"it might seem silly to make an entire iceberg about one game" my brother in christ this video was made for me and my mid 2000's childhood self, thank you
So one of my favorite memories is playing Tales of Symphonia with my little brother. We were 12 and 10 and I big bro'd him into playing Colette so I had an actual human to heal me cause the AI frustrated me one time and the way the story is written my brother got really invested in Colette's side of the story as the story unfolded while I got invested in Lloyds. When the thing happened to Colette in story that changed her eyes, he legit woke me up during that summer and begged me to play to see what would happen to Colette. The way Colette becomes a more powerful offensive character as she develops in story also delighted him. Like I was legit jealous when he got Judgement and tried to play her but wasn't nearly as good as him cause he played her from the start. My brother has never been into anime or JRPGs but this masterpiece of a game is so well written and the gameplay is so good that it went from me making him play to him making me play. What a masterpiece.
Equipping titles doesn't give you a small stat boost. When you level up, your equipped title determines how much specific stats increase. Hard to get titles give very big level up bonusses, ranging from +10 to +30 in specific stats, whereas the swimsuit titles give you nothing.
The nostalgia! This was the first official JRPG I ever played outside of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. I was obsessed! Even after all these years I still remember much of this information. This really took me back. Thank you for the good memories!
Some additional things: [ 8:13 ] Dawn of the New World was initially meant to take place 400 or so years after the events of Tales of Symphonia, with the only surviving original cast members being Genis and Raine. The executives rejected this idea however as it would've alienated many fans. As for Emil and Marta...well, the main scenario writer wanted them to play off of each other. Emil's uncertain personality is due to his being only "born" recently, which is meant to be a direct parallel to Lloyd, who has very solidified morals. It's also worth nothing that the reason you spend most of the game with the Tethe'alla gang rather than the Sylvarant gang is because the developers wanted to give them more attention, considering they had less screen time in ToS1. [ 13:18 ] Food actually has an effect on the affection meter as well, and how well characters are at cooking certain things is determined by their personality. Genis hates carrots, so if you feed him anything with carrots in it, his affection will decrease. Colette is good at making food with fruits, and Lloyd's good with simple things (sandwiches, etc). [ 15:08 ] The dinner party costumes are also used in the anime's Bluray exclusive bonus OVAs for gag moments. The Wonder Chef also shows up! As for Zelos' bouquet, there's a line of mini-figures made in the early 2000s (2007, I believe) where every character has a default weapon version and an alt. weapon version. Zelos' alternate weapon is the bouquet. [ 17:33 ] The Japanese PS2 opening is "そして僕にできるコト" (lit. "And what I'm able to do"). Starry Heavens has minor differences between the Gamecube and PS3 versions (including rerecorded vocals). The lyrics for Starry Heaven are implied to be from Colette's PoV, where そして僕にできるコト' is supposed to be Lloyd's. [ 32:29 ] Yuan joined Mithos and Martel's party after Kratos. He was originally a captain in the army but was swayed by the Yggdrasill siblings' words and began traveling with them to "prove their hypocrasy", though would later fall in love with Martel. His affection for her is one of the reasons he originally agreed with Mithos' plan even if he had harbored doubts, but would then defect before Kratos after realizing that it isn't what Martel would have wanted. [ 43:01 ] Regarding Tales of Fandom vol.2, I recommend reading the fantranslations because it gives a lot of insight into the backgrounds of the Kharlan Heroes, as well as a few things related to Kratos and Zelos and how much they knew/how close their contact with Yggdrasill was. Essentially, just extra worldbuilding. Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3 has a few more Symphonia characters and while it's not super fun gameplay-wise, the skits are funny so if you like Tales, check them out! I translated a few of them years ago but there's huge amount of voiced ones! Tales of the Rays has its own original story but all of the Symphonia-related stuff is great. On Wonder Casino/Quiz: they're both titles in the Tales of Mobile series which was made for NTT Docomo phones. As far as I'm aware, there's probably no way to play either of these games anymore without the original phone and software, which were only available in Japan back in the day. Phone game preservation efforts are very niche in the media preservation scene, especially considering their difficulty, so I'm sure they won't see the light of day. Here's a flyer that advertises both games, though: www.bandainamcoent.co.jp/corporate/bnours/vol05/pdf/05_22_23.pdf [ 52:23 ] Somewhat related to names? Genis and Raine are Genius and Refill in Japanese, respectively. The main scenario writer hates coming up with names and used those as placeholders but by the time the game was ready to ship, they just rolled with them. Thanks for the video! There's such an insane amount of documentation and care given to Symphonia's development that you could honestly make an iceberg that's 3 hours long, especially if you cover lore that's mentioned in supplementary material.
Fantastic reply, thanks for all the detailed info. I do cover the Refill/Genius stuff in the Super version of this Iceberg if you're interested. Very cool you were able to find a screen of the mobile games, that's like a needle in a haystack. So you did a fan translation of Tales of the World 3?? I'd love to hear more about that
@@WesDoesGames I only worked on a few skits! I uploaded 2 on TH-cam here: th-cam.com/video/VsLf01iAcBk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=un2HmScM_JYU3Uj7 ...but there's definitely some that I never uploaded. Unfortunately, like many other Tales spinoff titles, the overall story & plot aren't particularly noteworthy so I doubt TotW:RM2 & 3 will ever get full fantranslations. All I can even remember about the gameplay itself is that the character creation and job selection makes a return!
JENNY NO!!! This line was my absolute favorite part of this iceberg video. It was so deep into the video, not about the game, extremely intimate and vulnerable, profoundly sad and relatable, and hilarious. Thank you.
You missed the best gameplay bug(feature) of the Gamecube version: The tech glitch. By setting a Lv 2 strike/tech ability to a shortcut on a different character, you could keep the shortcut when having the other ability. Now, this would normally just be a silly little thing to do, since you'll replace with level 3 abilities anyway. However, if you moved back to the side of the shortcut-ed ability, you could learn the level 3 ability on that side as well by using the shortcut. Probably best shown on Genis, as you could get all Lv 3 Tech-side spells while getting all the Strike-side spells. True magical mastery. Fixed in later versions though. Also, certain abilities can alter if used over a certain number of times (I know 200 hits all of them). Collette's Pow Hammer specifically becomes the only way for the player to inflict poison. Finally, Demon Fang is a long-range delivery method for the elemental effects of Hurricane Thrust and Lightning Blade.
Man I love this game. Beat it at least 10 times as a kid! Still learned some stuff I didn’t know for had forgotten. Maybe it’s time to replay this soon
You forgot the unexplored subplot of Raine's implied ex. She states that as only virgin maidens can approach, she is unable to go with Colette and Sheena to the Unicorn. Furthermore, Raine states that she got the Crown of Earth given to Koton for Spiritua's Ring during the Aifread quest from a "him", but doesn't elaborate who this "him" is. On a side note, the Crown of Earth can also be seen among the relics with her worn-out Key Crest that she pulls out at the inn in Triet
9.5/10 Katz for a supremely well put together vid on one of my favorite titles. Only missing that .5 because you didn't put Botta and his sexy devil beard above Killia. Like what even are you doing man? Subbed!
Zelos is mentioned in Tales of the Abyss by a replica in Daath's cathedral. They say something like "Zelos... died" and in this same game, Lloyd's costume can be found in Nam Cobanda Isle as a little easter egg, while Tokunaga (Anise's puppet) is able to wear an item that resembles Presea and unlocks the Beast arte
to have such a long video about Symphonia in my recommended tonight, was just great! Just when I am playing through Abyss and the Xillias again, really sad they dont get any love from Bamco...
I wasted so many hours of my middle school years playing this game with friends; I feel like we were among the few who actually knew about the multiplayer feature. A group of four of us would get together, debate how to solve the dungeon puzzles, strategize about boss battles, all while South Park or something was playing in the background. Good times. This clearly took a lot of work, and I appreciate you taking us all for a walk down memory lane.
That's awesome that you got to have a legitimate multi-player experience. The closest I got to that growing up was playing Skies of Arcadia with my friends. Not a multi-player game, so we took turns in battles. We loved Symphonia too, would have been great to know back then that we could have all played it together lol
Little correction regarding Dawn of the New World. You can play as the Symphonia cast but only in battle. As in, during battle, you enter the menu and switch to them. A shame, but I personally find the game to be underrated. Can't be helped with it being in development alongside Vesperia. One of my favorite tracks in that game is Climb it Hastily. Give it a listen if you're interested.
Can you? I remember trying and trying and it refused to let me on Wii. Course i was a kid back then but because of that during my replay on ps3 i didn even bother to play as my old main Raine again thinking it wasnt possible 😢😢
@@EmoURYU I played this game with my roommate with two players on the Wii (as well ToA on PS2). When you get player 2, you will use Marta by default, then you have to open the menu and switch. We only tried with the player 2.
I also feel that Dawn of the New WOrld was never meant to be a mothership game, more a side-game with a tighter budget and limited resources, along with being development alongside Vesperia. But this is a personal theory of mine.
minor point of correction, if you're playing multiplayer on Symphonia 2, other players can control the old characters, it's just player 1 that must be either Emil or Marta. That said, there's an issue. If you're playing with more than 2 players, you can't have manual control over the monster allies, so for the vast majority of the game you are limited to 2 players, so players 3 and 4 are often going to be sitting around. Additionally, player 2 is going to be frustrated a LOT, since the character order keeps getting reset every time Marta leaves the party, and she leaves a LOT for like a minute at a time. Each time she did and came back, I had to, yet again, make her control manual and reassign her artes. TLDR - symphonia 2 was a pain in the butt for multiplayer.
Quick correction to mention @ 38:47, the trigger for Sword Dancer 1's disappearance is when you enter the Tower of Salvation. Hima is free to enter without it being gone, but you'll want to be careful not to proceed to the major story segments that happen when riding the dragons.
I finally completed this game for the first time last year with the hd remaster. It was a great game, i had lots of fun and im finally able to say ive beaten all three of the golden tales of titles.
I want to point out that in DotNW, you can play as the original characters when playing multiplayer. I replayed it this year with my gf and was surprised since I hated not being able to use them
I loved the fact that Loyd was voices by teen titans robin which was out at the time when it was out on GameCube. Also took advantage of those extra ports to do multiplayer with my brother to play the game all day
53:40 I doubt they wanted to make Noishe playable; but you can ride Noishe on the world map, and the easiest way to do that is to add his model to the overworld character class. This is likely the leftovers of some code that did that, and they just didn't remove it when they changed the way Noishe worked later in development.
For the sequel, second player could play as the OG Symphonia members, it's just that first player was forced to be Emil or Marta. For some unholy reason.
You actually can play as characters other than Emil and Marta in Symphonia 2, at least in the original Wii Version. You just can’t place them in the party leader spot so what you have to do is wait until battle starts, pause, and switch your playable character using the C button while the menu is open. And you have to do this for every battle.
The tales of Symphonia anime did have 11 episodes, it was like three different OVA’s! Three covering Sylvarant, three covering Tethe’alla, and three for the United World episode. There is also a manga that has six volumes.
Noishe's species and potential role as a playable character is actually a reference to the first Narikiri Dungeon game where a monster of the same species named Kruelle (Or Kururu) is used as a spy for the goddess Norn as she tests Mell and Dio throughout the game. Kruelle gameplay wise is effectively tamogachi meets Pokemon as how you choose to raise her will have her evolving into different monsters that alter her gameplay. In the Narikiri Dungeon remake they removed all the branching dialogue options do Kruelle is mostly just a cute mascot party member who's gimmick is cloning another party member.
That would require a full on remake. I think they've polished the graphics about as well as they can, I mean this was a GameCube game originally y'know. That being said a remake with Vesperia graphics would make me happy
The only thing i missed what something considered "the hard path" at the time. From what I rememebr it had something to do with "missing" the boat to a certain era and you're forced to fight a boss fight first at some tower
Oh my gosh! I was lied to about what would happen if you beat Yggdrasill at that part of the game. I was told by a ex of mine 3 years ago, that if you beat him you get that one scene from the anime where Genis and him are in a field of flowers talking. Kinda glad that didn't happen, but also glad it's possible to beat Yggdrasill. Sad nothing changes not going to lie.
For the other cameos of Symphonia characters: - Tales of Tactics (the actual first Tales of game that Symphonia characters appeared in) - a SRPG released for Japanese cellphones in 2004, unfortunately it's a lost media - Tales of Kizna and Tales of Card Evolve were card based games for mobile phones with Symphonia characters in them - Tales of the World: Dice Adventure was a web based board game with characters from Symphonia in it - Tales of Link and Tales of Crestoria were gacha games also with Symphonia characters in them As for non Tales of games, from what I've found Symphonia charaters appeared in: - Senki Zesshō Symphogear XD Unlimited - Another Eden Overall that was a nice video, even thou I haven't finished Symphonia myself yet. I wish there were more of those types of videos about other Tales of games.
@@WesDoesGames I never asked while I was living there, I just told them it's not popular in western audiences and the responses were almost always like "Ehhhh naze??? Mecha mecha tsuki, sono gaimu." (Or 'ehhh what??? I really really like that game."). It was multiple people who enjoy Tales of that this came up with too.
From what I’ve researched, it had a very bad localization and translation. This completely shot down the game’s chance of having a positive reception in the west.
idk why but i found his death pretty cool and funny, especially when he said "haha no it's just a bonus". don't know what he meant by this but the way he looked at the camera made me think it was kind of a way to break the fourth wall and say that this ending isn't canon.
By the time Lloyd gave her the hot coffee, it had gotten cold.... Just kidding he used Genis's fireballs to warm it up and make it scalding hot and she got 3rd degree burns... Just kidding it was just normal coffee
I honestly still can't believe how hard they fumbled with the sequel. I'm also a bit shocked some of the games have not been remastered. Symphonia and Vesperia got remastered, Zestiria and Berseria got PC versions, but nothing for Abyss and nothing for either of the Xillias.
Really great video! Hope you will do more Tales of content in the future. Don't know if I'm mistaken, but did you miss the Zelos Gigolo title sidequest? By the way, Symphonia's level cap isn't 99, you can go all the way to level 250.
I covered the Gigolo quest in the Super version of this video (available on Patreon) 😎 I had no idea you could go past level 100, I wonder why they made the cap so high? Or as the young people would say, fr 250 cap?
@@WesDoesGames Ah, I see 😄 As for the level cap the Grade Shop has the option of playing with 10x EXP gains. Whenever I play with that setting I already reach level 99 around the time you form the pact with Luna/Aska, so the 10x EXP would have been pretty pointless if you couldn't go higher than 99.
@@WesDoesGames Well, it depends. You could beat Hard mode on the same level as Normal I'd say, so going past level 99 isn't really needed. But if you play on Mania mode I'm not so sure. I wouldn't want to play that without an EXP multiplier.
Dawn of the New World had one redeeming quality. It let you retcon the dumb drama CDs and let you set Lloyd & Sheena together as it always should have been.
Tales of the rays was a nice mobile game and was actually pretty interesting. But since it was gacha, it was just handled poorly and then cancelled a year into its global release tho the Japanese version had like 4 or more seasons. I'd suggest looking into their openings to see if you haven't.
How would Desians react to seeing an elf? Would they treat them the same as humans? I’m not clear on their opinion towards elves since they don’t appear much in the game
You know, Genis and Presea might be the most innocent "older than they look" trope that's ever happened, as Genis is still treated as a child, and Presea's body is technically been in stasis despite how long she was actually alive as a human.
Sorry tales of eternia did come out to US as tales of destiny 2 and Reid the Main protagonist is one of my top 3. To me he was the hardest Arena boss special appearance. His reappearance was in tales of Abyss.
I played Tales of the Rays around when it first released on NA servers. I liked the gameplay but thought the story was too generic. Then it turned out things got more exciting (solely basing this on character art changes) sometime after I stopped. I was really, really into Tales of Link up until it discontinued for NA, though. While I wholly wished that Rays' battle system was in Link's, the title would not be Tales of Link without all the gratuitous linking. Having Kratos' affection among the highest seemed way too easy to me, so dead Zelos was my first playthrough. Back then, I could not imagine how I could get Regal's affection much higher. Come to think of it, I also accidentally locked myself in going the "hard mode" path of experiencing the Sylph temple before Undine's on my first playthrough, too.
Personally I felt that Radiant Mythology was definitely worth the money and was a fantastic game as well but I also don’t look at the game as a mothership title.
38:11 ohhh and also tales of eternia was released only a year after the original Japanese version it was just wrongly titled as tales of destiny 2 over here in the US….japan and Europe got the psp rerelease and US never did.
@@WesDoesGames 🫡 Big regal fan here lmao. I get it. He has the JRPG “last party member syndrome” But I find his arc of repenting for killing his lover and the handcuff gimmick really really cool
@@megaspacewaffles Before I start, let me make it clear this post is almost entirely about the gacha genre, not you personally or anything. That said, my point is that "allowing players to access characters in a video game" isn't even approaching "generous." It's like the bare minimum. I know in the gacha game realm, which is full of suckers getting conned out of their money nonstop as they blow paychecks on pulls, the idea of not having to spend $200 minimum to unlock the weakest version of your waifu is, like, totally generous, but c'mon. The entire genre is a money vacuum, a cancer designed to be created as cheaply as possible, and as massively profitable as possible. Game's already dead despite probably costing $12 a year to run, because the profits weren't there. They probably knew it wouldn't be very popular, so swapped from character pulls to weapon/other item pulls to try and hook people in, but it didn't pay off. Couldn't even get their episodes out, lol. Seeing this shit get called "generous" is baffling.
@@Xbob42 That's the problem, you're grouping Rays with other Gacha games though. But The Rays was COMPLETLY different. There was no "Weaker version of your waifu" it didn't have seasonal alts like other games. Yuri was Yuri for the ENTIRE launch, characters often got buff with new attacks being added to their moveset. If you want Lloyd, you just unlock him from the story and could buy gear for him in the shop for free. It wasn't a money vacuum. Game is dead? It lasted for 7 years and completed its story. It didn't die because it wasn't making money, it ran out of characters. Are you saying 7 years is not impressive? That means a lot. Also, how can you say it was cheaply running? It was fully voiced, had crossovers, and definitely cost more than 12 dollars. That's just silly. They never had character pulls? They never "swapped it". Get their episodes out? Wdym? The game finished its story. This isn't against you, but all of the points you made don't make sense?
Good shit but I’m getting major Deja vu vibes like if watched this vid with the same memes n jokes….is this a reupload or an update? Ok MOST DEFINITELY heard the same jokes before esp when the Pokemon theme song was used lol
It's a remix of my Easter Eggs videos. I hated how the audio sounded in those and always wanted to redo it, plus this time I've added new content. I'm glad you remembered my bad jokes lol
@@WesDoesGames the bad jokes brought me back..just found ya channel recently recently lol…your vesperia video made me anxious for another tales of review. Good stuff
wesley-james-shop.fourthwall.com/collections/tales-of-symphonia
Will you be restocking the Lloyd Crimson Shirt?
@@moonlightfenrir 👀
"it might seem silly to make an entire iceberg about one game"
my brother in christ this video was made for me and my mid 2000's childhood self, thank you
Huzzah for millennial nostalgia!
So one of my favorite memories is playing Tales of Symphonia with my little brother. We were 12 and 10 and I big bro'd him into playing Colette so I had an actual human to heal me cause the AI frustrated me one time and the way the story is written my brother got really invested in Colette's side of the story as the story unfolded while I got invested in Lloyds. When the thing happened to Colette in story that changed her eyes, he legit woke me up during that summer and begged me to play to see what would happen to Colette.
The way Colette becomes a more powerful offensive character as she develops in story also delighted him. Like I was legit jealous when he got Judgement and tried to play her but wasn't nearly as good as him cause he played her from the start.
My brother has never been into anime or JRPGs but this masterpiece of a game is so well written and the gameplay is so good that it went from me making him play to him making me play. What a masterpiece.
That's awesome you got to make those memories with your brother. I had no idea the game was multi-player till way later
Equipping titles doesn't give you a small stat boost. When you level up, your equipped title determines how much specific stats increase. Hard to get titles give very big level up bonusses, ranging from +10 to +30 in specific stats, whereas the swimsuit titles give you nothing.
Thanks for the info!
Never knew this 😭I wanna re play now
I finished the game like 10 years ago, a little late ;-;
Dude no way that’s how it actually works 😭
@@Zxcasgo into ng+ you got grade
The nostalgia! This was the first official JRPG I ever played outside of Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy. I was obsessed! Even after all these years I still remember much of this information. This really took me back. Thank you for the good memories!
Some additional things:
[ 8:13 ] Dawn of the New World was initially meant to take place 400 or so years after the events of Tales of Symphonia, with the only surviving original cast members being Genis and Raine. The executives rejected this idea however as it would've alienated many fans. As for Emil and Marta...well, the main scenario writer wanted them to play off of each other. Emil's uncertain personality is due to his being only "born" recently, which is meant to be a direct parallel to Lloyd, who has very solidified morals. It's also worth nothing that the reason you spend most of the game with the Tethe'alla gang rather than the Sylvarant gang is because the developers wanted to give them more attention, considering they had less screen time in ToS1.
[ 13:18 ] Food actually has an effect on the affection meter as well, and how well characters are at cooking certain things is determined by their personality. Genis hates carrots, so if you feed him anything with carrots in it, his affection will decrease. Colette is good at making food with fruits, and Lloyd's good with simple things (sandwiches, etc).
[ 15:08 ] The dinner party costumes are also used in the anime's Bluray exclusive bonus OVAs for gag moments. The Wonder Chef also shows up! As for Zelos' bouquet, there's a line of mini-figures made in the early 2000s (2007, I believe) where every character has a default weapon version and an alt. weapon version. Zelos' alternate weapon is the bouquet.
[ 17:33 ] The Japanese PS2 opening is "そして僕にできるコト" (lit. "And what I'm able to do"). Starry Heavens has minor differences between the Gamecube and PS3 versions (including rerecorded vocals). The lyrics for Starry Heaven are implied to be from Colette's PoV, where そして僕にできるコト' is supposed to be Lloyd's.
[ 32:29 ] Yuan joined Mithos and Martel's party after Kratos. He was originally a captain in the army but was swayed by the Yggdrasill siblings' words and began traveling with them to "prove their hypocrasy", though would later fall in love with Martel. His affection for her is one of the reasons he originally agreed with Mithos' plan even if he had harbored doubts, but would then defect before Kratos after realizing that it isn't what Martel would have wanted.
[ 43:01 ] Regarding Tales of Fandom vol.2, I recommend reading the fantranslations because it gives a lot of insight into the backgrounds of the Kharlan Heroes, as well as a few things related to Kratos and Zelos and how much they knew/how close their contact with Yggdrasill was. Essentially, just extra worldbuilding. Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 3 has a few more Symphonia characters and while it's not super fun gameplay-wise, the skits are funny so if you like Tales, check them out! I translated a few of them years ago but there's huge amount of voiced ones! Tales of the Rays has its own original story but all of the Symphonia-related stuff is great.
On Wonder Casino/Quiz: they're both titles in the Tales of Mobile series which was made for NTT Docomo phones. As far as I'm aware, there's probably no way to play either of these games anymore without the original phone and software, which were only available in Japan back in the day. Phone game preservation efforts are very niche in the media preservation scene, especially considering their difficulty, so I'm sure they won't see the light of day. Here's a flyer that advertises both games, though: www.bandainamcoent.co.jp/corporate/bnours/vol05/pdf/05_22_23.pdf
[ 52:23 ] Somewhat related to names? Genis and Raine are Genius and Refill in Japanese, respectively. The main scenario writer hates coming up with names and used those as placeholders but by the time the game was ready to ship, they just rolled with them.
Thanks for the video! There's such an insane amount of documentation and care given to Symphonia's development that you could honestly make an iceberg that's 3 hours long, especially if you cover lore that's mentioned in supplementary material.
Fantastic reply, thanks for all the detailed info. I do cover the Refill/Genius stuff in the Super version of this Iceberg if you're interested.
Very cool you were able to find a screen of the mobile games, that's like a needle in a haystack.
So you did a fan translation of Tales of the World 3?? I'd love to hear more about that
@@WesDoesGames I only worked on a few skits! I uploaded 2 on TH-cam here: th-cam.com/video/VsLf01iAcBk/w-d-xo.htmlsi=un2HmScM_JYU3Uj7
...but there's definitely some that I never uploaded. Unfortunately, like many other Tales spinoff titles, the overall story & plot aren't particularly noteworthy so I doubt TotW:RM2 & 3 will ever get full fantranslations. All I can even remember about the gameplay itself is that the character creation and job selection makes a return!
I see Tales of Symphonia. I click.
You only get to see Veritus if you did the optional boss fight as Sheena and get Corinne's bell back
Thanks for watching
Fun Fact Tales of Symphonia is a prequel to Tales of Phantasia
JENNY NO!!!
This line was my absolute favorite part of this iceberg video. It was so deep into the video, not about the game, extremely intimate and vulnerable, profoundly sad and relatable, and hilarious. Thank you.
Aww... you didn't show that once Raine gets her skill up, she starts trying to add lemons to the sandwich.
Haha that's pretty good
You missed the best gameplay bug(feature) of the Gamecube version: The tech glitch. By setting a Lv 2 strike/tech ability to a shortcut on a different character, you could keep the shortcut when having the other ability. Now, this would normally just be a silly little thing to do, since you'll replace with level 3 abilities anyway. However, if you moved back to the side of the shortcut-ed ability, you could learn the level 3 ability on that side as well by using the shortcut. Probably best shown on Genis, as you could get all Lv 3 Tech-side spells while getting all the Strike-side spells. True magical mastery. Fixed in later versions though.
Also, certain abilities can alter if used over a certain number of times (I know 200 hits all of them). Collette's Pow Hammer specifically becomes the only way for the player to inflict poison.
Finally, Demon Fang is a long-range delivery method for the elemental effects of Hurricane Thrust and Lightning Blade.
Man I love this game. Beat it at least 10 times as a kid! Still learned some stuff I didn’t know for had forgotten. Maybe it’s time to replay this soon
Thank you for covering my favorite game of all time, immediately subscribed
Welcome aboard!
My favorite rpg. Spent hundreds of hours getting every possible thing in the gamecube version
You forgot the unexplored subplot of Raine's implied ex. She states that as only virgin maidens can approach, she is unable to go with Colette and Sheena to the Unicorn. Furthermore, Raine states that she got the Crown of Earth given to Koton for Spiritua's Ring during the Aifread quest from a "him", but doesn't elaborate who this "him" is. On a side note, the Crown of Earth can also be seen among the relics with her worn-out Key Crest that she pulls out at the inn in Triet
It's Raining men
Hallelujah~🎶
9.5/10 Katz for a supremely well put together vid on one of my favorite titles. Only missing that .5 because you didn't put Botta and his sexy devil beard above Killia. Like what even are you doing man?
Subbed!
How could I forget Botta! Of course. I actually was close to adding his "booty call" Easter egg into the video lol
Zelos is mentioned in Tales of the Abyss by a replica in Daath's cathedral. They say something like "Zelos... died" and in this same game, Lloyd's costume can be found in Nam Cobanda Isle as a little easter egg, while Tokunaga (Anise's puppet) is able to wear an item that resembles Presea and unlocks the Beast arte
to have such a long video about Symphonia in my recommended tonight, was just great! Just when I am playing through Abyss and the Xillias again, really sad they dont get any love from Bamco...
I've been hardcore craving playing Xillia again but don't want to boot up the ancient ps3. Maybe we'll get ports for the newer Gen (maybe...)
I wasted so many hours of my middle school years playing this game with friends; I feel like we were among the few who actually knew about the multiplayer feature. A group of four of us would get together, debate how to solve the dungeon puzzles, strategize about boss battles, all while South Park or something was playing in the background. Good times.
This clearly took a lot of work, and I appreciate you taking us all for a walk down memory lane.
That's awesome that you got to have a legitimate multi-player experience. The closest I got to that growing up was playing Skies of Arcadia with my friends. Not a multi-player game, so we took turns in battles. We loved Symphonia too, would have been great to know back then that we could have all played it together lol
Little correction regarding Dawn of the New World. You can play as the Symphonia cast but only in battle. As in, during battle, you enter the menu and switch to them. A shame, but I personally find the game to be underrated. Can't be helped with it being in development alongside Vesperia. One of my favorite tracks in that game is Climb it Hastily. Give it a listen if you're interested.
Can you? I remember trying and trying and it refused to let me on Wii. Course i was a kid back then but because of that during my replay on ps3 i didn even bother to play as my old main Raine again thinking it wasnt possible 😢😢
@@EmoURYU I played this game with my roommate with two players on the Wii (as well ToA on PS2). When you get player 2, you will use Marta by default, then you have to open the menu and switch. We only tried with the player 2.
I also feel that Dawn of the New WOrld was never meant to be a mothership game, more a side-game with a tighter budget and limited resources, along with being development alongside Vesperia. But this is a personal theory of mine.
It's crazy they'd bother to program playing the other characters just to hide it behind menu options
@@WesDoesGames most likely it was for multi-player. They even have mystic arts and everything. Alas, it is what it is.
To my knowledge, you don't need a high relationship with Kratos to get him back in your party. You just need to refuse everyone else.
That’s works only on the cube version, they made it harder on the future versions for some reason.
@@JohnSmith-fe3di oh ? I've only played the GameCube version, didn't know it was different
one silly fact i remember: raine and genis' names in the original japanese (refill and genius) were just placeholder names that stuck
minor point of correction, if you're playing multiplayer on Symphonia 2, other players can control the old characters, it's just player 1 that must be either Emil or Marta.
That said, there's an issue. If you're playing with more than 2 players, you can't have manual control over the monster allies, so for the vast majority of the game you are limited to 2 players, so players 3 and 4 are often going to be sitting around.
Additionally, player 2 is going to be frustrated a LOT, since the character order keeps getting reset every time Marta leaves the party, and she leaves a LOT for like a minute at a time. Each time she did and came back, I had to, yet again, make her control manual and reassign her artes.
TLDR - symphonia 2 was a pain in the butt for multiplayer.
Quick correction to mention @ 38:47, the trigger for Sword Dancer 1's disappearance is when you enter the Tower of Salvation. Hima is free to enter without it being gone, but you'll want to be careful not to proceed to the major story segments that happen when riding the dragons.
Good to know!
I absolutely loved Tales of the World Radiant Mythology as a kid. I wish they released the other ones
Golden Sun Iceberg next? 🥺
Great idea
I finally completed this game for the first time last year with the hd remaster. It was a great game, i had lots of fun and im finally able to say ive beaten all three of the golden tales of titles.
What are the other two?
@@WesDoesGames symphonia, abyss, and vesperia are the three golden titles of tales of.
Can you please do "Tales of the Abyss" next, sir? 🥺✨✨✨
I don't have a ps2 anymore! I do have it on 3ds but I've held off playing it because I've heard mixed opinions on which one is better....
@@WesDoesGames imho Abyss has the best story of the tales series, at least from all I've played. Haven't played Graces yet.
Sound crazy but this game is a huge part of my life... thanks for it ✨️😉
Not crazy at all
You just made me bought Remastered from Amazon. Thanks!
The classic and the tales of game that got the ball rolling in the US.. ❤ It's dear to my heart.
Mine too. This got me into the series
I want to point out that in DotNW, you can play as the original characters when playing multiplayer. I replayed it this year with my gf and was surprised since I hated not being able to use them
I loved the fact that Loyd was voices by teen titans robin which was out at the time when it was out on GameCube. Also took advantage of those extra ports to do multiplayer with my brother to play the game all day
53:40 I doubt they wanted to make Noishe playable; but you can ride Noishe on the world map, and the easiest way to do that is to add his model to the overworld character class. This is likely the leftovers of some code that did that, and they just didn't remove it when they changed the way Noishe worked later in development.
That makes sense
For the sequel, second player could play as the OG Symphonia members, it's just that first player was forced to be Emil or Marta. For some unholy reason.
Also, nothing about Raine and Genis's mom?
I considered it but then I'd have to cover all the side quests and it'd just be too long
Player one can actually switch control to them during battle.
You actually can play as characters other than Emil and Marta in Symphonia 2, at least in the original Wii Version.
You just can’t place them in the party leader spot so what you have to do is wait until battle starts, pause, and switch your playable character using the C button while the menu is open. And you have to do this for every battle.
The tales of Symphonia anime did have 11 episodes, it was like three different OVA’s! Three covering Sylvarant, three covering Tethe’alla, and three for the United World episode. There is also a manga that has six volumes.
I almost covered the Manga and audio series but had to cut it off somewhere, lol
@@WesDoesGames very fair lol
I will never pronounce UFO Table the same way again 😂
Noishe's species and potential role as a playable character is actually a reference to the first Narikiri Dungeon game where a monster of the same species named Kruelle (Or Kururu) is used as a spy for the goddess Norn as she tests Mell and Dio throughout the game. Kruelle gameplay wise is effectively tamogachi meets Pokemon as how you choose to raise her will have her evolving into different monsters that alter her gameplay. In the Narikiri Dungeon remake they removed all the branching dialogue options do Kruelle is mostly just a cute mascot party member who's gimmick is cloning another party member.
The only one I've beaten, the only one I've enjoyed. Heartbroken over the 'remaster'. All i want is just an Arise graphics upgrade
That would require a full on remake. I think they've polished the graphics about as well as they can, I mean this was a GameCube game originally y'know. That being said a remake with Vesperia graphics would make me happy
The only thing i missed what something considered "the hard path" at the time. From what I rememebr it had something to do with "missing" the boat to a certain era and you're forced to fight a boss fight first at some tower
I’d play with you no joke
Oh my gosh! I was lied to about what would happen if you beat Yggdrasill at that part of the game.
I was told by a ex of mine 3 years ago, that if you beat him you get that one scene from the anime where Genis and him are in a field of flowers talking. Kinda glad that didn't happen, but also glad it's possible to beat Yggdrasill. Sad nothing changes not going to lie.
I thought the level cap for Symphonia was 250, and if you used an action replay 255
Raine's wanted poster makes her look like Paula from Home Movies😂. (If anyone remembers that adult swim show).
Iirc presea's formal attire has the same thing as Zelos', it's a bunny plush for her
I've heard that too, but haven't been able to find any good footage of it 🤷
For the other cameos of Symphonia characters:
- Tales of Tactics (the actual first Tales of game that Symphonia characters appeared in) - a SRPG released for Japanese cellphones in 2004, unfortunately it's a lost media
- Tales of Kizna and Tales of Card Evolve were card based games for mobile phones with Symphonia characters in them
- Tales of the World: Dice Adventure was a web based board game with characters from Symphonia in it
- Tales of Link and Tales of Crestoria were gacha games also with Symphonia characters in them
As for non Tales of games, from what I've found Symphonia charaters appeared in:
- Senki Zesshō Symphogear XD Unlimited
- Another Eden
Overall that was a nice video, even thou I haven't finished Symphonia myself yet. I wish there were more of those types of videos about other Tales of games.
Additional trivia on the Japanese openings but Starry Heavens is supposed to be from Colette's perspective and the other is Lloyd's!!
also enjoyed your video very much!! thanks for covering the Tales series, its so underrated!!
I'm glad you liked it!
Did you know Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New World is beloved in Japan? Because it is. They're very surprised it's not popular in the West.
I wonder what they see in it that Americans don't
@@WesDoesGames I never asked while I was living there, I just told them it's not popular in western audiences and the responses were almost always like "Ehhhh naze??? Mecha mecha tsuki, sono gaimu." (Or 'ehhh what??? I really really like that game."). It was multiple people who enjoy Tales of that this came up with too.
From what I’ve researched, it had a very bad localization and translation.
This completely shot down the game’s chance of having a positive reception in the west.
Saw this video on the day it came out and I'm about to continue watching it
Just finished the video it was epic
Sweet! Glad you liked it
The one time I killed Zelos DEVASTATED ME. Never again. Didn't even finish that file.
idk why but i found his death pretty cool and funny, especially when he said "haha no it's just a bonus". don't know what he meant by this but the way he looked at the camera made me think it was kind of a way to break the fourth wall and say that this ending isn't canon.
By the time Lloyd gave her the hot coffee, it had gotten cold....
Just kidding he used Genis's fireballs to warm it up and make it scalding hot and she got 3rd degree burns...
Just kidding it was just normal coffee
It's actually MILD
(no one is sure what to say next)
i was just about to go to sleep and this dropped yaay
😎
Me at the multiplayer one: oh, I played second banana during the fights during my roommate Tales of the Abyss playthrough.
I'm curious how anyone figured out the multi-player back then since it wasn't really clear to me at least
@@WesDoesGames There's a very brief paragraph about it in the user manual that used to be in the games.
OH HECK YEAH. Great video!!!
Thanks friend
I honestly still can't believe how hard they fumbled with the sequel.
I'm also a bit shocked some of the games have not been remastered. Symphonia and Vesperia got remastered, Zestiria and Berseria got PC versions, but nothing for Abyss and nothing for either of the Xillias.
I'm desperately trying to find a non obtuse way of playing Xillia on a modern device
I love Dawn of the New World. I thought it was very fun.
I'm sure it's just a matter of time until the other games get remastered.
Really great video! Hope you will do more Tales of content in the future.
Don't know if I'm mistaken, but did you miss the Zelos Gigolo title sidequest?
By the way, Symphonia's level cap isn't 99, you can go all the way to level 250.
I covered the Gigolo quest in the Super version of this video (available on Patreon) 😎
I had no idea you could go past level 100, I wonder why they made the cap so high?
Or as the young people would say, fr 250 cap?
@@WesDoesGames Ah, I see 😄
As for the level cap the Grade Shop has the option of playing with 10x EXP gains. Whenever I play with that setting I already reach level 99 around the time you form the pact with Luna/Aska, so the 10x EXP would have been pretty pointless if you couldn't go higher than 99.
That makes sense, but does the hard mode ever get so difficult you need to be past level 100?
@@WesDoesGames Well, it depends. You could beat Hard mode on the same level as Normal I'd say, so going past level 99 isn't really needed.
But if you play on Mania mode I'm not so sure. I wouldn't want to play that without an EXP multiplier.
Dawn of the New World or as I call it: "Gotta Catch Em All, Mithos and Martel versions". Trade with your friends. Get disappointed. :n
Lol
1:46 Raine's just the mom from that Adult Swim show from way back when, Home Movies lmao
Secretly Paula Small all along
tales of fans need to rally together and demand better funding / treatment of the tales of studio + new team members
Dawn of the New World had one redeeming quality.
It let you retcon the dumb drama CDs and let you set Lloyd & Sheena together as it always should have been.
Tales of the rays was a nice mobile game and was actually pretty interesting. But since it was gacha, it was just handled poorly and then cancelled a year into its global release tho the Japanese version had like 4 or more seasons. I'd suggest looking into their openings to see if you haven't.
How would Desians react to seeing an elf? Would they treat them the same as humans? I’m not clear on their opinion towards elves since they don’t appear much in the game
I wish the shirts didn’t have the game’s title below the collar.
Send me a message on Patreon if you want I'll get you a version without the logo
You know, Genis and Presea might be the most innocent "older than they look" trope that's ever happened, as Genis is still treated as a child, and Presea's body is technically been in stasis despite how long she was actually alive as a human.
Fun fact you can play the others in dawn of the new world but only if you have another player.
Good to know
No... Emil dual personality is the exact same as Yugi and Atem
Atem teaches others by humiliation and firekillin
Sorry tales of eternia did come out to US as tales of destiny 2 and Reid the Main protagonist is one of my top 3. To me he was the hardest Arena boss special appearance. His reappearance was in tales of Abyss.
My favorite series. Les gooo
I played Tales of the Rays around when it first released on NA servers. I liked the gameplay but thought the story was too generic. Then it turned out things got more exciting (solely basing this on character art changes) sometime after I stopped.
I was really, really into Tales of Link up until it discontinued for NA, though. While I wholly wished that Rays' battle system was in Link's, the title would not be Tales of Link without all the gratuitous linking.
Having Kratos' affection among the highest seemed way too easy to me, so dead Zelos was my first playthrough. Back then, I could not imagine how I could get Regal's affection much higher.
Come to think of it, I also accidentally locked myself in going the "hard mode" path of experiencing the Sylph temple before Undine's on my first playthrough, too.
Ahhh....giving my boy Genis such a low score 😂 I always control him when i play
God bless you
@@WesDoesGames I will 100% give you that he comes across as a know it all...but he bounced off of Lloyd so well 🤣
OMG FINNALLY ACTUAL CRITICISM OF THAT CRAP SEQUEL. It’s so damn bad!
Don't worry, let's be friends hahaha
Tos video in 2024 ❤
Personally I felt that Radiant Mythology was definitely worth the money and was a fantastic game as well but I also don’t look at the game as a mothership title.
I think I would have liked it more with an online component
Wow you didn't rank Raine out of Katz
I dunno why they made Abyssion’s hair yellow
The anime actually has 8 episodes NOT 11
38:00 I made the Katz adventurous tabaxi I my dnd game
The remaster is an abomination. Not being able to play at 60fps ruins the combat
38:11 ohhh and also tales of eternia was released only a year after the original Japanese version it was just wrongly titled as tales of destiny 2 over here in the US….japan and Europe got the psp rerelease and US never did.
I remember ordering the European version of it on psp from some super sketchy website. Was delighted it actually worked
where is the song @10:50 from
Took me hours to find a "delightful day". Still cant quite place were this song played. But it feels very nostalgic
Finding friends in my 30s hit me so hard. Dnt need em
The onlyfans creator who watches ur videos hearing the patreon plug: 😮
😂
Update.
The regal slander, will not be tolerated
I'm sorry! I just thought he was kind of unneeded for the plot
@@WesDoesGames 🫡
Big regal fan here lmao.
I get it. He has the JRPG “last party member syndrome”
But I find his arc of repenting for killing his lover and the handcuff gimmick really really cool
No disrespect meant about this video. But where is part 2 of that mega man x video?
In development
Presea should've been 6.32768/10 Katz just because she's voice by Timmy Turner wat the fuk
That's oddly specific!
Is this peak?
Yes. But I'm a biased source
Tales of the rays isn’t actually your typical gacha bs. The characters were actually just handed out to you for free, incredibly generous
I think that'd be an incredibly tortured use of the word "generous" all on its own, but "incredibly"? C'mon.
@@Xbob42 What do you mean? What's your counterpoint? Do you disagree?
@@megaspacewaffles Before I start, let me make it clear this post is almost entirely about the gacha genre, not you personally or anything. That said, my point is that "allowing players to access characters in a video game" isn't even approaching "generous." It's like the bare minimum. I know in the gacha game realm, which is full of suckers getting conned out of their money nonstop as they blow paychecks on pulls, the idea of not having to spend $200 minimum to unlock the weakest version of your waifu is, like, totally generous, but c'mon.
The entire genre is a money vacuum, a cancer designed to be created as cheaply as possible, and as massively profitable as possible. Game's already dead despite probably costing $12 a year to run, because the profits weren't there. They probably knew it wouldn't be very popular, so swapped from character pulls to weapon/other item pulls to try and hook people in, but it didn't pay off. Couldn't even get their episodes out, lol.
Seeing this shit get called "generous" is baffling.
@@Xbob42 That's the problem, you're grouping Rays with other Gacha games though.
But The Rays was COMPLETLY different. There was no "Weaker version of your waifu" it didn't have seasonal alts like other games. Yuri was Yuri for the ENTIRE launch, characters often got buff with new attacks being added to their moveset.
If you want Lloyd, you just unlock him from the story and could buy gear for him in the shop for free. It wasn't a money vacuum. Game is dead? It lasted for 7 years and completed its story. It didn't die because it wasn't making money, it ran out of characters. Are you saying 7 years is not impressive? That means a lot. Also, how can you say it was cheaply running? It was fully voiced, had crossovers, and definitely cost more than 12 dollars. That's just silly.
They never had character pulls? They never "swapped it". Get their episodes out? Wdym? The game finished its story.
This isn't against you, but all of the points you made don't make sense?
Are you mistaking it for a different game...?
Ummm, I'm pretty sure Harley isn't a woman.
Good shit but I’m getting major Deja vu vibes like if watched this vid with the same memes n jokes….is this a reupload or an update? Ok MOST DEFINITELY heard the same jokes before esp when the Pokemon theme song was used lol
It's a remix of my Easter Eggs videos. I hated how the audio sounded in those and always wanted to redo it, plus this time I've added new content. I'm glad you remembered my bad jokes lol
@@WesDoesGames the bad jokes brought me back..just found ya channel recently recently lol…your vesperia video made me anxious for another tales of review. Good stuff
@@scro910 oh good, I was sure like no one watched the Vesperia video, lol