The fifth installment of the well-known Tales of Series of Japanese role-playing video games is titled Tales of Symphonia. It was the title that really put the franchise on the map in international waters when it was first released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2003 to rave reviews.
The fifth installment of the well-known Tales of Series of Japanese role-playing video games is titled Tales of Symphonia. It was the title that really put the franchise on the map in international waters when it was first released for the Nintendo GameCube in 2003 to rave reviews.
Does the Tales of Symphonia OVA Stay True to the Original Source?
Tales of Symphonia is an incredibly long game, with its main story going for about 47 hours -- and that's not including side quests. It's so long, in fact, that the original GameCube game came with two discs instead of the usual one. The anime adaptation, by comparison, is incredibly short with fewer episodes than a typical single-season anime. This means a lot of story content and details had to be cut out to fit the limited runtime. While the anime is at least faithful to the main cast's characterizations, some of their character arcs had to be slimmed down to the bare essentials.
In order to devote more time to the main heroine's journey and purpose as "The Chosen One," many other story details, such as the human ranch subplot, received little attention. The Tales of Symphonia anime manages to omit significant information and characters despite placing so much more emphasis on the main plot line, particularly one who plays a significant role in the game's latter half but suddenly appears in the anime's final episode. Having said that, the adaptation manages to maintain the game's main message and provide a satisfying conclusion for fans of the original game, even though many people agree that it felt a bit hurried.
Can new fans access the Tales of Symphonia OVA?
This Tales of Symphonia adaptation is perfect for anyone looking for a well-written, well-animated fantasy series with likeable characters. People who are unfamiliar with the game's lore will find the early episodes in particular to have a fairly linear approach to the story. Things start to become a little bit more perplexing in the anime's final three episodes. Particularly when it comes to the Big Bad, the characters begin to bring up significant lore and information that seemed to appear out of nowhere.
While fans of the game should have no trouble following along, newcomers will likely have trouble keeping up. As far as adaptations of video games go, Tales of Symphonia's OVA is certainly one of the better ones. Another point to the anime was the series of bonus omakes included at the end of each arc, which featured all sorts of silly gags not present in the original game.
That said, the video game is definitely still the best and most definitive way to experience this story and its characters. In addition to the upcoming Switch release, Tales of Symphonia is also available for Steam and the PlayStation 3 (this edition is also a dual-pack that includes the sequel, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World).
