Tales of Symphonia

Yeah, Living Armor's the boss in the Book of the Underworld. There's another one before that on level 9 I believe which has 80,000 hp...can't remember which monster that was though...anyway, if you don't understand your way around that place, you can get screwed easily. Only know since I didn't make it to the end on my first try. Having no clue where you're going's no fun in that part of the game at all when you lose about 60 hp or tp everytime you move on some floors.

As for that group expedition match...wouldn't know.

^^ The Living Armor boss sounds...fun and hard. O.o; How do you get to the Underworld, anyways? I never found it on my first go-through the game.

And what's the group expedition match that WolfosTerrence is talking about? I don't have a guide to get everything...is that part of the coulisem or something?

To get to the Book of the Underworld, you need to wait until you release Origin from the seal and Heimdall is destroyed by the falling of the Tower of Salvation. Once that's over and done with, you can head to Sybak and check out the library there to notice a thick book with a jewel encased in it. One of the students will tell you it's cursed, and that's when you go back to Heimdall and talk to the elf by the windmill, and he'll tell you basically the whole story behind it. Once you know the facts, it'd be best to stock up as much as possible on the essentials, then save at the inn in Sybak before checking out the book again. With that, Origin will ask if you want to head into the book. By doing so, you need to trek through 15 various levels by the books rules. So certain levels you may lose 1% of HP each step you take, or can't use the menu, or lose 1% TP every step, or need to defeat all the enemies on red levels (this rule is a must to remember). There are also certain levels where you are able to pick the circumstances of the level, and by doing so you can collect on more of the Soulfire in which you need to stay alive in the the book. The Soulfire goes pretty quick depending on things as well. If you manage to defeat the enemies you need to, the mini-boss on the 9th level, I believe, and Living Armor, you'll succeed in destroying the Book of the Underworld.

It may be an easy place to level up, but the main thing in this side quest is keeping yourself at your best when the time comes to defeat the Living Armor. 'Cause if your energy's low, you're screwed.

Oo; Sounds like an interesting level.....

^^ Thanks for the info, Tenkawa. I'm near that spot in my second file, so I'll do that next.

By the way, has anyone gotten any extra costumes for the party like I have?

Which a I just finished about thirty seconds ago. It took me longer then it should have, with a two-week vacation in the middle of it... but if that lessened the experience at all, then I'm not sure I would have survived it all at once.

Tales of Symphonia... is one of those rare games that, after finishing, all I can do is sit back, enjoying the fact that it's finished, wishing it wasn't so. The thought of starting another game is laughable; what could I play now, that could top that amazing experience?

I felt that way after four of the Zelda games, after Xenogears, Xenosaga, Final Fantasy 6, after seeing Princess Mononoke(And I believe I've gushed about it before ).

The game... is amazing. Easily my favorite Gamecube game, and that's surely saying something.

It is a beautiful game, in every sense of the word, as far as I'm concerned. The actual, in-game graphics are fantastic, ranging from the varied and well-designed characters and monsters to the wonderful areas. The imagery involved in some of the areas, such as the Tower of Salvation, is nothing short of breathtaking. Iselia, and most of the first half of the game, is nothing too great, aside from the sheer style of the graphics themselves, but the rest? Heimdall, the Temples, every area was worth visiting for the visuals alone. I think it says something that I ordered the artbook for this game over ebay, when I have never bought something from ebay, and never cared enough about a game's art to buy any of it.(Though that is a bit strange, since there ARE several games with art I think is far superior...)

Speaking of designs, the characters, for the most part, have very good ones. Not just in terms of looks, but in personality and growth as well. I have never seen a game where characters undergo such drastic, obvious, yet well-done and natural growth. I have seen more subtle growth in games, but, at the moment at least, I think I enjoyed it more in this game then in anything else.

The story was extremely good. It was not really revolutionary, certainly, and borrowed a lot from other stories... but it was so well done that you don't care. Especially near the end.

And the music. Sakuraba is no Mitsuda, but he's a genius in his own right. As usual with Sakuraba's music, it seems a bit lackluster if you listen to it before playing the game. I had the OST for this game months before I ever bought it, and it seemed entirely unremarkable.

It is not so. When coupled with the game (and the memory of the game) it takes on a new life, and I can say that it is some of the bst game music I've ever heard. Especially the battle music. Lately, I have been ignoring battle/boss music in games, for the most part, because it is rarely worth listening to. Yet, every single piece of music involving fighting is very good, in this game. And the rest of the music certainly doesn't suffer from this, as some might think. Actually, I'm listening to the credits as I write this, and it is quite good.


And this game is fun. When you're not enjoying things like the music, the story, the characters, and the art... you're fighting, or doing a sidequest. The battle system is extremely well-done, which is a good thing, since I had to level up quite a bit. I won't go into detail describing it, since you can find that information on any big games site.

And speaking of sidequests... I don't think I have ever seen so many, at least not and continue to make them interesting. For instance, there is a enemy compendium, which lets you look at every monster you've fought, and, if you used the right item on them, their stats and whatnot. I find myself going through and looking at the bosses every once in awhile, and oddly entertaining thing. They have the same sort of thing for items, though I don't think I've ever looked twice at it.

There are far too many sidequests to name them all, but I can certainly try. You can get alternate costumes for all the characters, all of which are as well designed as the default ones. Those were fun to collect, and I definitely didn't get them all.

In this game, you can equip "Titles". The titles basically alter which stats are raised when you level up, but they're extremely fun to collect. Let's see, some examples... There's a character named Zelos. If you have him talk to every female NPC in the game,he gets the title of "Gigolo". Or you can get Collette awarded with the "Turbo Waitress" title by doing a minigame. Things like that.

There are also tons of optional bosses which I never caught a whiff of, and some which I did (and generally regretted ).

In this game, the summons are important, even integral, to the storyline. Well, I know of at least two optional ones which I missed out on finding. And the summons are cool.

And, from what I've heard, there is a figurine gallery similar to the one in the Wind Waker... but I haven't the slightest clue how to initiate it, or do any of it.

I think I may reply this game, heh.

Which would work, since there is a nice New Game + system. In battle, depending on how you fight, you can be graded. If you have enough grade from a previous game, you can purchase stuff from a New Game + shop. This ranges from transferring sidequest data (the monster encyclopedia, the figurines, the item lists, the titles, and all that lovely stuff), to activating a 0.5x/2x/10x EXP thing, and tons more besides.

The game also keeps track of relationship points between all the characters, Harvest Moon style. Depending on these, you can get different dialogue, or, at one point, a drastically different party and story.

The story always ends the same way, but there is a large stretch in the last fourth of the game where, depending on the relationships with the different characters, all sorts of stuff would be different.

Yes, I think that I will definitely replay this. With 10x EXP per battle, of course

In closing... this game is phenominal. If you have a GC pick it up. If you don't, buy one, then pick it up.



About the Devil's Arms... The more kills you have with them, the stronger they are. So if you have 0 kills with Lloyd's, then it's pretty weak, If you have 500, then it's incredibly strong. Same with everyone's.

And seriously, how anyone could be confused over the Martel thing is beyond me ;)

The Martel at the ending was a conglomeration of a bunch of spirits and hearts, as she said. Martel, Yggdrasill's sister, was just one of them.

And remember how Tabatha was supposed to be a vessel for Martel, just like Colette, but was a failure for some reason?

And the Goddess at the end was not one with the tree, exactly, but she was bound to it, protected it, was part of it.

As for the whole name thing... in Norse mythology, Yggdrasill is the name of a giant tree. Don't know the details. In Tales of Phantasia, there is a giant tree called "Yggdrasill", and a goddess called Martel lives within it.

Considering those facts, and the story, I think it's safe to say the tree was named Yggdrasill.

Originally Posted by Serefina

Oo; Sounds like an interesting level.....

^^ Thanks for the info, Tenkawa. I'm near that spot in my second file, so I'll do that next.

By the way, has anyone gotten any extra costumes for the party like I have?

Quite a few actually. Bathing suits, noble attire, chef's outfit for Regal, chief's outfit for Sheena, Klonoa one for Presea, so on and so forth.

Yeah, hopefully other RPG's will be made for the cube, its so RPG starved...And I mean REAL Rpg's, not like Animal Crossing and things like that.

But, thing is, I didn't really like the game too much, I think that it's a bit overrated.

I personally am not interested, but why not post this in the active Tales of Symphonia thread?

There he goes again.

Yeah I bought ToS a few days ago, and it is fun. I'm not very far though. The only complaint I have about it is the character movements. They could have done a much better job, since it does look really fake. (I don't mean the battles or when you get to walk around, I mean parts when that old lady was getting whipped, near the beggining). Other than that, this game is great.

Just to let you know, this is the first Tales game that has truly incorporated personality Character animations into the sprites, meaning all previous games used fairly (with exceptions) static sprites.

But that gives another area for the Tales studio to work on ^___^

In new game plus I noticed when you get new characters they are weaker (with exp. X2) Lloyd was 13 when I got past the Triet Base and then when Raine joined my party she was level 7. In my first play through everybody was the same level (with one exception).

That's not because they weaker, it's because the chataracters you already have are stronger.

You get the characters at the same level you get them normally, they just level up twice as fast.

So it makes sense that when you played with 2x exp Lloyd's level was double what is was before.

I'm a very lazy gamer.
I have not even made my way through the first temple yet. >_>
I'll finish it eventually...

Oh, and I remember some people like Oceania were wondering when the game will be out in Europe:
November 9, 2004