Not really, especially considering Wind Waker came out before it with what's usually considered to be better cel shading.brightshield wrote:I agree. Graphics will always improve. However, Symphonia's graphics were more impressive for their time.
Even if you believe that Symphonia looked better at the time, it only proves my point about there being too many time-specific factors involved. Neither game is graphically deficient, so it shouldn't really even factor into an analysis of which game is the "best" in the series. It does however factor into review scores, so the scores clearly aren't judging the games on story, characterization, level of enjoyment, and overall effect alone.brightshield wrote:It would be praised highly in graphics no doubt. However, that's not a fair comparison. My point with graphics before was that Symphonia looked good on the Gamecube. It was easily one of the better looking cell shaded games on the console. While Destiny and Eternia were outdated and unimpressive on the PS1, especially Eternia. Of course, I'm not saying that Symphonia is technically more impressive than Vesperia graphic-wise.
The difference is simply in the styling. Eternal Sonata's cel shading was meant to give a richer, more hand-painted feel. Vesperia's mimicked the slick, more uniformly colored style of anime, which was also pretty necessary if there was to be any continuity between the game itself and the anime FMVs. Plus, again, the same argument of Eternal Sonata vs. Vesperia could be made for Wind Waker vs. Symphonia.brightshield wrote:Cell shading is accepted on the 360. Eternal Sonata looked beautiful(which I hate to admit since I can't stand the game). The problem is that Vesperia came out after that game, but didn't look anywhere near as good.
Can't remember Lloyd's or Sheena's at all, and I only remember Colette's because the Dawn of the New World sad remix was actually good for once. I only remember that Symphonia's music was generally annoying, a few nice town themes and great FMV tracks like Harmony and Revival aside. I'd rather have fitting ambient music that isn't necessarily memorable over stuff that's mixed poorly and too consistently blaring to fade into the background appropriately. Plus, a lot of people think some of the Vesperia themes are among the best in the series. I believe a lot of people really like Fury Sparks and the Dahngrest theme, and I happen to think that Yormgen's theme is one of the best town themes Sakuraba's done for the series. But as I said, I don't think Sakuraba's Tales sound design is ever particularly good. It's just that Symphonia stuck out to me as especially bad.brightshield wrote:The sound quality is definitely better on the 360, but the actual music was fairly unmemorable in comparison to Symphonia. I mean come on, who can forget Lloyd's theme, Colette's theme, Sheena's theme, Krato's theme etc.
Er, and the people voicing Vesperia are some of the biggest in the industry at this point too. It's just that they're the major players in the non-union circles, so their names aren't published often. I agree that Cam Clarke is very good, and he's definitely one of my favorite ever (love Ryudo in Grandia 2), but I believe that a combination of the acting and the direction is what makes the voice acting great. Symphonia was directed by Nao Higo, and I didn't think he did a good job of making everything flow. As I said, a lot of the delivery is wooden and doesn't string together well (i.e. reactions aren't quite right, etc.). Vesperia used Peter Garza, who does splendid work, in my opinion, and he has a background in theater to boot. Plus, the casting is flawless. Even Karol is spectacular in spite of the fact that most little boy characters end up sounding like little girls. But again, this is opinion. I just prefer to focus on the direction rather than the names of the actors. Still, regardless, I think Vesperia should come out on top in sound design for the quality of the soundtrack, the greater attention to detail with sound effects, and the (at least) similar level and greater quantity of voice acting.brightshield wrote:This couldn't be more false. Symphonia has some of the biggest names in the industry providing voices. Cam Clarke, Kari Wahlgren, Tara Strong, James Arnold Taylor, Jennifer Hale, Crispin Freeman etc. Troy Baker is good in Vesperia, as is Michelle Ruff. No one else is even in the same league as the people I mentioned. Hell, I'd go as far as to say that NO ONE in Symphonia itself is even slightly on par with Cam.
Hm, I hadn't considered Symphonia's puzzles, so good point there. I still think Vesperia's puzzles were passable, plus there was a lot more to do in terms of minigames, including the puzzle box warehouses and the amazing poker at Nam Cobanda Isle, which was like a game unto itself that I spent hours playing. Still, yeah, the dungeon puzzles for Symphonia were better. However, I'd disagree on the battles. They're notably better in Vesperia, and I'm not sure what lag you're talking about unless you just mean that Yuri's startup is slower, which is just part of how he's designed as a fighter. If you play anyone other than Lloyd in Symphonia, you'll find they move much more slowly as well, Sheena aside. Also, Symphonia didn't zoom out for multiplayer, which was a horrid design choice, plus character that you weren't playing could free run and sidestep, making one wonder why the player character couldn't do so as well. Overall, it felt as though a lot was left out since you could see the remnants sitting around in other aspects of the gameplay. The battle system was just really rough around the edges, which is to be expected with their first foray into 3-D, but I really don't know how it can be argued to be better.brightshield wrote:I never said this at all. Gameplay-wise Symphonia is the best in the series. It just doesn't have the best battle system. It's got by far the best dungeons in the series, with some great puzzles. Not to mention that the combat is quicker in Symphonia than it is in Vesperia. Vesperia also seems to suffer from a slight lag during combat. I'll concede that Abyss has a better battle system than Symphonia, but Vesperia is more or less on par with it, due to the problems I mentioned. So overall the battle systems are about equal(I still prefer Symphonia's since I like speed more than the free run feature), but the dungeons are vastly superior in Symphonia. So yeah, I'd definitely say that Symphonia has much better over all game play.
When you talk about all reviews, you by extension talk about every individual review as well, and, as I said, the overall average determines how good a game is perceived to be on that console and at that time. Find any Tales community that isn't GameCube/Symphonia-centric, ask what Tales game is the best, and you'll get a really wide variety of opinions. It's not going to be Symphonia, Symphonia, Symphonia.brightshield wrote:Again, I'm not talking about any review in particular, just the overall average. I'm sure I could find plenty of reviews that say that Symphonia is the best, and plenty of reviews that go against this idea. The overall average is what determines how good a game is though.
There's not much difference in quality. It's just that you apparently care more about particular names. Also, Clarke has come back several times (Will in Tales of Legendia, to reprise Kratos in Radiant Mythology and Dawn of the New World), so it's silly to act as if the talent pool has gone down the drain. They're constantly grabbing actors of the same quality, at least for the mothership releases. Admittedly, they're paying less now because they've got non-union instead of union, but that doesn't diminish the quality since a lot of famous actors (Clarke included) will go non-union to pile on more work.brightshield wrote:I guess I just prefer higher quality actors then. As I said, Symphonia used much better actors. Clearly more money was put into the VA than any other game in the series.
