They obviously slapped this together for a quick buck, and that's heartbreaking. This was my first JRPG and made me fall in love with the genre, and it deserved so much better.
@@jaymeister26 Actually it’s most likely a port of the PS3 version that was remastered from the PS two version hence the additional costumes that were included with the PS3 version if you had saved data from other PS3 tales games such as graces and xillia Hence the Alvin costume zelos gets
@@jamman7344that's.. Not the reason? The port is based on the PS3 version which was in turn based on the PS2 version which is why it's at 30 FPS, it has nothing to do with the Gamecube's CPU
Also I forgot to add: The reason the voice lines are missing is because the English version added more textboxes to accumulate the English script (since English usually needs more words than JP to say the same thing). With this though they just pasted the English script into the JP game with no adjustments to the amount of textboxes which is why voice lines are missing.
That is absolutely insane... It could be so easily fixed. I can't believe they left something so broken in a new, expensive "remaster". I find it openly disrespectful towards the customers. Certainly not buying this port, I think emulation would give better results.
@@jakef.7126 I once played the PS2 version on an emulator, and it was quite a terrible experience. All sorts of frame rate issues and stuttering that couldn't be fixed.
@@k4keko Man... Fair enough, but I think adding text boxes isn't rocket science. They could have done without the awful AI upscaling and released it as a cheap port and not as "remaster". Sadly I don't have the answer for how to rerelease Tales of Symphonia but this has been an absolute train wreck. I feel money was not spent on optimising the frame rate or recreating visual effects (screen shatter or background in menu)
@@k4kekoI’ve played my copy on Dolphin and it runs like clockwork. Plus there’s HD textures and blue removal and the widescreen hack that makes it enjoyable. Dumped it a long time ago and never gave a thought to any of the ports.
Dang, that’s unfortunate. EDIT: seeing the pure black background in menus, track cuts in the music during loading screens, and abrupt battle transitions makes me believe that there was absolutely _no_ love and care put into this port.
It's like they only bothered to put in enough effort to make sure it would boot and respond to the control inputs, then said "this is enough" and shipped it like that.
Sounds pretty similar to what happened with Sonic Adventure, the problems just keep snowballing with rereleases but that version is always chosen because it has the most content on paper
@@jaretco6423 It is still incredibly glitchy with bad collision and the main source for the criticism that SA 1 is buggy. When in reality the original didn't had most of the glitches from the DX version.
@@jaretco6423 I have fell through the world several times, specially in loops (there's the infamous Emerald Coast loop), so it is glitchy. And none of these are in the Dreamcast version.
This is a true “Tales of” fan. He said everything that was on our minds & more. I hope someone from Bandai actually hears the fans cause this is fucked up we gotta put up with this.
Nah mate. Tales of Arise sold like crazy. Even tho it was heartbreaking and an instant turn of for me that they cut Mulitplayer. sorry but there was no other JRPG series where you could Couch Coop a whole game and really play as a team. ToS and TotA where my entry point for JRPGS. And i played the HELL out of them.TotA was the reason why i learned english. Because it never got a EU/German release. So i had to buy it from the US and learn to read and understand english. But it did because it was one of the BEST games i had played to this point in time. And it was worth it. The struggles i had with my 2 cousins to understand what to do and where to go. Such great memories. And even to this day. Once every 2-3 years we get together just to play through Symphonia,Abyss,Vesperia, Xillia and Berseria. And its always a blast. so we where incredible sad to find out that last years gaming season was played without Arise because it didn had Multiplayer. So sad.
@@the-man-who-bites-his-tongue Even if he did play with JP voices (which aren't anymore fake than the ENG ones) that wouldn't change the fact that that's the least of the games issues, issues which were highlighted in this video and which wouldn't magically go away just from a simple VO track change. To claim or act otherwise would be disingenuous, ignorant and biased.
It's just so baffling that it turned out the way it did. You have the Vesperia remaster that had even MORE Japan exclusive content SEEMLESSLY brought over, and that ran significantly better despite being an entire generation above Symphonia. Just... man.
Eh he/you forgot that at launch but Vesperia Switch also had at least a constant crashing issue at launch...it was bad enough I dropped the game completely and have yet to go back to it (granted I beat the Xbox 360 version multiple times so the ONLY parts I didn't play (though I saw in UA-cam videos years before the DE version released) are the new content additions). Also...your argument about comparing Symphonia and Vesperia's generations doesn't really make sense tbh as Vesperia is from a later generation of console that likely fixed issues with game development that existed during Symphonia GC/PS2's time while all the assets were still fairly old for that generation of gaming (the game's art style is just really good...same art style as Zelda Windwaker which still looks great today even though it came out 7 years before Vesperia/2 years before Symphonia in 2001). Hell on Xbox 360/PS3 Vesperia it ran 30 fps on field, 60 on battle and was 720 p on Xbox 360 and 1280 by 576 on PS3 which means the only real thing it had over GC Symphonia was resolution which pretty much all games started changing the resolution to around 720p in the years in between these 2 games releases as the rise of HD started at closer to Vesperia's release than Symphonia's. And as far as PS2 version (that all later versions are based of) given the PS2 was weaker than the Gamecube (which was why all animations were remade from scratch and locked to 30 fps for the PS2 release) comparing that console version over the better (technical wise) Gamecube version is kinda ridiculous as when comparing something you take the best version, not the worse.
@@ifrit1937 I think that was a memory leak problem. Which in general seems very common with Switch games, especially ports of games that never have this issue previously. Even first party games, like Pokémon, Xenoblade and Hyrule Warriors port. I'm not a code monkey so I'm not sure if this is the game or the console, but the PC version didn't have this crash issue and i never had issues with Scarlet on emulator even after long play sessions. So I'm thinking it's the console not being able to sustain sleep mode for extended periods. The way around it is to not leave your console in sleep mode until your next play session and reset your system way more often. Though vesperia did have other issues, like the sound mixing, voice acting quality and direction, and odd changes. It gave me a good laugh with "Zod" instead of Zaude though.
Vesperia only turned out the way it did because it already ran decently on the console that they ported the game from. Every version of Symphonia since the GCN version has been a port of the PS2 one which ran at 30fps.
I've been interested in playing Tales of Symphonia since I was a literal child, but the rug keeps getting pulled out from under me. I own a Gamecube copy, but my Wii doesn't read discs anymore. I own a PC copy, but the Steam version is borked. It was getting a port on Switch, but that version was somehow even worse. I realize that ports and remasters aren't just "slap it on a new console", and do require work to make games function on new hardware that they were never designed for, but it blows my mind that Tales of Symphonia keeps getting these half-hearted ports rather than the attention it deserves.
Since you never played it before the steam or PS3 versions are acceptable. It’s only a huge downgrade if you played the original GameCube version. The extra content is nice but not worth the whole game feeling awful for veterans. I’d recommend the GameCube version through dolphin since you have a pc. It runs like a dream and there’s an HD texture pack that overhauls the UI and makes it look even better then official re-releases
If you own the copies and hardware, just download Dolphin Emulator, dump your GCN copy on to your desired storage device (USB sticks, External HDD or SSD, or even internal storage) and play the game at 3x resolution for 1080p. You probably have a controller for the PC already, but in case you don't, an Xbox One Controller will suffice, it has analog triggers like the GCN Controller, as well as similar placement of the D-Pad and analog sticks so it is the best option for emulation. And that's it. Go enjoy the only good way to play ToS at higher resolutions on your PC. Stay away from the Steam release, it almost gave me motion sickness with the 30fps and macro stutters.
This “Remastered” was just Namco being lazy and doing this for an easy cash grab. Which is a shame; because they did a fantastic job with Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition. Tales of Symphonia holds the hearts for many people me included due to that fact that this got me into the series (though it’s not my favorite from the series). You would think Namco would put more care into this one seeing the game sold to a million on just the Gamecube alone before porting to other systems. This feels like they did this for PlayStation and then made the Switch version as an obligation; because the original was on a Nintendo platform and they would get blasted for not releasing it on the Switch after literally giving everyone the better version of TOV on all platforms. Now we’re going to hear folks say the see this is why the Switch sucks. No this is why you shouldn’t half ass your products.
"You would think Namco would put more care into this one seeing the game sold to a million on just the Gamecube alone before porting to other systems." No it didn't. It never hit a million until the PlayStation 2 version arrived in Japan. Third parties tended to port games from the GameCube because of that platforms low sales. Capcom did it a lot (Viewtiful Joe, RE4, Killer 7). Sega even did it (Sonic Heroes-onward, Super Monkey Ball). Again, can we stop with the revisionist GameCube takes? Tommy Tallarico got busted for that by hbomberguy during the whole Amico fiaco.
I don't know if you played Vesperia DE on Switch on release but no they did not do a great job there...on Switch it had constant crashing issues that were bad enough for me to drop the game and have yet to go back and play it (got/am too focused on completely new games that a game who's main scenario I already beat on Xbox 360 is still backstage for me right now)...ya this got patched out later but doesn't change the fact ToV wasn't a fantastic job especially as you also ignored how pissed people were with Namco with Vesperia DE in regards to the voice acting issue as well with Troy Baker (and probably others) getting changed cause Namco didn't want to throw out the extra cash needed for that to happen.
I have to also bring up Klonoa Phantasy Reverie. While game can run mostly. The game can't run a steady 60FPS and tends to waver by plenty. This causes button presses to not register on point. Klonoa 2 is a good example of this, and I own that of the physical copy (Europe) since only Asia and Europe had physical copies. This problem screwed with my 150 dreamstone runs, especially on hoverboard stages.
All we can do is pray for the Baten Kaitos ports to turn out smoothly but unfortunately it’s a gamble these days when a company decides to port a game.
@@jac_238 probably not, Monolithsoft is long gone from Bandai Namco at this point, not to mention that they’re simultaneously working on Tears of the Kingdom, the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 & Splatoon 3, and (possibly) their own original IP
There's already a bad mark against that port with it not having the English dub. Honestly not much of a loss for the first game which sounded like they were talking through toilet paper tubes, but Origins had a very good dub. It sucks, but it won't stop me from playing the remaster, hopefully a patch for that will happen later on. I do have the originals if I want to play them dubbed. There was definitely improvements to the visuals like redone models and 2D assets though so I think it's less of a cash grab than this was which I think was just the bad PC port put on current consoles which is why it's so poorly optimized on switch. Here's hoping it's good regardless of the lack of the English dub, and hopefully if it is that means Xenosaga's remaster is around the corner too.
She was raised from the time she was a baby with the idea that she was the Chosen and would eventually have to go on the journey of regeneration to save everyone. And it’s not like they tell her (Spoilers ahead) “oh and by the way you’re going to lose your soul so your body can be a vessel for a thousands of years old dead girl the angels are trying to resurrect.”
You didn't play the game. In their religon whover gets the Cruxis Crystal by an angel when they are born are named the Chosen. She was rasied her entire life in the religion of the Church of Martel and groomed for it lol.
I was like "alright, this is the easiest way to show my friends this old classic, it CAN'T have been done THIS dirty" and then plot important lines were still literally being skipped from other ports. Let Mithos burn this one man, yikes.
Not gonna lie, this is making me pretty worried about the Baten Kaitos ports. It's a real shame to see such a beloved title handled so poorly. I feel like it's especially jarring given the exceptional quality of, fellow GameCube port, Metroid Prime.
It seems like most 'remasters' lately are either incredibly good like Metroid Prime has been, or incredibly cheap and dirty like this or Chrono Cross or that horrible GTA collection a little while back. Sadly far more examples of them doing it cheap and dirty.
@@Kasaaz tbh chrono cross is better than this, it has revamped character texture, extra content etc. While tales of symphonia just straight up steam version ported while they slapped remastered word in there and had more bug with very high price tag.
@@Yoedi16 Chrono Cross just has horrible performance even on PC when compared to the original. It's really weird. Whatever particle tech they used back then seems to make modern stuff explode in these remasters.
@@Kasaaz the PS1 was actually much more powerful than current consoles. We just tend to think otherwise because most devs back then didn't make full use of the PS1's capacities. You could, for instance, have ray tracing in the PS1; it would be able to run Resident Evil Village with no problem; etc. It's just that it was very difficult to use all of its potential. And on top of that, most games just weren't advanced enough. No one was making games like God of War Ragnarok back in the 90s, of course. Except for Chrono Cross. Chrono Cross is the most advanced game ever made, it's a complete nightmare to run it. Only the PS1's incredible hardware was capable of doing so. PS4 and PS5 are downgraded in comparison
@@alexisguerra8235 guess what? It's basically the same fucking thing (except less broken). I believe that they now even call PC version "remastered" if you try to buy it on their page.
Bruh the Steam version is the best one. Even without mods. After they FINALY fixed it, it became my favorite version. But only because of the very easy Accessibility.
I'm a long time Tales of Symphonia fan and I loved it so much back on the GameCube. The amount of hours I've put into this game feels unreal and I'm still brought back to all the places or situations when I hear the soundtrack. I was so happy and excited when they announced it for the Switch but so far everything I've heard is really disappointing... This game deserves so much better. I want others to make the same experiences as I had all those years back. To have them fall in love with Tales of Symphonia as well.
This is heartbreaking, this is my favorite video game franchise so totally empathize and agree with everything you said here, especially since Symphonia was my first Tales game. Idk why they had to do Symphonia dirty, why not remaster other games like Abyss, Graces f or Xillia 1 and 2? Why not localize games we still don't have like Innocence R? Why not remake old games I still haven't played like Phantasia or Destiny 1 and 2 (the actual one with Stahn). Now new people to the series have a broken version of this amazing game as an introduction and it sucks.
It's hard not to feel like Namco upper management threw a skeleton crew at this remaster and then stuck them with an incredibly strict deadline. And that they, either through corporate mandate or sheer necessity (or both), then had to over-rely on AI programs they didn't really have the time, skill or manpower to properly oversee. Whatever the case, the end product displays a stunning lack of care or attention to a game that deserved so much better.
What I don't understand is how the PS4 version turned out better than the others. Was PS4 Namco's main priority for the game? Because that doesn't make sense. PS4 is basically irrelevant in Japan and Tales of Vesperia (and JRPGs in general) sold way better on Switch.
Daniel you hit the nail on the head with the title. PAIN is right. I am not picking this up except on sale. I have played Symphonia 16 times across Gamecube and PS3 versions. Some of my fondest memories of this game are from playing through the entire game Co-op with college friends. I was more than happy to do the entire 60hour journey again because I wanted people to see the amazing combat and incredible story. Then here comes the remastered version and I feel betrayed. Symphonia was my introduction to the Tales series and i've picked up all future entries on day 1. Even Legendia and Abyss which didn't release in UK (until Abyss 3DS). I've imported many of the Japanese only titles. I sincerely hope this doesn't affect Bamco's decision to remaster more Tales games. I want Graces f and Xillia 1 and 2 off the PS3!! I want the Japanese only titles localised! Give me a Tales of the Wrold collection! Rebirth, Destiny DC, Destiny 2! Innocence! TALES DESERVES BETTER. This isn't it. Such a shame too as Arise was such a strong entry and really gave the series a massive push. Get it together Bamco.
The PS3 version wasn't perfect, but it was a damn fine way to experience the game. Arguably the best version since it has the most stable framerate, lowest load times, much cleaner visuals and all the gameplay improvements from the PS2 release. This is just such a mess in so many ways that it's baffling how this passed quality assurance.
If anything gets fixed it'd probably be the frame rate drop issues and crashing issues (pretty much the worse issues tbh)...maybe the music starting mid load as well if they can't outright get rid of load times along with the weird cut ins of characters between transitions (like how the characters disappear/reappear in the first boss battle as shown in this video...granted I don't see them fixing this one immediately though). The black background on the menu and skit it a maybe/low priority issue imo hell for the skit I kinda prefer the black background as it makes it easier to see the white subtitles imo...granted they could get rid of the black rectangular shadow behind the text though...granted what they SHOULD'VE done though if they changed it to black due to performance issues in the background causing issues (likely an unintended glitch though) is make the background brown and added a border that looked like a wooden trim you see around doorways and the like for aesthetic purposed...same look could work for the skit background too imo (along with lowering the subtitles a bit to be under the lower row of character portraits). The thing with shop names popping up in the wrong place is also something I think they should be able to fix (and should) too if they patch the game. As for 30 fps it's not gonna change as they'd likely need to re animate everything for the game just like they had to do on the PS2 version to get the game to work on PS2 from Gamecube in the first place and I cannot see a port of a port selling enough copies for them to warrant going that route with a remaster...in fact at that point they'd be better off making a FF7 Remakes style of Remake rather than a remaster (or at least Crisis Core Style Remake which would still include a lot of new assets being made/possibly new systems made) and the only real issue with a full on remake is the question of what they will cut (which they will probably cut a lot of stuff...almost definitely optional stuff that barely plays any roles like Katz village not to mention a variety of enemy models that they don't have a current model for in recently released games and probably most special moves would be changed to their current look/animations with many being cut and the voice actors would definitely get changed given how big some OG cast member so Symphonia are now, not to mention being Union members too (and Namco doesn't like using Union members much if they can avoid it and the main games they use them for would be stuff like games based off actual anime rather than Namco original IPs))...even adding in the cut subtitles/dialogue that they removed for whatever stupid reason (Remiel scene) I don't really see happening as it would probably be too much effort and take too many resources for them in their opinion to do even though they SHOULD fix that at the bare minimum. Biggest issue with the game though is the price $40 tag given it's mainly just a flat out port of the PC version that released at $20...at best it added better boat controls, an auto equipment option based off if your character is S or T type, some new details to character/background/building models, and a bit better upscaling than the PS3/PC versions but that's about it...with just that you're better off buying the PC or better yet the PS3 version as that version as the most content of ALL versions of the game given it comes with Dawn of the New World as well. The only real valid reason for this version's (on all current platforms) existence is bring it to current consoles/game preservation/new audiences that do NOT go the PC route and as far as the Switch specifically the handheld option which is it's ONLY advantage over PS4/5 or Xbox 1/Series versions which you can still get with the PC version via the Steam Deck if you have one/willing to shell out the cash for one (later issue being the only reason I'd get it on switch as I don't have nor want to spend the cash for a Steam Deck right now...even if I did have the extra cash for it lol, I barely have hte extra cash for games every couple/few months).
@@natediaz1863 Would both love and likely hate it: love cause they could easily make the combat much more fun, add more graphics, and add on a lot of stuff to the game. Hate cause they'd likely cut a lot of things out and they will definitely change the VAs given how large most of them are now and I can't really see anyone besides Cam Clarke for Kratos or Scott Menville for Lloyd (granted Lloyd did get a new VA for Dawn/Tales of the World 1 and I didn't like the change much in either case)...as for cuts I can see them getting rid fo Katz village, some monters altogether as they haven't had models in any recent games/games after Symphonia, some of the more less lore focused side quests, some special moves that haven't been used much after it or changed the animations to the most updated animations (which for some spells don't look as good as OG Symphonia imo), probably will remove S and T type moves and rework how EX Gems work (which could be good if they add more EX gem slots as I thought 4 was tar too restrictive). And they'd changed/remove/add other parts we may or may not like. Also...rather than the 20th anniversary (likely the main reason we got Symphonia and not another game as Japanese devs/fans love anniversaries a lot more than western fans, especially 10 year anniversaries (for US, at least where I live, we basically celebrate the first 10 years and then the 25th an every 25th as big events instead)) I think they should've went with a different remaster this year instead of a Remaster or Remake of Symphonia and then went with the full on Remake of Symphonia for it's 25th year Anniversary in 2028 instead if they were gonna go the full on remake rather than Remaster and instead have the remaster of another game take this year (preferably Destiny DC, Destiny 2 (would be best if it was bundled with Destiny DC too), Innocence R, Rebirth, or Phantasia Nakiri Dungeon X (all the unlocalized games)), a completely new game in a year or two and then either a remaster/port and localization of another unlocalized game followed by a full on Symphonia Remake or vice versa. I would also say more so than Symphonia Phantasia probably would need a full on remake more so than it with a lot more lore and all added maybe some stuff to connect to Symphonia as the games are supposedly in the same world (not 100% sure if Namco confirmed it or not but fans more or less have lol) or some additional story content that was supposedly cut from the OG Phantasia (some sources on the Wiki claim Phantasia had a completely cut first arc with Dhaos or the girl who possessed Arche who was involved with Dhaos in some way as the main character for that arc that focused on what made Dhaos the antagonist, a 2nd arc focused on Cress/Mint's parents and so on sealing Dhaos (the end events we see at the start of the end result game), and then finally Cress and the party's journey as the 3rd arc. At bare minimum a remaster of the PSP Cross edition is something I want to see as said version would likely have the optional skits in it which would be a massive improvement over the GBA localization which cut out all optional skits (also why I want Destiny DC as Destiny PS1 localization also did this in the west...same for Eternia which a port that just kept the skits and translated them would also be nice).
Bandai really gave this game to an inexperienced team. It’s a real shame hopefully the switch version and the PS4 version can get some patches to fix the mistakes.
I've beaten this game more times than i can reasonably count. I came from a big family so all our games HAD to be multi-player. This was the only JRPG I could play since my little brother could "play" with me. Makes me happy I still have the original on GameCube after seeing how they destroyed one of my favorite games.
I don't think there's anything need fixing from the game... except from technicalities? Or probably graphics, which wasn't an issue if you play on an emulator with high graphic settings on a decent pc (I finished it first on PS2 btw). I said that because I played Vesperia DE and I thought it wasn't that much different from Abyss as I remember. Ofc there are lots of improvements, but they're basically the same at the core. That's also why I wonder lots of people praised Vesperia and dissed Abyss. They're practically the same game with different setting/story lmao
I think fans tend to complain too much when it comes to remasters, but oh boy was this a darker shade of bad. Thanks for informing us! I played the PS3 version, and I didn't have any issues with it, but now I understand why I thought that conversation with Remiel was really awkward. Missing dialogue in what was essentially the most important scene of the first 10 hours of the game is totally unacceptable. They really should have patched it back in for the PS3 releases. Not fixing it for this release is child abuse of an IP.
That's kind of hilarious that PS3 is the best version when it comes to load times. 15:11 I'm 100% convinced the text that got cut was cut because of the word "Heaven" because both instances of cut text were when Remiel used the word Heaven.
I’m hoping this game gets some love with patches. I was going to buy this day one, and now it’s just in my list of games botched so badly that I refuse to buy them
Tales of Symphonia is my favourite game of all time. I've got it on GameCube, PS3, Steam, and now Switch. It has been a while since I've come back to playing it, and honestly I'm scared to play the Switch version, because of all these issues. This game should have had a full remake like Final Fantasy 7.
I'll reiterate what I said in the comments in Daniel's first Symphonia video: The one silver lining to all these re-releases is that you can still get the GameCube version used at a decent price. If they're gonna charge $40 for a half-baked effort like *this*, then it may very well be worth it for newcomers to bust out the old GCN (or Wii) before making the wrong investment.
The thing is they'll purposely fuck this up and then patch it later with an update so if you got the cartridge version and play it later in 10 years or so when Nintendo closed the eShop on the Switch, you probably won't had access to the patch anymore and will had to deal with these issues again.
19:50 About the Steam price: What annoys me a lot is the fact that when Tales of Symphonia Remastered was announced, whenever there would be a steam sale the price would be 9.99. While before its announcement, it would go on sale for 4.99. Tales of Symphonia on PC would actually be higher priced than games like Tales of Zestiria, Berseria and Vesperia during the more recent steam sales. Those 3 games usually gounder 9.99. Tales of Symphonia used to be one of the lower priced ones during a sale, but they basically increased the price for the sake of the remaster, because the PC remaster barely has any improvements compared to the version that was already on steam.
Thanks for the very informative comparison video! I first played this back in the day on GameCube, and now both my wife and I were excited to play the remaster since she's never played it. Seeing this, we're pretty bummed out.
I was so sad when I saw these issues playing my copy yesterday... I did see Bandai Namco make a statement (on Twitter I think?) saying they've heard our feedback(who knows what specifically) and are working on additional patches, so hopefully some if not all the issues could eventually be fixed.
Man. Tales of Symphonia is not just one of my favorite GCN games, but one of my favorite JRPGs. I played the GCN version so many times back in the day. It's so sad to see this "remaster" done this poorly. It's fascinating how we got two noteworthy remasters on the Switch recently (Metroid Prime and this) and they are just polar opposites of what a remaster can be. One's a masterpiece, and the other is just....this.
16:02 Nintendo Switch games DO NOT save to a cartridge. They save to the internal flash memory on the console. Unlike the 3DS and older Nintendo Cartridges, the Switch cartridge only contains the game. Thanks for making this video. Shame the remaster is a disaster. Makes me wonder how the recently announced Baten Kaitos I & II remaster will go. I never played it, but it would be a shame if Bandai Namco ruined one of Monolith Soft's earlier games.
I have it. Only paid $16 out of trades. I'm betting on the hope that Namco will patch the shit out of this. Because I honestly stopped playing when I got to the Desert ruins. This is a great game and the way they did this is INEXCUSABLE, especially when Vesperia is a newer game with a better port. I still have the GameCube version, and I actually dug out my Wii to replay it.
I'm really glad someone who has this kind of passion for Tales of Symphonia is doing this review even the smallest of details have been pointed out I'm glad i don't have a switch because i would have bought it right away
You guys never have to apologize for being "not good vibes", especially when you're giving fair and just constructive criticism - it's important to analyze and criticize or we wouldn't progress the industry and these companies would take full advantage of our brainless buying. Really disappointing to see the game not meet a bare minimum of expectations.
This is heartbreaking to see. This game easily makes my top 5 favorites, and I've thought of it as my favorite at times, so it's just soul crushing to see it meet such a fate. This thing deserved the level of love Metroid Prime got, and deserves to sell Final Fantasy mainline title numbers. The GameCube version does anyway, which is the one I'm blessed to have been able to play.
At least with the battles being less bright and the animation of Colette getting the Cruxis Crystal, I'm 99% sure they dimmed it to reduce sudden flashing lights and thus risk of seizures. They did that in the Switch release of Persona 5 with All Out Attacks too.
Even with all of the problems the game has, I cannot bring myself to look on it with anything but nostalgic love. Lloyd was a role model for me in my middle-high school years, and his incurable positive attitude helped me keep my sanity with an emotionally abusive grandparent raising me. That might sound strange to say, that a video game character was a role model, and yes, I know that makes it look like I only overlook all the flaws for nostalgia, but I just can't hate it.
Symphonia is my #1. I own every Tales game, but I own every cover variant of Symphonia. They KNOW it's their #1 tales game. It's the tales game that put them on the map. Not only does it deserve the full remake treatment, at the VERY least it deserved a polish. They seemingly copy pasted the code from ps3 into switch and called it a day :(
Wow that’s depressing 😢 I was going to buy this but we’ve recently fired up the ol’ GC to play Skies of Arcadia again so I think I’ll just get the original 🤷♀️
I think this video pretty much convinced me that I should just buy the GameCube version of this game. Shockingly, it was Scott Melvin in the remastered trailer that got me interested in the first place and after getting videos of this game recommended to me non-stop, I've heard more good than bad about its original release. Next time I see a GameCube copy, I'll pick it up and try it.
One bug/glitch I have on my file is Sheena being stuck in her dirty/beat up outfit from the luin event. I presumed it was because I went to Hima before Palmacosta, but I'm in Tethe'alla now and it's STILL like that. Kratos is similar, he's stuck in his purple costume and won't switch to his alt one in any of the cutscenes. I figured my save file will stay this way and I'll have to make another after I'm done to fix these.
I think its sad this is what they gave us for anniversary. Symphonia and Tales in general deserves more love from Bamco when it's such a classic JRPG series.
Well damn. I had no idea this was even dropping, just saw it on my Xbox dashboard, and was pleasently surprised. Loved this game on GameCube as a kid. Figured I'd better look up some reviews as some remasters these days just aren't that good, and unfortunately it seems this one fits the bill. I'll be passing on it, unless it goes on sale at some point.
I bought this game day one. It's been awhile since I've played it, but I noticed something was off, to what degree I did not know nor could remember, but you highlighted them all. During play I felt a sense of excitement and nostalgia, yet simultaneously disappointment, but was not sure why. Hopefully the patches come through.
Tales of Symphonia is such a special game to me. I had the gamecube version given to me, with a gamecube controller and no savecard, as a result, I had to play the game on my Wii in one single party, without turning off the Wii... I bought a gamecube savecard only after beating the game that way. I even got the sequel on the Wii which... we will not talk about. I was a big, BIG fan, I loved almost everything, it's what got me into the Tales of franchise. Ever since they are doing ports, the quality of the games are dropping bad. The ones out from the start of PC are fine, like Berseria or Arise. But with how it's doing now, a Tales of the Abyss remaster (which i would love) would be horrendous... I saw someone say that they have lost the original coding for the GameCube version and true or not, it sure looks like it.
And honestly even if the remaster didn't have these problems, full price for an old game that already looked outdated when it came out is stupidly overpriced.
I can at the very least see why the outlines were removed (or intended to be removed at least.) The character models have a lot less jaggies than they did on the original hardware. I know I messed with them being restored on the PC via mods, but I always wound up turning it off because the extra image clarity made them look kinda shit when around character models farther away from the camera, (most prominently on characters bangs like say Colette.)
If I had the guess, the software that's responsible to taking screenshots of the game to be used as backgrounds is just completely borked. I dunno how this got past QA, or if they even had QA. I'm curious if this happens in both handheld mode and docked mode. Could be a case of resolution changes causing some hiccup because it didn't adjust for docked mode.
I agree with this, the game's ability to cache screenshots seems to be just busted. In places it even looks like they're trying to compensate for it-- which says to me that this was definitely something they were aware of, but since they're just purely visual oddities they were too low priority to fix before release. This must have been super rushed for some reason.
The PS4 version dosen't have the problems that the switch version as the PS4 version as background on the menu and when the skits play and there are battle transition just like the oringal gamecube/PS2 and the chronicles release.
"We already remastered this game for PS3 and PC" "Yeah, but what if we do it again and make it worse?" "Brilliant" I bought Vesperia. That game plays great. After Sonic Colors remaster being patched to heck and back, while stile being terrible, I was worried. Now? I just don't care for 3rd party remasters. Buy it on PC if it's not exclusive.
Guess I'm still stuck with my GCN-copy of the game for my Wii. How on Earth did we end up to this point??! It's mind-bendingly infuriating and exhausting to watch Namdai strangely fumble even harder with this one giving this one fair amount of attention... now it's been almost a decade on how Symphonia just can't seem to catch a break with re-releases. God. I dunno if this particular one was just spurred on by the sad ripple effect of other VG companies thinking it's fine to make half-hearted or even outright broken remasters since past few years, such as GTA Trilogy or Nintendo's own remasters on Switch sans recent Metroid Prime and Kirby's Return to Dreamland DX. Knowing also how some of fans I followed Tumblr had been doing a cool fanart countdown for this release... it's enraging that all these passionate fans will be receiving at the end is such a mediocre port. They just don't deserve this kind of treatment with this much strong, on-going appreciation and support for this game after all these years. 😟
On steam the game has an community HD mod with performance improvements. On sale you can get the game for €5. It does have the glass breaking transitions and the normal menu's and the black lines around the characters. So much better.
So that's why Nintendo ports of older games cost $60. At the bare minimum, we're getting the exact same experience we had on the original, at a higher resolution. We can't really guarantee that from other companies, can we...?
At least Chrono Cross remaster juste have a redemption arc today lol. Also, yes Final Fantasy VIII "remaster" was quite lame, but it was still playable. It was not that worse like this Symphonia "remaster". But yes, Square Enix remaster are qute hit or miss, except if this is a SaGa game lol. I don't know why, but the SaGa games remaster are always quite good ahah.
@@jaretco6423 Final Fantasy IX is really not that good (not the game, but the port). They sadly didn't upscale the pre render background so the characters really don't fit. Looks at the Moguri mod for the PC version of FFIX. It's so much better. Each time you want to activate the turbo mode, you need to click on the pause menu (that's annoying ahah). Also, the Chrono Cross and SaGa Frontier remaster did a better job on that part.
I can hear the passion and frustration. I hope you will send a ticket to bandai. I've gotten people on the tales sub reddit to send tickets. bandai just cant ignore this
I'm so sad. Tales of Symphonia is one of, if not my favorite game of all time, and I was so excited to get my friends to play it, but now it's not even worth it for them to get it. Heartbreaking.
Tales of Symphonia Remastered port on the switch is a bad port and Namco Bandai should have not released it in the state it was in. They needed to work a lot more on it and improve it much morel. Also, good news for the video creator since he mentioned wanting Tales of Destiny Director's Cut remake in English! Tales of Destiny Remake was fan translated fully into English! So you can play it in English!
This is just a guess, but it looks like the function that handles transparencies and whatnot isn't being called correctly. I guess that's kind of obvious, but they must have copy-pasted the code, and didn't do any QA. It's probably something really stupid, like not handling floating point numbers by default, and instead converting it to an integer. It's just a bad port. A really bad port.
Even worse is they're charging you the same price as the PS3 remaster with less content (the PS3 remaster came with the sequel) and even worse performance.
Imagine treating your "FF7" game with a disgusting port like that lol. Wake up Bandai Namco. PS: just the fact that the game take more than 10 GB, then I already knew that they clearly didn't optimized it. Quite sad because when Bandai Namco decide to port their games by the company Engine Software, they can made great port. Recent one it's the Ni no Kuni 2. Sure the game have some frame rate issue (especially on the world map), but for a PS4 game it run really well on the Switch. Also the game take less than 11 GB of download. There is no logical reason that an old HD version of a PS2 game run that bad on the Switch.
the reason this is my favorite tales game: this is the only one where you can constantly chain lvl 1 -> lvl 2-> lvl 1 multiple times b4 you end it with a lvl 3.
1:55 Actually, according to the steam page "Experience the iconic, critically acclaimed RPG that reinvented the Persona series, Persona 3 Portable, now newly remastered for modern platforms." So yes, they did claim it to be remastered and we're even more disappointed.
Tales of Symphonia is a game that has been on my backlog for a long time, and none of the issues you talked about would really bother me that much. They are things I’d only notice if someone pointed out them out to me. I’m sure if I grew up with it, I’d notice all the things that you’re pointing out. Like how I grew up with FFVII as a personal example. When the PC version of FFVII was ported to PS4, NSW, and XB1, I noticed all sorts of little details that changed. It caught me off guard but I wouldn’t say it ruined the experience. All the complaints you have seem to be at that level. It feels like minor nitpicks are being extrapolated to “OMG!! broken port, worst remaster eVaR!!!” Respectfully, I think you’re missing the forest for the trees my dude. It’s great to bring classics forward to modern consoles. I’d rather celebrate that. I agree that it doesn’t seem to have “remastered” a classic, Namco Bandai have done more of an HD port. It brought a classic to modern audiences in a functional capacity, and now people like me can more easily join in on the love for a classic JRPG with you. No shade thrown your way, I just respectfully disagree with your take
yeah nothing here makes the game sound broken, especially compared to genuinely broken releases that happen lately. if anything, it just sounds like a bad port, and far from the worst port i've seen. i think the only thing i'd actually notice as a first time player would be the lack of some battle transitions. i will say that, based on the criticisms in this video, it probably shouldn't qualify as a remaster so much as a bad port, and the $40 price tag is way too high.
@@gorimbaud Played both the PS3 and GC versions of the game and even with the 30 fps difference they felt pretty much exactly the same with the only difference being the pS3 looked better due to the better resolution HD upscaling compared to GC Symphonia which had a more blurred/out of focus look to it now. Out of everything in his video the ONLY real concerns imo are the crashing issue and the fact i could drop under 30 fps in a way to make a noticeable lag/chugging effect and that'd be about it followed by the white battle into transition too I guess (as it could get glaring/annoying to the eyes after a while). The other issues like the black menu background, black skit background, some pixels being in iffy spot, minor pixelation that can barely be notices unless pointed out/stared at for a while (which lets face it while playing a game you won't be starting at the same thing long enough to notice it 90% of the time), and loading times (which compared to say Elder Scrolls, Elden Ring, FFXV, Witcher 3, Valkyrie Elyisum, Tales of Arise, etc are a blink of the eye in comparison but everyone is ignoring for some reason even though they're NEWER games and you'd figure NEWER games shouldn't be dealing with load times...right?) are all minor issues in comparison. Now if the game had issues like say Fallout 76 or Cyberpunk 2077 than yeah the game would absolutely be 'broken' by definition however as it is now it's not 'broken' by any reasonable metric. With all this said I haven't picked the game up and won't for a while as like you said: the price they're asking for a port of a port (where some of the ports were cheaper at $60 for 2 games so $30 per game for PS3 version and $20 for the PC version) is too high so I will be waiting until it hits about $20 or less to get the Switch version of the game (want to play it in handheld and if I wanted to play it on TV I have the GC version and PS3 version with double the amount of content via Dawn of the New World's addition to that version (which imo would be the version I'd recommend someone buy if they have a PS3 as it's the version with objectively the most content) for playing on TV).
@@ifrit1937 yeah, it sounds like this isn't quite as hyperbolic as people getting mad that the p3p port, which was never sold as anything but a p3p port, wasn't a remaster that combined p3p and p3fes that they wanted, because it is at least a bad port, but the game still sounds like it's basically playable, which is not something i'd expect from a game that's broken. i'll definitely wait for either a price drop or a _big_ sale to get it, and maybe wait until i finish vesperia, too.
I think those black screens are either a transparency issue with certain graphical effects, or actually intentionally added to prevent you from seeing how JANK it looks while it's doing loading, etc.
It's absolutely bonkers that a remaster is *worse* than the original. Not only did they not fix already known bugs and issue, but this version introduces *new* ones! I can't even ...
If only they'd just stop porting the already broken PS2 code. It seriously gets worse every damn time they port it again. Just decompile the GameCube code and start from scratch PLEASE.
Skits look terrifying now btw lol, that black background is just NOT doing it for me. Also, it's worth mentioning that Baten Kaitos' remaster also removed the unique backgrounds and replaced those with solid color backgrounds too. Ugly and lame. :/ I dunno, it seems to be a Nintendo trend right now with their remasters..
You really got me with "I'm not disappointed, I'm just mad." 🤣🤣
Yeah same
same lol
They obviously slapped this together for a quick buck, and that's heartbreaking. This was my first JRPG and made me fall in love with the genre, and it deserved so much better.
welcome to gaming in 2023
It’s a game from like 2004. I’m not sure what you were expecting? It’s not a remake but just a spit and polish to get it out on more platforms.
@@David-nd4toi wouldn’t call it “spit and polish”. Almost certain they just ported it directly from the PS2 and branded it as a remastered.
@@jaymeister26 you’re entitled to your opinion
@@jaymeister26 Actually it’s most likely a port of the PS3 version that was remastered from the PS two version hence the additional costumes that were included with the PS3 version if you had saved data from other PS3 tales games such as graces and xillia
Hence the Alvin costume zelos gets
Ah yes Symphonia, a game that ran at smooth 60 FPS on its initial release on the GameCube and then never again over the next two decades.
What the last "remastered" version was ps3? Oh guess I should have watched the video and could see the ps3 game lol.
The game was made for the GameCubes CPU, but newer CPU's. I can see why it would be difficult
@@jamman7344that's..
Not the reason? The port is based on the PS3 version which was in turn based on the PS2 version which is why it's at 30 FPS, it has nothing to do with the Gamecube's CPU
@@flaminginferno6641lost source code is the reason
Also I forgot to add: The reason the voice lines are missing is because the English version added more textboxes to accumulate the English script (since English usually needs more words than JP to say the same thing). With this though they just pasted the English script into the JP game with no adjustments to the amount of textboxes which is why voice lines are missing.
That's terrible
That is absolutely insane... It could be so easily fixed. I can't believe they left something so broken in a new, expensive "remaster". I find it openly disrespectful towards the customers. Certainly not buying this port, I think emulation would give better results.
@@jakef.7126 I once played the PS2 version on an emulator, and it was quite a terrible experience. All sorts of frame rate issues and stuttering that couldn't be fixed.
@@k4keko Man... Fair enough, but I think adding text boxes isn't rocket science.
They could have done without the awful AI upscaling and released it as a cheap port and not as "remaster".
Sadly I don't have the answer for how to rerelease Tales of Symphonia but this has been an absolute train wreck. I feel money was not spent on optimising the frame rate or recreating visual effects (screen shatter or background in menu)
@@k4kekoI’ve played my copy on Dolphin and it runs like clockwork. Plus there’s HD textures and blue removal and the widescreen hack that makes it enjoyable. Dumped it a long time ago and never gave a thought to any of the ports.
Dang, that’s unfortunate.
EDIT: seeing the pure black background in menus, track cuts in the music during loading screens, and abrupt battle transitions makes me believe that there was absolutely _no_ love and care put into this port.
No love? This feels like an actual insult to the fans and I've never played a Tales of game.
It's like they only bothered to put in enough effort to make sure it would boot and respond to the control inputs, then said "this is enough" and shipped it like that.
@@TwilightWolf032 I mean they could have just doen nothing at all
Seriously. I stopped at the triet ruins because damn the frames dropped horribly.
@@nezkeys79 That would have been more dignified.
Sounds pretty similar to what happened with Sonic Adventure, the problems just keep snowballing with rereleases but that version is always chosen because it has the most content on paper
They could just remaster the DX game again and fix bugs and graphical issues
And just like SADX, fans can make mods to give it the look of the original, with the content of the expanded version
@@jaretco6423 It is still incredibly glitchy with bad collision and the main source for the criticism that SA 1 is buggy. When in reality the original didn't had most of the glitches from the DX version.
@@jaretco6423 I have fell through the world several times, specially in loops (there's the infamous Emerald Coast loop), so it is glitchy. And none of these are in the Dreamcast version.
Dreamcast version is definitely more stable, but the DX version is buggies and overall the Dreamcast version just looks better too me
This is a true “Tales of” fan. He said everything that was on our minds & more. I hope someone from Bandai actually hears the fans cause this is fucked up we gotta put up with this.
Nah mate. Tales of Arise sold like crazy. Even tho it was heartbreaking and an instant turn of for me that they cut Mulitplayer.
sorry but there was no other JRPG series where you could Couch Coop a whole game and really play as a team.
ToS and TotA where my entry point for JRPGS. And i played the HELL out of them.TotA was the reason why i learned english. Because it never got a EU/German release. So i had to buy it from the US and learn to read and understand english. But it did because it was one of the BEST games i had played to this point in time. And it was worth it. The struggles i had with my 2 cousins to understand what to do and where to go.
Such great memories. And even to this day. Once every 2-3 years we get together just to play through Symphonia,Abyss,Vesperia, Xillia and Berseria. And its always a blast.
so we where incredible sad to find out that last years gaming season was played without Arise because it didn had Multiplayer.
So sad.
If he's a true fan why is he play dubs? that's the fake audio track. he should play the actual game, which includes its real audio.
@@the-man-who-bites-his-tongue Even if he did play with JP voices (which aren't anymore fake than the ENG ones) that wouldn't change the fact that that's the least of the games issues, issues which were highlighted in this video and which wouldn't magically go away just from a simple VO track change. To claim or act otherwise would be disingenuous, ignorant and biased.
I don't know about you, but my wife and I have been loving this game on the Switch.
It's just so baffling that it turned out the way it did. You have the Vesperia remaster that had even MORE Japan exclusive content SEEMLESSLY brought over, and that ran significantly better despite being an entire generation above Symphonia.
Just... man.
Eh he/you forgot that at launch but Vesperia Switch also had at least a constant crashing issue at launch...it was bad enough I dropped the game completely and have yet to go back to it (granted I beat the Xbox 360 version multiple times so the ONLY parts I didn't play (though I saw in UA-cam videos years before the DE version released) are the new content additions).
Also...your argument about comparing Symphonia and Vesperia's generations doesn't really make sense tbh as Vesperia is from a later generation of console that likely fixed issues with game development that existed during Symphonia GC/PS2's time while all the assets were still fairly old for that generation of gaming (the game's art style is just really good...same art style as Zelda Windwaker which still looks great today even though it came out 7 years before Vesperia/2 years before Symphonia in 2001). Hell on Xbox 360/PS3 Vesperia it ran 30 fps on field, 60 on battle and was 720 p on Xbox 360 and 1280 by 576 on PS3 which means the only real thing it had over GC Symphonia was resolution which pretty much all games started changing the resolution to around 720p in the years in between these 2 games releases as the rise of HD started at closer to Vesperia's release than Symphonia's. And as far as PS2 version (that all later versions are based of) given the PS2 was weaker than the Gamecube (which was why all animations were remade from scratch and locked to 30 fps for the PS2 release) comparing that console version over the better (technical wise) Gamecube version is kinda ridiculous as when comparing something you take the best version, not the worse.
You know what? I don't even want a port of Chrono Trigger then (even though I already first played it on the Steam/PC version in the Summer of 2022).
@@ifrit1937 I think that was a memory leak problem. Which in general seems very common with Switch games, especially ports of games that never have this issue previously. Even first party games, like Pokémon, Xenoblade and Hyrule Warriors port.
I'm not a code monkey so I'm not sure if this is the game or the console, but the PC version didn't have this crash issue and i never had issues with Scarlet on emulator even after long play sessions. So I'm thinking it's the console not being able to sustain sleep mode for extended periods.
The way around it is to not leave your console in sleep mode until your next play session and reset your system way more often.
Though vesperia did have other issues, like the sound mixing, voice acting quality and direction, and odd changes. It gave me a good laugh with "Zod" instead of Zaude though.
Vesperia isn't even a good game
Vesperia only turned out the way it did because it already ran decently on the console that they ported the game from. Every version of Symphonia since the GCN version has been a port of the PS2 one which ran at 30fps.
I've been interested in playing Tales of Symphonia since I was a literal child, but the rug keeps getting pulled out from under me. I own a Gamecube copy, but my Wii doesn't read discs anymore. I own a PC copy, but the Steam version is borked. It was getting a port on Switch, but that version was somehow even worse. I realize that ports and remasters aren't just "slap it on a new console", and do require work to make games function on new hardware that they were never designed for, but it blows my mind that Tales of Symphonia keeps getting these half-hearted ports rather than the attention it deserves.
I played it on steam just fine 🤷♂️ and for only 5 bucks
Since you never played it before the steam or PS3 versions are acceptable. It’s only a huge downgrade if you played the original GameCube version. The extra content is nice but not worth the whole game feeling awful for veterans. I’d recommend the GameCube version through dolphin since you have a pc. It runs like a dream and there’s an HD texture pack that overhauls the UI and makes it look even better then official re-releases
Look at metroid prime remaster that game was literally more then a port as it actually updates the graphics and controls and it was good.
@@Cruxis_Angel I noticed that the two disks are separate files. How exactly does that work on Dolphin?
If you own the copies and hardware, just download Dolphin Emulator, dump your GCN copy on to your desired storage device (USB sticks, External HDD or SSD, or even internal storage) and play the game at 3x resolution for 1080p. You probably have a controller for the PC already, but in case you don't, an Xbox One Controller will suffice, it has analog triggers like the GCN Controller, as well as similar placement of the D-Pad and analog sticks so it is the best option for emulation.
And that's it. Go enjoy the only good way to play ToS at higher resolutions on your PC. Stay away from the Steam release, it almost gave me motion sickness with the 30fps and macro stutters.
This “Remastered” was just Namco being lazy and doing this for an easy cash grab. Which is a shame; because they did a fantastic job with Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition. Tales of Symphonia holds the hearts for many people me included due to that fact that this got me into the series (though it’s not my favorite from the series). You would think Namco would put more care into this one seeing the game sold to a million on just the Gamecube alone before porting to other systems. This feels like they did this for PlayStation and then made the Switch version as an obligation; because the original was on a Nintendo platform and they would get blasted for not releasing it on the Switch after literally giving everyone the better version of TOV on all platforms. Now we’re going to hear folks say the see this is why the Switch sucks. No this is why you shouldn’t half ass your products.
"You would think Namco would put more care into this one seeing the game sold to a million on just the Gamecube alone before porting to other systems."
No it didn't. It never hit a million until the PlayStation 2 version arrived in Japan. Third parties tended to port games from the GameCube because of that platforms low sales. Capcom did it a lot (Viewtiful Joe, RE4, Killer 7). Sega even did it (Sonic Heroes-onward, Super Monkey Ball).
Again, can we stop with the revisionist GameCube takes? Tommy Tallarico got busted for that by hbomberguy during the whole Amico fiaco.
@@nintyfan1991 okay that’s my bad. I see that the GameCube version sold close to a million.
I don't know if you played Vesperia DE on Switch on release but no they did not do a great job there...on Switch it had constant crashing issues that were bad enough for me to drop the game and have yet to go back and play it (got/am too focused on completely new games that a game who's main scenario I already beat on Xbox 360 is still backstage for me right now)...ya this got patched out later but doesn't change the fact ToV wasn't a fantastic job especially as you also ignored how pissed people were with Namco with Vesperia DE in regards to the voice acting issue as well with Troy Baker (and probably others) getting changed cause Namco didn't want to throw out the extra cash needed for that to happen.
@@ifrit1937 I had no crashes while playing the Switch version. Though sucks that you did.
I have to also bring up Klonoa Phantasy Reverie. While game can run mostly. The game can't run a steady 60FPS and tends to waver by plenty. This causes button presses to not register on point. Klonoa 2 is a good example of this, and I own that of the physical copy (Europe) since only Asia and Europe had physical copies. This problem screwed with my 150 dreamstone runs, especially on hoverboard stages.
All we can do is pray for the Baten Kaitos ports to turn out smoothly but unfortunately it’s a gamble these days when a company decides to port a game.
Oh God, I hadn't even considered this! I'm keeping my fingers EXTRA tightly crossed!
Do we know if Monolith are handling the remasters?
@@jac_238 They’re not.
@@jac_238 probably not, Monolithsoft is long gone from Bandai Namco at this point, not to mention that they’re simultaneously working on Tears of the Kingdom, the DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 & Splatoon 3, and (possibly) their own original IP
There's already a bad mark against that port with it not having the English dub. Honestly not much of a loss for the first game which sounded like they were talking through toilet paper tubes, but Origins had a very good dub. It sucks, but it won't stop me from playing the remaster, hopefully a patch for that will happen later on. I do have the originals if I want to play them dubbed.
There was definitely improvements to the visuals like redone models and 2D assets though so I think it's less of a cash grab than this was which I think was just the bad PC port put on current consoles which is why it's so poorly optimized on switch. Here's hoping it's good regardless of the lack of the English dub, and hopefully if it is that means Xenosaga's remaster is around the corner too.
This game is so incredible and so important to most of our formative years. This port truly depressing. We deserve better. SYMPHONIA deserves better.
I don't know about you, but my wife and I have been loving this game on the Switch. And I played through the game multiple times on GC.
@@lysanderxx1664and that's good for you, it doesn't change the fact this is an undeniably crappy port
“Colette, the chosen of regeneration.”
*“YES I’LL DO IT.”*
So funny how she just accepts without any hesitations lol
She's known her whole life that she's chosen, accepting it from Remiel is just a symbolic gesture.
Tbh that's on brand for Colette.
She was raised from the time she was a baby with the idea that she was the Chosen and would eventually have to go on the journey of regeneration to save everyone. And it’s not like they tell her (Spoilers ahead) “oh and by the way you’re going to lose your soul so your body can be a vessel for a thousands of years old dead girl the angels are trying to resurrect.”
You didn't play the game. In their religon whover gets the Cruxis Crystal by an angel when they are born are named the Chosen. She was rasied her entire life in the religion of the Church of Martel and groomed for it lol.
@@cathygrandstaff1957you spoiled the game I’ve canceled my order and won’t play it. Damn curssse you
I was like "alright, this is the easiest way to show my friends this old classic, it CAN'T have been done THIS dirty" and then plot important lines were still literally being skipped from other ports. Let Mithos burn this one man, yikes.
I don't know about you, but my wife and I have been loving this game on the Switch.
Not gonna lie, this is making me pretty worried about the Baten Kaitos ports. It's a real shame to see such a beloved title handled so poorly. I feel like it's especially jarring given the exceptional quality of, fellow GameCube port, Metroid Prime.
It seems like most 'remasters' lately are either incredibly good like Metroid Prime has been, or incredibly cheap and dirty like this or Chrono Cross or that horrible GTA collection a little while back. Sadly far more examples of them doing it cheap and dirty.
@@Kasaaz tbh chrono cross is better than this, it has revamped character texture, extra content etc. While tales of symphonia just straight up steam version ported while they slapped remastered word in there and had more bug with very high price tag.
@@Yoedi16 Chrono Cross just has horrible performance even on PC when compared to the original. It's really weird. Whatever particle tech they used back then seems to make modern stuff explode in these remasters.
@@Kasaaz the PS1 was actually much more powerful than current consoles. We just tend to think otherwise because most devs back then didn't make full use of the PS1's capacities. You could, for instance, have ray tracing in the PS1; it would be able to run Resident Evil Village with no problem; etc. It's just that it was very difficult to use all of its potential. And on top of that, most games just weren't advanced enough. No one was making games like God of War Ragnarok back in the 90s, of course.
Except for Chrono Cross.
Chrono Cross is the most advanced game ever made, it's a complete nightmare to run it. Only the PS1's incredible hardware was capable of doing so. PS4 and PS5 are downgraded in comparison
They did it. They actually made the PC version of Tales of Symphonia (without mods) look good 😳🤯
Agreed and it plays really well.
Took em a long time though since for a while the game wouldn't even boot on some computers.
The one available through Steam?
Remastered version isn't available on PC? only the PS3 port is on steam.
@@alexisguerra8235 guess what? It's basically the same fucking thing (except less broken). I believe that they now even call PC version "remastered" if you try to buy it on their page.
Bruh the Steam version is the best one. Even without mods.
After they FINALY fixed it, it became my favorite version. But only because of the very easy Accessibility.
I'm a long time Tales of Symphonia fan and I loved it so much back on the GameCube. The amount of hours I've put into this game feels unreal and I'm still brought back to all the places or situations when I hear the soundtrack.
I was so happy and excited when they announced it for the Switch but so far everything I've heard is really disappointing...
This game deserves so much better. I want others to make the same experiences as I had all those years back. To have them fall in love with Tales of Symphonia as well.
This hurts my heart because I LOVE this game and it sucks that this remaster is not good.
As someone who played the gamecube version back in the day this feels like a slap in the face
This is heartbreaking, this is my favorite video game franchise so totally empathize and agree with everything you said here, especially since Symphonia was my first Tales game. Idk why they had to do Symphonia dirty, why not remaster other games like Abyss, Graces f or Xillia 1 and 2? Why not localize games we still don't have like Innocence R? Why not remake old games I still haven't played like Phantasia or Destiny 1 and 2 (the actual one with Stahn). Now new people to the series have a broken version of this amazing game as an introduction and it sucks.
This game was "remastered" with all of the competence of Beavis and Butthead at Burger World
It's hard not to feel like Namco upper management threw a skeleton crew at this remaster and then stuck them with an incredibly strict deadline. And that they, either through corporate mandate or sheer necessity (or both), then had to over-rely on AI programs they didn't really have the time, skill or manpower to properly oversee.
Whatever the case, the end product displays a stunning lack of care or attention to a game that deserved so much better.
What I don't understand is how the PS4 version turned out better than the others. Was PS4 Namco's main priority for the game? Because that doesn't make sense. PS4 is basically irrelevant in Japan and Tales of Vesperia (and JRPGs in general) sold way better on Switch.
Great video. One of the lucky ones that first experienced this classic on the gamecube. Very unfortunate that things didn't go well with this port.
Daniel you hit the nail on the head with the title. PAIN is right.
I am not picking this up except on sale. I have played Symphonia 16 times across Gamecube and PS3 versions. Some of my fondest memories of this game are from playing through the entire game Co-op with college friends. I was more than happy to do the entire 60hour journey again because I wanted people to see the amazing combat and incredible story. Then here comes the remastered version and I feel betrayed. Symphonia was my introduction to the Tales series and i've picked up all future entries on day 1. Even Legendia and Abyss which didn't release in UK (until Abyss 3DS). I've imported many of the Japanese only titles. I sincerely hope this doesn't affect Bamco's decision to remaster more Tales games. I want Graces f and Xillia 1 and 2 off the PS3!! I want the Japanese only titles localised! Give me a Tales of the Wrold collection! Rebirth, Destiny DC, Destiny 2! Innocence! TALES DESERVES BETTER. This isn't it. Such a shame too as Arise was such a strong entry and really gave the series a massive push. Get it together Bamco.
The PS3 version wasn't perfect, but it was a damn fine way to experience the game. Arguably the best version since it has the most stable framerate, lowest load times, much cleaner visuals and all the gameplay improvements from the PS2 release.
This is just such a mess in so many ways that it's baffling how this passed quality assurance.
Dang this isn't even something that can/will be fixed. It's just a mess and Symphonia deserves so much more...
it CAN be fixed it just probably won't.
This game deserves an actual remake to bring it's graphics on par with Arise.
If anything gets fixed it'd probably be the frame rate drop issues and crashing issues (pretty much the worse issues tbh)...maybe the music starting mid load as well if they can't outright get rid of load times along with the weird cut ins of characters between transitions (like how the characters disappear/reappear in the first boss battle as shown in this video...granted I don't see them fixing this one immediately though).
The black background on the menu and skit it a maybe/low priority issue imo hell for the skit I kinda prefer the black background as it makes it easier to see the white subtitles imo...granted they could get rid of the black rectangular shadow behind the text though...granted what they SHOULD'VE done though if they changed it to black due to performance issues in the background causing issues (likely an unintended glitch though) is make the background brown and added a border that looked like a wooden trim you see around doorways and the like for aesthetic purposed...same look could work for the skit background too imo (along with lowering the subtitles a bit to be under the lower row of character portraits). The thing with shop names popping up in the wrong place is also something I think they should be able to fix (and should) too if they patch the game.
As for 30 fps it's not gonna change as they'd likely need to re animate everything for the game just like they had to do on the PS2 version to get the game to work on PS2 from Gamecube in the first place and I cannot see a port of a port selling enough copies for them to warrant going that route with a remaster...in fact at that point they'd be better off making a FF7 Remakes style of Remake rather than a remaster (or at least Crisis Core Style Remake which would still include a lot of new assets being made/possibly new systems made) and the only real issue with a full on remake is the question of what they will cut (which they will probably cut a lot of stuff...almost definitely optional stuff that barely plays any roles like Katz village not to mention a variety of enemy models that they don't have a current model for in recently released games and probably most special moves would be changed to their current look/animations with many being cut and the voice actors would definitely get changed given how big some OG cast member so Symphonia are now, not to mention being Union members too (and Namco doesn't like using Union members much if they can avoid it and the main games they use them for would be stuff like games based off actual anime rather than Namco original IPs))...even adding in the cut subtitles/dialogue that they removed for whatever stupid reason (Remiel scene) I don't really see happening as it would probably be too much effort and take too many resources for them in their opinion to do even though they SHOULD fix that at the bare minimum.
Biggest issue with the game though is the price $40 tag given it's mainly just a flat out port of the PC version that released at $20...at best it added better boat controls, an auto equipment option based off if your character is S or T type, some new details to character/background/building models, and a bit better upscaling than the PS3/PC versions but that's about it...with just that you're better off buying the PC or better yet the PS3 version as that version as the most content of ALL versions of the game given it comes with Dawn of the New World as well.
The only real valid reason for this version's (on all current platforms) existence is bring it to current consoles/game preservation/new audiences that do NOT go the PC route and as far as the Switch specifically the handheld option which is it's ONLY advantage over PS4/5 or Xbox 1/Series versions which you can still get with the PC version via the Steam Deck if you have one/willing to shell out the cash for one (later issue being the only reason I'd get it on switch as I don't have nor want to spend the cash for a Steam Deck right now...even if I did have the extra cash for it lol, I barely have hte extra cash for games every couple/few months).
@@natediaz1863 Would both love and likely hate it: love cause they could easily make the combat much more fun, add more graphics, and add on a lot of stuff to the game. Hate cause they'd likely cut a lot of things out and they will definitely change the VAs given how large most of them are now and I can't really see anyone besides Cam Clarke for Kratos or Scott Menville for Lloyd (granted Lloyd did get a new VA for Dawn/Tales of the World 1 and I didn't like the change much in either case)...as for cuts I can see them getting rid fo Katz village, some monters altogether as they haven't had models in any recent games/games after Symphonia, some of the more less lore focused side quests, some special moves that haven't been used much after it or changed the animations to the most updated animations (which for some spells don't look as good as OG Symphonia imo), probably will remove S and T type moves and rework how EX Gems work (which could be good if they add more EX gem slots as I thought 4 was tar too restrictive). And they'd changed/remove/add other parts we may or may not like.
Also...rather than the 20th anniversary (likely the main reason we got Symphonia and not another game as Japanese devs/fans love anniversaries a lot more than western fans, especially 10 year anniversaries (for US, at least where I live, we basically celebrate the first 10 years and then the 25th an every 25th as big events instead)) I think they should've went with a different remaster this year instead of a Remaster or Remake of Symphonia and then went with the full on Remake of Symphonia for it's 25th year Anniversary in 2028 instead if they were gonna go the full on remake rather than Remaster and instead have the remaster of another game take this year (preferably Destiny DC, Destiny 2 (would be best if it was bundled with Destiny DC too), Innocence R, Rebirth, or Phantasia Nakiri Dungeon X (all the unlocalized games)), a completely new game in a year or two and then either a remaster/port and localization of another unlocalized game followed by a full on Symphonia Remake or vice versa.
I would also say more so than Symphonia Phantasia probably would need a full on remake more so than it with a lot more lore and all added maybe some stuff to connect to Symphonia as the games are supposedly in the same world (not 100% sure if Namco confirmed it or not but fans more or less have lol) or some additional story content that was supposedly cut from the OG Phantasia (some sources on the Wiki claim Phantasia had a completely cut first arc with Dhaos or the girl who possessed Arche who was involved with Dhaos in some way as the main character for that arc that focused on what made Dhaos the antagonist, a 2nd arc focused on Cress/Mint's parents and so on sealing Dhaos (the end events we see at the start of the end result game), and then finally Cress and the party's journey as the 3rd arc. At bare minimum a remaster of the PSP Cross edition is something I want to see as said version would likely have the optional skits in it which would be a massive improvement over the GBA localization which cut out all optional skits (also why I want Destiny DC as Destiny PS1 localization also did this in the west...same for Eternia which a port that just kept the skits and translated them would also be nice).
Bandai really gave this game to an inexperienced team. It’s a real shame hopefully the switch version and the PS4 version can get some patches to fix the mistakes.
is bandai namco the type to give patches to rereleased old games?
I've beaten this game more times than i can reasonably count. I came from a big family so all our games HAD to be multi-player. This was the only JRPG I could play since my little brother could "play" with me. Makes me happy I still have the original on GameCube after seeing how they destroyed one of my favorite games.
This is gonna be Daniel’s version of Steve’s review of Little Town Hero.
I'm not sure if I want a Tales of the abyss remaster now ...
Its gotta be a remake or don't even bother.
The most recent one was the Tales of the Abyss...port? on 3DS, which I played and would recommend to anyone that still has their 3ds.
I don't think there's anything need fixing from the game... except from technicalities? Or probably graphics, which wasn't an issue if you play on an emulator with high graphic settings on a decent pc (I finished it first on PS2 btw).
I said that because I played Vesperia DE and I thought it wasn't that much different from Abyss as I remember. Ofc there are lots of improvements, but they're basically the same at the core.
That's also why I wonder lots of people praised Vesperia and dissed Abyss. They're practically the same game with different setting/story lmao
I think fans tend to complain too much when it comes to remasters, but oh boy was this a darker shade of bad. Thanks for informing us!
I played the PS3 version, and I didn't have any issues with it, but now I understand why I thought that conversation with Remiel was really awkward. Missing dialogue in what was essentially the most important scene of the first 10 hours of the game is totally unacceptable. They really should have patched it back in for the PS3 releases. Not fixing it for this release is child abuse of an IP.
How are we supposed to go on a quest to regenerate the world when we can't even save the load times and bad UI decisions right in front of us?
That's kind of hilarious that PS3 is the best version when it comes to load times.
15:11 I'm 100% convinced the text that got cut was cut because of the word "Heaven" because both instances of cut text were when Remiel used the word Heaven.
I’m hoping this game gets some love with patches. I was going to buy this day one, and now it’s just in my list of games botched so badly that I refuse to buy them
I've been saying for years, this game needs a full remake not just a "remastered" port of a "remastered"port of a...
Tales of Symphonia is my favourite game of all time. I've got it on GameCube, PS3, Steam, and now Switch. It has been a while since I've come back to playing it, and honestly I'm scared to play the Switch version, because of all these issues. This game should have had a full remake like Final Fantasy 7.
I'll reiterate what I said in the comments in Daniel's first Symphonia video: The one silver lining to all these re-releases is that you can still get the GameCube version used at a decent price. If they're gonna charge $40 for a half-baked effort like *this*, then it may very well be worth it for newcomers to bust out the old GCN (or Wii) before making the wrong investment.
And you can of course pirate it 🏴☠️
The thing is they'll purposely fuck this up and then patch it later with an update so if you got the cartridge version and play it later in 10 years or so when Nintendo closed the eShop on the Switch, you probably won't had access to the patch anymore and will had to deal with these issues again.
I grew up with this game, its so sad it became a cash grab for Bamco instead of releasing a good port
19:50 About the Steam price: What annoys me a lot is the fact that when Tales of Symphonia Remastered was announced, whenever there would be a steam sale the price would be 9.99. While before its announcement, it would go on sale for 4.99. Tales of Symphonia on PC would actually be higher priced than games like Tales of Zestiria, Berseria and Vesperia during the more recent steam sales. Those 3 games usually gounder 9.99. Tales of Symphonia used to be one of the lower priced ones during a sale, but they basically increased the price for the sake of the remaster, because the PC remaster barely has any improvements compared to the version that was already on steam.
"we are dangerously close to this being a power point" LMFAO DEAD!!!!!!
Thanks for the very informative comparison video! I first played this back in the day on GameCube, and now both my wife and I were excited to play the remaster since she's never played it. Seeing this, we're pretty bummed out.
I was so sad when I saw these issues playing my copy yesterday... I did see Bandai Namco make a statement (on Twitter I think?) saying they've heard our feedback(who knows what specifically) and are working on additional patches, so hopefully some if not all the issues could eventually be fixed.
Man. Tales of Symphonia is not just one of my favorite GCN games, but one of my favorite JRPGs. I played the GCN version so many times back in the day. It's so sad to see this "remaster" done this poorly. It's fascinating how we got two noteworthy remasters on the Switch recently (Metroid Prime and this) and they are just polar opposites of what a remaster can be. One's a masterpiece, and the other is just....this.
Wow that audio is atrocious. Whoever did the audio did not compress it correctly.
I'm not a hardcore tales guy but I really don't remember the audio being that bad when I played it on the GC.
16:02 Nintendo Switch games DO NOT save to a cartridge. They save to the internal flash memory on the console. Unlike the 3DS and older Nintendo Cartridges, the Switch cartridge only contains the game.
Thanks for making this video. Shame the remaster is a disaster. Makes me wonder how the recently announced Baten Kaitos I & II remaster will go. I never played it, but it would be a shame if Bandai Namco ruined one of Monolith Soft's earlier games.
What is WITH Bandai Namco and forced User License Agreements?
That is... damn near every publisher these days.
I have it. Only paid $16 out of trades.
I'm betting on the hope that Namco will patch the shit out of this. Because I honestly stopped playing when I got to the Desert ruins. This is a great game and the way they did this is INEXCUSABLE, especially when Vesperia is a newer game with a better port.
I still have the GameCube version, and I actually dug out my Wii to replay it.
The fact we didn't get an Arise or at least Vesperia upscale is heartbreaking.
This game deserves to be respected not farted out for quick cash.
I'm really glad someone who has this kind of passion for Tales of Symphonia is doing this review even the smallest of details have been pointed out I'm glad i don't have a switch because i would have bought it right away
You guys never have to apologize for being "not good vibes", especially when you're giving fair and just constructive criticism - it's important to analyze and criticize or we wouldn't progress the industry and these companies would take full advantage of our brainless buying. Really disappointing to see the game not meet a bare minimum of expectations.
Exactly this. There is not one single comment disagreeing with this factual video.
Steam version w/ tos fix was a solid experience despite 30fps lock
This is heartbreaking to see. This game easily makes my top 5 favorites, and I've thought of it as my favorite at times, so it's just soul crushing to see it meet such a fate. This thing deserved the level of love Metroid Prime got, and deserves to sell Final Fantasy mainline title numbers. The GameCube version does anyway, which is the one I'm blessed to have been able to play.
At least with the battles being less bright and the animation of Colette getting the Cruxis Crystal, I'm 99% sure they dimmed it to reduce sudden flashing lights and thus risk of seizures. They did that in the Switch release of Persona 5 with All Out Attacks too.
So glad I canceled my Preorder. I'll keep my memories until i hear otherwise.😢
Hearing how broken it is, I'm kinda glad this remaster didn't come to PC
Bandai Namco: Money?
Bandai Namco: Money.
Even with all of the problems the game has, I cannot bring myself to look on it with anything but nostalgic love. Lloyd was a role model for me in my middle-high school years, and his incurable positive attitude helped me keep my sanity with an emotionally abusive grandparent raising me. That might sound strange to say, that a video game character was a role model, and yes, I know that makes it look like I only overlook all the flaws for nostalgia, but I just can't hate it.
thanks ill just play on the dolphin and go to the high seas
Symphonia is my #1. I own every Tales game, but I own every cover variant of Symphonia. They KNOW it's their #1 tales game. It's the tales game that put them on the map. Not only does it deserve the full remake treatment, at the VERY least it deserved a polish. They seemingly copy pasted the code from ps3 into switch and called it a day :(
Wow that’s depressing 😢 I was going to buy this but we’ve recently fired up the ol’ GC to play Skies of Arcadia again so I think I’ll just get the original 🤷♀️
I think this video pretty much convinced me that I should just buy the GameCube version of this game. Shockingly, it was Scott Melvin in the remastered trailer that got me interested in the first place and after getting videos of this game recommended to me non-stop, I've heard more good than bad about its original release. Next time I see a GameCube copy, I'll pick it up and try it.
I'd make a joke that at least it's not a Cloud version. But with those desert ruins, it looks like how a Cloud version would run
One bug/glitch I have on my file is Sheena being stuck in her dirty/beat up outfit from the luin event. I presumed it was because I went to Hima before Palmacosta, but I'm in Tethe'alla now and it's STILL like that. Kratos is similar, he's stuck in his purple costume and won't switch to his alt one in any of the cutscenes. I figured my save file will stay this way and I'll have to make another after I'm done to fix these.
I think its sad this is what they gave us for anniversary. Symphonia and Tales in general deserves more love from Bamco when it's such a classic JRPG series.
Well damn. I had no idea this was even dropping, just saw it on my Xbox dashboard, and was pleasently surprised. Loved this game on GameCube as a kid. Figured I'd better look up some reviews as some remasters these days just aren't that good, and unfortunately it seems this one fits the bill. I'll be passing on it, unless it goes on sale at some point.
I bought this game day one. It's been awhile since I've played it, but I noticed something was off, to what degree I did not know nor could remember, but you highlighted them all. During play I felt a sense of excitement and nostalgia, yet simultaneously disappointment, but was not sure why. Hopefully the patches come through.
Tales of Symphonia is such a special game to me. I had the gamecube version given to me, with a gamecube controller and no savecard, as a result, I had to play the game on my Wii in one single party, without turning off the Wii... I bought a gamecube savecard only after beating the game that way.
I even got the sequel on the Wii which... we will not talk about.
I was a big, BIG fan, I loved almost everything, it's what got me into the Tales of franchise. Ever since they are doing ports, the quality of the games are dropping bad. The ones out from the start of PC are fine, like Berseria or Arise. But with how it's doing now, a Tales of the Abyss remaster (which i would love) would be horrendous...
I saw someone say that they have lost the original coding for the GameCube version and true or not, it sure looks like it.
Here in the UK a physical copy of Tales of Symphonia Remastered is £50, which is the equivalent to $60, absolutely insane
Lol. I just checked eBay and you could buy both the GameCube and PS3 versions together for that price…
And honestly even if the remaster didn't have these problems, full price for an old game that already looked outdated when it came out is stupidly overpriced.
I can at the very least see why the outlines were removed (or intended to be removed at least.) The character models have a lot less jaggies than they did on the original hardware.
I know I messed with them being restored on the PC via mods, but I always wound up turning it off because the extra image clarity made them look kinda shit when around character models farther away from the camera, (most prominently on characters bangs like say Colette.)
If I had the guess, the software that's responsible to taking screenshots of the game to be used as backgrounds is just completely borked. I dunno how this got past QA, or if they even had QA. I'm curious if this happens in both handheld mode and docked mode. Could be a case of resolution changes causing some hiccup because it didn't adjust for docked mode.
I agree with this, the game's ability to cache screenshots seems to be just busted. In places it even looks like they're trying to compensate for it-- which says to me that this was definitely something they were aware of, but since they're just purely visual oddities they were too low priority to fix before release. This must have been super rushed for some reason.
Whelp, I'll just stick to my shoddy PC version - which apparently isn't as shoddy as this trainwreck.
The PS4 version dosen't have the problems that the switch version as the PS4 version as background on the menu and when the skits play and there are battle transition just like the oringal gamecube/PS2 and the chronicles release.
This is why I just won't support the switch anymore
"We already remastered this game for PS3 and PC"
"Yeah, but what if we do it again and make it worse?"
"Brilliant"
I bought Vesperia. That game plays great. After Sonic Colors remaster being patched to heck and back, while stile being terrible, I was worried. Now? I just don't care for 3rd party remasters. Buy it on PC if it's not exclusive.
Guess I'm still stuck with my GCN-copy of the game for my Wii. How on Earth did we end up to this point??! It's mind-bendingly infuriating and exhausting to watch Namdai strangely fumble even harder with this one giving this one fair amount of attention... now it's been almost a decade on how Symphonia just can't seem to catch a break with re-releases. God.
I dunno if this particular one was just spurred on by the sad ripple effect of other VG companies thinking it's fine to make half-hearted or even outright broken remasters since past few years, such as GTA Trilogy or Nintendo's own remasters on Switch sans recent Metroid Prime and Kirby's Return to Dreamland DX.
Knowing also how some of fans I followed Tumblr had been doing a cool fanart countdown for this release... it's enraging that all these passionate fans will be receiving at the end is such a mediocre port. They just don't deserve this kind of treatment with this much strong, on-going appreciation and support for this game after all these years. 😟
I am so scared for Baten Kaitos remasters now. Both have same publishers, Bamco let this Re:Bastardized version of Symphonia go through.
How can vesperia be so good and symphonia be so bad on switch
On steam the game has an community HD mod with performance improvements. On sale you can get the game for €5.
It does have the glass breaking transitions and the normal menu's and the black lines around the characters.
So much better.
Man I actually really enjoy Daniel’s videos!! He has some pretty funny lines that you can totally miss if you aren’t listening close enough!!
So that's why Nintendo ports of older games cost $60.
At the bare minimum, we're getting the exact same experience we had on the original, at a higher resolution. We can't really guarantee that from other companies, can we...?
Square Enix style remaster. Congrats Bandai Namco
At least Chrono Cross remaster juste have a redemption arc today lol. Also, yes Final Fantasy VIII "remaster" was quite lame, but it was still playable. It was not that worse like this Symphonia "remaster". But yes, Square Enix remaster are qute hit or miss, except if this is a SaGa game lol. I don't know why, but the SaGa games remaster are always quite good ahah.
even the worst remasters from square are better than this shit
@@Sylamp x-doubt
@@jaretco6423 Final Fantasy IX is really not that good (not the game, but the port). They sadly didn't upscale the pre render background so the characters really don't fit. Looks at the Moguri mod for the PC version of FFIX. It's so much better. Each time you want to activate the turbo mode, you need to click on the pause menu (that's annoying ahah). Also, the Chrono Cross and SaGa Frontier remaster did a better job on that part.
@@jaretco6423 true, at least Bandai Namco just released a statement today that they will "fix it". Square Enix never fixed FFIX.
Absolutely baffling, how could Bamco approve of this port 0_0
I can hear the passion and frustration.
I hope you will send a ticket to bandai. I've gotten people on the tales sub reddit to send tickets. bandai just cant ignore this
I'm so sad. Tales of Symphonia is one of, if not my favorite game of all time, and I was so excited to get my friends to play it, but now it's not even worth it for them to get it. Heartbreaking.
yet another game to add to "Remaster is actually Demaster" list...as is the standard for this garbage game industry.
Tales of Symphonia Remastered port on the switch is a bad port and Namco Bandai should have not released it in the state it was in. They needed to work a lot more on it and improve it much morel. Also, good news for the video creator since he mentioned wanting Tales of Destiny Director's Cut remake in English! Tales of Destiny Remake was fan translated fully into English! So you can play it in English!
Love this game and still have my Gamecube copy. Crazy that it's still the best version.
This is just a guess, but it looks like the function that handles transparencies and whatnot isn't being called correctly. I guess that's kind of obvious, but they must have copy-pasted the code, and didn't do any QA. It's probably something really stupid, like not handling floating point numbers by default, and instead converting it to an integer.
It's just a bad port. A really bad port.
Why are the easiest things to get right always screwed up the most?
Even worse is they're charging you the same price as the PS3 remaster with less content (the PS3 remaster came with the sequel) and even worse performance.
Imagine treating your "FF7" game with a disgusting port like that lol. Wake up Bandai Namco. PS: just the fact that the game take more than 10 GB, then I already knew that they clearly didn't optimized it. Quite sad because when Bandai Namco decide to port their games by the company Engine Software, they can made great port. Recent one it's the Ni no Kuni 2. Sure the game have some frame rate issue (especially on the world map), but for a PS4 game it run really well on the Switch. Also the game take less than 11 GB of download. There is no logical reason that an old HD version of a PS2 game run that bad on the Switch.
the reason this is my favorite tales game: this is the only one where you can constantly chain lvl 1 -> lvl 2-> lvl 1 multiple times b4 you end it with a lvl 3.
Look how they mascaraed my boy :/
1:55 Actually, according to the steam page "Experience the iconic, critically acclaimed RPG that reinvented the Persona series, Persona 3 Portable, now newly remastered for modern platforms." So yes, they did claim it to be remastered and we're even more disappointed.
Tales of Symphonia is a game that has been on my backlog for a long time, and none of the issues you talked about would really bother me that much. They are things I’d only notice if someone pointed out them out to me. I’m sure if I grew up with it, I’d notice all the things that you’re pointing out. Like how I grew up with FFVII as a personal example. When the PC version of FFVII was ported to PS4, NSW, and XB1, I noticed all sorts of little details that changed. It caught me off guard but I wouldn’t say it ruined the experience. All the complaints you have seem to be at that level. It feels like minor nitpicks are being extrapolated to “OMG!! broken port, worst remaster eVaR!!!” Respectfully, I think you’re missing the forest for the trees my dude. It’s great to bring classics forward to modern consoles. I’d rather celebrate that. I agree that it doesn’t seem to have “remastered” a classic, Namco Bandai have done more of an HD port. It brought a classic to modern audiences in a functional capacity, and now people like me can more easily join in on the love for a classic JRPG with you. No shade thrown your way, I just respectfully disagree with your take
yeah nothing here makes the game sound broken, especially compared to genuinely broken releases that happen lately. if anything, it just sounds like a bad port, and far from the worst port i've seen. i think the only thing i'd actually notice as a first time player would be the lack of some battle transitions. i will say that, based on the criticisms in this video, it probably shouldn't qualify as a remaster so much as a bad port, and the $40 price tag is way too high.
@@gorimbaud Played both the PS3 and GC versions of the game and even with the 30 fps difference they felt pretty much exactly the same with the only difference being the pS3 looked better due to the better resolution HD upscaling compared to GC Symphonia which had a more blurred/out of focus look to it now.
Out of everything in his video the ONLY real concerns imo are the crashing issue and the fact i could drop under 30 fps in a way to make a noticeable lag/chugging effect and that'd be about it followed by the white battle into transition too I guess (as it could get glaring/annoying to the eyes after a while). The other issues like the black menu background, black skit background, some pixels being in iffy spot, minor pixelation that can barely be notices unless pointed out/stared at for a while (which lets face it while playing a game you won't be starting at the same thing long enough to notice it 90% of the time), and loading times (which compared to say Elder Scrolls, Elden Ring, FFXV, Witcher 3, Valkyrie Elyisum, Tales of Arise, etc are a blink of the eye in comparison but everyone is ignoring for some reason even though they're NEWER games and you'd figure NEWER games shouldn't be dealing with load times...right?) are all minor issues in comparison.
Now if the game had issues like say Fallout 76 or Cyberpunk 2077 than yeah the game would absolutely be 'broken' by definition however as it is now it's not 'broken' by any reasonable metric.
With all this said I haven't picked the game up and won't for a while as like you said: the price they're asking for a port of a port (where some of the ports were cheaper at $60 for 2 games so $30 per game for PS3 version and $20 for the PC version) is too high so I will be waiting until it hits about $20 or less to get the Switch version of the game (want to play it in handheld and if I wanted to play it on TV I have the GC version and PS3 version with double the amount of content via Dawn of the New World's addition to that version (which imo would be the version I'd recommend someone buy if they have a PS3 as it's the version with objectively the most content) for playing on TV).
@@ifrit1937 yeah, it sounds like this isn't quite as hyperbolic as people getting mad that the p3p port, which was never sold as anything but a p3p port, wasn't a remaster that combined p3p and p3fes that they wanted, because it is at least a bad port, but the game still sounds like it's basically playable, which is not something i'd expect from a game that's broken.
i'll definitely wait for either a price drop or a _big_ sale to get it, and maybe wait until i finish vesperia, too.
I think those black screens are either a transparency issue with certain graphical effects, or actually intentionally added to prevent you from seeing how JANK it looks while it's doing loading, etc.
This crappy port is an insult to fans and the original game cube version. 🤦♂️💔
It's absolutely bonkers that a remaster is *worse* than the original. Not only did they not fix already known bugs and issue, but this version introduces *new* ones! I can't even ...
My copy just got delivered yesterday :(
R.i.p
@@solonepeon5805 smh and i was really looking forward to this on the switch, i played the GameCube version years ago. i'll contact Namco Bandai
If only they'd just stop porting the already broken PS2 code. It seriously gets worse every damn time they port it again. Just decompile the GameCube code and start from scratch PLEASE.
This is exactly what I was afraid of and also expected, sadly.
Skits look terrifying now btw lol, that black background is just NOT doing it for me.
Also, it's worth mentioning that Baten Kaitos' remaster also removed the unique backgrounds and replaced those with solid color backgrounds too. Ugly and lame. :/ I dunno, it seems to be a Nintendo trend right now with their remasters..