First I have to point out that one of the main reasons I bought this game was the preorder bonus of "Tales of Symphonia" since I was a huge fan of that game during the Gamecube era. With that out of the way, I can honestly say I was blown away by this game.

I really had miminal expectations before playing this game - but I gotta hand it to Bandai Namco, this game is a great way to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the "Tales of" series.

This game starts out kinda slow - actually not kinda, but really slow, but after playing for a couple of hours while you gather all the party members, this game picks up huge steam and goes with that awesome pace up until the end.

The story starts like it's gonna be one of those happy go stories of let's save the world! but the deeper you delve into the game the darker it becomes while still maintaining a lot of fun moments. The story holds well with good backround lore of the characters.

Speaking of characters, the cast of this game is really great, the interaction between all the main characters is awesome, especially Edna - what a great and funny character.
But not limited to Edna, all the characters are fleshed out and great.
The game is filled with fun dialogue in the form of "skits", a mainstay of "Tales of" games. The game makes great use of cinematics, both in-game engine and also thhe well animated cutscenes.

The game is full of moments that make you genuinely smile, while other will make you genuinely tear up. This was only possible because of the well written characters.


In my opinion, having played 4 games in the series, this game has the best OST of any of them. What a beautifully made soundtrack.
Battles have nice BGM that will pump you up, Boss battles have their own too - but one AWESOME song plays in one of the final battles that really cemented this series as the best soundtrack.
Dungeons have good BGM, but what truly shines is the BGM of the Trial Dungeons which are masterfully done.

As in any Tales game, the combat is what truly shines. Developed by Namco Bandai, the Advanced Battle System (ABS) is an action based combat that let's you freely move in the battlefield while using combos to fight.
The abilities in this game are categorised as Martial Artes, Hidden Artes and Seraphic Artes - these abilies make the basis of the Battle System.

Also, this game has a fusion system where 2 characters can fuse in battle to gain hightened battle abilities. In addition, all characters have a finisher move that does massive damage called "Mystic Artes".
there are 5 elements in this game - Fire, water, wind, earth, and physical. All enemies have specific weaknesses and resistances to these elements - in order to win boss battles and harder enemies, you need to exploit these weaknesses.

In addition to the massive content, I'm 58 hours in and still have plenty of optional bosses and dungeons to complete and even a New Game+ with many optional difficulty or quality of life choices for people who are into that.
All these elements make this game a great addition to the fabled "Tales of" line-up.