I'm just wondering why this game is considered the best in the series? Is it the battle system, story, a hot chick, etc...?

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I kinda think some of the later games were better, but at the time Symphonia was released, it was basically due to the battle system being radically different than the other RPG's at the time, as well as the characters being well-defined and likable.

Plus there was so many cliches the game knew it was making fun of.

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Shawn Collier
Software Engineer | Associate Editor

Symphonia is like an FF7 to the series. It was absolutely amazing when it came out, but since then it's been a benchmark used to create games even better.

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Yeah, comparing Symphonia to FF7 is a good way to understand it.

There are many reasons. Symphonia introduced many of what is used in Tales and very popular within the franchise. Symphonia is what really made the Tales series alive in NA, as well as brought so many new fans to the series. For old, longtime Tales fans, having a prequel to Phantasia was pure fan-service. A great majority of longtime fans had two major wishes, Phantasia to be localized, and a sequel for Phantasia.

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