tales of symphonia was balls except for the gameplay. seriously i thought it was the worst Tales game, the story is flat and derived from LOL RPG CLICHES HEH THIS IS 1990 LETS SEARCH FOR MAGICAL BASED ITEMS LOL IM AN ANGEL and the characters are all AWFUL, and the soundtrack is like Sakuraba's least well done work.
people praise how groundbreaking and acclaimed it was but they dont realize that its THE EPITOME OF ANIME. the only reason everyone loves it is because there are only like 2 or 3 rpgs on GameCube, and the only good one is Skies of Arcadia.
Seriously all the Tales games are pretty much trash except for Eternia and Destiny, and Abyss is awesome too if you can stomach the shitty main character.