tales of symphonia (playstation 3)

ahhhh i did it!!! after 10+ years of not having played symphonia, i finished it again for like...what? my 20th time or so? and MAN, even after having played it so many times, after all these years, i still had such a blast playing through the ps3 version for the first time!! this game will forever hold a special place in my heart, so i'll just ramble on about it some more in some junk thoughts below!

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oh my god i don't even know where to begin with trying to describe just how much this game means to me. even before i found out that this game was going to be re-released for the switch, it was on my list to replay it. it might be me looking at it with nostalgia glasses but wow, i still think that this game is such a gem to play even though it was released in like the early 2000s. i gotta say that the game was harder than i remembered it being, ESPECIALLY before you reach tethe'alla because wow i just kept running out of TP and being underleveled etc, but once you get past the first few hours of tethe'alla the game becomes much more balanced. also the tethe'alla dungeons weren't as annoying as i thought they'd be, even the temple of shadow. i only did a couple of sidequests: the formal party, the beach one, raine's mother, and the extra one they added that you get to see depending on who you picked as your soulmate which....holy crap that altamira scene of lloyd and sheena was WAY too damn cute what the hell!!!!!! i love seeing those tho dorks being awkward as hell with each other lmao so i don't even care to look up what the scene would look like if you had picked zelos as your soulmate because wow that was cuteness overload.

now that i have more appreciation for the work that voice actors do, i cannot BELIEVE the voice acting cast for this game, geez!!!! every single one of them is just such a marvel. yeah i can go on and on about how sheena is my favorite character especially because i think that jennifer hale's VA work really shines in some of the small yet noticeable liberties she takes with her lines (even moreso in her flanoir/heimdall scenes), but i gotta say the one that really hurt my soul was genis's voice acting when he gets trapped inside the great tree. like, the line where he says "when it comes down to it, my body starts shaking..." like EXCUSE ME SIR!!!!! his voice cracking during those lines??? i just wanted to go in and HUG HIM!!! which is why i had to include it in my screenshots above because WOW even though i've seen that scene so many times it just shook me this time even more. i've already talked about this before but ALSO when raine confronts her mother?? fuuuuuckkkalkdjflkasdjflkjsadf ahhhhhhhh i love all of these damn characters so much and it's because the VAs did just such a fantastic job with all of them!!

i will never stop marveling at the effort that these devs did in making sure all of the characters were able to be picked as your soulmate. i haven't played any other game that lets you do this and that handles it so well. i think i've only deviated from my usual path once when i was trying to get 100% collectibles, but man i will never again pick kratos as the soulmate cus as much as i don't find zelos's personality likable at all (yeah yeah i know it's just a mask because of the trauma etc but like did they have to make him a pervert) i don't wanna kill any of my friends, sheesh! but anyway YEAH i mean even in the sequel i remember they handled the "who did lloyd leave at the end with" pretty well and let you choose there as well, amazing!!! thank you for letting me choose my partner because geez i don't know what it is about me and never finding myself rooting for the "canon" pairing in games! (abyss being the one exception that comes to mind)

also i think i haven't played another tales game that has a better soundtrack than this one. abyss, berseria, zestiria, arise...none of them really had more than 3 songs that caught my attention, but symphonia (and even the sequel has some pretty good original songs) is just full of them. the ending theme of symphonia is one of my favorite ending themes ever in a video game. there's just something so emotionally powerful about it that ugh just tugs at my heart. which, OK that artwork that they added for the ps3 version that shows scenes from throughout the game?? FUCKING LOVED IT omg!!!! nothing better than sitting back and listening to that gorgeous ending theme while looking at that cute af artwork scrolling through!! (AND they added the bridge-jumping scene which is also one of my faves aldkjfalskf).

i think when the switch version comes out i will try to go the "hard" path and recruit sheena earlier in the game--is that when that scene of her playing the kids shows up? or are you supposed to visit luin like way earlier to see it? EITHER way i'll be rambling more about this game once i play it again next year on the switch because i didn't even get to talk about what is now one of my favorite skits in the game! :)

anyway, xillia arrived today and i was definitely thinking about starting it as soon as i finished symphonia, but my love for the symphonia cast has once again won and i think xillia will have to wait until i play through dawn of the new world. i MEAN, it's not THE greatest game and definitely not what a lot of people were expecting after symphonia, but tenebrae is hilarious, sheena has the most screentime out of all of the original symphonia cast (except maybe tied with regal?), and i honestly don't remember much about this game since i only played it like three times. ALSO omg i'm pretty sure this doesn't get shown in the sequel but WHERE IS CHOCOLAT because *imagine!!!* her grandma gets killed by lloyd (yeah it's not his fault but you know what i mean), she gets taken to a human ranch, while she's away her hometown gets DESTROYED due to lloyd and the chosen awakening spirits of both worlds, so...now you have no grandma, no hometown, your mother's shop was (more than likely) destroyed because of the giant tree, and who knows if chocolat's mom survived the attack! like omg that girl has been through A LOT!!!

OK i need to stop rambling and start dawn of the new world. long story short, my symphonia obsession is back and i'm loving it!!!!