Best RPG on the Wii!
I've never played Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube before, but I've always loved the Tales Franchise, so I thought I'd give this one a try. Plus, I want a great RPG game for my Wii. Please keep in mind that I'm playing the Japanese version of this game, with the original cast including Kugimiya Rie as Marta. My opinion on the English version of this game is really different, especially in the sound departement, because of the horrible english dubbing.
Story: As I said, I've never played the original Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube before. So I can't compare it with this game. I've got to say I love the story in this game though. It's long, and you'll be spending a lot of time looking at a cutscene. One interesting feature I love in this game is that whenever you press C when standing and doing nothing, a box will pop up and a random conversation between the characters in your party would come up. They'll talk about the current situation and their graphics is anime-like. The character's expression would change according to their dialouge of the current situation.
Gameplay: The battle system is awesome. It's real time, but you don't really have many attacks to perform. A button's a normal attack, up to 3 combos. Joystick and B button's a normal Arte attack (some kind of special attack) and C button is for a higher Arte attack. I just love the fact that it's real time. There're no wild random encounters on dungeons. You can see the monsters instead, and can choose to fight them or not. It's hard for levelling up, but I like it better than many random encounters. They've added a Monster capture system, where you can capture a monster and train it, feed it and make them fight in your party.
Graphics: It's pretty good, but it doesn't push the Wii's limit. But it still looks great! Especially on cutscenes.
Sound: Many reviewers complain about the English Voice Acting of this game. And after hearing several videos on the english dubbing, I've got to say it's really, really terrible. As for me, since my Wii's Japanese, I got the Japanese version of this game, with the original casts such as Kugimiya Rie as Marta (she's one of my favorite voice actresses ever, and she voiced Shana from the Shakugan no Shana anime). The original Japanese dubbing really fits the personality of each character. It's really awesome, and sound is a big factor in this game since almost all cutscenes are voiced. As for the game's soundtrack, it's pretty good. I love the opening theme.
Characters: On an RPG game, characters are important. And I have to say that Emir, the main character is annoying. Really annoying. But I kind of got used to that. Marta is awesome, so she covers the annoying Emir. Character development throughout the game is superb. Character development is deep, which is important.
This game turned out to be what I was really looking for. I love the story, I love the characters and I love the voice acting. The game have many long cutscenes, which I love. Overall this game gave me some 100 hours of fun. Definitely the best JRPG on the Wii. I'm reccomending this game to anyone, even those who haven't played the original Tales of Symphonia.
Japan 
