I realize that not many people bought the Gamecube and compared to its competitors the Xbox and the PS2 it didn't sell anywhere near as many consoles and therefore games but I am one of those people that immediately purchased it on released date because I am a huge fan of Nintendo and their exclusive titles. Tales of Symphonia was one of those games that wasn't released on any other system (in the USA)
As a big fan of single-player RPG's this was a dark horse in my world because I had never heard of the series and I presume this was true for most Americans as well. The amount of RPG's available on the Gamecube was pretty lackluster so this release in 2004 was extremely welcome in my book.
.jpg)
It functioned like a lot of other RPG's in that you have a party, find gear for them, go to certain locations and complete quests and dungeons. There were minor differences such as the fact that you establish AI commands for the team mates that you are not directly controlling and they operate on their own in combat. You are only truly in charge of one character during a battle.
This system actually worked really well and your pals would very rarely do something stupid in battle - mostly it was your fault for setting them up wrong. One of the bad things that could happen would be that they would cast spells too often and this would result in them draining their magic points too fast but again, it was up to you to control how often someone heals or assaults using magic.
The world was quite large and your navigation of it changes as time goes on. First on foot, then on a creature called a Noishe, and then later by an airship. Each of these is attacked less frequently - which brings me to the only bad point about this game that I can think of: Random encounters.
Random encounters are the bane of old-school RPGs and what i mean by this is that you can not see your enemy as it approaches you, the screen just changes and now you are in a fight that you couldn't avoid. T.O.S. is one of the last games that I recall that used this tired system and if you weren't exactly certain of where you needed to go it was extremely frustrating and borderline annoying.
Overall, this is one of the best games on the Gamecube in my opinion and there was a sequel that was released on multiple platforms called "Dawn of the New World" and I have never played it. If they have a port for PS4 I may have to rectify that situation very soon.
What do you think? Did you play this game? Did you enjoy it? Does it hold a special place in your mind the way it does mine? The ROM, if you are into that sort of thing, can be found here