Tales of Symphonia

[Fox]

The characters in Vesperia are a whole other level compared to them in Symphonia. That's what really sets that game apart.

I enjoy some of the battle systems in these games, but that's still not while I play them. Xillia has the best of the series in my opinion, but I'm still just playing it for the story, the characters, those hilarious little skits. Man I love the skits. More games should have them. Such a shame they weren't voiced in Symphonia, especially as they were​ voiced in the Japanese release.

[Vyk]

Sadly, that was one of the reasons I didn't like Symphonia as much. Not sure how it is on the PS3, but on the GameCube, the skits text scrolled automatically. I'm not the fastest reader. I read about as fast as I talk. I never saw a reason for trying to read faster. But since those skits weren't voiced, there was no good rule for how long the text displayed. Apparently it was timed more for how fast the Japanese talk, rather than English speakers or something. Because I ended up missing a lot of dialog as it seemed to pop up and disappear before I could finish reading. And it irritated the hell out of me and I felt like I was missing out on a lot of character building. It eventually got me so fed up I stopped paying attention to the skits all together

Granted that was what, ten years ago or something? I might be a faster reader these days, so I may get more enjoyment out o fit, but I think it'd be best that since they chose not to voice them, we should be able to read them at our own pace, and advance the dialog manually. Just a simple button press.. So far that's the only game I had that problem with, hopefully it doesn't pop up in things like Abyss or Legendia, which I have yet to play

[Slothy]

long puzzly dungeons with lots of room for error

It's funny because I remembered them being a lot longer and having more room for error than they actually did when I replayed it earlier in the year. It was only towards the very end that the dungeons got kind of long, but even then I didn't find them too bad.

[Pumpkin]

The sewer dungeon was the worst thing ever, but the rest were fine. Not super fun, but there's been worse. And I never personally had trouble reading the skit text

[Dat Matt]

long puzzly dungeons with lots of room for error

It's funny because I remembered them being a lot longer and having more room for error than they actually did when I replayed it earlier in the year. It was only towards the very end that the dungeons got kind of long, but even then I didn't find them too bad.

I think it's dungeons like the one before the elf town, or the flying bubbles that takes ages and things can go wrong if you make a mistake and have to do them all again. Or the Darkness Temple where the little shadow blobs can get lost and stuck on walls. It's not so much the puzzles are hard, but they take a while to get trough and solve.

[Forsaken Lover]

This game is only $8 on PSN right now.

Think I'm finally gonna get it and begin my foray into the Tales franchise at last.

Although Graces and Xilla Combo Pack is also on sale for $25.

[Mirage]

graces and xillia are probably better games to start with.

[Vyk]

Yeah, Symphonia is loved by the people who played it at the time, and people who are into the series and go into it with that in mind. It hasn't honestly aged all that well in comparison. There's lots of reading that scrolls through automatically and no voices and it is paced towards the Japanese text. So if something is short to say in Japanese it goes by quick. But if it translates to a longer sentence, you only have half a second to catch it and it's super annoying to quickly miss parts of dialog. I hated that. Otherwise its fun. If a little slow and traditional. Other than that I'd have to agree with Mirage. Especially with Xillia

[Laddy]

Xillia, Vexperia, the Abyss, and this are among the best in the series.

This game was the first in the series I played and I adored it. Going back and playing it, it's still pretty strong but I notice a lot of writing and gameplay quirks that I'm not a fan of. Plus the game has a lot of back-tracking especially in earlier parts.

[Pumpkin]

I didn't play it when it came out, I played it much later and I absolutely loved it. Xillia is awesome too, they both rank pretty highly for me

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Symphonia was great for it's time... but it has aged very poorly in my opinion. Some of the silly tropes in there weren't really tropes when Symphonia was released, as this was one of the games that originally wrote the formula that became somewhat tiring over the following decade.
!

Summed up fairly well.

This trope is probably the most important aspect of why the game comes across as stale or boring to some players.

Especially when you combine it with this one.

[Agent Proto]

I can't believe I haven't answered this thread yet. To answer, the game is great at the time when I started playing. I enjoyed it very much, but like someone pointed out, it hasn't aged very well. The battle's are more difficult to do without the 3D running that the later games have (which most I have not yet to play). I love the characters though, so I think it's worth going through just to see the character interactions.

[Randy]

I really don't remember Symphonia, although I'm sure I played it.

Didn't they still have the 2-directional movement in battles at that point? I thought Abyss was the first to allow you to move in 3 dimensions? Or was it Vesperia?

[Shauna]

It still had the 2D battle plane.

[Leigh]

Still haven't completed this since I started this thread. Sort of because it feels like a TV anime adapting and watering down a final fantasy plot segment.