I'm a big fan of the Tales of _______ Series, and I want to know if Symphonia is any good.

So... Is it?

Yes...

BUT GAMECUBE SUCKS.

Perhaps, but every one of Nintendo's older consoles individually kick the shit out of your precious PlayStation 2. :P

And the point of this thread is what?

wild guess here, but i'm thinking the point is... Tales of Symphonia

Although I admit I didn't really enjoy the earlier Tales games, Tales of Symphonia on the other hand, was a very good game. Having said that though, being a huge Ah! My Goddess fanboy, the main reason I played ToS however, is that the artwork and character desings of Tales of Symphonia were created by manga artist Kosuke Fujishima, otherwise known as the creator of the manga series You're Under Arrest! and Ah! My Goddess, as well as the character designer for Sega's successful Sakura Wars strategy games, and their successive spinoff anime series and movies.

Fujishima's art style is prevelant throughout ToS, and a lot of the characters are very famillar looking (Lloyd for instance looks a lot like a red leather-clad Keiichi Morisato from Ah! My Goddess), and really gives the game a distinctive feel that is a welcome change from the mediocre graphics of all those FF-wannabe RPGs that have been flooding the market since FFVII was released.

Sure, there are some faults with ToS, but as a whole, Tales of Symphonia is a very good game that I thoroughly reconmend to any RPG fan who owns a Gamecube - particularly as the GCN is seriously lacking in decent RPGs (Skies of Arcadia Legends being the only other RPG that I'm aware of - FF Crystal Chronicles doesn't count, for being an absolute abomination).

Awesome. I'll try to get it as soon as possible.

And why don't you like the earlier tales games? They're awesome!
Especially the first one, Tales of Phantasia, which I think is only on an emulator. Even though it's a blatent ripoff of FF6 and Chrono Trigger. Pretty much the same story as Chrono Trigger, with a lot of lines from it and from FF6.
("Hey, you back with us now?", "This can't be our future...", "What's 'magic?'", etc. It also has time traveling like Chrono Trigger.)

T.O.S. was my favourite game of 2004, although it was a bit of a crap year to be honest. Storyline's not bad even though Lloyd and Collette deserve very painful deaths, the battles are good and you can actually block without much trouble unlike a certain Star Ocean. The soundtrack's also pretty good to boot, well worth the money.