Tales of Symphonia - Beaten. Thoughts... hmmm... might as well rant.
Plot is kinda bad and the writing just fails. More on this when I get to character breakdowns but... it's basically a trainwreck. They also tacked on some extremely pointless melodrama towards the very end (FUCK YOU TOWER OF SALVATION FUCK YOU TOO DERRIS EMBLEM BULLSHIT) and it was just... ugh. Gameplay... eh, I like Tales gameplay more than I likely should, and it does feel somewhat better than ToE in that regard.
Character thoughts...
Lloyd: Generic Tales main. He and Stahn can go have a slapfight in a battle of wits. Idiotic and hopelessly idealistic, and he doesn't really give the impression that he actually learned anything from his fuckups. Pretty unsurprising that he wound up becoming The Messiah in the end. Gameplaywise? Not a whole lot to say. I wound up controlling him most of the time out of lazyness, felt generically solid enough.
Colette: The Mary Sueness! It burns! But but she's clumsy and bad things keep happening to her and we're supposed to feel sorry for her! But it happens so often and the cures to the problems come up in increasingly short order so it kinda becomes amusing after a certain point. I know, I'm a horrible human being. Controlled her for a bit, wasn't fond of it, and her AI is pretty worthless.
Genis: Didn't suck as much as the above two. Faint praise considering that he was kinda bland and didn't really exist for decent chunks of the game. The whole making friends with Mithos bit might have had some potential but they didn't really do anything with it. Granted, this is more Mithos's fault than it is Genis's. Anyways, Tales mage. With what seemed to be longer charge times than what they're usually burdened with. Oh joy.
Raine: Okay I admit I liked Ruin Mode >_>. Past that... uh... she smacks Lloyd for his idiocy. She also needed to smack the mayor of Iselia for that grand outburst of hysteria but whatever. Was pretty absent for what was supposed to be a voice of reason but then again I suppose that's only to be expected. Anyways, Tales healer. Yay.
Kratos: Argh. They try to set him up as a mentor for Lloyd and then he goes "HAHA I am actually with the bad guys by the way I cannot tell you anything Lloyd NOW FIGHT ME!" Laaaame. Gameplaywise he'd be an interesting fighter/mage hybrid if the system actually lent itself well to that. Too bad it doesn't. Probably my biggest gripe with the series, thinking on it.
Sheena: oh hay Colette must die wait Desians are bastards and razed a city must join good guys oh I can also form summon pacts that will somehow prove vital to progressing the plot. Um yeah Sheena kinda felt forced after a certain point. Doesn't help that she's also apparently Lloyd's alternate love interest when the game practically beats you senseless with LloydxColette. The little sideplot with whatshisface the ninja traitor also felt kinda dumb. In terms of gameplay? Sucks. Plain and simple.
Zelos: Oh hey let's make the other Chosen a horrible human being! Seriously, Tales writers. Middle ground. Have you heard of it? Pretty much does nothing except flirt. Then he goes oh hey Imma gonna backstab you okay except I apparently blundered into picking him in some scene so he then went Lloyd trusts be so it's a fake backstab okay. I might be a bit fuzzy on the details but by then I pretty much tuned Zelos out so. Pretty much identical to Kratos gameplaywise.
Regal: Yeah. Like I said to super in chat, I can totally see the hate. The level of sheer wangsting is just obnoxious and the Hadouken scene doesn't really help matters. I'd join in on the hate if I could be arsed to, but wangst only makes me angry when mixed with epic stupidity. Gameplay... uh, he kicks things. Can't say much, didn't control him ever.
Presea: Oh hey it's an emotionless little girl wait what do you mean she's really 28?! That's... pretty much it. *shrugs* There's probably something I'm overlooking here but eh. Anyways, she hits things with an axe. Didn't control her ever either.
Yuan: Right you existed. Good for you, you had the sense to oppose Mithos's stupid. I guess that's the best that can really be said about you.
Mithos: Oh god where do I begin. You know how I was talking about wangst mixed with epic stupidity? Well, that's Mithos, the results of Tales writers not knowing when to stop. His basic stuff is fine enough, preventing the development of mana-consuming magitech, rezzing his sister, and ending discrimination against half-elves as per her dying wish. The problem lies in how he goes about doing these things. One would think that, if one had the means Mithos had available, he would have the church he established as a front do what churchs are ostensibly supposed to do, namely provide the moral and spiritual guideance to teach people that magitech is bad for the world and you should love your neighbour even if he's a half-elf and all that good shit. Dunno how he'd go about rezzing Martel but eh. But then again if he took the reasonable route we probably wouldn't have had a plot but still.
WHAT HE DOES: Splits the world in two, forcing them to play tug-of-war for a limited supply of mana, erects a truly bizarre plan in which the Chosen is supposed to become Martel's vessel, and facilitates this shit by having magitech reliant half-elven psuedonazis run around running experiments on humans to create Mcguffins that are supposed to eventually turn people into soulless angels. Or horrible semi-blob monsters. I don't know which. And it gets worse. When confronted with the radical idea that humans and half-elves can get along, he rejects it entirely. Because, y'know, such a thing could never happen and there isn't a spiky-haired moron who is best friends with a half-elf right in front of you. And he certainly never tried to befriend YOU when you were out pretending to be an innocent victim. Then later Martel wakes up briefly and tells her brother that's he a collosal idiot for doing this. SO NATURALLY when she says that if he was going to act like this then it would be better if the elves had never left their stinking mana comet or whatever the fuck it is Mithos takes this as an indication that HE should go to the stinking mana comet and take Martel (who is oh so inconveniently inside the thing that's providing what little mana there is to the world) with him. Because, clearly, when your sister says she never wanted things to be this way it means that you should make things even WORSE for the world you fucked up. And FINALLY, when he's defeated? He said he'd do it all over again if he could. Because nothing in his plans was moronic in the least. Fuck you Mithos Yddgrasil. Fuck you and your epic nonsensical stupidity and angst. You were also barely competent as a boss.
All in all... it was enjoyable enough as long as I didn't pay attention to the plot. Will probably replay it in the future to grab stuff I missed. As it stands... I'd probably place it at a 6 but then again I enjoyed the gameplay more than I likely should and I'm not really sure how much to dock the game for Mithos's stupidity.
