Tales of Symphonia review

Do you ever hear a piece of music, or see something, that reminds you of a sense of wonder you once had? Do you then wonder why you never felt that way again or why you haven’t matured that feeling into something different? Sometimes you realise that the sense of wonder you felt is actually always there and what makes it special is that you don’t need to change it, because maybe it doesn’t want to be changed.

At first it’s easy to read Tales of Symphonia the wrong way, the mainstay elements of Japanese role-playing design are all there. The typical “Chosen One” save the world plot, with the prerequisite twist; the experience and weapon systems; the colourful anime styling; the constant need to level up; the puzzle based dungeons and lots of non-interactive cutscenes. And most of all, a long, involved playtime. Around eighty hours to be exact. Although you can rush through in just over sixty, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Like your favourite armchair…

The difference is that Tales of Symphonia loves these contrivances, and treats them with loving care, instead of using them as the crude building blocks of mediocre copycat gaming. In every case it takes its player’s expectations and fulfils them, making its familiarity comfortable instead of plain and stodgy.

And beyond being just comfortable, it’s fun. The heart of any Japanese role-player is its battle system and Symphonia’s begins just as straightforward as any other. There is an element of real-time button-pressing action, which allows for hands-on combinations and special attacks, but not at an overwhelming pace. And all of these elements can be automated, in fact, so that most of your party act on their own without any prompting.

It’s only after a few hours of gentle but amusing battles that the amount of options available in combat begins to multiply, allowing for either planned, coordinated attacks or simple health potion overload. Symphonia always offers a simpler, if not easier, option.

Having your cake

But the complexity is there for those who want it, with new abilities and tactical options being added to the game just as soon as you can master the old ones. But the key issue is that the game allows you to pick these elements at your own pace, with most “random” battles being avoidable on the world map and even in dungeons.

The dungeons are a similar triumph, they manage to maintain atmosphere while integrating puzzles into the plot far better than most other Japanese role-playing games - unlike the Sphere Temples of Final Fantasy X, for example. The environment practically tricks you into manipulating it, all the while convincing you that you’re discovering secrets without being too obtuse about it.

The Great Leveller

The gentle nudge of the plot maintains the pace, again, predictably but with enough of a sense of drama to carry its strong points. The graphics have a childish charm, with effective use of cel shading creating an effective storybook feel. At times this makes some scenes look simplistic but when it works, a real sense of grandeur does come across. The only jarring element is that the characters’ often child-like appearance sometimes seems at odds with the events they take part in. But the visual designs have enough charm to entertain and the simple bold style makes the game’s few shocks that much more shocking. After all, who could think a wide-eyed child could commit murder?

It’s that sense of wonder again. Sometimes the things that reach our childish impressionability are the childish things themselves, and if we finally did get our games that conformed to our every mature feeling and were a perfect extension of ourselves, they’d feel so serious, so pretentious, that they wouldn’t be games anymore.

Bring the Chosen of Mana to the Tower of Salvation, etc…

The characters may be a collection of typical role-playing clichés, but the combat system allows the player to control any one of them directly, which means there is no need to feel hopelessly tied to the fate of one character during gameplay, even if the plot sometimes dictates otherwise. These divergences actually make it easier for the player to identify with all of the characters, and serves to give more impact to their fates in the course of the story, even the ones with less dialogue.

And there is a great deal of dialogue. Including hours of optional “skits” which represent banter between characters. Again, you can completely skip the bulk of these sequences, but if you end up caring about the cast, you’ll want to read more.
Not that the plot twists are exceptionally clever or even well hidden, but they are fleshed out enough to be satisfying. There are some internal sci-fi/fantasy hoops to run through in the plot, but they at least have internal consistency.

Play Away

It’s a case of playing “let’s pretend” and its fun because we know it’s a game, and don’t have to take it any more seriously than we need to in order to play. A couple of knowing references some of the characters make go out of their way to remind everyone involved that you’re not meant to forget you’re playing a game. You love watching your characters level up and gain new skills, remember? That’s why you’re playing.

The huge overworld that you wander through is also beguiling in the sense of freedom it creates, even when you’re just backtracking. There will be times when you will stop to pursue a side quest, only to find when you’re done that the plot intended for you to be there all along. Thankfully, the game keeps providing you with new means of transportation to cross large distances, carefully keeping the game from crossing the line from epic to dull.

A Grand Symphony

Everything about Tales of Symphonia shows careful planning, breaking routine just enough to amuse but never making unfair demands on the player. Perhaps the only questionable aspect might be the length, but given the game’s pacing and the gradual addition of new elements, characters and locations to the gameplay, this never becomes a drudge, especially with a cleverly designed “Synopsis” option that summarises the main elements of the story and key quest locations.

For everyone who used to love Japanese role-playing games, and perhaps has forgotten why, Tales of Symphonia reminds us of how these elements can work, by making them all combine in a concert and harmony that seems almost symphonic itself.