RPG Review: Tales Of Symphonia, Part 2: Being the Chosen One Sucks.

Last time, we began this little journey to save the world. So how do we begin the second part? Introducing a new Party Member of course!

Raine/Refill Sage:

CV: Touma Yumi/Kari Wahlgren

Raine is a White Mage and that alone makes her massively useful. She learns basically every healing skill in the game and she has the TP to use it. Best of all, she even has a few offensive tricks up her sleeve, so she's not even completely defenseless. Needless to say, she was totally part of my Endgame Party.

And sadly, that's also why her little Brother isn't in the Party.

See, the game has a system that makes it so you can't have more than one character casting high level spells at once. So even if I did bother to regularly use Genis, he would either drag Raine down or she would drag him down. Basically, you don't want both a Black Mage and White Mage in your party. The Red Mage will have to pick up the other's job.

Anyhow, your next destination should be the game's first proper Dungeon, that being:

Triet Ruins:

That statement speaks to me on a spiritual level.

Indeed, there's some random ruins in the middle of the desert. After being randomly attacked, Kratos teaches our heroes some defensive Artes, our heroes reach the gate, but before they can do anything Raine's Ruin fetish kicks in. On the plus side, this does allow our heroes to open the damn door.

The Dungeon itself sets the precedence for most others in this game: Not too big, but with lots of back and forward In this case you have to move blocks around and light up candles in order to progress. Nothing special, but it works. I should mention that generally speaking, there's one save spot in the Dungeon, but in order to trigger it you need a Memory Stone. How do you get one? Eh, beat up one of the random enemies. How do you know which one it is? Good question!

Still though, not much happens inside here, thus leading us to:

Ktugach:

Oh look, it's a flaming kitten!

Well, for an early Boss he's a moderate enough challenge. He does however have an exploitable weakness in the form of Water Attacks... that I didn't use because, as I said before, Genis isn't exactly a regular member of my Party. So I had to take him down the hard way. Oh well, he did eventually go down.

With it, the Asshol-I mean, Lord Ramiel comes down once more, and even gives Colette a pair of pretty wings.

Oh I wish they were that cool.

Oh well, at least Colette is having fun with them. And hey, combat-wise she learns "Angel Feathers", which is her first of many heavy offensive Artes that work off her Angel deal. Sadly on a purely physical level she isn't doing so well, with her looking kinda sick (Or at least the character say so. Her Sprite barely changes). So it's time to take a break before they leave.

After a nice scene in Triet, it's time to head off to the Ossa Trail. However as soon as they arrive, Colette must face her greatest threat for Lloyd's (But mostly the players') affection: BEST GIRL!!

Wait, what?

Huh, never thought I'd find more reasons to like her... anyhow, this is Best Girl and-

Yeah, she's a bit clumsy alright. But what can I say? That's just one of  her many charms. And hey, as our heroes are just about to exit, she manages to catch up with them. Girl's got skill, alright. That said she's kinda easy so don't worry about to losing to her. She leaves as soon as she's defeated, with Lloyd naturally wondering why the hell does everyone want to kill them. And yeah, more RPG protagonists should ask themselves that in this kind of story.

Before leaving however, Kratos teaches you Unison Attacks. Basically they're a move in which each Party Member unleashes one of their Artes. Doing certain combinations however, will result in a Special Finisher. I sadly learnt about this a little too late into the game to use these, but the regular Unison Attacks were more than enough for me.

By this point I should mention one thing I actually really like about this game: There's a lot of non-linearity. What I mean by that is that by now the path basically splits in two. To illustrate what I mean, I show you a map of the world the game takes place in: Sylvarant.

As you can see, in front of the Ossa Trail lies Izoold, which should be our next destination. That said, there's nothing that says you can't simply go North instead and go the long way around. This path is generally harder, but it will end up easier by the end. It will also make it so your next Party Member will take less time to join your Party, and given the identity of that Party Member, you may or may not want to take it.

Wanna know something funny though? Even though I went that path, at first it was because I got lost and didn't realize where Izoold was. Yes, I ran literally almost all around the Map to find a place that was right in front of me. By the time I realized what I was doing I just said "Fuck it!" and decided to continue taking that path.

Anyhow, in this path we must first go to Hima and waiting us there is...

More Best Girl!!

Indeed, she is the gift that keeps on giving. Anyhow, she needs to go find some healing technique and just leaves our heroes to deal with the rest. Oh and we also find out her name: Sheena. Anyhow, basically there's some dude that's been cursed because he left a human ranch and, well, we kinda need to fix that, now don't we? The previously mentioned technique is over at the Tower Of Mana. So we make our way there and... it's locked.

Indeed, this calls for extreme measures: Grinding!... Did I mention this Review will from now on be based on my New Game + Playthrough?

There's a little fact I forgot to talk about, and that is types. There are two Types in the game: S (Strike) and T (Technical). These will to an extent dictate what Artes you'll get by leveling up.  You can switch between the two Types through EX Gems. Each character can equip up to 4, and all of them give you skills that are S or T type, which is what determines your Artes Type. The more you have, the more you'll swing from one side to the other.

Additionally, the reason the Artes System is as it is is because each base Arte you have to spam to get the higher level version basically branches once it reaches Level 2. So for instance, with Lloyd if you use Demon Fang 50 times and you're an S Type, you'll get Fierce Demon Fang. However if you're a T Type, you'll get Double Demon Fang. However while you can have many S Type and T Type Artes, they must be from different trees, so you can't have both Double Demon Fang and Fierce Demon Fang.

General recommendations for our current Party Members: Colette should be locked in S Type, Kratos is mostly an S Type bar the Sonic Thrust line, Lloyd is mostly a T Type with the exception of the Demon Fang, Beast and Tiger Blade lines, Genis is mostly a S Type bar the Thunder and Fire lines (Indignation is too OP, and this comes from someone who rarely used Genis!) and Raine is primarily a T Type bar the lines for Sharpness, Barrier and Photon.

Whatever the case may be our next stop should be Luin, as we need to get the key to open that door in the first place. However in a shocking twist, guess who we find there!?

Even more Best Girl!

Indeed, she is quite friendly with children, playing around with them for a while... only to realize Lloyd is there.

And yes, for the record, I ship it, dammit! Ship it to the grave!

Anyhow, we head to the church, and we find out that some pastor has it... and that said Pastor is on a pilgrimage.

This is how this mess is feeling right now.

After some grinding for Genis in case of emergencies, we move on to Asgard... in which we're immediately told to go to the Balacruf Mausoleum. Whatever, at the very least we have some Ruins to look at while we're here.

Not like Raine's gonna let us do anything else, anyways.

Still though there are some guys in the background for some reason... and they're planning to destroy the Ruin! Naturally, Raine shall not let this happen!

... Are we sure Colette's the actual klutz here?

Thankfully Lloyd stops this, and we get some exposition afterwards. First of all, the area is forbidden, so even our heroes can't be there. Secondly, the reason they wanted to destroy it is because a girl, Aisha, is gonna be sacrificed to the Summon Spirit of the wind. Originally she just had to do a dance there, but one of the two idiots removed the seal and, well, this is how we got here.

Thankfully there is a way out of this: Let Raine be the Dancer and have them just beat up the Summon Spirit after that. Thus the dance begins.

Oh I wish it was something like that. Yeah the cutscenes in this game reuse the overworld assets, so there isn't much they can do, so the dance barely counts as that.

Oh well, onto the Boss.

Windmaster:

Given the order of events I've chosen to do things, this fight is a bit on the tough side of things, mostly due to the sheer amount of HP he has. Enough perseverance will eventually make him fall (And also spamming the ever loving hell out of Lightning Tiger Blade or Photon Tempest whenever possible).

And indeed everyone's thankful, with one of the two bomb guys even going to help Raine with a map... and another one almost makes the Party realize one small fact: Raine and Genis are Half-Elves.

This isn't explicitly confirmed until later, but yeah, the moment this scene comes the whole deal becomes rather obvious. Still though, it's clear at least Genis has his reasons for not wanting for that to be known. Whatever the case may be, it's time to head off to the Mausoleum. And thankfully the Pastor is nice enough to give  us the key. Now, normally this would be it, but considering we're already here...

Balacruf Mausoleum:

I have no joke for this.

This Dungeon is small, but if you don't know what you're doing it can be a bit annoying. There are a few gimmicks at play here. First are Spikes, which, if you touch, will shave off a bit of your HP. Secondly there's the wind, which will sometimes hit some candles you want to light up. To stop it simply push some blocks to the appropriate spot. Finally is the Sorcerer's Ring, which gains a Wind Element in this Dungeon and must be used to spin some pinwheels around to open the door to the boss of the Dungeon. Not too annoying but the floor spikes are a bit of a pain. Anyhow...

Iapyx:

Apologies for having to use this image, most
of the bosses don't have many good ones

Well, first of all he's a bit of a pain because he resists too elements instead of one, in this case Wind and Lightning. Even so, I surprisingly didn't have much of an issue with him, he just took his sweet time to give up for once.

Once he did, Assho-I mean Lord Ramiel reappears, giving Colette his blessings or something.

Err... yeah, I don't buy that at all.

Anyhow, we begin to head out and guess what? The Beautiful Assassin is back!

Not her!!

Anyhow, it's time for Round 2, and she's a bit tougher but nothing special. I should mention that after releasing any Seal you get a full HP and TP refill. Thank God for that because otherwise this fight would be unbearable. As she is defeated, she claims that unless she stops the Regeneration, her country will be destroyed. Colette points out how odd that statement is as, well, the Regeneration should save the whole world. Sheena then leaves, though her statements do cause Kratos to wonder something...

Anyhow, as we go out, Colette once more falls from exhaustion, with Raine currently naming this phenomena "Angel Toxiocis", but Colette claims to still be fine, oddly enough. At night, she can't seem to be able to sleep for some reason, so Lloyd talks to her for a bit to try and convince her to sleep... which she agrees to, but whether or not she actually does is not shown. Spoiler Alert: She didn't.

Anyhow, onto the reason we went here in the first place.

Tower of Mana:

The sequel to Trials Of Mana nobody knew they wanted.

Yeah, in order to open a door here, three of our Party Members must stay behind... which in this case means "You're stuck with just Lloyd and Colette for a bit". Besides that the Dungeon's main gimmick is that you have to move around some blocks to redirect rays of light to specific areas. Not too tricky overall if I may say so myself. Anyhow, onto the Boss Fight.

Iubaris:

So I guess we're eating winged horse tonight?

His HP is massive, but otherwise he's pretty freaking easy. This thing is basically an endurance battle, as running out of TP won't exactly be rare in this fight. Still though, like before he isn't that hard all things considered.

Anyhow, once defeated the prayer stuff happens again with... crescent moon lady?

... Yeah, kinda like that.

Err... whatever the case may be, she asks where Aska is and then leaves... wait what?

Err... anyhow, Assho-Lord Ramiel appears afterwards for the usual proceedings. Oh and remember to grab the book with that healing spell from the first room. And you know what's next, Colette nearly faints, Lloyd catches her, and so on. However after that, at night, Lloyd looks at Colette's hand, which might as well be bleeding right now even though she says she's fine. Thus I present to you, unedited, one of the most infamous moments from the game.

Yeah, Colette is not okay. Each Seal has been taking something away from her. The first one was her sense of taste, the second one is her fatigue and finally her sense of tact and pain. Her sight and hearing have all improved, sure, but can we truly say this is worth it? This is legitimately one of the game's best scenes, and I can see why it has been memed by some people.

But hey! She wanted this trip to be fun, so let's have fu-Wait, why is Luin burning?

A visual approximation of what's going on.

Well, okay, it isn't burning, but it has been pretty much completely destroyed, and Sheena's there looking as tiered as ever. To give you the brief version, basically some shit happened and thus the Evil Desians decided to attack the city and... yeah, this is the result. Raine heals her at Colette's request, and then Sheena proposes a truce: They help her beat the assholes at the ranch nearby, and she helps them out with this journey. Raine is against it, but everyone else isn't, so yes, Best Girl has joined the Party!

Fujibayashi Sheena:

CV: Okamura Akemi/Jennifer Hale

Alongside being Best Girl, Sheena is quite the useful Party Member, although I'll admit she is a bit of an acquired taste. She has three things going for her: The first is that she has three Trees of Skills that are all based around Debuffing your Enemies Defense, Accuracy and Evasion respectively (General recommendation: Power Seal should follow the S Branch but Mirage and Serpent Seal go to the T Branch). Her second and third Quirks however are what make her character work in my book, but that's for later. Needless to say, she was totally a part of my Endgame Party, if only because her Unison Attacks freaking hurt.

Naturally, it's time to head off to face those bastards head on, and the location will be:

Asgard Human Ranch:

Gotta love the classic "Infiltrate the enemy base" level.

But yeah, we need a plan to do so. Step 1: Ambush the enemy. Step 2: Steal their clothes. Step 3: Have Raine and Sheena dress in Evil Desian Outfits... that lets a decent lot of their skin be seen? Err... okay then.

Anyhow, the infiltration seems to be successful... until we bump into Botta again. Oh well, he's willing to let us go for now... and then more Evil Desians pop up... and then some asshole with white hair too... whoops...

They do manage to escape for a bit, but the general from earlier, Kvar, catches up to them, and reveals a dark truth.

No, seriously, Exspheres are literally just Philosopher Stones, only instead of being many humans for one stone, it's one human per sphere. Oh and we also find out one other small detail: Lloyd's Exsphere is his mother's. Yup. Now you see why Dirk didn't tell him anything,

Sheena gets them all out of there, and thus they retreat to Luin for now. They are all naturally distraught over this reveal, Lloyd in particular, but Kratos convinces the group to keep using them, at least until this mess is over, anyways.

They go back to Hima, We find out that not only did the cursed guy put a boulder in the way he used to get out, but also brought an Evil Desian Orb with him. So naturally we go back and somehow the Orb moves the boulder out of the way. No, I don't get it either. Whatever, we're inside now. Unfortunately there's some system that need to be stopped that are the opposite way from Kvar's room, so you know what that means!

And this time you actually get to choose who to take with you, in my case I took Raine and Sheena. There's also a Refresher nearby, which serves as an Item Shop and also a Full HP and TP Recharge in case of emergencies. Anyhow, this dungeon is fairly simple besides the split. Just shoot some things as Lloyd, turn some switches on with the other group and you'll reach your destination.

Speaking of our destination, Kvar is talking to one of his bosses, who very clearly doesn't like him too much. But whatever, he's power hungry, so he's gonna take that Exsphere away from such inferior beings, thus leading us to...

Kvar:

CV: Ushiyama Shigeru/Chris Edgerly

Kvar is annoying, mostly because he has Three Drone-Things helping him out, all the while you have only two Party Members. And those Balls take a while to kill too! Thankfully once those are out the rest of the fight becomes a lot easier, so you won't be completely doomed.

However the tough bastard somehow manages to get up after beating him, trying to strike Lloyd in the back, but Colette takes the blow instead. So Kratos... you know what, I'm just gonna leave this here.

Again, more on this when I actually cover the Anime.

But yeah, Colette losing her sense of Pain has been revealed to the rest of the party. They decided to just blow the whole thing up... but as they're leaving, another of Kvar's superiors pops up, telling him he's just gonna take all the Research Data for himself now. But yeah, the group otherwise heads for Asgard to rest.

Lloyd informs everyone of the rest of the situation, and naturally they are lessed than thrilled about this, with more than one of them wanting her to either A) Quit, or B) Find some way to do this trip without her losing her humanity. Whatever the case may be, they can't stop now, so for the time being, they'll just have to push on until the very end, even if the fate that awaits her is uncertain.

And this is the point we'll be stopping for now. Will Colette get better? Why does Sheena want Colette dead? What even is that Angelus Project Kvar kept mentioning? That, my friends, is all answers not for now, but next time.