Board 8 > Tales of Symphonia

(+) Yeah! (+)

i lied it's actually hot
pancake time!
not the face!
no it's not yes it is no it's not
sorry sorry sorry sorry sorry

FF10
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10 ez
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Like a 7.5 or 8.

Great RPG but it's outdone in every conceivable way by other games in the series, which leads to me not looking back on it quite as fondly.
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NBIceman posted...

Like a 7.5 or 8.

Great RPG but it's outdone in every conceivable way by other games in the series, which leads to me not looking back on it quite as fondly.

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10/10

In my all time top 5 games
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Probably a 7. Maybe 7.5 if I'm feeling nice. Good game but even in its own series it has ended up outclassed pretty dramatically.
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Was a 9, now closer to a 7.5 given time and... Abyss and Xillia.

Still a great game for its time, but outdone by two later ones that have improved mechanics, more characters I like, and better world-building.
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probably like a strong 8 or a light 9 for me

there's a couple gameplay hitches and the story is merely serviceable but the amount of nostalgia and enjoyment i still get from the characters brings it up

When it came out that thing was a ten, but with Abyss, Vesperia, and Berseria, it a game I can't really stand to go back to. 7/10 being generous considering it's age. Just happened to be a bad age.
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10/10

best Tales game I've played and one of the best playable casts in any JRPG
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yeah i will say that it's one of the few(?) JRPGs where i like all the characters

not sure if that's just them growing on me over playing the game so many times but yeah i like them all at least a decent amount

I still love Symphonia. Replayed the PS3 release recently and it still gets a 10 from me. And I'm pretty stingy with 10s on the whole.
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I didn't like the PS3 remaster, nerfed Devil Arms :(
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Man, I tried really hard to play that PS3 version.

I knew something was wrong after like 3 battles.
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there were a lot of aspects that got a shoddy makeover and it's evident they didn't really care much about it. like the English Audio for the new Unison attacks. and the fact that the trophy for getting all titles for Zelos is listed as "Harlem Master"

like nobody checked that.

i guess i'm still glad NA got the updated version at least.

Realize I'm probably still blocked so can someone ask LapisLazuli what the problem realized with the PS3 remaster was after 3 battles. Like I could definitely believe something was amiss as I had like 10 years between playthroughs but just curious what was.
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IIRC, GCN was 60 FPS and PS3 was 30. Don't know if that was the issue though.
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i think he's referring to the framerate? it was a "pretty big deal" that it was locked at 30fps for some people

Ah yeah I could definitely see that mattering. FPS is one of those things I won't notice under normal conditons but if I play at higher FPS and drop to lower with less than 10 years between play sessions it's night and day
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Uh, no, you're not blocked.

The problem I realized was that after playing newer entries in the series Symphonia just wasn't fun to play. It feels bad.

Aged poorly would be the simplest way to put it.
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Oh.

Well I was blocked at some point. Whatever.
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Speaking of FPS and aging poorly the only game I really go to that with is Goldeneye 007, which has hideous FPS for a FPS, so after playing FPS with FPS, it doesn't feel good to play.

But I'm not some crazy Tales fan either. I have an unfinished Abyss,Vesperia, Legendia, and Phantasia under my belt, and as someone who has only played parts of those Symphonia still kicks ass

Will play some of the newer ones soon though.
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Symphonia was 8.5 when it came out, and time has made it 7.5 since it hasn't aged well.
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Still my favorite until Berseria unseated it.
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I feel like many of the things people say about Symphonia "not aging well" were awkward back when the game came out, too.
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Symphonia's character models look atrocious in motion at 30 fps.

I mean, you could argue they look atrocious at 60 fps, but it's way, way worse at 30.
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LeonhartFour posted...

I feel like many of the things people say about Symphonia "not aging well" were awkward back when the game came out, too.

GCN had no RPGs though!

When I think back to when I really got into RPGs I think Symphonia was pretty instrumental in that. SMRPG was the first I played and I loved it more than is healthy as a kid but somehow it was a one off thing.

I think Symphonia/Fire Emblem/Golden Sun started to push me into RPGs and then I got a PS2 in like 2007 and never left. >_>
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i guess i don't mind as much when things "age poorly" if i've played it at the time. like i can still go back to Pokemon Red/Blue and not mind all the stuff you have to do like opening the menu for bike/changing PCs and whatever.

i'm actually probably too averse to playing new games and new systems.

The 30 FPS thing is why I never bothered with the HD port. If I want to replay it, I'll just emulate it on Dolphin. Would probably look almost as good.
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I had a GC and PS2 so access to other jrpgs did not devalue ToS for me at least

it was solid and still is
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xp1337 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

I feel like many of the things people say about Symphonia "not aging well" were awkward back when the game came out, too.

GCN had no RPGs though!

Well, I see some of the same things said about FFVII not aging well, like people weren't making fun of the Popeye character models in 1997.

Some of the cutscenes in Symphonia were just as awkward back then, too.
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LeonhartFour posted...

Some of the cutscenes in Symphonia were just as awkward back then, too.

what is this ominous post that threatens to engulf us
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LeonhartFour posted...

I feel like many of the things people say about Symphonia "not aging well" were awkward back when the game came out, too.

The biggest thing for me is the battle system, which absolutely wasn't awkward when it first came out.
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And yeah, personally while I think ToS hasn't aged well in some aspects, I wouldn't hold up most other Tales games as examples of how to do it better. The gameplay has been outdone but the characters, story, and music are still better than everything else in the series. Symphonia's plot is cheesy but it's well-paced and never really falters. It's characters are fairly simple but universally likable. Music is just plain better, I don't really like any of the other Tales soundtrack honestly. They're iffy.

Except for Berseria, which is excluded from everything I just said. Berseria is really good, you guys.
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xp1337 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Some of the cutscenes in Symphonia were just as awkward back then, too.

what is this ominous post that threatens to engulf us

I take that quote over literally any scene in Abyss involving Phonons
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About a 7. Might change that score if I ever go back and finish it.

It's fine. I remember liking Kratos. Sometimes the humor is a bit much. I don't particularly love the way it handles dungeons or the combat system. It's not that any of that is bad, it's just a bit methodical and dull - the combos felt pretty repetitive when I played. A lot of RPGs have that problem, to be fair to the game.

NBIceman posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

I feel like many of the things people say about Symphonia "not aging well" were awkward back when the game came out, too.

The biggest thing for me is the battle system, which absolutely wasn't awkward when it first came out.

I dunno. I played the PS3 port and didn't have any major issues with it.

Spamming special moves as Lloyd still works like a charm.
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Lloyd is still probably the most fun main character in the series to play.
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Characters, story, and music were all beaten as soon as Abyss tbqh! Xillia 2 got the first two again. And as you mention, Berseria as well (maybe not music though)
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KamikazePotato posted...

xp1337 posted...

LeonhartFour posted...

Some of the cutscenes in Symphonia were just as awkward back then, too.

what is this ominous post that threatens to engulf us

I take that quote over literally any scene in Abyss involving Phonons

Yeah, how dare an RPG try to worldbuild? Technobabble amirite?
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7. It was a good game and I liked it a lot when I played it, but most of the games in its series are better and it really shows its age if you play it now, especially if you've played the newer games.
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NBIceman posted...

Yeah, how dare an RPG try to worldbuild? Technobabble amirite?

there's a difference between world building and word salad overload
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Maybe it should've done a better job at worldbuilding.

I haven't played Xillia 2 or Zestiria, but from what I've heard I'll revoke the music claim because Zestiria has some pretty good tunes.
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KamikazePotato posted...

Lloyd is still probably the most fun main character in the series to play.

I switched to Guy the first chance I got in Abyss since he plays so much like him.
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To this day I never found all the fonon talk hard to follow. =/
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Haven't played in ages.

I want to say 8.5, it was a fun game.
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Abyss story was a joke compared to Tales of Fantasy 10
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I mean I don't think it's hard to follow, per se, it's just their insistence on having so much made up terminology
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KamikazePotato posted...

Zestiria, but from what I've heard I'll revoke the music claim because Zestiria has some pretty good tunes.

I wouldn't! Maybe if the whole OST was the Go Shiina songs instead of just like 6 of them. >_>

Tales OSTs I'd take over Symphonia are probably Abyss and Vesperia and that's about it.
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