Tag Archives: RPGs

Tales of Symphonia Text Review and Story Breakdown: Part 1

Originally a script for a video review, so some parts may stick out and, without visual aids, I recommend having played the game already! Note: this is for the original Tales of Symphonia, so if anything changed in the re-release, I haven’t touched on it here.

Quick links to other entries:

Intro
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

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The story in Tales of Symphonia, especially early on, aims toward old-school RPG fans. People who value originality above all may not like it too much, but some of us live for this kind of thing. For the most part, it’s a fun and lighthearted fantasy story–and like with so much classical fantasy (see the Silver Age of comics, Dragonball Z), the story is a little silly (see Batman: The Brave and the Bold, original Dragonball), a little cheesy (Star Wars, Sailor Moon), and even a little self-contradicting, but that’s the beauty of it and it has a big heart in the right place.

If you want to jump on the emotional roller coaster, though, you’ll need to play the game yourself. I’m only here to make fun of what I love. To get 100% completion, you need to finish this game at least three times—and I did that and started noticing certain… things. I’ll take them in the order they come up.

the three mandatory best friends for 100% completion

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1) Colette Brunel Who Now?

It seems like the writers had no idea what to do with Colette’s character. I’m not saying I don’t like her! I like her a lot, but we’ll talk about that later. I’m just saying it seems they wanted to make their heroine appeal to everybody, so they gave her every character trait they could think of even when they conflict with each other. You can tell in the first few minutes if you look for it. Let’s go to examples!

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Tales of Symphonia Text Review and Story Breakdown: Introduction

With the PS3 re-release of this classic RPG on its way in just a couple days, I figured I’d post my satirical review of the story while it’s relevant! One or two updates per week until I’m done with them.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I wrote this script a few years back when replaying Tales of Symphonia, meaning to turn it into a lengthy video review. My heart wasn’t in it when I tried recording, though, because I’m not versed in the language of cinema and video.

That said, no reason to let it go to waste. I may not love making video reviews, but I do love Tales of Symphonia. You’ll just have to use your imagination and memory at some points where clips would have been. =P

My script is incredibly long because the game is incredibly long, so here are the tl;dr takeaways if you want to read something specific:

Part 1: Beginning – Magnius at Palmacosta

  • 1-1: Colette is written unbelievably inconsistently from the first five minutes
  • 1-2: Lloyd gets verbal smackdowns all the time early on and has a chip on his shoulder
  • 1-3: Tales of Symphonia starts a lot like Secret of Mana; also, dat Dragon Quest VII hero design
  • 1-4: Lloyd “stop apologizing, you dork!” Irving actually apologizes more than Colette
  • 1-5: What’s so weird about wings? Foreshadowing?
  • 1-6: The first big heroic deed in Palmacosta raises the classical problem of evil, which secretly raises the classical Münchhausen Trilemma and Cartesian doubt and Humean skepticism and many other things; the game dismisses this pretty quickly, but I don’t

Part 2: Saving Palmacosta – Defeating Kvar

  • 2-7: Lots of standing around during Magnius’ monologue when taking action would have helped
  • 2-8: Lloyd “you’re not allowed to apologize any more” Irving has still apologized more than Colette by the time of the second scene (is this just a translation thing?); also, Noishe is a Pokémon
  • 2-9: Raine “Sage” and “Genius” “Sage” can’t interpret the Book of Regeneration correctly but Colette can
  • 2-10: There is no part 2-10
  • 2-11: Dwarven Vow #11 is secretly the game’s most brilliant foreshadowing; also, turning into an angel seems like a positive
  • 2-12: Only Colette and Sheena are called clumsy but actually the whole party is; in fact, Lloyd even goofs up getting revenge on the guy who killed his mother

Part 3: Post-Kvar Fallout – Tower of Salvation Preparation

  • 3-13: The party is 100% sure that the angel transformation is bad and can be reversed, but neither is necessarily true
  • 3-14: Sheena needs an outfit change if she wants people to assume she’s pure and the Tower of Mana could theoretically have been skipped
  • 3-15: Turning into an angel finally seems negative when Colette loses her voice; meanwhile, Lloyd doesn’t understand that food is important
  • 3-16: Lloyd and Colette aren’t yet shown as heroes, but that makes them heroes all the more
  • 3-17: Colette and death in fiction in general hinge on character appreciation

Part 4: Tower of Salvation – Meltokio Sewers

  • 4-18: Dracula’s got the score on Colette and the entire plot up to this point
  • 4-19: Seven irrefutable proofs that Noishe must be a Pokémon (and the Renegades are bigger bunglers than Team Rocket)
  • 4-20: Girls with red hair are stellar, guys who wear pink are awesome, and Zelos is amazing; also, hints of Lloyd+Sheena (deredere), Colette+Zelos (tsundere), and Genis+Presea (ordinary crush)
  • 4-21: I can’t believe it’s not midi-chlorians and speciesism!
  • 4-22: Zelos is instantly as clumsy as everyone else except Presea and even Symphonia can’t save sewers

Part 5: Meltokio – Rescuing Colette

  • 5-23: Colette/Zelos OTP yo (no, really, they’re eerily parallel characters and honest only with each other)
  • 5-24: Sheena hates fun, Lloyd is tired of human nature, and Presea and Regal are thematically redundant story-wise
  • 5-25: Sheena’s character moves forward in Mizuho, but Rodyle sets up an amazing tee ball for Colette’s character and then nothing happens with it; also, those terrible Regal lines

23 Things Secret of Mana and Tales of Symphonia Share In Common

As noticed by someone who’s played each at least half a dozen times! I’d rank Tales of Symphonia easily in my top ten games of all-time and a lot of that came from how familiar it felt. I truly wonder how much I would have enjoyed it if I hadn’t played Secret of Mana over a decade earlier.

Major spoilers for both games, obviously!

 

  1. They’re action RPGs.

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  2. They’re noted for great soundtracks.

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  3. At least three-player co-op! Now there’s an RPG rarity.

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  4. Both games have a way to break boss battles with stunlock by exploiting quirks of magic animations. In Secret of Mana you can begin casting a second attack spell before the first spell’s animation ends; in Tales of Symphonia you can cancel a casting animation to reset your combo, giving most magic users near-infinite combos. (Tip: It’s easier to get the timing down for Colette and Sheeena than for Kratos, Zelos, or Regal. Raine can technically pull it off too, but it’s much, much tougher.)

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    4 down, 19 to go. And most are infinitely more interesting than the first 4!

Kickstarter Spotlight: Sword of Fargoal 2

In a “why didn’t I think of that?” moment, it was suggested to me that maybe I could do a write-up here about current Kickstarter project Sword of Fargoal 2. You know what? Absolutely. I should have been doing this kind of thing since three months ago. Making an awesome game or prototype is less than half of a success story; marketing is arguably more crucial even in the traditional publishing model, but definitely so in the crowdfunded model. What good would it do anyone if one of the world’s greatest games floats out there in the ether, known only to eight people because it didn’t get needed exposure?

I’ve already been giving advice to Kickstarter creators that they sometimes take (most notably, Two Brothers moved the soundtrack reward down to $25 from $50), but I can do more. Starting today, I begin highlighting any Kickstarter games that I back.

Sword of Fargoal 2

Great Things about the Game

  • It’s a roguelike: a rare genre, to say the least. Root for the underdog!
  • The art is done right. Retro styles aren’t always handled well; many games attempt them and fall into the 8-bit or 16-bit equivalent of uncanny valley—they almost look old-school, but not quite. Something tiny is off that. Sword of Fargoal 2 nails the art correctly and genuinely.
  • Visible equipment changes in a 2D game. Between 2D RPGs and adventures, I’ve played probably over 150 games and I can remember two with visible equipment changes: Wonder Boy in Monster World and Landstalker. It was cool there and it will be cool again. I love seeing the results of a character moving through progressively more awesome equipment, so rock on, Fargoal 2.
  • Random dungeon generation…
  • …and a high challenge level. I like lootin’ time always and I like clobberin’ time when it’s a two-way street. Dungeons, dragons, monsters, mayhem, swords, slimes: I want it all.

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