I've played my fair share of lists of the best JRPGs as a whole, however, and it's a game that's easy enough to overlook.

The biggest hurdle for Tales of Symphonia, as I see it, comes from the fact that it's not a watershed release in the history of the genre. There's no great leap forward in technology, tone, or general ambition that makes the game vastly different from its predecessors, and a lot of its ingredients will be immediately recognizable to JRPG veterans. Even so, innovation isn't everything, and the way that Tales of Symphonia assembles and delivers its familiar parts results in an experience that I love to death.

Tales Of Symphonia Is The Complete JRPG Package

The Rare Game That Does Everything Well

In some ways, the aspects of Tales of Symphonia that feel the most quaint also serve as its calling card, quickly establishing why the Tales games are frequently categorized as comfort food JRPGs. The game opens on a chunky cel-shaded model of the protagonist, Lloyd Irving, snoozing in a schoolhouse with a "Zzz" text bubble above his head. The set-up for a story involving the journey of the goddess's "Chosen" is laid out in the form of a school lesson, delivered in front of the silent background gag of a character-shaped hole in the classroom wall.

Over the course of a journey that spans two worlds, Tales of Symphonia never abandons that charm, and poking around in the corners of its towns and dungeons is a consistently rewarding process. From the humorous party chatter to the Wonder Chef NPC who hides himself in random background objects, Tales of Symphonia's deceptively simple style belies a game made for those who love to stop and smell the roses. Accompanying everything is a magical score by legendary composer Motoi Sakuraba, responsible for the music in games ranging from Mario Tennis to Dark Souls.

Charm is the name of the game, but Tales of Symphonia is just as capable of delivering on a serious level as any Final Fantasy game is. While I'm frequently disappointed by JRPGs that stretch about 20 hours of plot into a 60-hour cycle, Tales of Symphonia never stops developing its narrative, and even the less surprising reveals keep the plot moving in exactly the right way. I also tend to balk at turn-based random encounters unless the combat is especially sophisticated, and Tales of Symphonia's action battles and deliberate enemy placement do a lot to keep me from fatiguing.

Tales Of Symphonia Remasters Have Never Gotten It Right

Numerous Ports All Have Additional Flaws

Tales of Symphonia is available on every major modern platform, so you don't have to own a GameCube (or a Wii and a GameCube controller) to conveniently play it. The problem, however, is that no port or remaster of Tales of Symphonia has ever been as good as the original. That caveat isn't exclusive to Tales of Symphonia — I think PS1 Final Fantasy games are way better on original hardware and a CRT than in upscaled ports, for example — but the situation is a bit unique.

Every modern release of Tales of Symphonia can be traced back to a basis in a Japanese PS2 port of the game, which did add some additional content into the mix. It also introduced some issues, most of which are minor, but one in particular is pervasively annoying. While Tales of Symphonia ran at 60 FPS on the GameCube, it's locked to 30 FPS on every other platform, including the obviously capable PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Even on PC, there's no mod that can appropriately patch the port of Tales of Symphonia to be 60 FPS, and a basic conversion would make the game run at double-speed.

Piling onto that is the approach taken by the most recent release, Tales of Symphonia Remastered, which upscales the low-resolution textures to smudgy and often unattractive results. I don't think anything about the Tales of Symphonia remasters is necessarily ruinous, and I initially fell in love with the game by playing the Steam release. But it's still better on GameCube than anywhere else, which is exceptionally silly over two decades later.

The GameCube Shouldn't Be The Only Great Option

The Tales Series Deserves A Return To Form

I'm not one to generally beg for remakes or remasters of great games, as I'd typically rather see improvements applied to interesting games that didn't quite fulfill their potential. If the Tales series ever did take on a big-budget remake, Tales of Symphonia would be one of the most obvious options, but I'm not asking for anything like that. I'd just like the original experience to be better preserved and disseminated, and I'd be happy to see even its dinkiest moments in a fundamentally unchanged but appropriately polished package.

I'd be even more thrilled by a new Tales game that's as good as Tales of Symphonia or the PS2 and Xbox 360 standouts Abyss and Vesperia. Like a lot of JRPG franchises from the era, Tales has struggled to find its footing in the modern era, hemorrhaging many of the strengths of its best entries. Comparing Tales of Zestiria to Symphonia shines a spotlight on the newer title's repetitive story, bland NPCs, and cookie-cutter dungeons. Berseria fixed many of these issues, and Arise took on more ambition, but Tales still hasn't clawed its way back to its former heights.

At this point, I'm not holding out hope for Tales of Symphonia to get the treatment it deserves, and I'd still recommend the game in any form to JRPG fans who haven't yet played it. I wish I could be more enthusiastic about people picking up the game on newer systems, though, especially considering how well an appropriately handled remaster would translate. Tales of Symphonia is an exceptional JRPG that's at its best on the GameCube, and I'd love to see it get the new life it deserves elsewhere.