Tales of Symphonia, the fifth main game in Bandai Namco’s Tales series, the eleventh game released in total, is making a grand return on February 17 in the form of Tales of Symphonia Remastered for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One. To celebrate this new remaster, Bandai Namco plans to upload every episode of Tales of Symphonia: The Animation. Studio Ufotable originally animated and released this series on June 8, 2007. But everything old is new again when remastering a classic title for a new age.
Tales of Symphonia: The Animation consists of eleven episodes divided into three story arcs: the Sylvarant arc, the Tethe’alla arc, and The United World arc. The first episode is already available, and the rest of the series will soon follow. While Bandai Namco’s official YouTube channel has the series, the official Tales of YouTube channel will upload them without subtitles. The series was never dubbed, so the language barrier might be a problem for some viewers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24kdboAKbBk
For fans of the game who may not have seen the anime series, or those who haven’t seen it since its 2007 release, Ufotable made a faithful adaptation of this beloved video game. Though some changes were made, they merely expanded on the overall story. For instance, Dirk, Lloyd’s adoptive father, never took part in the battle of Aselia against the Desians. But the anime shows him wielding his hammer in defense of the village.
The characters largely remain the same: Lloyd is kind and silly, and Raine takes absolutely none of his nonsense.
The battle scenes happen as one would expect from a game where humans pull off superhuman feats. Kratos, a warrior who has lived for thousands of years, effortlessly cuts down a group of enemies. And Lloyd executes a perfect Tiger Blade after his Exsphere reacts to his intense emotions.
Tales of Symphonia: The Animation blends silly, happy moments with dramatic and action-packed scenes, just as the video game had done years prior.
Tales of Symphonia weaves a timeless story of brave heroes who venture out to save the world. Colette is the Chosen of Mana, a unique individual said to be the child of an angel who will regenerate the world. Sylvarant currently faces a mana shortage, and mana is the source of all life. Lloyd, Colette’s childhood friend, leads an unlikely team, following legends and myths to save the future of their world. However, those same legends and myths might not be all they seem, and their guides may lead them to their downfall.
For those concerned that Bandai Namco might pull the series down after some time, the Tales of account uploaded the entire Tales of the Abyss anime series two years ago with subtitles. It remains available to this day. Additionally, no mention has been made if the omake episodes, such as Professor Kratos’x Private Lesson, will be released.
Ufotable is no stranger to the Tales of series, having drawn the animated cutscenes of different Tales games and adapting a couple of Tales of games to anime. Besides Tales of Symphonia: The Animation, when they replaced Production I.G., who had previously worked on animation for the game, they also created Tales of Zestiria: Dawn of the Shepherd and Tales of Zestiria the X.
In video games, Ufotable provided anime scenes for Tales of Xillia and its sequel Tales of Xillia 2, Tales of Zestiria, Tales of Berseria, and most recently, 2021’s Tales of Arise.
As previously stated, all of this is to hype up and celebrate the upcoming release of Tales of Symphonia Remastered.
As excited as many people are, there has been some criticism and controversy surrounding its speed, in that it is locked to 30fps.
This is due to two reasons, the first being that the original release of Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube, which was released on August 29, 2003, ran at 60fps. The second reason is that this remaster is based on the Japan-only PlayStation 2 release from September 22, 2004, which was locked to 30fps. The PlayStation 2 version had more content readily available such as titles, events, and skills, so they chose this version to remaster.
Another point of contention is that the sequel is not present in this remaster. The Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (Tales of Symphonia: Unisonant Pack in Japanese) contained both the first game and the sequel Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk in Japanese), when it was released to the PlayStation 3 on October 10, 2013.
For those looking to get that platinum trophy and completely master Tales of Symphonia, they’ll need to clear the game at least four times.
Are you going to watch Tales of Symphonia: The Animation? Are you hyped for the game to be published again? Are you mad enough to go for the platinum trophy? Let us know in the comments below.
