Tales of Symphonia

It's a good thing that Namco ultimately decided to bring Tales of Symphonia to North America. One of the best RPGs to come out in awhile, TOS is an all around fantastic game that's well worth your while.

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 upon conspiracy. Truth be told, the game's most noticeable flaw is that the story itself is filled with cliché RPG 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's in gameplay that Tales shines, however. Like any RPG, you have your overworld, your dungeons and your villages to buy stuff. Random battles are a thing of the past, as now you can see representations of monsters on the screen and like in Chrono Trigger, you can choose to walk by or fight. Naturally, you can't skip every fight lest you risk not leveling up enough to move on, but it takes the stress and annoyance out of random battles. It also helps that you have an item called the Sorcerer’s ring that shoots a ball of fire that can freeze enemies should you decide not to fight.

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 onto 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 are 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 side quests 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.