WE'RE DROPPING TWO BIG BOIS TODAY! One is a classic that I never got around to but had been looking at since I was a kid, and the other is a GOTY nominee from a past year.
Let's start with this. I wanted to try the original Tales Of Symphonia since I was a kid, and I finally gave it a go when the remaster dropped earlier this year. Did it live up to my expectations? Yeah! This game was pretty fuckin great!
I don't know if I can do this game justice with just my write-up but I'm gonna try!
First off, I found the premise absolutely fascinating. It's another story about how the Chosen One needs to save the world from ruin, but with a spin of the fact that your character, Lloyd, is NOT the Chosen One. Your character's childhood friend, Colette, is! Your job is just to protect her and make sure she can awaken to her true angel form. You get to travel through 2 entire worlds due to some shenanigans, awakening all the different elemental summon spirits to restore the world's mana.
This game ALSO has heavy handed mention of race relations, but not in a way that feels icky or ham handed. In the main world, half-elves rule and humans are kept as slaves in containment camps. In the other world you play the back half of the game through, humans rule and half-elves are basically killed on sight and treated as the scum of the earth. It's handled very well in the game, actually.
My biggest complaint is that this game is LOOOOOOOOONG. And while that is something I should be used to due to the fact that I play a shitload of RPGs as my primary genre, this one just felt like it was dragging at some points. It's still a really good game though, and I'd highly recommend it! Pretty much everything from here on is a GREAT game, and the last few have been pretty good too.
