An entertaining but slightly easy game
I had a lot of fun with Tales of Symphonia. It's a very very long rpg, in fact it's the longest Japanese RPG i've played since Xenogears. It's also very fast paced and dynamic, using the typical Tales battle system which feels more like a fighting game than an RPG.
The only real problem with the gameplay is that the game is a a tad bit too easy, especially compared to the previous Tales games I played, namely Tales of Phantasia (which Tales of Symphonia is a prequel to) and Tales of Destiny II. Those games were pretty hard at points, but ToS is easy as cake. Also, the fact that the game is easy makes the options of choosing the strategy of the AI controlled characters pretty useless, I left them at the "do whatever you want" setting all game long and never had to change it. In the previous Tales games, you absolutely had to tell the AI what to do. So, is it a side-effect of improvements in the AI? I don't know, but it sure makes the game easy.
The graphics are pretty good, but they really overuse that blurry effect that the gamecube is so known for. Sometimes the whole screen looks blurry and it can really be a detriment to the visual quality of the game. But overall, great looking game.
There's a whole bunch of good music in this game, especially the fighting themes which are really well made. It's a throwback to the music we used to have in Snes rpg's, more on melody than orchestration.
The voice acting is exceptionally well done. All in all, great sound for this game.
Like I said earlier, this game is very very long, and if you start doing every sidequests there is...it becomes just plain insane. Personally though, I thought the story dragged a bit near the end, they could have cut a good 10 hours of playing time and it would have only made the story better. But you can't argue the value of a long game, especially since you can find ToS for pretty cheap nowadays.
In the end, ToS was a very entertaining game, my only gripes really being that the game is too easy and that it is too long. The length dilutes the storyline, taking away some of its impact. The story also isn't the most amazing one ever, but the personality of the characters more than makes up for it. All in all, a great game.
