Summary: This game was definitely a contender for one of my favorite titles in 2004. I played it twice through and plan to go back through it a third time later this year. The hybrid RPG/action means fighting battles is so much more than \"Attack\", \"Defend\", \"Run\"... and it works so well.

The Tales series has been doing this for a long time, although it's often only doing it in Japan -- taking an epic RPG and turning it into something you feel so much more involved in, because you're actually fighting every battle yourself, rather than simply instructing your characters. Namco's been doing it awhile, and their experience shows in Symphonia.

You control one character and the rest are either on computer control or can be commanded on-the-fly. And the AI is actually intelligent... a major departure from typical RPG AI. There's also an option for a friend to plug in a controller and control a secondary character, but this works very poorly because the camera simply follows the first player, leaving the secondary character offscreen far too often. Despite that setback, this is probably the first RPG I've played where I wouldn't have minded running out into the field battling monsters all day, and that's saying something.

The story doesn't diverge all that much from your standard RPG fare, but it's still well-told and well-written. One of the more interesting facets of the story is how your interaction with characters at certain points affects their friendship levels with the main character, and the story is adapted (albeit minimally) to that effect. It really lends a sense of realism to the story, since the character you like the best will actually bond with your main character.

The game is definitely of epic length; the box advertises 80 hours but my first playthrough was 60. The second playthrough, in which I went to go do all the stuff I missed the first time, added another 50 hours. The story and writing were excellent and conveyed a lot of the character humor well. The voices needed some work, though... it was very clear that some voices were recorded separately, for instance. They just weren't playing off each other.

Ultimately, an excellent game, and well worth a purchase.

Summary: I didn't really buy the game, but i've borrowed my roomate's and have clocked a good 50 hours of playtime so far.

In general the game's story is ok, but nothing spectacular. The voice acting for some characters is lackluster and annoying (Colette), while others like Kratos are pretty decent (Same voice actor as liquid snake in MGS by the way). Being able to control all the characters is a plus and they all play differently. The ability to play 4 player battles is fun as well, though the spellcasters may not have much fun because the spellcasting system is quite boring. In other words, Casting a spell takes a long time. The action in real-time cutscenes are sometimes laughable in thier presentation, but that's pretty standard. The music overall is nice and matches the atmosphere of thier respective environments without flaw. The dungeon puzzles are kind of annoying sometimes, but that may be a personal bias because I am not a big puzzle game fan. The fighting is much more fun than other traditional RPG's with the random battles and turn based combat. The cooking aspect of the game seems to have little real good necessity use and didnt really have to be in the game at all. On that topic alot of the quests in the game seem to do nothing more than flesh out plot which is ok, but sometimes I like a little reward for completing a quest. Also some of the minigames are just plain annoying. For example in one minigame, in an seemingly innocent game of green light, red light, the \"demonic children\" sadistically use extreme dirty tactics which makes it hair-pullingly fustrating. However the minigames are not required and perhaps the single annoying minigame has skewed my perspective overall. However I found this entire game worth playing and the game seems to be quite considerate in certain instances to not make you walk long distances for no reason (ie suikoden III). All in all I would recommend this game to any RPG fan and I would invite any other gamers to give it a try.

Breakdown:
Graphics: 8.7
Music: 8.5
Control/Gameplay: 9
Length/Replay: 8

OVERALL: 8.5

Summary: The Gamecube has been lacking a truly brilliant RPG up until now. Thankfully, Tales of Symphonia will alleviate the pain of GC RPG fans by introducing a game that is simply fantastic in every respect. The cel-shaded graphics are beautiful and well animated and really breathe life into the game world. The music of the game is excellent -- every composition just feels right for the part of the game where it's placed and every composition is pleasing to the ears. The combat system of the game makes this an RPG that plays like a fighting game which works really really well and keeps encounters fresh throughout this long, 40+ hour quest. The storyline throughout this quest is also very good as it includes many plot twists and a lot of character development. Gamecube owners couldn't ask for a better game.