kinda old but....was tales of symphonia underrated??

[zidart]

well in my personal opinion this is my favorite game ever...
why? 5 main reasons

story - many plot twists, from CD one trough CD 2 always plot twists and the story is not confusing at all

gameplay- a very weird combination of fighting games with RPG's though the mix is very good, and the character customization system is complicated at the beginning though once you get it you'll see that there are many way's for character development (either T or S characters, you got the exphere gems also you can change the AI of some characters to make them support/long-rage/close combat fighters etc etc) though it might not have the same flavor of job system as FF games but is still a very solid way to develop characters, also the dungeons offer some difficulty and very well created puzzles. boss battles are just hack and slash/heal all you can in normal difficulty but in mania mode you might wanna try to evade or block more often and try to create an strategy to beat the boss
lenght- the main story of the game without using a guide is about 64 hours and that's without the multiple sidequests that the game features (wich are not really repetitive)

replay value- this game has 2 different endings... tough there are some thing that might differ depending of the way you make develop the relationships between the main character and other ones (lloyd irving being the main character) also there are parts of the game that are non-linear (the quest for the summon spirits) and the dungeons offer some difficulty and very well created puzzles

co-op- maybe the main reason i played this game about 6 or 7 times already... i played this game first by myself... then with my girlfriend and her cousins, then with my sister and my cousins, then with some friends, then i moved to another city made more friends and played yet again and right now i'm playing with my big sister and her boyfriend. (in other words: this game + 3 more playes + a gaming party = UP ALL NIGHT) and the best thing is that they don't have to be hardcore gamers or RPG fans, this is the only RPG that my family was willing to play (but yet again the game is quite hard don't understimate it)

the only flaws i find in this game well is the camera during 4 players battles but that can be easily solved by using the semi-auto system (wich allows you to get you directly to your enemy when you press A) or you can use a long-ranged character get to the edge of the stage and that will make the camera zoom out so every player can see what they're doing. also the other issue (and probably the biggest one) is voice acting... in 2 british words UTTERLY GHASTLY (did i spelled it right??) but you can turn it off everytime you want (though i never did it because the people i played with didn't liked to read a lot)

and finally my point (few that was kinda long) i think this game is really underrated here on the US (is very popular on japan) adn like fire emblem because is an JRPG but seriously that doesn't make it a bad game, in fact even non-rpg players would enjoy it, give it a chance and it won't dissapoint you (plus the game should cost about 12$ right now). feel free to post your opinion.

PS- i came from another country where the game was really popular and when i came here there were few gamers that even played it that's why i ask all this

[tloz998]

i give you 1 high five and 5 agreements with what you said

[Relambrien]

In before Squeek and "Tales of the Abyss is superior"

Its hype pretty much matched its value, at least I believe so. It wasn't anything like Halo 3 or FFXII on the hype scale, but it was up there. Likewise, it was a very good game, nothing totally outstanding blow-you-away, but very up there. Perhaps slightly overrated, but not by much.

Tales of the Abyss on the other hand...extremely underrated. At least on par with Symphonia, not nearly as much popularity.

[Squeek]

All RPG franchises in America are underrated with the exception of one of the worst ones: Final Fantasy.

If you look at the sales ratio between the best RPG that isn't Final Fantasy and some generic shooter, you'll see that the generic shooter sells hundreds of thousands more units.

The only place I know to get sales data for any video game reports that Tales of Symphonia sold about one million copies, half of which were in the States (meaning it sold better here than in Japan). The same site reports 5.5 million copies of Kingdom Hearts and 3.6 million for the sequel (With America once again dominating sales). On the flipside, Final Fantasy XII sold 5 million (fewer than KH), but half of those were in Japan. For the last extreme, look at Dragon Quest 8. Sold 4.5 million with 4.1 million in Japan. There's no American sales data for Tales of the Abyss, but the Japanese sales data puts it at 500,000, which is more than Tales of Symphonia (understandable with the number of PS2s in Japan).

RPGs don't sell. They're always underrated. Even in Japan. It's amazing that the genre still exists. You know what Japan buys?

http://vgchartz.com/japtotals.php

Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.
Pokemon.

Oh, and they also like "Touhoku Daigaku Mirai Kagaku Gijutsu Kyoudou Kenkyuu Center Kawashima Ryuuta Kyouju Kanshuu Motto Nou wo Kitaeru Otona no DS Training". Fun game! 'Course, once I tell you that this is Brain Age 2, it makes more sense.

So back on topic. Yes. In America, not only is the Tales franchise underrated, but all RPGs are underrated with the exception of Final Fantasy. I don't know why Americans eat up Final Fantasy, especially with the multitudes of better RPGs out there that are being translated, and well, at that. None of the shoddy voice acting you hear during Final Fantasy in Tales games. Oh no.

Just makes it that much easier for me to walk into a store and pick up a copy of the next Tales game. Though I usually buy games online anyway. Here's hoping Knight of Ratatosk, the sequel to Tales of Symphonia (though I don't get how that works since Symphonia is a prequel to Phantasia), is actually a good game.

And yes, Tales of the Abyss is better than Symphonia in all but one aspect: story. If Symphonia had Abyss's graphics, gameplay, and combat systems, it would've been the perfect game. Since story and gameplay are the two most important aspects of RPGs and both games have a plus and a minus in opposing columns, it's hard for me to put one over the other, but once I looked back on Symphonia, I made the decision that Abyss was a much better game. Symphonia looks too kid-ish now that Abyss raised the standard.

Oh, also, because Guy is cooler than all 9 characters from Symphonia. All of them.

Edit: Just saw some random YouTube video to get a feel for the FF12 battle system, since it was supposed to be realtime and all. It's terrible. I'm glad I never bought it. Though there is one plus. One of the characters in the Japanese FF12 is voiced by the same guy who does Sanji in One Piece.

I've posted this before, but it's very much required here. When a game company talks about realtime battle, it shouldn't mean "menu -> attack -> monster. Swing on monster, run away. Swing on monster, run away." THAT'S WHAT TURN-BASED IS! THIS IS REALTIME: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXGA-fmrQ7Q

[Belgarion]

For some reason I was completely unaware of the existence of Knight of Ratatosk until I read Squeek's post. For someone who's logged quite a few hours on ToS, you think I would know better...

[Squeek]

Namco is quiet about their titles. I never understood why. They're all solid games.

Take Katamari for example. HUGELY POPULAR. They didn't even advertise for it. They never advertise their games.

Along with the press release for Tales of Symphonia 2 was a Tales of Destiny remake on the PS2 and a new Tales for the DS. And some crappy PSP port, but nobody has a PSP anyway so who cares.

Oh, and since there's an Odin Sphere character in your avatar, I guess I should tell you this one too. Vanillaware, the guys who made Odin Sphere, are making a new game for Wii.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboro_Muramasa_Youtouden

[Belgarion]

Originally Posted by Squeek telling me something else I didn't know

Oh, and since there's an Odin Sphere character in your avatar, I guess I should tell you this one too. Vanillaware, the guys who made Odin Sphere, are making a new game for Wii.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oboro_Muramasa_Youtouden

That's great to hear. I don't doubt that we'll be getting Tales of Symphonia 2 before the end of 2008, but with such a vague release date on the new Vanillaware game, I don't think it'll come stateside for some time.

[Aras]

well, here in mexico, tales of symphonia sold well, every friend I knew where I lived had the game or had played it

its a great game but there were certain problems like the camera problem like zidart mentioned before and for me... I didn't like the case that everything was focused on player 1 , I wanted the other players to have the same freedom, for example:

the usage of rheards would be better if any character could move to anywhere on screen



u__u

[bluguerrilla]

After playing Tales of the Abyss I don't know if I can go back to turn based... (except when I replay SNES titles...)

[zidart]

Originally Posted by Aras

well, here in mexico, tales of symphonia sold well, every friend I knew where I lived had the game or had played it

its a great game but there were certain problems like the camera problem like zidart mentioned before and for me... I didn't like the case that everything was focused on player 1 , I wanted the other players to have the same freedom, for example:

the usage of rheards would be better if any character could move to anywhere on screen



u__u

same here... it turns out that in latin countries the gamecube was somewhat more popular than here on the US. (by the way i come from venezuela) in there it was really easy to say "hey do you wanna play tales of symphonia?" and the answer would always be "do we use your file or mine"?

well squeek i guess you are right... maybe i enjoy japanese RPGs likei enjoy anime.... and even though you hate final fantasy (and we differ with that but i don't wanna fight about it) you do make a point when you say "I don't know why Americans eat up Final Fantasy?" even though i love final fantasy and square-enix franchises (because when it comes to RPG's character development and story is more important for me than the gameplay itself wich is obviously turn-based) i cannot understand why does games like this one don't get as much popularity because it doesn't have the name final fantasy or is made by square-enix. (even crystal chronicles sold 1.36 millions and in my opinion it was a good game but i don't think is better than ToS...in fact is very far from it)

sadly i have not played tales of abyss..... and i don't think i would enjoy it as much as i did with symphonia, because i don't have a multitap for the ps2 and i will only be able to play with my old friends every summer (since now i live in the US) not like i used to do when i was there.... i might you know play with my new friends but i don't think it would be the same experience, though i will buy abyss as soon as i can.

PS- i agree with FFXII battle system not being real time...seriously is a turn based game without random battles... and when some hardcore final fantasy fans say "i hated the gameplay" i can yet to ask them "but... is a disguised turn-based game". but anyway i still liked final fantasy XII (and i'm planning to buy revenant wings for the nintendo DS too)