Story	8/10	Characters	10/10
	Graphics	9/10	Music	8/10
	Gameplay	10/10	Extras	10/10
Reviewer: Chi Phan Final Score: 9.2/10

In my humble opinion, one of the most under appreciated rpg series is the Tales of Destiny series. The last two Tales of Destiny games were released on the Playstation. And both of those games did not disappoint fans and this reviewer at all in terms meeting expectation on excellence of quality. It's a bit surprising that Namco chose the third installment of the series to be an exclusive for the Gamecube, a system where one can easily say not many rpg fans own. But for those of you who don't have a Gamecube, we'll give you the inside scoop on this exclusive rpg game for the Gamecube to see what you may have missed out on.

Let our journey begin. We'll here to change the world.. Tales of Symphonia takes place on a world known as Sylvarant. Long ago during the ancient days, Sylvarant was a flourishing world filled with mana from the Great Mana Tree. But as time grew on, an ancient war broke out that destroyed the Great Mana Tree and a hero, Mithos, life was sacrifice in order to stop the war. The Goddess Martel weeped over his death and slept from the world. With the Great Mana Tree gone and the Goddess sleeping in the heaven, Sylvarant slowly began to decay, losing its mana, the life force of the planet. Since the time of the Ancient War and the slumber of the Goddess Martel, a tradition was born where a Chosen One was to make a journey to the Tower of Salvation to regenerate the world by re-awakening the Goddess Martel. This journey is known as the Journey of Regeneration. Present day time, Sylavarant has become a dying world filled with racism by species and slavery from the Desians, race of higher status. In the village of Iselia, Colette, the new Chosen One, sets off on her journey of regeneration with her friends, Lloyd, Genis, Raine, and a mercenary name Kratos. The journey will lead them to different ancient temples to unseal the various seals that have sealed the ancient temples so Colette can begin her transformation into an angel where she will descend the Tower of Salvation to the heaven to awaken the Goddess Martel. This journey is long and hard with various forces opposing the Chosen One's path to stop the regeneration of the world. Who and why would anyone oppose the regeneration of the world can only be found by making the journey yourself. This journey will unreveal secrets of Sylvarant dark past. Ok let me try and put this into perspective, this is one hell of a long rpg story. When I say long, I do mean long story. The good points about the story are that it really tries and touch base with all the key characters in the game as well as the history behind the world of Tales of Symphonia. It also provides a lot of plot twists to keep you on your toes as to what's going to happen next. I like that. The bad points are that sometimes that game tries to be a bit more complicated than it should be. Sure it's nice to have a huge story and lots of plot twist but sometimes a story can be too big with too many plot twists for its own good that it becomes more confusing than it should've been. Another bad point is that some of the plots and plot twists are kind of predictable. It's almost like you can see it coming. This is a long and good story but yet at the same time, after finishing this game, I can still say with true honesty that I still don't fully understand the whole Chosen One journey, half-elves, Mana tree, and all that stuff. The story is too big and complicated for its own good.

My friends.. There are nine main characters in this game. Add in the villains and you have an all star cast of characters. There are two factors here that make this an all star cast of characters. The first factor is due to the excellent voice actors and actresses feature in this game. Pretty much all reverent character has a voice actor attach to them. This helps bring a character to life when you can hear them talk. It gives them the sound and personality that are distinctive to only them. They don't just come off as nameless sprites or characters that are just bland because they all seem the same. Having good voice acting in a game help separate each character from another and gives us, the players, imagination as to what they would sound like in real life. The second factor is the fact that the game story really does take the time to develop each character's history accordingly. This is a long story but you can be assured that eventually there's a point where the story will take a break just so they can focus on one character history to give us, a better point of view on where these characters are coming from, their weak points, their strong points, and why they act like the way they do. No character is left untouched here. Story skits also help give more insights on these characters as well as various mini side quests. This is the first rpg in a long time where I can't think of any character in your party that hasn't been given a spotlight where they can tell their story. Usually an rpg game mostly focus the spotlight on the main two characters but here everyone gets a good decent chance to tell their story. And I like that. Are all the characters interesting? That's in the eye of the beholder. But you can say that all the characters are developed with a good background history that will be told as the story moves along. And that's what you are looking for in terms of character development.

The graphics do not suck! Visually speaking, Tales of Symphonia is a prime example that if done right, cel-shading can be stunning to the eyes. This is a rich and colorful 3-D world filled with beautifully hand drawn background artwork with characters drawn in the Japanese anime style. The background environment is a breath to behold as each house, grass, trees, are drawn with attention to detailed down to the last drop. A 3-D world that is just stunning. A lot of credit goes into the colors used in the background. This is a bright and rich world you are looking at. The colors used in this game fully showcase that. I like a game where the developers like to use every single color of a rainbow and more, than just the usual dull and gloomy brownish kind. A game that has many different variations of colors is a game that is good to look at. Sometimes if it weren't for the fact that you are moving around in a 3-D environment, you would think you're looking at a painting. The characters of course are dawn in Japanese anime style with their big eyes and unique noses and mouths. They are drawn and design nicely. However the drawback of the character designs is that all the characters tend to look a bit too cartoonish or young. Even the adult characters look like they are kids. I think they were design this way on purpose as to appeal more to the younger generation of gamers from the Gamecube. That's just a guess. Another small thing is that during certain story cut scenes, the camera tends to focus sharply on the character that's doing the main talking but those around him then to be blurred or soften out. This isn't a flaw as I'm sure it was done intentionally as the developer want us to focus our eyes directly on the person doing the talking and no so much as those around him or the background around him. I sort of disagree with this kind of camera approach. I prefer to have everything sharp and clear visually and not just the person doing the talking. Other than those two disagreements, there's not much to complain about in terms of graphics.

Do you hear the sound of battle? I guess if there's a weak point in this game, music would be it. It's not much of a weak point mind you. With a big in-depth story in this game, you know there's going to be musical themes everywhere. There are character themes, battle themes, dungeon themes, town themes, and world map themes, everything that you can hopeful. A game that spans over two game discs will have over 80 different varieties of tunes. So quantity is there. However to be honest, there isn't any real musical tune that really stand out on its own. There are musical tunes and then there are the one or two musical tunes that define the rpg for gamers. When I say the one or two musical tunes that help define an rpg, I'm talking about the Eyes of Me from Final Fantasy VIII, the Pain from Xenosaga, or the If You Still Believe In Love from Legend of Dragoon. You know what I'm talking about. It doesn't have to be a song, it could be a main title theme or a character them like McDohl from Suikoden. That's not to say that this game doesn't have a main theme or a main character theme, just not something that stand out and take your notice. Still having said all that, there are 80 different good musical tunes for you to enjoy, maybe not great or outstanding but good tunes nevertheless.

Is it hot in here? Compound special attack, ready! Game Information    Genre: Traditional Rpg    Publisher: Namco    Disc: 2 DVD Disc    Memory: 3 Blocks    Players: 1-4 Player Mode    Rating: Teen    Release: July 2004 Tales of Symphonia is an action rpg game that is a mix blend of the usual traditional rpg elements, the traditional Tales of Destiny elements, and some new never seen before rpg elements. Some of the usual traditional rpg elements are the exploration of the world, towns, and dungeons. You have your basic shops where you can buy your items and equipment, vehicles to explore the world by land, sea, and air and of course the usual talking to the people in town to learn where to go next and progress your journey ahead. The traditional Tales of Destiny gameplay elements that you will notice is the cooking feature, the items that you use in the game such as healing potions, the side to side battle system, and the puzzle solving elements in the game. The latter can also be applied to the usual traditional rpg element as most traditional rpg have puzzles to solve as well. New elements that you will notice are character skits, grade, unison attack, and compound skills. Let's take a look at some of these key features. Titles:Each character begins with their default titles. As you progress in the game, your character can learn new titles. These titles can be obtained simply by reaching a certain level or during sub-events like a mini game. Why is a character title like for example, the Eternal Swordsman, for Lloyd so important? The answer is simple; each title gives a boost to a character stat upon each level up. Again as an example only, Eternal Swordsman title gives an added boost to Lloyd's HP, STR, DEF, and ACC each time he level up. So collecting and equipping the right titles for your characters can really help further develop your fighters into the ultimate fighters that they were meant to be. Skits:Skits are optional added scenes where members of your parties talk to one another to get to know each other better or to express their feelings on the latest events that had just happen to the party. It's a way to help further develop each character background as well as achieve a better relationship with Lloyd and in a sense also open up more insights to the storyline. Skits are broken up into two groups, story skits and skits points. Story skits will pop up during your journey. You have the option to view these skits or just choose to ignore them. Skits points however are place on certain areas of the world map where you must find these skits points to activate a skit. Skits points aren't base on party conversations but on one on one conversation between Lloyd and a particular party member. This is to help develop their relationship with Lloyd. A strong relationship with Lloyd would mean that they will perform better in battle. In my humble opinion, I just basically think Skits were a waste of time. It's more or less chat spam in the story. LOL. Sorcerer's Ring: This is a key device in which you will be using to help solve puzzles in the various dungeons in this game. The function of the ring can be change by touching certain power wells in dungeons and caves. Understanding the various functions of the ring in each dungeon is the key to solving those block passages that prevent you from progressing in the game. Geography:As you travel the world on the field map, you will see little black enemy models which present a monster party. This also applies as you travel inside caves and dungeons. If you're good, you can move about and avoid touching them but if you're not good and you manage to touch these enemy models then you will trigger a fight. This is basically how the encounters with monsters are done as oppose to just random battles as you travel the world. On the field map, the default mode is close up mode where you have a good view of everything close to you but makes it hard to try and move around to find the next town or dungeon in the field. However to eliminate the close up problem, you can activate long range map mode by finding and touching stone monuments on the field maps. Once this is done, you can switch between long range or close up range for map mode. EX Skills:Each fighter can learn skills that will help them fight better during battles. These are battle skills but not fighting skills. Fighting skills are known as Techs which I will discuss later. These battles skills help improve a fighter performance in battle. In order to have a skill equip on a fighter, she or he must have a Gem equip. There are four types of gems, level 1 to level 4. This means that there are 4 different levels of skills available. Each gem will give a fighter 4 different skills of that one level where you can choose which skills fit best for that person. Example of this is Lloyd being equip with a level 1 Gem. You then choose a level 1 skill like Strong. By having Strong skill equip on Lloyd, it will help boost his strength in battles. This is a very unique system in this game. However to make things more interesting, the game also gives us Compound EX Skills. What is a Compound EX Skill? They work pretty much the same as the basic EX Skills but in order to activate these skills you must have a combination of EX Skills equip to create a Compound EX Skill. Example of this is when Lloyd is equip with the two EX Skills known as Strong and Tough, he will then learn the Compound EX Skill, EX Attack. In addition to the effects of Strong and Touch skills, the EX Attack skill that was form from the two of them will give Lloyd an increase in damage against guarding enemies. Understand and learning which skills are the best for each character is very important. It takes a bit of understanding at first but this is one of the most unique and useful feature introduced in an rpg game. Customization: In addition to simply buying new weapons and armors from shop, you can customize new weapons using your old weapons and materials that are needed to make a new weapon. Materials can be brought using your Grade points at the Customization shop or by getting them as drops from various monsters in the game. Cooking:A Tales game wouldn't be complete without cooking. It's very simple, in order for you to cook something; you have to have a recipe and the ingredients needed. You get the recipe by finding the Wonder Chef who will teach you a particular recipe. Ingredients can be brought from shops so it's not hard to find ingredients. Just make sure you have cash. LOL. Why is cooking important? Well each recipe gives off a boost effect after you finish cooking and consuming that recipe. The boost effect could be HP restore or MP restore. The best time to cook is right after a battle. By cooking, you are actually saving money on having to use healing items or running back to town to find an INN to sleep in. Outside of these key features, the game is pretty straight forward. Travel to your next destination by talking to town folks and exploring dungeons to defeat the boss. Then you get a story scene and an idea as to what town to head next to. Stock up on supplies and update your equip before you head out on your long journey ahead. Now we look at this fun battle system. I've already explained how encounters work. So let's look at how battles are handled. This is an action rpg game which means you control one fighter in a free style hack and slash action play. Of course it's not just simply hack and slash as you have combos, magic, and Unison Attack all row in one. The game is 1-4 players. If you have friends then you can have each of your friends control a fighter. However we are to assume that we are all lonely so we are playing in 1 Player Mode. LOL. In 1 Player Mode you choose which fighter you want to control while the CPU controls the other 3 fighters. However you can set how you want the CPU to control each of the other fighters. Whether or not you want the CPU to go all out and consume all MP and TP or be conservative or just stand by. It's up to you. The CPU does a wonderful job so you don't have to worry about anything. Unfortunately the battle field is basically a 2-D side by side movement. If it was 3-D then it would be perfect like Star Ocean. Some key features to note in the battle system. Combos:Combos are a good way of gaining extra experience points. Combo is achieved when you strike an enemy in a consecutive strike without stopping from the first attack. Other fighters can join in to maintain the combo meter by attacking immediately after the first fighter stop attacking. Mastering a 100 hit combo is only something a true Tales of Destiny player can brag about. Not only do you gain extra experience points, you also dish out more damage through combo attacks. And finally it's just cool to watch. Over Limit: Over limit is a status a fighter has achieve once they are hit too many times. Basically Over Limit is a rage status where you can attack without having to worry about being stunned or stagger. You don't really do more damage in Over Limit. Personally I thought Over Limit is a waste of time. The only other time that Over Limit is really important is with your character Sheena who is a summoner. Sheena can only summon her spirit if she's in Over Limit stage. If it weren't for that then I wouldn't bother too much about getting a character into Over Limit status. Tech: Techs are your fighting skills or powerful magic. There are two types of Techs, Strike Type or Technical Type. Each fighter starts out with default techs. As they level up and use their default Techs, they will be able to learn more Techs. Some Techs can only be learned if certain Techs are forgotten. There are also hidden Techs that you can learn if you know how to get them. Unison Attack: This is basically a combo attack of combined Techs attack from your four fighters. Once the Unison gauge is full, you can have your four fighters unleashed their Tech attacks together in unison to do major damage. But that's not all. In addition to regular Unison Attack, you can have Compound Unison Attack. This is basically where you have two particular Techs combine in a Unison Attack to create a powerful new Tech attack in a Unison Attack. The key to achieving the best Unison Attack is really to create a powerful Compound Unison Attack. It's really cool to watch. Grades: After each fight your party will receive a small amount of Grade. Grade is a measure of combat prowess determined by the amount of damage inflicted, the amount of damage received and the total amount of time required to win. These grade points are then used to purchase materials for customizing your weapons or to buy optional features at the beginning of a new game. To wrap this up, this is what you call a complete rpg gaming experience. Every aspect of what an rpg should have is in here. What makes this rpg game so good is that it really is fun to play. Usually in an rpg game, there's always something that I can find that I don't like but in this case, I really can't say anything bad about the gameplay. There are no random annoying battles popping up every 5 steps you take. In fact if you're really good you can cut down the amount of fights you do by avoiding enemies outright until the boss fight so those that don't like having to fight every 30 seconds or so will enjoy being able to avoid enemies even more. And if you do have to fight, you actually enjoy fighting. Nothing beats a fast pace battle system where you can unleash powerful magic spells and deal multi-combos attack on your enemies. Some of the puzzles in the dungeon might be a bit too difficult but making puzzles too easy wouldn't be too much of a challenge either. In the end, you'll probably be burnt out by this game. It really is an exhausting gaming experience. In a good way mind you.

Score: 10/10

Destiny 2 versus Symphonia In an estimate, I would say you have about 20 hours of extra game time dedicated solely for side quest events in this game. That's an exceptionally large amount of time, maybe even more. But one thing I can be sure of is that it's nearly impossible to try and get 100% completion on your first time playing this game. You'll need to play this game twice to get 100% completion. Heck you may even need to play this game three times before getting 100% completion. There are a lot of various extra events that you can do. The game has extra story quests that you can complete which gives more closure to some of the characters background. There are also quite a few mini games to play that you can earn stuff from. Tournaments in a coliseum are also available for your fighters to play in. Extra hard bosses are present as well. Even a bonus dungeon is included here. On top of all those, there are two collector books that you can try and compete, a Monster List book and a Figurine book. Pretty much everything you can think off in terms of extras in a game are in this game. Replay value is there too. Once you finish the game the first time, you can do a Clear Save+ and start a new game with that file. Before starting the New+ game, you have the option to buy various option features using your Grade points. These option features will give you that incentive in playing the game a second time around. You won't be able to buy all the option features though unless you have tons and tons of grade points available. And you won't. After all, what fun will it be if you are able to have all the various extra option features for you only on your second time around? You need to have other incentives still available that you haven't tried out yet on your third time around. All in all, I have to say just perfect in this category.

Ok let's cut to the chase, Tale of Symphonia is the best rpg game for the Gamecube to date beating out Skies of Arcadia. And if I was a betting man, I would say it will remain the best rpg game for the Gamecube for quite some time. Granted there aren't a lot of rpg games on the Gamecube but a game like Tales of Symphonia would still give any Playstation 2 rpg game a run for its money in terms of greatness. This is an epic rpg game that has everything that an rpger would want in an rpg game. An epic long story, great character developments, excellent gameplay, lots of side quests and mini games, and real replay value to boot. I haven't remembered a time where I really spent over 60 hours of actual gameplay time in an rpg game. It's just too sad that most rpgers are on the Playstation 2 and will miss out on this epic rpg game. That fault lies with Nintendo and not with Namco for not providing a better library selection of rpgs for fans of the genre to buy a Gamecube. Still if you needed a reason to buy a Gamecube then Tales of Symphonia is it. So what are you waiting for? Go get this game now. Final Score: 9.2/10