Tales question

[soonersfan60]

Has anyone here played both Tales of Symphonia for GC and Tales of Phantasia for GBA? I was wondering how similar they are. Is the GBA one as good as the GC one? My son loves Symphonia for GC, and I think its a really good game for the combat system and all. Is the combat similar for the GBA one? What other similarities/differences are there?

Thanks.

[Spades22]

Well I've played through all of ToS, but only a slight bit of Phantasia. I think that the GBA combat was similar in that it was 2d with real time action, not turn based. The combat was slower though in that you couldn't attack quite as fast. The thing I hated about ToS was the story, and I think it was slightly better in Phantasia.
If he loved the GC one he'll probably like this one...

You could always *cough* download the ROM version and try it out xD

[maigoyume]

like spades said, the game itself is fairly similar besides the (2d vs 3d) and cel shading, the combat itself is MUCH slower and i personally thought it wasn't quite as good as ToS

[The Crotch]

Question: does the GBA version of ToP retain the stupid "attack-and-retreat-" thing? In the SNES version, your character automatically ran backwards after every attack. Was that fixed for the GameBoy?

Also, just because Symphonia is a prequel, don't expect the two games to really be related in any way plot-wise. Just sayin'.

[Spades22]

Nah I think you could keep attacking/defending like in Tales. I only played for maybe an hour or two lol, so all I really know is the combat a bit and kind of the story from reading.

[soonersfan60]

Thanks, guys. It sounds like it is worth getting. (I don't know why everyone complains about the ToS story. I think it's pretty good so far [just started disc 2]. A little corny, but decent plot twists.)

[botticus]

Question: does the GBA version of ToP retain the stupid "attack-and-retreat-" thing? In the SNES version, your character automatically ran backwards after every attack. Was that fixed for the GameBoy?

Also, just because Symphonia is a prequel, don't expect the two games to really be related in any way plot-wise. Just sayin'.Nope, you still run away often enough in the GBA version. There were ways to avoid that (mainly trial and error in timing of attacks and directional button presses), but it was there.

And as far as a comparison of the two, Symphonia is by far the better game, as the nth iteration of a series tends to be compared to the first, but there's very much familiar in Phantasia after playing Symphonia.

[Sporophyte]

Symphonia and Phantasia are both excellent games, but the age of Phantasia will really show itself clearly when played. The Random encounters rate is high, the battles are quite challenging, titles for characters give no indication to their actual purpose, and the battle system is more about clever timing to chain your attacks, whereas in Symphonia you can easily get away with a more button mashy approach. All those signs of old age aren't a problem for some people (i.e. me) so I still love phantasia, but it's deffinately not as accessible as the newer Symphonia.