Difficulty:

Very Easy

Time Spent:

40 to 100 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Highly addictive"

Role-playing games have certain rules they tend to abide by: a level-up system, a long story (preferably with good writing), and some form of combat system to make the first rule relevant. Tales of Symphonia follows the first and third rules but, unfortunately, falls victim to a cliche-ridden story with predictable plot twists. Regardless of the story, Symphonia still manages to present itself as a wonderful blend of action and role-playing that stands out from the crowd in the departments of art design and multiplayer.

The story of Tales of Symphonia certainly suffers from plenty of cliches but, at the same time, there are plenty of story elements to prevent the entirety of the narrative from being confusing. One major point in Symphonia's favor is that the story has excellent pacing, revealing enough information in the beginning to avoid in media res and providing new hints toward future plot points in small, easy-to-understand amounts. That being said, one glaring weakness in Symphonia's story is the by-the-books way everything unfolds. Even casual RPG players will notice which direction the story will take, making twists obvious in the process. Perhaps if the writing were more subtle this could have been avoided, but anyone who has played games in the Final Fantasy series will certainly be treading familiar narrative ground.

What saves Symphonia's story is the consistently good voice acting that keeps the story emotional enough to care about what's going on but, at the same time, will not make the experience stick with you long after it has ended. Dashes of humor every now and then (usually through small events called "Z Skits") give a little more personality to the characters as well, making Symphonia more than bearable to anyone looking for an RPG with a decent story.

A unique aspect of Symphonia is the combat system. Instead of using a turn-based system a la Final Fantasy, Symphonia uses an action-driven flow that allows each player to act on their own simultaneously without constantly being required to sift through menus to select a command. Allowing each character to hot key actions for immediate use allows players to go through battles with few hang-ups. On the other hand, the AI for enemies is fairly sub-par, succumbing to a few different types of moves before they even have a chance to attack. The fairly poor AI is even worse when the player gains a knack for knowing which moves will always work, making battles more of a minor annoyance than an actual challenge. On the other hand, being able to avoid the battles due to enemies being visible in the field (and having to touch them to initiate combat) counters this, although avoiding combat for an extended period of time will make future boss battles a real pain.

Speaking of unique components, the ability to have up to four players participate in battle simultaneously adds a great deal of depth to the combat system. Cooperating with buddies is certainly better than trying to pre-program AI partners (though there never seems to be a penalty for ignoring that feature due to the game's low difficulty) and adds immense replay value for those who have friends who enjoy fighting through an RPG while also experiencing a lengthy story. By setting characters to "Manual", players will be able to hot key actions to certain buttons like everyone else and, in all likelihood, will make battles much easier than they already are. However, playing cooperatively can become tiring given the samey nature of the battles which makes Symphonia good in small doses in the realm of multiplayer.

In all, Tales of Symphonia has a sub-par story that is saved by consistently good voice acting and occasional dashes of humor. Combat (albeit lacking challenge) is enjoyable, and multiplayer is a blast in short sessions. If you own either a Gamecube or a Wii and enjoy a decent RPG every now and then, Tales of Symphonia is worth checking out.