Tales of Symphonia (GameCube)

The game itself revolves around a group of people on a mission, including young sword dude Lloyd (who you'll spend most of the game as) and Colette, who has been chosen to become an angel and save the world. However you'll discover that nothing is at it seems and discover apon conspiracy. Truth be told, the game's most noticable flaw is that the story itself is filled with cliche JRPG story elements and characters. You can probably pick out most story twists before they happen. That said, the characters themselves are a great bunch and are quite fleshed out not just in cutscenes but in optional conversations that can happen at any point in the game by pressing the Z button when prompted. These convos involve portraits of the characters talking about various stuff, that can sometimes foreshadow the story or offer hints.

It also helps that the game has a fantastic combat system. Fighting is real time. You control one character (usually and preferably Lloyd. You can choose to fight as anyone, but Lloyd offers ideal moves and abilities.) while the AI controls the other 3 who fight at a time. You attack with sword slashes using the A button and use special tech abilities with the B button. Pressing either button in different directions executes different attacks and you can combo various attacks together, and assign different techs to the B button. The AI behaves accordingly to settings determined from an option screen, but at any point you can give orders to use attacks or items. You basically lock on to a target and all your attacks are aimed at that, and you can jump around or block freely to help your cause. There's a good deal of depth to the fighting, including U-Attacks, elemental damage, and over-limits, that make fighting a joy. After combat, you can cook recipes given to you by wonder chefs around the world to heal a little, provided you have the experience.

When you're not fighting, you're probably exploring the game's dungeons. One of TOS's strong points is that the game has many, many puzzles, with most of them being not too easy but not too frustrating. Just right. The game also provides plenty of great boss fights.There's also various typical RPG landmarks like equipment and experience to deal with. On equipment, you can buy your equipment, or use certain supplies to have a blacksmith make even better tools.

Playing straight through, you can beat the game in 30-40 hours. However, the game has a lot of stuff to do, from recipes to hidden items to a whole lot of sidequests that greatly expand the game. On top of that, you can play through the game again bringing over various attributes determined by your grade (points earned throughout the game.) TOS is a highly recommended RPG that every fan of the genre should check out.

Briefly, the combat system, while a little awkward at first, soon becomes second nature, the story is entertaining and epic (if maybe a little convoluted), the art style fits perfectly and the characters really do provoke emotion from the player. I defy anyone to not develop a soft spot for Colette.

One thing I really must mention is the voice acting. Nothing can ruin the atmosphere of an RPG like bad voice acting and many games suffer from this. Not this one! The voices really are fantastic and fit each character perfectly and it adds such a personal element to them. I just completed the game today after 50 hours play time and the first thing you see when the credits role are a cast list for the voice actors, just like the end of a film. Thats how proud they were and they deserve to be so.

For RPG fans I can't recommend this highly enough, it is ESSENTIAL. It probably won't convert newcomers to the genre, but then if you don't like RPG's you probably wouldn't be looking at this page in the first place.

Graphically, the game is a mixture of 2d and 3d cellshading. However, it works really well. The locations look great. The lighting is superb, and the villages really reflect thier nature by their appearance. The enemies are incredible to look at and the cut scenes are second to none (despite how few there actually is which on the surface isnt all that surprising.)

The gameplay is brilliant. The fighting allows you total control over the AI of the characters you dont control (you can control all of them or none of them, its your choice.) You can decide their strategies in fine detail, i.e. Stay Back, Use Magic until 25% is left, Cure Party. Plus the combat works well. A is a normal attack, B and a direction is a special attack, Y brings up the menu and X is block. It flows so well it will bring a tear to your eye. Not only this, but there is so much to unlock. You can customise your weapons, go on quests to finds the "wonder chef," obtain higher Grades (done in fighting)and of course LEVEL UP YOUR CHARACTERS. Putting it bluntly theres a lot to this game and a lot of hidden depth which doesnt appear until you really get into it.

The sound is truly amazing. Each location has its own score, which reflects the mood and the nature of each location. Its very Sleazy in the slums and particulally jovial in the fun park. What more can i say but WELL DONE NAMCO! This is by far the best RPG on the gamecube to date. Get it. NOW