Dabomb18359 said:
Is skies of arcadia any good? And what about Tales of Symphonia?
I loved both games, but like Skies of Arcadia a little more than Tales of Symphonia.
In terms of graphics, Tales of Symphonia has an unbeatable style. However, Skies has graphics, while dated, are tremendously detailed, and it's obvious that the developers put their technology to the limit while designing the graphics. The amount of contrast and details in the cities are just amazing. Tales, while has a good style, has an overworld that just screams laziness by the devlopers, it's that ugly.
In terms of animation, both have extremely awkward feeling cutscenes, although Tales naturally has better animation. Their cutscenes still feel really awkward, though.
For storyline, both are extremely cliche'd in their own ways. I think Skies is more cliche'd in that their towns are pretty stereotypical (their Aztec-based village could not be more Aztec, their Japanese-inspired town could not be more Japanese), which I actually like. While the story is extremely basic, it has this certain charm to it that makes the characters so likeable, despite how lacking the character development really is when you look at it. Tales lacks the charm, and I felt pretty unconnnected to the storyline, although the character development is far superior.
For setting, Skies wins no contest. Honestly, pirates in a sky-based world based on one of my favorite anime movies of all time, it just doesn't get much better than that. Not to mentioned how incredibly varied the towns are, and how incredibly diverse the world is. All the towns in Tales have pretty much the same western feel, save one Japanese-based village.
Music, Skies wins this one easily. That soundtrack is nothing short of spectacular. Tales soundtrack has some really strong battle-themes, but the rest of the music... solid, but nothing special.
So what does Tales have that makes me love the game? Battle system. I love the battle system. I love the battle music. I love how random battles are pretty much optional. Tales has the best battles I've ever seen in an RPG. Skies battle system is extremely slow and has way too many random battles.
So in the end, I like Skies of Arcadia a little more. The game had the ultimate RPG feel when the credits rolled, the same feeling one gets when one finishes reading a really good book. Tales of Symphonia did not have the same feeling, but it was a good game nonetheless.