer hours.

8.0 Presentation
A lot of time went into this game and it shows -- an excellent combination of art, style, and gameplay.

8.0 Graphics
The graphics, for the most part, are amazing. This game is simply a work of art. But why does the overworld look so subpar?

7.0 Sound
The score is good, if repetitive (especially the battle anthem). But what hurts the audio department is the voice acting -- not terrible, it just doesn't sound natural.

9.0 Gameplay
An excellent combination of real-time battles and puzzle solving. Even with its set of problems, Tales is a fun and satisfying experience.

9.0 Lasting Appeal
Despite its faults, you'll want to keep playing Tales...and 80 hours isn't exactly skimpy.

8.5 OVERALL:
(out of 10 / not an average)





Namco's Tales series of role-playing games have always carried something of a cult status outside of their native Japan. In a console genre that many people define in Final Fantasy parameters, the Tales games have been quiet understudies that haven't garnered much attention. Enter Tales of Symphonia, the latest game in the series and the first to appear on the RPG-starved GameCube. Happily, the game is more than just a pretty face--it is a welcome entry into a console's needy genre; it's an entertaining game with a pretty standard story line, but it also has terrific gameplay and a lot of appeal.

The game is set in the world of Sylvarant, a land that is on the wane due to a steady loss of mana, the energy source that is needed both for magic and to support life itself. As the crops begin to wither and hardship sets in, the people turn their hopes to the Chosen One, a servant of the Goddess Martel, who can reverse the ills of the world by completing a journey of world regeneration. You play as Lloyd Irving, a teenage boy, who sets out with Colette Brunel (the young girl who happens to be the Chosen) and a group of compatriots to restore the world's mana and to set things right. The story is standard fare and has a few obvious twists, though it's shored up a good deal by the wide range of characters you come in contact with. The journey may be long, but it's well-populated with characters and a few subplots, which you can keep track of in a synopsis journal accessible from your main menu.

Your journey through Sylvarant is also made lighter by the fact that you're generally not subjected to random enemy encounters. Both in dungeons and on the world map, you'll see representations of monsters hanging about. In dungeons, there'll be various types of creatures roaming specific areas, and it's almost always possible for you to navigate right around them, even in close quarters. The world map handles things a bit differently; monsters show up as either blobs or wacky little bipedal critters, and you'll be able to see them when you get close enough. Some of them sit still, some of them wander randomly, and every so often you come across one that hops excitedly and dashes straight at you. They can start dashing when you're still not in range to see them, so you can still get caught unawares every so often, particularly on long treks. And even that's not necessarily such a bad thing, because once you get adept at dodging enemies, it's easy to go for long stretches without fighting; however, then you'll find yourself running into a brick wall in the form of a boss. You'll want lots of hit points and special techniques at your fingertips to handle those baddies, and to get there, you're going to have to spend some time leveling. However, that task is itself made less onerous by the versatility of the battle system itself, and the fact that you get to pretty much choose your own fights.

Tales games have always used what Namco calls the "linear motion battle system," a real-time, 2D battle engine that lets you move around the field and attack foes at will. Tales of Symphonia uses an expanded version of this system that's fast, fun, and easy to master. By default, you'll directly control your main character in battle (who is almost always Lloyd) and your teammates will act according to their artificial intelligence. The battlefields are 3D, so you will have enemies fanned out a bit, but your movement is still two dimensional--only forward and back--so you are aligned with the current monster you have targeted. If the enemies are clustered together close enough, you can hit several with one type of attack. The A button controls your standard melee swipes, while the B button triggers your special tech attacks. You can have numerous tech attacks mapped at any given time that correspond with pressing B alone or in conjunction with moving your analog stick in a certain direction. You can block incoming attacks by hitting the X button. Mastering blocking becomes very important, especially with bosses with huge attacks that would otherwise hit for devastating damage.

Battles evolve quickly into full-speed melees where you'll be balancing your tech points (used for special moves) with melee hits (each hit gains you a tech point back) as you rack up combination hits by striking in concert with your teammates and avoiding danger by blocking and moving out of range. Your team's number of successful strikes will eventually go into a meter; when that meter fills, you'll be able to execute unison attacks, which consist of an offensive special attack from each ally who has such an ability, with no tech point cost. You'll have to execute a number of button presses within a time limit to pull those off, but it's based on the same simple control scheme as normal specials. When you couple the above with the possibility for combined special attacks and special unison attacks, which are dependent on certain move combinations, it gives you a robust, ever-changing stream of possibilities in battle that can be great fun to perfect. You can also call on the forces of summon spirits, elemental beings you'll have to seek out and form a pact with.

Tales games have always used what Namco calls the "linear motion battle system," a real-time, 2D battle engine that lets you move around the field and attack foes at will. Tales of Symphonia uses an expanded version of this system that's fast, fun, and easy to master. By default, you'll directly control your main character in battle (who is almost always Lloyd) and your teammates will act according to their artificial intelligence. The battlefields are 3D, so you will have enemies fanned out a bit, but your movement is still two dimensional--only forward and back--so you are aligned with the current monster you have targeted. If the enemies are clustered together close enough, you can hit several with one type of attack. The A button controls your standard melee swipes, while the B button triggers your special tech attacks. You can have numerous tech attacks mapped at any given time that correspond with pressing B alone or in conjunction with moving your analog stick in a certain direction. You can block incoming attacks by hitting the X button. Mastering blocking becomes very important, especially with bosses with huge attacks that would otherwise hit for devastating damage.

Battles evolve quickly into full-speed melees where you'll be balancing your tech points (used for special moves) with melee hits (each hit gains you a tech point back) as you rack up combination hits by striking in concert with your teammates and avoiding danger by blocking and moving out of range. Your team's number of successful strikes will eventually go into a meter; when that meter fills, you'll be able to execute unison attacks, which consist of an offensive special attack from each ally who has such an ability, with no tech point cost. You'll have to execute a number of button presses within a time limit to pull those off, but it's based on the same simple control scheme as normal specials. When you couple the above with the possibility for combined special attacks and special unison attacks, which are dependent on certain move combinations, it gives you a robust, ever-changing stream of possibilities in battle that can be great fun to perfect. You can also call on the forces of summon spirits, elemental beings you'll have to seek out and form a pact with.

You can even earn additional bonuses by triggering certain events during a fight. The bonuses come in the form of unique "titles" bestowed upon a character that will grant extra points to certain stats when gaining a level. A magic user who uses every form of elemental magic in a battle will get a title that boosts magic power; a character that pulls off a 30-hit combo will get a title that boosts strength. Depending on how well you perform during a fight, you'll either get points added to or taken away from your "grade." You can keep your grade high, or trade the points in for useful items along the way.

When you're not busy fighting (or avoiding fighting) in dungeons, you'll be wending your way through by means of solving a series of usually simple puzzles. The puzzles are built around the use of an item called the Sorcerer's Ring, a magical bit of jewelry that can change powers by charging up via a special item in the dungeon. Some of the powers are amusing--in one instance the ring will shrink your party to bite-size, and suddenly the sewer rats you come across become giants in battle. You'll rarely get stuck on a puzzle; the dungeons tend to be short, and the puzzles are easy to decipher.

When wandering the world otherwise, you'll find a variety of towns and cities to visit and plenty of people to chat with. And it's not just non-player characters you can shoot the breeze with; at certain points in the game, a title will appear at the bottom corner of your screen with an image of the Z button. If you press the Z button, you'll bring up a skit that involves the diverse members of your party talking to each other, usually about recent events that have occurred. These skits--which consist just of talking heads (character portraits) and are separate from cutscenes--are almost always optional, but they go a long way toward fleshing out the characters in your party as well as their personalities and relationships with each other. Unfortunately, the skits tend to scroll slowly, allowing for changing facial expressions at key points in the dialogue, so it makes them sometimes tedious to sit through. They're a good way to keep the game from being broken up by too much exposition, and if you wish, you can skip the skits and go on to the next world-threatening event--of which there are a lot, as the game easily lasts 40-plus hours.

Visually, the game's characters sport the cel-shaded effect that was all the rage not so long ago, and the cartoon look fits the anime-inspired art style well. Fresh-faced and brightly colored, everyone looks almost too cute in that way the Japanese have perfected, although the 'toon look isn't flawless. The game, at times, utilizes a blurring effect that attempts to create a sense of foreground and background positioning of characters within certain scenes, but it just ends up smearing the look and making you squint. Towns and cities have made the crossover from the classic Tales' hand-painted design to a new 3D setup very well; they still have a lot of detail and personality, and are very easy on the eyes. The world map portions of the game have much less eye candy, due to the fact that there's already so much going on with enemies popping in and out of view. The camera view, when running across the landscape, can also be a bit chancy; a lot of times you'll have to adjust it to try to get a clear idea of where you're going, and even then you'll sometimes run into a monster you felt you should have seen.

The voice acting in the game is very even and pretty consistent in quality; you'll rarely get over-acted or oddly inflected lines. Certain characters sound better than others, but none of them sound horrible, which is nice considering that there's quite a bit of voice in the cutscenes. The soundtrack holds true to the Tales' norm of combining wind instruments and bells in pleasing ways for main themes, and battle music does its job of getting you hyped up and then staying out of your way.

Tales of Symphonia was worth the wait. Fans of Japanese role-playing games will take to its style and the depth of its battle system, and those curious about the genre who loathe the idea of turn-based battle and scads of random encounters, will appreciate the quick fighting pace. While the story may rely a bit too much on cliché, the ride is still worthwhile. If you have a GameCube and like RPGs, you definitely need to check out Tales of Symphonia.

8.8 great
Gameplay - 9
Graphics - 8
Sound - 8
Value - 9
Tilt - 9

salu2

PD: disculpad ke este en ingles..... pero es ke yo pa traducir soy mu malo