Out of the three entries in the tales of franchise I've played as of writing this, I can confidently say that this was definitely the one I had the most enjoyment out of. Not my favorite, but extremely close. I had known about this games existence before I had even started the first game and was excited to see how the game itself compared to the opening I had watched a handful of times before and I was pretty satisfied to see it lived up to my expectations. While there were things I didn't like/expect, some examples being the combat system and the lack of original party members, the story and characters themselves more than made up for that. Watching both the relationship between Emil and Marta develop further as the game went on, as well as seeing them dealing with their own issues was one of the most satisfying character arcs I've ever seen in fiction. Seeing how the three main characters interacted with the original games party members was nice as well, and actually made me start caring about characters from the first game that I didn't particularly like. The story, despite being pretty short was very entertaining and always managed to keep me wondering what would happen next, even if some of it was pretty predictable.

Overall, 4/5 stars. Pretty solid game. Do I love it? Yes. Will I ever play it again? Hell no.

I really don't like this game, and the fact that it's a sequel to a far greater game makes it even less enjoyable.

Everything bad in Tales Of Symphonia condensed into this very game. Add a cheap monster-collecter, watered-down fight mechanics that don't feel as tight, replace the overworld with a point-and-click map, and bring back every old character as temporary NPCs that really don't contribute anything to this incredibly shlocky story. Bad bad bad all around.

At least the character models look prettier I guess.

A weak follow-up that has some merits. TOS 1 is among my favorite games of all time and this isn't a great follow-up. It does try and continue some of the story, but the focus is entirely on the new characters. The new leads are alright, I like their lovey dovey relationship.

They added a new mechanic: collect monsters and train them to fight on your behalf. You can tell the entire game was built around this idea. Sadly, I hate it. The monsters aren't that helpful, and figuring out how to capture them took me my entire first play through.

The story is far too short and simple. You can play through most of it ln like ten hours. The over map is a real step down from the first, but its tolerable. There's a whole lot of side quest/tasks that you can use to fill time, but they all kinda suck. you can just rush through them and fight the final bosses. But then you get the final one of those quests, and there's just this dramatic up tilt in difficulty. That and the uber dungeon were the only things I didn't complete in this.

It has its moments, the leads are good. I like seeing the OG cast and getting to see what they've been doing. The Combat is as good the original, if you aren't using the monster. The story is interesting enough. Its a poor sequel, but its not a terrible game.

Worth a look if you like Tales games, but really not one to own.

This game...well, it exists. It's a very lackluster, broken mess of a game with a story just as nonsensical and still baffles me that this is a sequel to one of the best RPGs.

This game reeks of being a cash grab, wanting to ride ToS's success while it was big because a lot of the game is lazy. Example: they hired a new artists for new character concept art but all the old characters have their old art from the first game so when there are skits it's jarring. A lot of music is reused from ToS 1 and if remixed it's barely a different sound or feel idk

There's so much, too much that went wrong here lol Just know the story is a joke, the voice acting was very medicore and while it starts the conversation of interesting themes and plot points after ToS they fumble with it so badly. Contrived af but the only hilight is Zelos is best boi. Only character who has some sense from the previous game.

Emil's voice is also hit or miss--very high pitched and at times grating. His character also leaves a lot to be desired. Not because he's shy and perceived as weak but how it's written. Very surface level and the conclusion to who he is feels cheap. This game did not give af lol

The gameplay is almost as bad as the story, locked to broken motion controls. Due to the limitations of the wii over world exploration was scrapped for menu travel. The game leaned in hard into the Wii's unique controls and didn't implement them well.

A positive: The new art is nice. Uhh, the battle music was catchy. I can pretend it doesn't exist.

I know this game was remastered as a bundle with ToS so not sure if they fixed anything but the initial release was a shit show.