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Typically, I don't get on with Japanese RPGs. I don't like the melodrama, the stilted writing, the often turn-based menu-battles - and I don't like that I seem to spend more time watching the game than playing it. I can't ever shake the feeling that my participation is incidental to the story that the writers want for me.Almost 10 years ago, some friends sat me down and made me play what was probably the first JRPG outside of Pokémon that I actually enjoyed - Tales of Symphonia, now available in an HD reissue for PlayStation 3 which also includes its spin-off sequel Dawn of the New World. I've been struggling for years to explain why this game, above all of the Final Fantasies, Star Oceans and Lost Odysseys, shirked my hatred. Now I've come back to the twin worlds of Sylverant and Tethe'alla, finding a truly remarkable experience partially hidden by camp and wholly fuelled by layers of mutually-reinforcing design choices.
The story is one we've all heard before - there's some world-ending thing and a small group of chosen people must go on some epic quest to keep the world-ending thing from happening. And on the face of it, Tales of Symphonia is just like every other major JRPG. Most of the characters are kids, the number of belts on display is positively ridiculous and the melodrama dial has been set to 'High School Shakespeare production'.
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