RoxyRox
2 reviews liked by RoxyRox
This review contains spoilers
This game makes a great sequel and I enjoyed it a lot, but I also found myself kinda annoyed with it at times.
The fuse mechanic was really fun and made the breaking weapons more fun cause there was always a new fun material or device to experiment with.
The dungeons were fun but all felt pretty similar once you got to them using whichever sages power so many times to charge big thing then fight boss.
All the sage were fun to have and made exploration more fun from not always having to watch my back, and help at the enemy camps was always appreciated. I was the most disappointed with the mech it sounded so fun but it was really just a nuisance to deal with.
The story was told in a really fun way that really promoted exploration. Finding the tears and piecing all your other hints from other quest to figure out what did happen during the imprisoning war felt just rewarding enough to get me to go after the next one.
I also managed to go way to long without getting the paraglider kept mitting dead ends cause I needed it but getting was pretty simple once I looked up how I missed it.
Anything person I missed until late game (again happened in BotW too) was Hetsu so I was going through a majority of the game with the minimum weapon and shield slots.
The fuse mechanic was really fun and made the breaking weapons more fun cause there was always a new fun material or device to experiment with.
The dungeons were fun but all felt pretty similar once you got to them using whichever sages power so many times to charge big thing then fight boss.
All the sage were fun to have and made exploration more fun from not always having to watch my back, and help at the enemy camps was always appreciated. I was the most disappointed with the mech it sounded so fun but it was really just a nuisance to deal with.
The story was told in a really fun way that really promoted exploration. Finding the tears and piecing all your other hints from other quest to figure out what did happen during the imprisoning war felt just rewarding enough to get me to go after the next one.
I also managed to go way to long without getting the paraglider kept mitting dead ends cause I needed it but getting was pretty simple once I looked up how I missed it.
Anything person I missed until late game (again happened in BotW too) was Hetsu so I was going through a majority of the game with the minimum weapon and shield slots.
Tales of Symphonia
2003
When I compare games to the nostalgic whimsy of an early 2000s JRPG, there's a good chance I'm probably comparing it to Tales of Symphonia. It certainly is one of the JRPGs of all time.
The original Gamecube version came out in checks notes Oh God 2003. This game is almost 20 years old in the States. I just aged everybody reading this review, you're welcome. But yeah, it was a big epic JRPG on a Nintendo platform at the turn of the century: the N64 and GCN days were not common grounds for JRPGs, so Tales of Symphonia for a lot of us was an oasis of a corny anime RPG in what was pretty close to a dead genre on Nintendo console platforms. And ToS is so anime it almost hurts. The art style on top of the cel-shaded graphics and anime opening made this feel like just an anime in video game form.
This also comes down to the writing, which feels like a stock-standard fantasy anime. You have the protagonist who is too stupid to die and his wife who's too selfless to live, the parental sibling and the shithead sibling, the eye candy, the stalwart child with an oversized weapon, and everyone's favorite wacky pervert who's actually immensely tortured on the inside. The story literally starts on the whole "The chosen one must revive a dying land" trope, and I'm not paraphrasing. The subtext is actually just text.
The combat is the skeletal beginnings of the ARPG sub-genre that earlier Tales games have established, and it ranges from good button-mashy fun to completely mindless and uninteresting. The exploration is open-ended as Hell but always has a primary destination the game is shuttling you to. The puzzles are simple enough and straightforward.
So why is this game so deeply beloved? Primarily it was the cultural zeitgeist it found itself in the middle of; the late 90s and early 2000s there were very little RPGs on the N64 and Gamecube, so getting one was kind of a mythical presence. This was the first JRPG for a lot of people who grew up with a Gamecube. It was in the right place at the right time.
And also because... Tales of Symphonia is just a pretty good game. It's definitely dated for sure, but barring how generic and trope-heavy the story is, the stakes are felt, the motivations of every character make sense, and with the abundance of writing the game has from a sheer size and scope, the characters have a lot of space to breathe and grow and be charming.Except Lloyd and Colette, horrendous main characters in a cast of infinitely more interesting ones. The fantasy setting is beautifully realized, it feels epic, and you just like seeing how all these characters interact with the worlds they're in.
I floated between 3.5 and 4 stars for this game because my feelings of Symphonia are complicated. I think older Tales games are more esoteric and interesting, and new Tales games have improved mechanically enough to render Symphonia feeling a bit dated. My feelings for the game at the time were warmer because I had less to compare it to, but as more JRPGs made it under my belt, the more that Symphonia lost some of that luster. But it's still a good game, a great game for some. It evokes some powerful nostalgia. But without nostalgia, the game feels more like an afterthought nowadays.
The original Gamecube version came out in checks notes Oh God 2003. This game is almost 20 years old in the States. I just aged everybody reading this review, you're welcome. But yeah, it was a big epic JRPG on a Nintendo platform at the turn of the century: the N64 and GCN days were not common grounds for JRPGs, so Tales of Symphonia for a lot of us was an oasis of a corny anime RPG in what was pretty close to a dead genre on Nintendo console platforms. And ToS is so anime it almost hurts. The art style on top of the cel-shaded graphics and anime opening made this feel like just an anime in video game form.
This also comes down to the writing, which feels like a stock-standard fantasy anime. You have the protagonist who is too stupid to die and his wife who's too selfless to live, the parental sibling and the shithead sibling, the eye candy, the stalwart child with an oversized weapon, and everyone's favorite wacky pervert who's actually immensely tortured on the inside. The story literally starts on the whole "The chosen one must revive a dying land" trope, and I'm not paraphrasing. The subtext is actually just text.
The combat is the skeletal beginnings of the ARPG sub-genre that earlier Tales games have established, and it ranges from good button-mashy fun to completely mindless and uninteresting. The exploration is open-ended as Hell but always has a primary destination the game is shuttling you to. The puzzles are simple enough and straightforward.
So why is this game so deeply beloved? Primarily it was the cultural zeitgeist it found itself in the middle of; the late 90s and early 2000s there were very little RPGs on the N64 and Gamecube, so getting one was kind of a mythical presence. This was the first JRPG for a lot of people who grew up with a Gamecube. It was in the right place at the right time.
And also because... Tales of Symphonia is just a pretty good game. It's definitely dated for sure, but barring how generic and trope-heavy the story is, the stakes are felt, the motivations of every character make sense, and with the abundance of writing the game has from a sheer size and scope, the characters have a lot of space to breathe and grow and be charming.
I floated between 3.5 and 4 stars for this game because my feelings of Symphonia are complicated. I think older Tales games are more esoteric and interesting, and new Tales games have improved mechanically enough to render Symphonia feeling a bit dated. My feelings for the game at the time were warmer because I had less to compare it to, but as more JRPGs made it under my belt, the more that Symphonia lost some of that luster. But it's still a good game, a great game for some. It evokes some powerful nostalgia. But without nostalgia, the game feels more like an afterthought nowadays.