Symphonia of the Night

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:10 pm

I'm just about to finish Symphonia, and while of course there's a slew of stupid-hard extra stuff I'm not going to bother with, I still wrung a solid 90 hours out of it. The game as a whole came as quite a pleasant surprise to me, though there are a couple of major issues that I think keep it from becoming a classic the caliber of Grandia or Skies.

There are a couple of seemingly subtle adjustments to the combat that catapult it far and away beyond anything the Tales series had achieved prior. The addition of a third dimension makes it much easier to target a specific enemy and keep track of him. Plus the AI now actually feels like AI. Though you only have control over a single character at any given time, for the most part, you can count on your teammates to react more intelligently than the mindless slashing puppets they were in previous Tales games. Refill/Raine, the healer, knows she's useless for combat and will spend most of her time running from the melee to cast healing spells based on how much damage your party has taken. Melee slashers such as Regal and Presea will automatically head for any enemies casting spells in an attempt to stop their incantation. The only character I ever had trouble keeping under control was Shiina, who piddles through TP like it's okay and enjoys wasting her summon spells at the most inappropriate times.

The story starts off extremely formulaic, but well-played nonetheless. Most of it's pretty predictable, though there are still a couple of curve balls here and there. I felt it started getting a little out-of-hand around the time I was able to travel back and forth between the two worlds, and I started losing track of who was who and what was going on around that point. Despite the old-school, simple charm the story starts out with, its fifth grade philosophies get really irritating later on. "There's no meaning in death, that's why you have to live!" "I can't believe I failed to notice it before now, but you're right." It really just gets corny, despite the light-hearted cartoon look. In some situations, characters don't even seem to act accordingly. Colette gets kidnapped so many times she could give Princess Peach a run for her money, and it's a plot device that shouldn't be used more than once or twice in a single game. Worse, your characters never react as though it's the fucking bazillionth time that stupid blond gets her ass carted off by the bad guys. I swear they used the exact same dialogue every time it happened.

Some of the later dungeons are also a bit over the top. The stupid wind riding dungeon and the shadow dungeon in particular had me frothing at the mouth screaming for salvation. Those puzzles were just flat-fuck annoying.

The characters have more presence and are more memorable than previous iterations. And again, while I don't think it's appropriate to dub a foreign game, regardless of cultural context or lack thereof, most of the characters are pretty well acted. (Most of them.) There's also a "friendship point" system that determines certain events later in the game, though it still didn't award me enough opportunity to mack on my beloved Shiina. (Shiina, incidentally, seems to be the only character in the game with boobies, female or otherwise. I thought Zelos was a chick until I heard him speak.) It's also interesting that, later on, you can acquire additional costumes for each character. That's pretty unusual for an RPG, but welcome.

Though the game has a bad habit of going cheeseball just when it matters, it's delightfully conscious of itself on the sidelines. There's a giant GameCube model that controls a mechanism in one of the early dungeons, and Pac-Man serves as the identifying icon for every village inn. If you spend a particularly long amount of time in any one dungeon, Lloyd begins whining that he's sick of it (which usually mirrors your own thoughts at the moment). My personal favorite was while revisiting a certain dungeon. Usually, the game offers a "Quick Jump" option for dungeons you've already completed, so you can travel back and forth between areas without slogging through the dungeon again. In this one instance the option wasn't offered due to a story event that takes place within the dungeon, and while hacking your way to that point, Lloyd whines that they should've been offered a Quick Jump option. Then the other characters are all like, "Quick Jump? What?" And Lloyd's like, "Nothing, nevermind."

So it's got some problems, but it's far and away the best game yet in the Tales series, and is only the second good RPG on the GameCube (and the first that wasn't already released on Dreamcast). Oh, and incase I hadn't mentioned it:

<img src="http://www.namco-ch.net/talesofsymphoni ... shihna.gif">
<img src="http://www.openjp.com/inaprincehotel/im ... rt_ani.gif">

plasticwingsband · Post by **plasticwingsband** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 10:18 pm

Did you happen to get any of the alternative costumes? My personal favorite is Presea's Klonoa outfit.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:00 pm

Yeah, I got a bunch of them. My favorite is Shiina's red swimsuit. I guess that's about as sexy as a woman with the figure of a 3-inch tall Kubrick toy can get. Her evening gown's also pretty hot.

WhoopA · Post by **WhoopA** » Wed Sep 01, 2004 11:25 pm

Sounds like this is a game I should get.

Oh, and Gibs? I should hurt you for the front page "rabbit that balances takiyaki on its head." (Go read past news.)

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 6:58 am

Nobody seems to get that. Evidently it's not as famous as I thought.

Post by **Delphine** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 9:07 am

Well, there's the <a href="http://dontfeedthewriter.com/11t/Bunnyp ... jpg">bunny with a pancake on its head</a>, but other than that, you've lost me.

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:12 pm

It's the same rabbit. Do a Google image search for "taiyaki".

I can't begin to imagine who decided to do that and why they thought it was worth taking pictures of.

Post by **Delphine** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:51 pm

Ohhh, okay. I guess the taiyaki one isn't so popular, seeing as how no one knows what taiyaki <i>is</i>. Pancakes are a bit more familiar.

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 4:58 pm

I know of Taiyaki, but only because there was a Tamgotchi who was based on a taiyaki in Umi no Tamagotchi.

By the way, for anyone who can dig up the actual character biographies on the Tamagotchi characters - you're in for a bizarre read. For instance, the dung beetle Tamagotchi seems to lead an interesting life. As does the insane one who thinks he's a superhero.

And who can forget Oyajitchi? A drunken, middle-aged, balding, lecherous virtual pet.

But the punchline is that in the American version - he was replaced by a Bill Clinton Tamagotchi.

As far as I can tell, the only difference in personality is that Billgotchi also likes to play the saxaphone.

*rimshot*

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 7:32 pm

So, uh... what did he name the tree?

Zeta · Post by **Zeta** » Thu Sep 02, 2004 8:34 pm

Pagen-tree?

Post by **Green Gibbon!** » Fri Sep 03, 2004 1:16 am

Pagen-tree?

SHORYUKEN!

The Scarlet Scorpion · Fri Sep 03, 2004 3:23 am

Green Gibbon! wrote:It's the same rabbit. Do a Google image search for "taiyaki".

I can't begin to imagine who decided to do that and why they thought it was worth taking pictures of.

Oh, so it's like a pancake. Oh.

I'd been meaning to ask you what it was. At first I was torn between a raw fish and one half of a set of falsies.

I also have to wonder if hedgehog eyelids turn colors as they age, or maybe it's just make-up?

Speaking of make-up and faux breasts, Tina Russell, a.k.a. D-H Master, is doing fine (I sent her an E-mail a while back, and she sent me one back, which I need to respond to -- I'm hoping to lure her back to her old favorite "StH" site). So, anyone want me to tell her something for them (such as Bobadole's unsightly fate)?

EDIT: I added something. And now I'm going to bed...