Brass Monkey
September 1st, 2004, 03:42 AM
After ~70 hours and a lot of late nights, I've finally finished the newest in the Tales series. Gamecube owners can rejoice to finally have an excellent RPG to get lost in... as any gamer knows, RPG games for Nintedo's current and last console have been far and few in between.
Symphonia is a great game and I'm probably going to log another 70 hours into it so I can go through and get all the stuff I missed the first time around (some sites I've come across hint that to get 100% of everything in the game, about 3-4 times through is needed). Everything from the storyline, to the artwork and character development is very well done.
The story isn't much different at first from what many RPGers are used to... tree of mana, impending doom of the world, 'chosen' one set out to save existance... etc. However there ended up being a good deal of plot twists and sidequests that really added to the story and life of the game. Although this is more than just an RPG, there is a good amount of action to boot. Also the ability to fight any of the battles with 1-4 people is a cool feature to have.
The artwork of the game is also very pleasing to watch... between the cell shading and the cutscenes, the game has a nice overall anime feeling. Many spells when cast will light up the screen (and your enemies) with an array of colors and cool effects. And about the cutscenes... actual cinematic scenes are few and are only for depecting the MAJOR events and plot curves, which I actually like a lot better than having pointless CG cutscenes every 5 minuts *cough*Final Fantasy*cough.* This allows for more space on the disks for actual voice clips for all of the important dialogue and just more stuff in the game overall.
The outcome of the game is mostly related to how you act towards the other members of your party and their feelings toward you. It seems fairly insignificant at first, but way later in the game you might find out how much it can change how things are played.
Techniques and tactics also play a vital role in how well you'll fight. You have command buttons which you can assign how you want each character to act when that command is activated (I had one command titled as 'Oh Shit' and had all my characters fall back and use their magic and healing effects in full force). Also charactes can be either a tactical or strike fighter... which basically means what techniques will be learned, but that can also be changed at will and you can forget the techniques of the one set and learn the other so you aren't stuck with one thing for the whole game... you can experiment and find out what you like best.
I actually first beat the game in 60 hours, but I discovered a hidden level when I went back and loaded a gamefile from right before the final fight of the game... the one level and a small handful of other quests added 10 more hours to it... and I know there is still stuff I haven't done. I find this to be very refreshing and worth the money I paid seeing as most games these days I can beat in 20-30 hours (Need for Speed Underground, Tony Hawk Underground, NFL Street, Prince of Persia).
I wish I had 2 more hands so I could give this game 4 thumbs up.
Symphonia is a great game and I'm probably going to log another 70 hours into it so I can go through and get all the stuff I missed the first time around (some sites I've come across hint that to get 100% of everything in the game, about 3-4 times through is needed). Everything from the storyline, to the artwork and character development is very well done.
The story isn't much different at first from what many RPGers are used to... tree of mana, impending doom of the world, 'chosen' one set out to save existance... etc. However there ended up being a good deal of plot twists and sidequests that really added to the story and life of the game. Although this is more than just an RPG, there is a good amount of action to boot. Also the ability to fight any of the battles with 1-4 people is a cool feature to have.
The artwork of the game is also very pleasing to watch... between the cell shading and the cutscenes, the game has a nice overall anime feeling. Many spells when cast will light up the screen (and your enemies) with an array of colors and cool effects. And about the cutscenes... actual cinematic scenes are few and are only for depecting the MAJOR events and plot curves, which I actually like a lot better than having pointless CG cutscenes every 5 minuts *cough*Final Fantasy*cough.* This allows for more space on the disks for actual voice clips for all of the important dialogue and just more stuff in the game overall.
The outcome of the game is mostly related to how you act towards the other members of your party and their feelings toward you. It seems fairly insignificant at first, but way later in the game you might find out how much it can change how things are played.
Techniques and tactics also play a vital role in how well you'll fight. You have command buttons which you can assign how you want each character to act when that command is activated (I had one command titled as 'Oh Shit' and had all my characters fall back and use their magic and healing effects in full force). Also charactes can be either a tactical or strike fighter... which basically means what techniques will be learned, but that can also be changed at will and you can forget the techniques of the one set and learn the other so you aren't stuck with one thing for the whole game... you can experiment and find out what you like best.
I actually first beat the game in 60 hours, but I discovered a hidden level when I went back and loaded a gamefile from right before the final fight of the game... the one level and a small handful of other quests added 10 more hours to it... and I know there is still stuff I haven't done. I find this to be very refreshing and worth the money I paid seeing as most games these days I can beat in 20-30 hours (Need for Speed Underground, Tony Hawk Underground, NFL Street, Prince of Persia).
I wish I had 2 more hands so I could give this game 4 thumbs up.