Tales of Symphonia Remastered (PS4) Impressions

Tales of Symphonia was originally on the Nintendo Gamecube and is a much liked game in the long running franchise. Now its available again in a remastered edition for the Nintendo Switch and Playsation 4. Here is our early impressions of the PlayStation 4 version.

When I started playing Tales of Symphonia, the characters looked familiar but the story didn’t. I thought I played this game on the Gamecube, but perhaps I didn’t. Either that or I just don’t remember it. So I can’t offer you a comparison between the Gamecube version and the PlayStation 4 version here. All I can tell you is how the game plays now.

On the PS4 so far, Tales of Symphonia plays fine. There have been no noticeable glitches and while there are load times here and there, they are very brief. Meanwhile, the graphics are not too bad. The characters look very nice and cartoon like.

However, the backgrounds are not as good. They’re not horrible either. Tales of Symphonia is clearly not a modern game, the graphics don’t look as bad as a lot of Playstation 1 ports but don’t look as good as Square Enix’s PS2 remasters or Nintendo’s recent Gamecube efforts.

As for its gameplay, Tales of Symphonia plays a lot like your typical Tales game. The world feels very open, especially in the world map. You see the enemy on the world map and in the field and sometimes can avoid them.

The battle system is 100% Tales: a mix of action and pop-up menu for items. The main character feels a bit too hack’n’slash, but the other characters are supported by computer controlled allies who use healing and magic mostly. Its not a great battle system, but its what you’d expect from this series.

Tales of Symphonia’s story so far is interesting. Like I said earlier, I don’t remember it a bit. I’m looking forward seeing where it goes.

Overall, Tales of Symphonia feels like an older game. And it is that, but, while its far from bad, the remaster doesn’t feel as sharp as some of the Square Enix or Nintendo efforts. Its definitely not a bad game. We’ll have our final thoughts on this game next week to let you know if its worth checking out or not. Stay tuned to GamesReviews.com for more on Tales of Symphonia Remastered!