*There are some spoilers below pertaining to the general story/structure of Tales of Symphonia and screenshots of the game, however I don’t go into any in-depth specifics and definitely don’t give away the ending!*
Ahh, Tales of Symphonia.
You eluded me for so long, being stuck on my list-of-game-series-I-knew-about-and-would-probably-like-but-never-got-into (I’m also looking at you, Persona). I played about half of Tales of Phantasia several years ago but never finished it and never revisited.
But then Christmas 2017 came…and I was gifted a copy of Tales of Symphonia on Steam. I could avoid it no more, clearly.
In fact, it wasn’t going to be on my gaming agenda for quite some time, but then along came a few days before the Shadow of the Colossus remake was released and I wanted to play something but didn’t feel like playing Monster Hunter. I know, I thought. I’ll have a little go at Symphonia. Just a little go. Then when SOTC is out I’ll play that. I probably won’t even get that into Symphonia.
Well, one thing led to another, and…let’s just say Shadow of the Colossus is on hold for now. Sorry, Wander.
Something which is making Tales of Symphonia stand out in particular from other games for me is the integration of these sort-of animé kind-of cutscenes within the gameplay.
Often you’ll be wandering around in the overworld (or dungeon, or town), and then an icon will flash up in the bottom left of the screen telling you to push a certain button, or there’ll be a funny flashy light thing you can walk into. Then you’ll be treated to a little animated conversation between your party members, which could last from a few seconds to a couple of minutes. They could discuss anything—from how bad one of your party smells, to food, to philosophy.
These conversations, or “skits” as I believe they’re referred to, serve to build a bond between the characters and the player, by demonstrating the forging of relationships between the characters themselves. Their individual personalities manifest in how they interact with each other; how they express their beliefs, weaknesses, humour, and affection (or disdain) for each other, for example. Over a long period of time, and many skits, you feel as though you know each individual intimately.
The way Tales of Symphonia unravels is similar to an animé, in my opinion. Aside from the obvious art style, the structure of the narrative uses a lot of the same devices.
It starts off small; you have a a small handful of seemingly stereotypical characters that you are introduced to (the brave but not-very-smart Lloyd, the clever but naïve Genis, the sweet but klutzy Colette). It then builds on this quickly, introducing you to more characters and advanced concepts, and the fact that one of them, being the Chosen One, must go on a perilous journey to save the world from destruction! So, standard animé really.
Each segment of the game is split into “tales”, each being very digestible fragments of story that build up over a long time into a cohesive whole; much like episodes of a series that eventually conclude in a finale. Some of them relate more directly to the overall arc that the story is building, and some serve more as “filler”, to allow you to obtain valuable items, learn more about the world, or get to know the characters more deeply.
At least for me, I have found the journey to be more important than the outcome in Symphonia. The interaction between the characters, and how they learn about the world along the way is very reminiscent of the slice of life genre common amongst manga and animé, which are very much about experiencing the journey along the way as opposed to the ultimate conclusion of the story threads.
Symphonia isn’t slice of life specifically, as it does have an overall story arc and keeps actively building towards it, but it does appear to employ storytelling techniques from the genre—especially during the more “filler”-type tales— in order to engage us as the audience with the world and characters in such a way that we become very attached. This aids greatly in investing the player emotionally during the trials and tribulations presented during the more “main story arc”-type tales.
Naturally, I became very nostalgic for animé series whilst playing Tales of Symphonia. I hadn’t watched any series for quite a few years, and then all of a sudden I broke and watched Cowboy Bebop. Then the floodgates were opened and I started watching Gin no Saji (Silver Spoon). Both of these are pretty slice of life-y, and have definitely helped to scratch the animé itch!
As to whether I’ll stop with these, though, is a Tale yet to be told.
Note: Between starting and finishing writing this I managed to complete Tales of Symphonia, and I need to say that it was a very satifying, fuzzly ending which I’d highly recommend if you’ve managed not to play it so far. It is a long game, but definitely worth it, even just for the journey along the way. Oh, and also entirely my personal opinion, but I completely and totally preferred to switch the voices over to Japanese in this instance.
**Many spoilers below! Main plot points will be spoiled! This is your final warning!**
Don’t get me wrong here—I enjoyed many a happy session with Final Fantasy XV.
Gameplay-wise, I had a lot of fun. I enjoyed the battle system, exploring the world, getting Ignis to keep driving the car around, and the quest system (even if it was rather…extensive).
And the visuals are goddamn beautiful. Just seeing, well, anything really filled me with awe. Something in particular was witnessing a summon sequence for the first time. The sheer power. Incredible.
Titan boots up for the first time O_O
Narrative-wise, though, I felt somewhat shortchanged. And for me, the narrative is almost always the most critical piece to hold a game together. It bothered me while I was playing, and once I got over the initial elation of finishing the game and started to think about what I had experienced, just kept on bothering me. As a pretty much life-long fan of the Final Fantasy series, I had never experienced this feeling with any of the other titles, and it just felt…odd.
I need to note that since release in November 2016, there have been multiple patches which alter/add to the existing cutscenes, fleshing out the story a little. There have also been the releases of Episode Gladiolus/Prompto/Ignis, and also Comrades which added varying amounts of character development and filled in some holes. And not forgetting the animé miniseries Brotherhood and the film Kingsglaive which were released before the game and offer further character/world development, if somewhat limited.
Still, I will try to outline below what I felt was lacking during my playthrough of the main game. I will be concentrating on the relationships between characters, and character development demonstrated to the player (as characters are crucial to narrative development in FFXV), but I may explore further topics in future.
I didn’t believe in Noctis and Luna’s relationship
Probably the most important plot motivator in the game is Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum’s looming marriage to Lunafreya Nox Fleuret. Being royalty, we are told their marriage was to serve as part of a peace treaty between Noctis’s kingdom of Lucis and the empire of Niflheim, which controls Luna’s former kingdom, Tenebrae. The betrothal is what sets the initial journey of the four main characters in motion; to drive to Altissia where the wedding will be. Sort of like a bachelor party on wheels.
We have a very limited exposure to the two’s relationship. We are told that they were childhood friends before Tenebrae was invaded by Niflheim, and there are cutscenes that illustrate this and explain how they keep in contact via letters.
However, never the twain shall meet.
We never see any direct interaction between Noctis and Luna as adults (apart from when Luna dies, and I’m not sure that counts), and therefore a major opportunity is missed in fleshing out not only their relationship as friends/potential lovers, but also their individual, grown-up personalities.
People change a lot between being a child and an adult in terms of their opinions, beliefs, experiences etc, and it would have been ideal to see how these two characters interact after all of those years apart.
It would have been especially important for making me care about Luna as a person, as even after an entire game (and more, including the film/animé) I still think of her as a stranger. What of her time spent healing the sick? Did it change her at all? How does she feel about being the Oracle? How did her life change after her kingdom was invaded, and what did she think of that? Does she remember when Prompto saved her dog and is she grateful to him for being a friend to Noctis ever since? Are those tarts that Ignis makes actually really good and she likes them the same as or even better than the ones back in Tenebrae? (OK maybe this one isn’t so important…)
Mmmmmmmm…Memory Lane Pastries…
Something else, too, was I expected to hear some sort of opinion expressed by Noctis and Luna about their upcoming marriage. I remember it being briefly touched upon during an in-field interaction between Noct, Prompto, Ignis and Gladio, and whenever the marriage was mentioned Noctis didn’t seem very enthusiastic about it, but I really wanted to hear properly what one or both of the two to be married thought about it. Was he/she excited? Apprehensive? Did they accept it because it was their duty as the Crown Prince/former Princess even if they didn’t feel romantically towards one another? I don’t know because the game never explored this.
And when Luna does pass away, I don’t feel as upset as Noctis looks. I feel like I should, but I lack a proper bond with Luna to care enough. I would have felt more upset if Cindy died, and that’s saying something.
I did believe in a relationship that didn’t exist
A heartwarming picture, right? Right?
Here, I must mention Gladio’s younger sister, Iris. It is established since the animé Brotherhood that she has a crush on Noctis but doesn’t act on it. In Final Fantasy XV she aids the party with part of their quest, taking part in combat and inter-party bants, and we even get to spend time with her in the Regalia.
I believed this could go somewhere. I felt like I knew Iris a little, and wanted her and Noctis to get to know each other better. They could have even vocalised how they couldn’t, you know, do anything or be anything other than friends because Noctis has to marry Luna. Just elaborate on something. I’ve cared about this relationship since before I even played the game; don’t just let me give Iris flowers and then not do anything else!
I couldn’t even bear to think about Iris dying. And this is because the game enabled me to form a strong enough bond with her as a character.
Noctis didn’t seem that close to his dad
It is established in Brotherhood, and also in the Platinum Demo, that Noctis and his father Regis were very close. As King and Crown Prince with an absence of a mother figure, they shared an intimate bond, at least while Noctis was a child.
At the beginning of FFXV, their relationship felt somewhat less warm, especially on behalf of Noctis. So what happened? My initial reaction was this was because Noctis wasn’t fond of his arranged marriage to Luna, but as I spoke about above, this is either a false signal that I’ve picked up on or just isn’t expanded on as a plot point.
When Noctis finds out about Regis’s death and Insomnia falling to the empire, he is visibly and understandably upset. This is good, and I cared enough about Regis to feel some of what wanted me to feel. However, I also felt something was lacking with this plot point.
Thinking on this, it comes back to Noctis acting coldly towards his dad on that day he left Insomnia with his pals. It is never explained why he was that way, and therefore it feels like they just don’t share a close bond with one another. I’m trying to imagine I hadn’t seen Brotherhood or Kingsglaive, and if that were the case the introduction of the game would be the only time I would have witnessed the relationship between father and son, and it didn’t seem that special, on the surface.
Researching this point could bring you to all sorts of conclusions as to how their relationship deteriorated over the years due to events around them, but if you are taking the game at face value, as most players would, it just seems like a bit of a dud.
How could Noctis’s loss be made to feel more “real”?
Firstly, I think that seeing more interaction between them when Noctis was younger would help. Noctis loves fishing; did he get this from Regis? Perhaps they cheekily spent time doing this instead of official duties on occasion? Could this be because Regis saw his son being heavily weighed upon by world events (the war with Niflheim, his destiny as the future king) and wanted to help him feel like a normal child now and then?
If only Daddy Dearest could’ve seen this one!
As he grew older, did Noctis ever question why his dad was aging so incredibly rapidly? Even if he knew the cause (using the power of the Crystal to maintain a magical wall around the city of Insomnia—it does terrible things to your skin), did he ever voice concern, if their relationship was so close? Was Noctis afraid of when the time came for him to maintain the Wall? I want to see this.
Once the boys leave Insomnia at the beginning of the game and up until the point where they find out the city has fallen, Noctis never expresses any sort of longing to see or speak to his father. He has a phone; he could at least try to call. And if they are unable to get in contact due to events unfolding in Insomnia (ie during Kingsglaive), he could perhaps make a point of this being the case (or wonder why he can’t contact him, if he doesn’t know what has been happening in the city).
Lastly, After Regis dies and the boys resolve to gather the Royal Arms to protect the Crystal, Regis is rarely (if ever) mentioned again. Not a tear is shed, a bereavement shared, or anything. It is only near the end of the game, once the Regalia—the last remnant of Regis left—is destroyed, that we are shown a snippet of Noctis thanking his dad for all he has done. It is touching, but I still feel like it could have been built up to a bit more (by illustrating to us the closeness between father and son throughout the game, and visiting Noctis’ feelings towards the loss of his father in a little more depth), to make the moment more poignant as a send-off for Regis.
Other important characters didn’t get much screen time
I think that Cid and Cindy had sufficient screen time for us as the player to understand what they’re about, and to care about them, even though they didn’t play a major part in the main events of the story. Ardyn, too, spent enough time with us for us to feel somewhat of a connection to him (even if it could have been a bit more before the finale).
Ardyn just seemed to be this weird, kind of cool older bloke with good connections who hung around a bit now and then before disappearing. It might have been more effective for the plot if he built a stronger relationship with the main characters, before his betrayal towards the end.
There were other characters, though, who played into the storyline but I didn’t feel like I knew them well enough to care much about them. In particular, I’m thinking of Cor, Aranea and Ravus.
All three of these characters were expanded upon in the DLCs Episode Gladiolus/Prompto/Ignis respectively, but during the main events of FFXV I didn’t really have much of an idea of who they were, why they were doing what they were doing, or their motivations behind helping/hindering me with my quest.
It was especially prominent with Ravus Nox Fleuret, who being Luna’s brother you would think is important by default, but it felt like he was pushed to the sidelines as a character. A little extra content containing Ravus was patched into the game at a later date, and I was very pleased with the additions that Episode Ignis brought to us about him, but I would have wanted to see more, and a larger amount of that during the main storyline.
Wish I could’ve known you better, Ravey-boy. Or at all.
And now I take my leave…for the moment
This turned into a long’un! Thanks for staying with me to the end; it’s been bothering me for some time what it is exactly that I felt was lacking in FFXV, and it’s been helpful to try and structure it into something readable.
It has been some time since I played FFXV so I had to research quite a lot of this in order to remind myself about it, but hopefully I’ve stayed as accurate as possible (though I apologise for anything which may be incorrect). Overall I really did love the game, even if it might not sound like it sometimes—I just cant shake the feeling that it is lacking in several narrative-related areas, and was trying to word how I think the game’s experience could be enhanced by delving into these.
There are other things I would like to write about as well pertaining to the aspects of the game that aren’t specifically to do with character development and relationships, but I will save it for another time methinks!
Turn Based Turnip 