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Rating: 
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I ADORE THIS GAME!!!!
Of course when I first played it it took me hours to understand since I'm not that great at gameplaying...the second time (since with your GRADE you can make things a little bit easier) was a breeze and for people who say it isn't 80 hours I BET they didn't do any of the side quests. Like the wonderchef, the devil's arms, everyone's strongest weapons, reaching level 100 or meltokio colisseum.
I personally love this game. But might I say I despised the characters at first but if you carefully watch all of the conversations they're all pretty cool-except colette..she sucks no matter what. She says "I'm sorry" basically every time she speaks. Even when Lloyd tells her to stop apologizing...she still does it! GAHHHHH!!!!
Lloyd is the easiest with skills. I find him easy to fight with. And presea is really strong...wow. At first she is basically nothing, she has no emotions or thought but she's really interesting..especially when you get her costume (I bet you guys didn't get all their titles either). With her "relation" to Regal I didn't really like him either. But since I play Lloyd and I had all the combo conversations to get their relationships up, he's very fatherly to Lloyd and cares about the group.
Genis is in love with Preasea and i don't care what you say he's nearly as bad as colette. UGH! But his sister Raine is an exceptional character since she slaps genis I do get enjoyment out of that ^_^. And SHEENA! whoo I adore her. Sheena is my favorite character-she can summon spirits, make pacts, use gaurdians and depending on how you control the game she may become Lloyd's girlfriend! (flanoir scene)
Zelos is very umm..perverted. but he is pretty funny. His sister seles..oh man do I hate her!!! Kratos (in relation to Lloyd..his father) is a very cool character. He is one of the four seraphim but he also helps out Lloyd because he's on both sides (Kind of like Askitaka in the movie Princess Mononoke).
And I'm glad Mithos dies at the end cos he sucks.
MUSIC: very good, I love the songs. I have the soundtrack which is lovely also might I add
CHARCTER DEVELOPMENT: Lloyd's kinda too good for my taste and so is Colette. Luckily Genis got on my good side when he held Lloyd back when Colette was about to sacrifice herself. Raine stays basically the same, she has many fans (Like Linar and Zelos) and is a very knowledgeable half-elf. kratos becomes a very amazing character at the end. And Sheena becomes a strong person. Zelos..it depends, he may become good or go horribly evil. Presea kinda changes but not to much. And regal who for some reason never takes those damn shackles off finally changes once you get the rheiards and you start looking for the talk scenes
SCENES: the dialouge takes forever but I don't mind sometimes..sometimes
COMBAT: Can be EXTREMELY difficult with some characters. I suck with the magic so I play Lloyd or Kratos(when he is a playable character)
FUN: I <3 it
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Tales of Symphonia is an exceptional RPG game. I've been a fan for this genre for as long as I can remember. Through college and now medical school, I've become quite selective about the games I play because of my limited amount of free time. In my opinion, Tales of Symphonia can easily rival any of the best hits in the Final Fantasy series. Behind the cartoon-like/anime styled graphics is 80 hours of pure fun and entertainment.
Given the character designs and art works in general in the game, I really didn't expect much from Symphonia initially. But as the story unravels, I find the storyline enthralling and very well thought-out. The twists and turns are surprising most of the time yet very plausible. Character development is an area where I think Symphonia really outdoes the Final Fantasy (FF) series. Unlike the often simple-minded and happy-go-lucky paper-thin characters in FF, the full cast of symphonia shows great depth individually and growth over the course of the game. They acknowledge and deal with many themes, such as love and hatred, gain and loss, courage and cowardice, loyalty and betrayal, hope and regret, companionship and loneliness, selfishness and sacrifice in a very mature way. Each main character's personality stands out and leaves quite an impression. For instance, Kratos is rational, composed, willful and cold-blooded. Yet deep down he has a heroically conscientious side. Sheena is an honorable, strong-willed and independent ninja. But underneath it all, she is gentle and vulnerable and yearns for friendship. Regal lives in the sorrow and despair of his past. What happened? And who is he? The carefully crafted subtleties in each of character's personality and their motivations unveil gradually through the main storyline and the skits so well that all of them seem to come to life and become likable individuals. Character development in Symphonia definitely adds more layers to the game overall.
Despite of the realness of its characters and the storyline's seriousness, the game handles itself very lightheartedly. There's rarely any dull moment during the gameplay. The dialogues are funny and interesting. Some witty lines really cracked me up. The background music very nicely enhances of the mood and ambience. 8 main characters all have their own thematic music that matches them very well. The quality of voice acting is quite good. I think Kratos' voiceover was especially fitting for a tired hero who has seen it all and done it all.
The battle system is one of the most sophisticated I have seen. With 4 party members on the field, the player can control any one of them one at a time. The A.I. is more than satisfying. You can customize just about anything for a character, from targeting enemy, position on the battle field and attacking strategy to job titles, special moves, style of fighting (strong or technical), elemental attributes, the unique combo attack and unison attack systems and EX Gem boosts and EX skills. The battling system steers this game more towards an action RPG (think of Legend of Zelda). This makes levels less relevant and your ability to strategize and control your character effectively more important. When you become an expert in battle, you can defeat bosses at a much higher level than you are! The performance in battle is also graded! What?! Yes, you are graded based on how well you fight. Grades are EXTREMELY valuable. You'll need them big time when you start new game+ after you beat the game once.
The game also features 8 variations on its ending depending on the choices you make in the game and a ton of side quests and mini games. Even if you are completely oblivious to everything that makes this game unique, it is still more fun and entertaining than you expect (it certainly took me by surprise!). I had a blast with this game. If you choose to play it, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did. (And chances are, you will, trust me.)
Rating: 
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I picked this one up at its launch day to send Namco a clear message, I want these type of games on GameCube. I just started playing it a few months ago, though. I was relieved to hear that the game was a moderate success, but much to my dismay the next Tales game will be a PS2 title, but there is a GBA and a DS Tales on the way as well, which will be nice.
The story revolves around a young human named Lloyd Irving who was raised by a dwarf in a village where his best friend and his teacher are both elves (Though we later discover they are half elves). The town he is growing up in is in the world of Sylverant, a world in decline, and highly oppressed by a race of half elves called Desians. Every so often the Chosen of Mana arises to regenerate the world and restore it's Mana supply. The previous chosen was killed, and now, Lloyd's close friend Colette has been called to serve as the Chosen. Lloyd and his (half)elf friend Genis join her in her quest part to protect her, and part because a spat with the local Desians cause the village mayor to banish the two.
At first the story may seem a little clichéd, and at points when the Church of Martel (which eerily resembles Catholicism) is revealed to be the bad guy then one can raise concerns that there may have a bit of an anti-religious tone, but there is, thankfully, a plot twist at the end which nullifies anything which may come of as such, and the game never addresses religion itself as being bad or harmful as some individuals out there have been of late. In general the game remains passive in it's political and religious themes.
The tale gets better the more you get into it, the more you learn of alternate worlds, cool summons, intricate characters with a detailed back story that is learned in the main story line without the need for excessive side quests, and a story that bests the best efforts of rival Square-Enix for the moment.
The game play is where Tales really shines, as the game incorporates a linar motion active battle system which lets you combat the monsters in real time, a revolutionary step (I haven't played a Tales game before) eliminating the frustration that turn based RPGs have begun to give me lately. The game also eliminates the nightmarish and sluggish random battles. Nearly every non-boss battle in the game is avoidable as the fights are represented by moving icons on the screen which can be maneuvered around. This makes progressing through the game much less headache educing than other RPGs which can't seem to let go of the archaic random battle, or worse turn based combat. The combat engine here is what I've been waiting for, for what seems like a lifetime.
The graphics do disappoint a bit. The characters are sadly inconsistent with their anime cut scenes and there is a bit of a blur effect that is supposed to create the illusion of depth, but just makes the characters look smudged. It would have been nice if the characters were drawn to be more like their anime counterparts, less "super deformed" but considering that there's only like 4 anime cut scenes in the entire game, and 2 depicting mass destruction and not featuring the characters it's no where near as annoying as the inconsistencies in the artwork of FFVI.
Music is kind of bland from what I'm used to, and the sound effects are sorely lacking, worse yet as inconsistent as the art may have been the flow of the game is interrupted by a minimalist approach to the amount of voice over work featured in the game. Only the most critical of cut scenes feature voice-overs, sad when you consider that many competing RPGs are fully voiced. Namco really needed to take the FF X approach where all the leads were fully voiced, and only irrelevant towns folk would be text only. That would have been better. The good news is that the voice overs that do appear are pretty good, and don't disappoint. I just wanted more.
Over all Tales of Symphonia is hands down one of the best RPGs I've played of the current generation, if not one of the best games (sans disappointing graphics and sound). It's truly an epic game that takes about 50 hours to complete and should be a welcome addition to every GameCube owner's library.
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This is my favorite game. It has everything. My favorite thing is the plot. It has more plot twists than any game I've played and many novels I've read. Everytime you think you understand everything that's going on they throw you another curve ball. The characters are wonderful. There are very 3 demensional and interesting. In fact based on the way you answer questions throughout the game, you'll get special scenes with different characters.
The gameplay is awesome too. It has things to interest everyone. For those more strategic fighters, there are all sorts of ways to control everyone on the field. All sorts of different attacks to learn and all different sorts of items to use. However, you can also get pretty far just hacking and slashing with that A button. That's how I beat it my first play through. Although the battles were easier when I actually bothered to think.
The game is also addictive, I haven't found anyone who has played through it just once. The story deepens and the play gets better with every playthrough. There is always something you haven't found. Plus after you've beaten the game you get a chance touse the Grade you've earned in battle to buy things for you're next playthrough. Very helpful things like higher health, all the titles you've earned, the attacks you've learned, even the ability to earn more grade per battle.
If the game has any weakness it's in the cut scene graphics. With the eexception of the few anime cut scenes most of them have relatively stale movements, and graphics that barely differ from normal play. This is more than made up for however by the wonderful story and impressive voice acting. These voice actors are amazing. Even with stale movements of the characters they really get the emotion across.
If that's not enough for you, you can even cook and dress the characters in funny costumes. Oh, yeah it's good stuff!
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Well, I wanted to get this game the day it came out bu because i have no job, it took awhile to get the money...anyways, i got it in october for 30 bucks canadian and boy oh boy i have never made a better game purchase...im about 23 hours in and still on disc one, and usually im not a huge rpger, i bought this mainly for the anime aspect and the truth is, this game is the best game ive played in a long time....so far ive laughed, been sad, and have been angry...and that is perfect for the games style as it carries emotion with great voice acting and plots....the bosses are hard if your not levelled up, and thats the only flaw imo that this game has....spending time levelling up...though where im at it doesnt take long..its just boring. lol, anyways...5 out of 5 as this is the best game ive played in years
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