Tales of Symphonia: Difference between revisions

After a few hours the storyline drops its first [[Wham! Episode]] on you, after which the plot expands exponentially from a single [[Black and White Morality]] tale to a full-on [[Gambit Pileup]], with multiple sides trying to manipulate or eliminate Colette for their own purposes and Lloyd determined to do everything he can to protect her, even from herself.

 

 

The game was adapted into three four-episode [[RPG Anime|anime]] [[OVA|OVAs]], the last of which is still in production, and 6 [[Bonus Material|omakes]]. A manga was published that covered the events of the first game and its ending becomes the first game's canon ending according to the second game (See [[Third Option Adaptation]] below). There are also several [[Audio Adaptation|Drama CDs]]. It's unlikely any of this will ever be officially translated to English, but fansubs of the OVAs are circulating around the Internet if you look. It places more emphasis on the relationship between Lloyd and Colette, and is obviously a [[Compressed Adaptation]].

* [[Abandoned Mine]]: Toize Valley Mine in Tethe'alla.

* [[Absurdly Spacious Sewer]]: Meltokio. When Zelos and co. are arrested the party uses this to continue to come and go from Meltokio. It has doors, trash compactors, stairs, and bridges.

** In the [[OVA]], Dirk beats up Lloyd because he used a Exsphere to protect himself and Colette. Judging by how Dirk is characterized, and how Norman of ''[[Pokémon Special]]'' got away with worse but was likewise still portrayed as a good father, this is probably a case of [[Values Dissonance]], rather than deliberately portraying Dirk as a bad father.

** Zelos never had the nicest relationship with his mother, as she was forced into a loveless marriage, even though she "probably loved someone else." {{spoiler|When she's killed in an attack that was intended to kill Zelos, her last words to him were "You should never have been born".}} It's shown in the manga that even before this, she was cold and dismissive of her son, often making the excuse that she's ill or has a headache to get out of having to see him. No wonder he's so messed up...

** Colette has wings and can fly, and will sometimes think to go check out high places that Lloyd can't reach - but never when it would actually be useful, like in most box-pushing puzzles, or a certain quest involving picking a fruit from the high branch of a tree.

** Similarly, Sheena can call upon the Summon Spirits to aid her, and occasionally does so outside of battle to get certain [[Plot Coupons]], but she'll never do so to help you get past those mandatory box puzzles, even when time is of the essence.

* [[Bonus Dungeon]]: Niflheim

* [[Bonus Material]]: In addition to the OVA's, there are 6 omakes/bonuses. They all have [[No Fourth Wall]] and are rather absurd.

* [[Boomerang Bigot]]: The Pope is fiercely anti-half-elf even though he has a half-elf daughter. Though to be more accurate, he hates half-elves ''because'' his daughter is a half-elf; he used to support the cause of half-elf equality, and even fell in love with an elf. But when their daughter was born and her mother died, he found himself growing more hateful and terrified of her differences, coming to understand the perspective of the people who hated half-elves, and he started to support them instead.

* [[Breaking the Fourth Wall]]:

** Also, the famous Tower of Mana "Quick Jump" skit. To an extent, anyway.

* [[Calling Your Attacks]]: All of them. Except for {{spoiler|Colette when she loses her voice}}, using a special in combat will result in this trope.

** Maybe, but the similarities between Colette and [[Saikano]]'s Chise are high in number and down right creepy at times.

** Colette and [[Disgaea|Flonne]] are both flat-chested blondes who preach about love {{spoiler|and are angels}}.

* [[Crystal Dragon Jesus]]: The Church of Martel, which has a very Catholic bent to it.

* [[Cultural Cross-Reference]]: In the beach sidequest of the first game, the names of the four girls you're supposed to find easily remind you of a certain book series that is [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|beloved by the Japanese]]. {{spoiler|[[Little Women|Amy, Jo, Beth, and Meg]] make cameo appearances. Seriously. Bonus points to Jo apparently being a [[Bokukko]] here, and having Amy be blonde}}

** In one of the [[OVA|OVAs]], Sheena takes Lloyd down in [[One Hit KO|one hit]] only to get owned by Kratos afterwords. {{spoiler|''You do not mess with that man's son.''}}

** Also in the [[OVA|OVAS]]: Zelos doesn't fare so well in his second battle with Regal, though he does manage to take him down with him via a [[Last Ditch Move]].

* [[Cute Bruiser]]: Presea, as well as Colette once she gains more angel abilities. She even lifts an unconscious Regal ''with one arm'' at one point.

** Kratos, in cutscenes, can kill, stun, or block pretty much anything with a dramatic flash of light and a [[Single-Stroke Battle|single attack]]. In battle, he's not so hot. Also, all the characters with wings don't use them very often.

** Not to mention the fact that a single Demon Fang from Lloyd can horribly wound Magnius and Mithos in a cutscene. A Fireball (or three) from Genis yields similar results.

** Going from a later game like ''Abyss'', ''Innocence'', or ''Vesperia'' to ''Symphonia'' can be really frustrating, because Symphonia predated free run.

** In ''Symphonia'', by default, normal attacks are A (the middle/central/somewhat over-sized face button) and special abilities are B (the left face button) on the Gamecube controller. In ''Vesperia'', normal attacks are B (the right face button) and special abilities are A (the bottom face button) on the Xbox 360 controller. It helps though that both games allow you to customize your battle controls.

* [[Dark Reprise]]: Zelos' and Colette's themes.

* [[Dead Character Walking]]: Sheena's revival technique, Purgatory Seal, essentially creates a literal version of this: the game will treat you as "alive", but you have zero [[Hit Points]], and you go down if you take any damage at all. Healing items and spells work on you as they do on any other living character.

** Pretty much every main character, including the [[Big Bad]], is a [[Deconstruction]] of a standard RPG character archetype. It's particularly savage towards the idea of [[The Chosen One]] and just what self-esteem issues a [[Messianic Archetype]] [[Purity Sue]] could potentially end up with. It tears into the [[Determinator]] and [[Idiot Hero]] tropes too.

** Just to clarify a bit, being a stubborn idiot may have been the only thing that kept Lloyd going when a smarter person of the same upbringing would have been done, and his unflinching idealism lead to a major [[Heroic BSOD]] or two when he learned what was actually going on.

* [[Defeat Means Friendship]]: Just about anyone you fight without killing.

* [[Determinator]]: Half the damn cast, Lloyd being the primary culprit. It's also [[Deconstruction|deconstructed]] with the [[Big Bad]], whose main character flaw is in many ways his inability to [[Know When to Fold'Em]], something Lloyd does know.

** The status page for characters includes both first and last names. {{spoiler|When you reach the event where Presea finds out that her sister was killed by a man called "Master Bryant", Regal's last name ''conveniently'' disappears. Regal is a self-declared murderer. Guess who he killed? }}

** Sure, you ''can'' get to Palmacosta by taking a boat from Izoold... or, you can walk across a bridge in the other direction, and go through around the second continent in reverse order. You'll still end up visiting all of the major destinations and seeing all of the mandatory scenes, and the story will still make a modicum of sense. There's even some scenes that you can only see this way, and once you've [[Level Grinding|Level Grinded]] against the enemies on the "far" end of the continent and bought the good weapons, once you get back around to Palmacosta, every fight is a cakewalk.

* [[Dinosaurs Are Dragons]]: The Dragon Rider and his noble steed, the <s>Velociraptor</s> [[Call a Rabbit a Smeerp|Velocidragon]]. In fairness, it ''does'' breathe fire.

* [[Disc One Final Dungeon]]: First there's the {{spoiler|first}} visit to the Tower of Salvation in Sylvarant, then it's {{spoiler|the Second trip to the Tower of Salvation in Tethe'alla (the third trip to the tower overall)}}. And then after ''that'', it's {{spoiler|Torent Forest}}.

** The human ranches are ''very'' similar to the Nazi concentration camps. Kvar also deserves special mention, as he draws many similarities with [[Mad Scientist|Josef Mengele]].

** And Regal is {{spoiler|The president of a major company, specializes in martial arts, and has a pretty dark past involving the death of an important person}}. How oddly [[Batman|familiar]]...

** Presea's hometown of Ozette is destroyed rather arbitrarily, Luin also becomes completely wrecked, and so does Heimdall...basically, half the hometowns you go to wind up getting thrashed. To be quite honest, Luin was asking for it. That's what you get when your town's name can be written as Ruin. So was Ozette for being full of racist jerks.

** Palmacosta.

** Kratos and apparently Colette(?!) are seen doing this in the fourth OVA bonus, in mourning for their loss of lines/screen time. Yuan's there too though celebrating his increase in screentime.

** Zelos also visits the bar later for the same reason.

** Sheena: [[Sixth Ranger]]

* [[The Force Is Strong with This One]]: Elves and half-elves are able to distinguish between the different races by reading others mana signature.

** Most of it is only obvious in hindsight. During subsequent playthroughs you'll probably wonder how you missed some of them. There's even some on the western box art. Notice how, of all characters, It's Lloyd/Colette and Sheena/Zelos that appear on the cover? (with Lloyd & Sheena being in front, and Zelos & Colette being in the back?) {{spoiler|Essentially, it's showing two Sylvaranti along with their, for all intents and purposes, alternate-dimension counterparts.}}

** There's a reason why {{spoiler|Mithos and Colette}} look so similar.

* [[Gainaxing]]: Visible on {{spoiler|Martel}} in the ending cutscene. Also, pick Sheena as your avatar character and run around.

* [[Gambit Pileup]]: Let's just say there's a lot going on.

** Suffers pretty bad from it, considering how powerful the party becomes.

* [[Glass Cannon]]: Colette, Genis, and Sheena. Especially frustrating with Genis and Sheena, since their most powerful attacks rely on them getting into Overlimit first, which requires them to get hit at least a few times. Especially frustrating with Sheena, considering she has arguably the worst damage output otherwise. Even resident [[White Mage]] Raine can put up better numbers with attack magic. People rag on Sheena for this, but it seems a Justified trope considering that she might be a Guardian User/Magical Ninja, but she wasn't raised to be a fighter, and in fact one thing about making pacts that terrifies her {{spoiler|as well as the Volt incident}} is that they refuse to make a vow with her and attack.

* [[Go Through Me]]: Happens a couple of times with varying results.

** Lots of moments, but the "Hard Path", the [[Relationship Values]], and the [[Awesome but Impractical|Hi-Ougis]] get special notice.

** Let's not forget the teleport maze at Palmacosta ranch, or, even worse with no guide, the specific donations necessary to {{spoiler|rebuild Luin}}.

* [[Half-Human Hybrid]]: Half-elves.

* [[Hammerspace]]: Seles's purse. Also: Colette has true [[Hammerspace]], because her Pow Hammer-series spawn hammers out of nowhere.

** {{spoiler|Kratos, Zelos and Yuan.}}

** Also the heroes, from a certain perspective. Their ultimate goal is always "save the world," but pretty much every new piece of information about their situation radically alters what "save the world" even means, and how they plan to accomplish it, and sometimes whose toes are going to get stepped on in the process.

* [[Hidden Elf Village]]: Heimdall. There's also a [[Wutai|hidden Japanese village]], Mizuho.

* [[Human Resources]]: {{spoiler|Exspheres}}.

* [[Implied Love Interest]]: In this game you can make Lloyd to hook up with several girls, but the romance [[No Hugging, No Kissing|is never too explicit]].

** Genis uses a kendama, a ''children's toy''. Sheena uses cards with wards inscribed on them.

** [[Justified Trope|Justified]] for Genis. The kendama is explicitly said to help the kid concentrate when he's casting.

* {{spoiler|[[Inferred Holocaust]]: This is the prequel to [[Tales of Phantasia]] after all.}}

* [[Invisible to Normals]]: Presea and Abyssion are the only people out of a population of two whole planets who can hear Nebilim's voice.

{{quote|"Professor, what's a philanderer? Is it something you eat?"

[[Double Entendre|"I don't think you'd want to eat one."]] }}

* [[It Sucks to Be the Chosen One]]: A lot. For both Colette and Zelos.

** Each of the Desian Grand Cardinals has at least one of these, from Magnius snapping a bystander's neck for failing to address him as "LORD Magnius!" to Kvar's casual attitude towards the [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|Exsphere "cultivation" process]].

** {{spoiler|Colette}} gets a ''literal'' [[Kick the Dog]] to demonstrate just how far gone her transformation has left her.

** Lloyd, Genis, Colette, as well as Mithos. {{spoiler|Presea is a subversion.}}

** Although being 19, Sheena's still qualifies in Japan, where people are not considered an adult until age 20. A good reference to this is the ending of [[Tales of the Abyss]]

** Corrine, a small, rainbow man-made summon spirit.

** Verius, the summon spirit of heart. It is rainbow like Corrine, but much larger.

** Actually subverted {{spoiler|with Presea}}

{{quote|'''Yuan:''' "Like moths to the flame."

'''Lloyd:''' "Do you ever say anything original?" }}

* [[Leitmotif]]: Every member of the party has one, including a few [[Dark Reprise|Dark Reprises]]. The [[Big Bad]] and {{spoiler|Kratos}} also have their respective themes worked into their fight music.

* [[Lesser of Two Evils]]: In the first quarter of the game, Lloyd discovers that {{spoiler|Colette needs to sacrifice herself in order to fulfill her role as the Chosen}} and save the world. Lloyd must choose between saving the world and saving {{spoiler|Colette}}, and begrudgingly chooses the world, at least until he uncovers a [[Take a Third Option|Third Option]].

** Raine. She has rather... Interesting ideas on cuisine, such as one skit where she wonders about making a spicy cake. Half of her recipes have lemon as an additional ingredient. And a skit in the sequel has her cooking "lemon rice" for the party. She can even fail at making a ''Bread Sandwich!'' Sheena also has weird ideas about food, but she knows ''which weird ideas work'' so she is still a good cook (one of the best three, in fact, along with Genis and Regal).

** One of the funniest moments in the game involves Raine's cooking skills. In a small skit, the stone-faced, humorless stoic Kratos samples some of Raine's cooking to be polite. He even makes a gallant attempt at finding something nice to say about it ("Well, it has an interesting texture") before the aftertaste sets in and Kratos's first reaction is to use one of his healing spells ''on himself.'' It's funnier because [[The Comically Serious|it's Kratos]].

* [[Punctuated Pounding]]: Actually punctuated slashing.

{{quote|'''Kratos''': FEEL THE PAIN! (slash!) OF THOSE INFERIOR BEINGS! (slash!) AS YOU BURN IN HELL!}}

** All party members gained through [[Defeat Means Friendship]].

** Arguably, however, Sheena can eventually surpass both her boss incarnations statistics-wise.

* [[Self-Imposed Challenge]]: Invoked; several Titles exist as rewards for embarking on several common challenges, though most only require you to stick with them until various points on Disc 1, rather than the whole game.

* [[Set Right What Once Went Wrong]]: The party briefly thinks about doing this, once they get ahold of the {{spoiler|Eternal Sword}}, which has the power to transcend space and time. Lloyd decides against it, realizing that they don't have the right to tamper with time, especially considering the odds of messing this up even worse.

** Done for every member of the party with the Flanoir cutscenes. The ones with Sheena and Colette are decidedly romantic (the creators obviously knew that people were going to ship regardless), and the other ones explore other types of affection.

** Several, such as the the snow statues of Namco characters like Pac-Man in the first game. The Tales developers gave one to themselves with the names of the worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, which are taken from the moons of ''[[Tales of Phantasia]]'''s world.

** Someone in the slums of Meltokio says that he heard there was a [[Final Fantasy 7|cute flower girl somewhere in the slums]], but it turns out to be just a rumor.

* [[Standing in the Hall]]: Lloyd; while ''sleeping at the same time''

* [[Stepford Smiler]]: {{spoiler|Zelos. Big time. See: His Flanoir scene, or the cutscene in which you kill him if you chose Kratos in Flanoir. Mithos, as a type C,}} might count, too, at least until [[The Reveal]].

** You mean to say that {{spoiler|the surly angel who refused to explain anything and was interested only in his "daughter's" transformation into a soulless being, practically cackling when she was finally ready to do so,}} ''wasn't such a great guy after all?'' I'm shocked, I tell you.

** Partially subverted by Colette, of all people. She admits that she figured out {{spoiler|Remiel was not truly her father}} pretty early on, but felt she still had no other option besides {{spoiler|completing the world restoration journey (which would still presumably save Sylverant}}.

* [[Theme Naming]]:

*** Kratos and Zelus (Zelos) are the names of two {{spoiler|winged}} Greek god bothers that were in the service of Zeus. The mythological Kratos is the personification of strength and power, whereas Zelus is the personification of dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal.

*** Yggdrasill is the name of a [[World Tree]] from [[Norse Mythology]].

* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: It's a [[Tales (series)]] game. Most of the villains, except the Grand Cardinals {{spoiler|except Forcystus, who was a half-elf hero who wanted to help his people}}.

* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: Oh so much use of this. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] at one point.

** {{spoiler|Lloyd and Kratos.}}

** {{spoiler|Zelos}} as well, especially since {{spoiler|you only see them in the story path where you fight and kill him.}}

* [[Wutai]]: Mizuho. It's even one of the classical names of Japan.

* [[You Can Barely Stand]]: During your first trip to the Tower of Salvation, {{spoiler|if you lose the fight against Kratos, you face Yggdrasill with 1 HP per character.}} Yggdrasill has 40,000 HP, and your attacks do practically nothing, though, [[Hopeless Boss Fight|the boss fight is hopeless]] either way.

** Used word-for-word by Regal during the endgame [[Battle Royale With Cheese]].

** Also used by Forcystus when {{spoiler|the party assaults the Iselia Human Ranch in order to shut down its Mana Reactor before stopping the berserk Kharlan Tree.}}