It's hard to find a game that fits action, adventure, romance, betrayal, suspense, sublime graphics and cut-scenes, perfect character voices and intense battles into not one, but two, Gamecube discs, that will take you a good 70 hours plus to complete yet leave you salivating for more, as you enter into countless battles against surreal creatures and merciless bosses. Three words: Tales of Symphonia.

Before I start blabbering about this game, let me just say that the anime sequence before the start screen is a must-see; this cut-scene gives you a sneak peek of which characters will later join your team and what monsters you will more than often encounter in later battles. Take some time to watch this scene before you start playing the game, because it's great and well worth watching!

Tales of Symphonia follows Lloyd, Colette, Genis, Raine, Kratos, Sheena, Zelos, Presea and Regal on their journey through trials and tribulations as they try to save their dying planets from total desolation. However, their journey is not an easy one and the constant interruptions, betrayal and dilemmas that later face them doesn't make the journey any easier. However, knowing that each individual on the team has useful abilities, from experienced swordsmanship to mastered summoning prowess, makes the journey less difficult and more enjoyable. Each character in Symphonia has their own story to tell and it is up to you to find out about their lives and who they really are.

I really couldn't wait to pick up my Gamecube controller to play this game; I had heard so many great things about it and I was more than eager to judge it for myself. The great thing was, Tales of Symphonia didn't disappoint; as soon as I sat down and turned it on, I was fixed to my television for a good four hours straight! There are nine main characters in the game and these are all beautifully cel-shaded and individually animated to suit their personalities and attitudes towards each other, while the smoothness of animations and battles really shows off the power of the Gamecube and shows that Nintendo always have surprises up their sleeve. As with all good RPGs, the playable characters in the game have their own surreptitious storylines that you get to explore when you aren't in the middle of a battle or a quest. And last, but not least, what's a great RPG without a psychologically perplexed "bad guy"? Lord Yggdrassil is his name and you have to face him (with great difficulty) more than once in Tales of Symphonia.

Each level and city or town in this game is brilliantly rendered, from the textures and shadow effects to the cel-shaded characters and the interesting variety of people you can talk to in each place is well worth conversing with. Don't think walking is your only means of conveyance in Symphonia; by pressing the X button when your team are on the world map, Lloyd's mysterious pet dog (Noishe) can be used as a form of transport (Noishe moves faster than Lloyd on the world map). Noishe is not the only way of moving around on the world map, as there are two other forms of transport that allow you to travel on water and in the air. Special contraptions called Rheairds allow your team to fly through the air with ease and places that may not have been accessible before can now be entered using the Rheairds (watch out for the floating city, Exire, which can only be entered using the Rheairds).

The monsters in Tales of Symphonia are incredibly assorted and vary from tiny plants to gigantic undead skeletons (Sword Dancers). However, each character in the game can be more than well equipped for each battle and the use of Summons can really be helpful in hammering even the most difficult of monsters. Summons can only be obtained by discovering them in different parts of the game and choosing to fight them afterwards. Some Summons are compulsory to get, while others can be found if you feel that you need them. There is a small setback with Summons though, as they can only be used by Sheena and only then if Sheena is in 'Over-limit' (Over-limit is where a character temporarily gets stronger if they are attacked too much; this allows battles to be slightly fairer and more equal). So if you like watching the summons wreak havoc but you don't like using Sheena as a character, this can be a bit of a problem.

The battle system in Symphonia may be the best that I have ever experienced since Final Fantasy VII! Moving away from the traditional turn-based system, Symphonia has gone for the new action RPG real-time battle system; this allows you to control a character during battles so you can attack, block, perform special moves (Techs) or escape from battles by just pressing the corresponding buttons on your controller. The game is very responsive to the buttons pressed, so this makes pounding the stuffing out of monsters and bosses an easy job. The way moves and attacks are executed in the game are very similar to Super Smash Bros. Melee; if you want your character to attack normally, all you have to press is the A button and if you want your character to do special moves then you have to press the B button. Like in Super Smash, the battles in Symphonia are in 3D but on a two-dimensional plane (so characters in battle can only move left, right, up/jump and down/crouch). When your characters are low on health, a quick press of the Y button pauses the battle and brings up a menu screen that allows you take a break and select a spell or an item that can heal a character. You can even select a character to use the spell or item; so if, for instance, Lloyd is low on health, then you can select Colette to use an Apple Gel to heal Lloyd (this means that Colette stops what she was previously doing).

The sheer diversity of extra quests and discoveries that can be explored in this game is fantastic! One quest that really tests your skills is called Devil's Arms, where you have to collect weapons for a mysterious man called Abbysion. The weapons are found in different parts of the game and are useable for the corresponding character. Once all the Devil's Arms are obtained, you have to then find Abbysion again, at which point things take a very unexpected and deadly twist! Another quest Colette's Dogs, sees you with Colette as your main avatar and in every town you enter, if you see a dog, you have to then talk to that dog and Colette then names the dog; this quest isn't as exciting as the Devil's Arms quest, but it's worth doing if you want to complete every quest in the game. One of the hardest quests is called Niflhelm. I won't go into details about it, but I will tell you that if your characters are over level 70 and you have a good amount of skill and determination to be able to fight countless numbers of monsters, then it's definitely one worth persevering with!

The relationship between each character is of small importance but usually brings up funny skits (small breaks in the world map where the game pauses and a conversation between two or more of your team characters gets underway). Many things can affect relationships and one obvious way is the process of cooking for your team. As you progress, characters try to sell you ingredients or give you recipes so that you can make meals for your team. At the end of battles, you're given the choice of cooking a meal for your team and if the cooked meal was good then your team will be replenished (in HP and TP) and the relationship points for your team will proportionally grow. However, if the cooked meals are bad then the relationship for your team will decrease. Cooking is a smart and humorous addition to an already fun-filled game. However, while many skits are funny to watch, some can be rather annoying after a while.

The music in Symphonia is so inspirational and it really puts you in the right mood; hearing each grunt and footstep from each character during battle is just great too! The high-spirited music used in battles really gets your heart pumping and the eerie music in dungeon areas sends shivers down your spine; each area and level has the perfect musical accompaniment.

There is something that I found frustrating in Symphonia (and many other RPGs that I've played, to be fair). The final boss fights are far too easy; I was able to win the final fight in less than five minutes! When I got to the final boss, I was expecting it to be the battle of my life, with my characters having to hang on to their last bits of HP while the boss powers up for a final blow that would probably eradicate my whole team in one swift movement of his arm (the hardest battle in the game lasted a good twenty minutes!). However, despite my disappointment in how easy the final boss is, Tales of Symphonia is still a game well worth playing and there are a lot of bosses and monsters that more than tested my skill and determination before the end.

Once you have completed the game, you can start again with extra bonuses, such as allowing you to play again with the same amount of money that you had at the end of your previous play, or keeping all your acquired Tech moves, or keeping all the recipes you have collected; this allows constant playability and means that you can play Symphonia more than once over without getting bored.

Tales of Symphonia can easily be put into the hall of fame of great role-playing games; it's another masterpiece by Namco and a more than welcome addition to Namco's ever growing 'Tales of' series. Forget about the power and domination of PlayStation 2 and Xbox; when it comes to games that never fail to entertain, Nintendo is always number one on my games list.

Reviewed by Nathaniel Folayan for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).