Tales of Symphonia Chronicles contains Tales of Symphonia which was originally on GameCube and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World which was originally on the Wii. They are both remastered into 720p HD and released as a bundle for the PlayStation 3, complete with widescreen support, Trophies and minor additional content such as extra Titles and moves.
Tales of Symphonia
Tales of Symphonia was originally released for the GameCube, then ported to PlayStation 2 where it was only available in Japan. Now, it is remastered for the PS3 and PC and is the definitive version of the game. Despite the upscaling to 720p and general sharpening of the character models and environments, the game is still fairly pixilated, especially when it zooms in during certain scenes. The colorful art style and cel-shaded graphics helps to alleviate some of that though and on the whole, it holds up quite well. Tales games are renowned for their battle system and despite being an earlier title in the series, the battle system is Symphonia's greatest strength and still heaps of fun to this day. There are plenty of nuances and complexities but is easy enough to pick up and get used to before you start diving deeper into it.
The battle system is called the Multi-Line Linear Motion Battle System and takes place in a separate 3D screen (transitioning from the environment, dungeon or cutscene) where the characters move in a straight line towards or away from an enemy. The X button is used for physical attacks while the Circle button is for Tech attacks. Tech attacks are special moves of sorts that use up TP. The battle system is real time and you can set up to six Tech moves which you activate depending on the direction you point the analogue stick towards. The Square button is used to block while the Triangle button pauses the action and opens up a menu where you can use items, set strategies and change equipment on the fly. Your party consists of four characters with the player controlling one while the AI controls the other three. There is a Strategy menu for the player to set high level behaviours, it works okay and the AI isn't that stupid most of the time. There's also a multiplayer mode where a second player can use another character during battles.
In addition to the now staple Overlimits where the character doesn't get staggered, and Mystic Artes which are the characters' ultimate moves, there is a feature called the Unison Attack. The Unison Attack is much easier to trigger than Mystic Artes, a gauge near the bottom of the screen fills up as you do combos against the enemy. Once it is full, you can execute a consecutive series of Tech attacks from each of the party members and depending on your choice of attacks, you might get a special combined move at the end. It's flashy and fun. You gain money and experience after every battle. There is a skill system in which you equip "Ex Gems" in order to get Ex Skills. These give you passive effects which you can mix and match to your own playstyle. Characters learn new Tech attacks not only upon leveling up, but it also depends on the usage of their previous Tech attacks. This system gives the player incentive to keep swapping Tech attacks and trying out new ones, and it ends up being addictive.
Apart from the battle screen, there are dungeons and towns which are relatively in scale with the characters. The World Map is grossly out of scale but in typical JRPG fashion, you will eventually get the ability to travel in sea and air, speeding up travel. You get a huge sense of freedom since there are plenty of optional places that you can visit. Enemies roam the environment and coming into contact with one will trigger a battle. The enemies usually rush towards you once spotted so it can be hard to avoid them. This is especially true since dungeons are usually narrow paths, making avoidance near impossible. Dungeons are mainly short in terms of size but they have puzzles to extend the time required to get through them. This may require constant backtracking. While the puzzles are easy enough in the beginning, the later ones are confusing and annoying to get through. It isn't helped with the overabundance of enemies which respawn extremely quickly.
Tales of Symphonia has a fixed camera for most of the game, which helps hides treasure and the like. On the World Map though, you can rotate the camera side to side but not up/down. While the gameplay is immense fun, the story is on the weaker side. It follows Lloyd, along with his childhood friends Genis and Colette. The trio must travel on a journey to save the world since Colette is known as the Chosen, a half-angel who at the end of the journey is able to restore the world and provide peace for the future, in a neverending cycle. As you'd expect of a Tales game, there are plenty of twists to the plot and it diverges pretty soon afterwards. In no time at all, you would reflect back to the beginnings and think how far you've gone... and how insignificant those events were. The ending was okay and certainly predictable but you get a sense of satisfaction upon viewing it.
At certain points in the story, you are able to do things in a different order and story events are altered as a result. The main story events are voiced (you can pick from either English or Japanese voiceovers) but there are a lot of other scenes which are unvoiced. In particular, skits, which are short optional cutscenes where character portraits appear and are usually funny, are not voiced. They were originally voiced in the Japanese version, thus you cannot control the speed of the dialogue, so it is weird when it is silent yet you have to wait a set time before the next piece of dialogue comes up. One thing the game is not short on is content. There are plenty of sidequests and minigames, some of which are missable. Not all are good though since the minigames can be unfairly frustrating. They can give up meaningful rewards such as additional Titles which you can equip to your characters such that when they level up, they get additional stat boosts.
There is a big bonus dungeon (which unfortunately you cannot save in and there is another stupid gimmick in there where it will be game over if you fail it) and a monster arena. Furthermore, if you're aiming for the Trophies, this game has some of the grindiest and most time-consuming ones with only three story-related Trophies and requiring a minimum of three playthroughs. It's worse when you realize that you cannot skip any of the cutscenes. On the whole though, the game takes 40-50 hours to finish if you're following a walkthrough. This rises to 40-50 hours if you play it blind since some of the dungeons are pure evil. The New Game Plus allows you to select various bonuses using Grade, which is earned during your playthrough depending on your performance. Overall, Tales of Symphonia is a fabulous game. The gameplay has aged gracefully and still as fluid and wicked as it was when it was first released. The graphics holds up okay, in part thanks to the bright colorful aesthetics and the story falls flat in certain areas. It is well worth a playthrough if you are into JRPGs.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is a direct sequel to the first game, taking place two years later. It was originally released for the Wii but is not ported to PS3 at 720p resolution. The battle system is called the Flex Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System. Building upon the original's battle system, it adds the Elemental Grid on the bottom left hand corner. It is one big slot along with four smaller slots and each one is filled with the different elements. When you use Artes with the same element as the one in the big slot, it is slightly powered up. This Elemental Grid also ties into the monster catching mechanic. Apart from that, you attack using the X button and one of the directions of the analogue stick. You can use Artes (which can be magical or physical attacks) using the Circle button, while you block using the Square button. During battle, you can swap characters on the fly, use items, change equipment and adjust the AI's strategies to a certain extent.
A bar at the bottom of the screen will fill whenever you attack and once full, you can either execute a Unison Attack (a combination attack with your various party members) or a Mystic Arte (which is that character's ultimate move). You can also free run whenever you like with no penalty. Once it gets going, the battle system is heaps of fun, especially when you grasp its nuances. Your two main party members are Emil and Marta. They will be your playable characters for the whole game. At certain points in the story, the cast from the first Tales of Symphonia will join. Their levels are predetermined, they do not earn experience and their equipment cannot be changed. This is annoying and restrictive and as a result, you won't end up using them much. As your party comprises of four members, the remaining slots are filled with the monster catching mechanic. Dawn of the New World requires the player to recruit monsters during their travels to fight for them.
Nearly all monsters are can be recruited, and they can level up and earn new moves and skills just like Emil and Marta. Once they hit a certain level, they can evolve into a new monster (which is either a palette swap or a slightly altered design from the base monster, nothing too drastic like Pokemon or Digimon). As with a lot of monster catching games, it is down to luck which can be very annoying. First off, it relies on the Elemental Grid in which you need the main element to match with at least four out of the five minor elements. You can influence the elements with you and your allies' moves. Then you need to defeat the monster while they are matched up for a chance at recruiting them after the battle. If by chance you have two or more monsters that can be recruited, then the game randomly selects one for you to try.
While the first game has a good difficulty curve in that if you don't actively run away from battles, your level will be enough to defeat the boss, you'll be in for a shock here. You need to actively run a few laps around each dungeon during the early parts of the game in order to get past the boss. Dawn of the New World loses the world map exploration. We are presented with a menu system instead, which while not bad since it's efficient and recent Tales games don't have a world map either, you feel the loss more since the first game had it. The game loses the cel-shading in favour of full 3D and more realistic body proportions. It is obviously that this was originally a Wii game since a lot of the character models and environments have jagged edges. The enemies roam the environment and they will respawn really quickly. If the area they are in goes out of frame, they will have respawns. Battle transitions take a few seconds to load every time you enter a new screen, which feels like a very long time.
One of the biggest issues surrounding a JRPG sequel is the fact that the games tends to reuse the same dungeons (like Final Fantasy X-2 and Tales of Xillia 2). Dawn of the new world helps alleviate this by adding in new paths after the old bits. Some of the returning dungeons require you to solve the same puzzle again which is cheap, while others remove it which is a sigh of relief. There are various new dungeons too, just enough that you don't mind the reuse. With that said, the use of different camera angles in the returning dungeons help mask the fact that they have the same layout. There are various sidequests involving the characters as well as the Katz quests. These pop you into various dungeons, some exclusive to these quests while others are a repeat of story dungeons. They earn you high quality rewards and provide better grinding opportunities. Unfortunately, they tend to reuse the same dungeons again and again and again multiple times which gets repetitive and boring real quick.
Out of the two main characters, Emil is a coward who cannot stand up for himself. At the beginning, he is useless and annoying, even his fighting style is slow and weak. Thankfully, he quickly gains a little bit of courage and his fighting style becomes quicker. However, he still retains a heavy amount of self-doubt and self-pity, apologizing often, it's easy to see why so many players dislike him. He gets much more tolerable though towards the end of the game. Marta on the other hand is energetic and strong. For some reason, she loves Emil when we first meet her. You suspect it might be because of Emil's other personality but she spends the whole game being fairly obvious about her love, teasing Emil, getting jealous and playing around with it. They are joined by the spiritual being Tenebrae, a dark cat-like creature. He is snarky and funny. On the whole, the humour works a lot better in the sequel than the first game, especially the skits, which are all fully voiced.
Apart from Colette, all of the characters from the first game have different voice actors. This is jarring especially if you are coming straight from the first game. The story starts off with Marta bumping into Emil. She has Ratatosk's core on her head and she must travel around the world in order to regain the rest of the cores to awaken Ratatosk and save the world. There are plenty of people out there who are against her and want to obtain the core for their own purposes. The story is overall simpler and it benefits from it. It's also shorter, most players can finish between 30 to 40 hours. Despite Marta's love at first sight with Emil, they experience significant amounts of character development such that their relationship will grow on you and culminates into an emotional ending.
The later parts of the end can start to feel weak due to monster encounters starting to have high HP making it a chore to eliminate them. Furthermore, there are cheap optional bosses with multiple healers and cutscenes start to feel dragged out with the contents being dry and boring. The game actually has multipler endings but you can see them all on one playthrough easily enough. Once you've finished the game, there is New Game+ along with the returning Grade Shop. You earn Grade based on your battle performance and then can use these points to purchase benefits in New Game+ such as double experience, carrying over monsters and as such. Just like the first game, the Trophies are extremely grindy. You also unlock a Gallery which shows off official and concept art of the game. Overall, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World may not be as charming and fun as the original but if you give it a chance and overlook Emil as a character, it has its strengths. The battle system is still fun, the story while simple is at least easy to follow and it doesn't feel too contrived as a sequel.
Overall:
Naturally, it is easy to recommend Tales of Symphonia Chronicles. You get two fantastic Tales games, including the popular Tales of Symphonia. Both games are fun and while the sequel isn't as good as the original, it's still heaps of fun and worthwhile to play.
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