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Road to Platina

Symphonic Adventure
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Chapter | [1] [2: Drifting Swordsman]

Don’t worry, that’s just collateral damage..
Genis stops us on the way home and we take a detour to the Human Ranch. Things don’t go as planned and end up killing a few guards. No biggie, let’s just jump down 5m cliffs and head back home. Next day is when the big day begins!

 
Note to Self: Don’t Sleep in, Ever
Waking up late, Colette and Kratos has already left so we head back to Iselia.. but of course, killing some guards will cause bad things to happen. We fight the first boss, a sea cucumber and the boss is pretty simple; Genis casts Fire Ball and Lloyd uses Tiger Blade + Tempest. Simple! Now everyone is mad at you and you are exiled from Iselia D:

 
“That wanted poster looks just like you!”
Travelling to the Desert Oasis, Triet, we were scammed by the fortune teller and get captured on the way out.. talk about a bad day! While escaping the base, we regroup and meet a mysterious Blue Haired person with a cape split in two. After some great dialogue, we fight another new person named Botta. Another boss that isn't too bad, though getting hit by Stalagmite without guardian (or equivalent) can be rather nasty. Lloyd with the classic Sword Rain + Tiger Blade combo, Kratos with infinite combo glitch, and Genis with Spark Wave does the trick. After we win, he randomly throws his broken sword to the ground and flees.

Well, that escape went well, so off to our first (second technically) seal: The Triet Runes!

 

Recap:
Being exiled from Iselia for killing guards at the nearby human ranch, we head off to unlock the seals. But we get captured and need to take a minor detour.

Duration: ~ 1 hour

Favourite Song: The Land of Sylvarant

Main Character Used: Kratos

Button Binding:
B: Thunder Blade*
Side-B: Lightning Blade
Down-B: Hell Pyre
Up-B: Demon Fang
Up-C: First Aid
Down-C: Judgement

*I will explain why I do this more in depth later

[Next]

I see you have upped the game now Platina. So be it.

It's on.

lol, good luck then ;)

Due to illness I'll have to hold back on my update, but we're now just outside the Fire Ruins whose name I've forgot. The past hour can be summarized by "Lloyd is ugly, clumsy and the desert is hot".

Oh, and thunder rings with getting enemies to stand on switches should never be a thing.

Okay! Back with my second entry for my Tales of Symphonia playthrough! I've put about three hours into the game so far and i'm enjoying it so far, though i can't say i've seen what all the hype is for yet ;) But anyways, let's get on with it!

So last time, i ended off at the entrance to a forest on my way to Lloyd's house, but instead we get side-tracked and meet Genis' friend, Marble, in the Ranch. There we find out that she posseses an exosphere, exect without a key chain attached to it. Lloyd warns Marble of the danger of not having a key chain on it, and, in my case, offers her to make one. However, in the midst of all this, Marble is caught not doing work by the Desians, who run the Ranch. Wanting to stop Marble from being brutally punished by the guards, they make their way to high ground and launch an attack to lure the guards out. In spite of this, Lloyd's face is seen and he has no choice but to fight back.

After winning and fleeing, we meet this mysterious guy, who honestly i didn't take much notice to :P After this, Lloyd goes to his father's house, labled 'Dirk's House, where we find more about his backstory, and namely, how his mother died. Honestly, i feel its good that we now know he has a motive, because before i feel he just did things for the sake of it :P

Okay, i'm going to try and fly through this, because i don't want this to be too long, but basically Lloyd wakes up and finds that Colette left early, so he goes back to the village to find out more, which then leads to the village being attacked by the Desians by Lloyd's fault, which leads him to be banished from the village, along with Genis. They then prepare to find Colette as planned, and eventually reach the City of Triet.

Here, Lloyd and Genis realize that the Desians are even on the lookout for him here, with fliers being placed around the town. After investigating the town for any hints to where Colette might be, they get spotted by the Desians, surprise surprise. Although he defeats the ones who spot him, he is nevertheless captured, which Genis being a pussy and running off =_= A-Anyways, Lloyd gets caught, but manages to escape his cell and, by traversing a small puzzle or two, manages to make his way around the prison, that is, until he is spotted and accidently runs into a room where a blue-haired man is (Is he the same guy from earlier? I can't remember, ah well), and where he meets up with Genis, who is accompanied by Colette, Kratos and Genis' older sister. With some fighting etc, they manage to escape the prison and get back to Triet, and rest there for the night.

The next morning, they make their way to the Fire Temple, and that is where i concluded my play session. Next time i'll probably just cover the Fire Temple as i don't want these things to drag on for too long, but for those who kept with it, thank you for reading! And i hope you read my next one as well! :)

S. Chapter | [1]  [2]  [3: Clumsy Assassin]   

Overpowered Techs Already?!
Here, Kratos teaches us a really important skill: Guardian, Force Field, etc. This move uses up 10% of your max TP but basically guards against anything; significantly lowering damage during the whole duration while it is active. Raine also joins us now. A dedicated healer with light spells is really handy. Well, with this handy skill learnt as well as a healer, time to tackle this first dungeon. Another straightforward dungeon, split into 3 parts and you use your sorcerer’s ring to light candles to raise platforms. There is a mimic chest that can only be damaged by magics, so it is a bit tricky to beat it, but since I have good techs, it went down rather quickly. Here also has a missable chest, so I made sure I got it (missed it on my previous run) and couldn’t get the title :/


Exploitable Weakness!
The boss is rather simple, make sure Genis only uses Aqua Laser and it pierces through enemies and being weak to water, they don’t stand a chance when I have Kratos and Lloyd locking them down to prevent them from casting spells. After the battle, Colette gets wings and learns Angel Feathers. She also gains better hearing but losses the ability to sleep.

 
Colette saves the day!
Now onto Ossa Trail to Izoold! Upon entering we meet an assassin aiming to kill the Chosen, but luckily, the assassin falls down a pitfall due to Colette’s clumsiness. We scale Ossa Trail to the top and save and traverse back to down to fight against the assassin, as she was unscathed from falling from such a height. Why can’t we just jump down the pitfall too then, to save time? This boss battle is a bit tricky, as she has a guardian with her so I had Kratos focus on the guardian and Lloyd fight against the assassin. Raine and Genis does their thing and after the battle she runs away!

 
Scary Skull..
Exploring inside the cave, we grab a few more chests and face against the Swords Dancer. A really powerful foe, as the sword slashes takes a lot of damage and physical damage against it isn’t very effective. But if he gets too close, all of the mage casters will be easy pickings to a horizontal sweep. That means Lloyd has to tough it out and try to survive while Genis casts Prism Sword and Raine with Photon when she is not healing. Normally I would not have these techs, but this makes it a LOT easier due to the Sword Dancer Light weakness. Genis can only cast about twice before he runs out of TP so I stocked up on Orange gels to fight this formidable foe.


After we leave Ossa Trail, we learn how to do Unison Attacks! Really useful especially for bosses, but I will cover that another time.. To Izoold and to Palmacosta!

Recap:
We unlock the Fire Seal and Colette gets wings! We then meet a dangerous assassin and fight the optional Sword Dancer but it stands no chance against the power of the Prism Sword!

Duration: ~ 1 hour

Favourite Song: Fatalize

Main Character Used: Genis

Button Binding
B: Spark Wave*
Side-B: Flame Lance
Down-B: Cyclone
Up-B: Indignation
Up-C: Atlas
Down-C: Fire Ball

*Varies depending on boss/enemies

Note: Genis has a compound EX skill: Lvl 1 Tough + Lvl 3 Rhythm = Randomizer
This skill makes Genis’ casting time completely random, sometimes longer, sometimes shorter and even sometimes set to 0. Therefore, a trick used is by setting the block button to L and setting the Arte to b. Then by buttonmashing L and b to cast and cancel, we can sometimes have Genis cast the spell right away. This requires luck, but during lucky streaks, I had Genis cast a level 3 Arte consecutively 3-4 times in a row.

Raine also has a similar EX skill so sometimes that is used with Nurse or Photon   

[Next]

One thing which really jumps out reading your updates Platina is just how much depth the battle system has. It's something I've noticed in other Tales games, it starts off painfully simple but it soon adds layer upon layer until it really has its own unique feel and everyone plays it different. That's good.

Cloud's Log: Day 3

Reading on my last play thru, I realized I didn't talk about the fire ruins at all, which was quite a bit of my frustration, haha. The ruins itself was really short and easy. It only consists of the entrance, and one large central room, but with 3 entrances. This introduces the 2nd puzzle section of the game: lighting torches!

Exploring the main area, I learned about lighting the torches to make platforms rise. The game instructs me to do so via a cutscene. Little did I know, the one I lit ended up moving a platform that also had a torch to light, but now I could no longer get, which costed me getting an item.... TT_TT

It didn't matter though, because the next issue allowed me to fix this error. There are some chests scattered in the ruins, one of them being a MIMIC. I figured it would be a tough battle, but I died.... o_o So I had to start over again... Luckily, I fixed my previous issue and lit all the torches. I also killed the mimic the 2nd time. I decided to switch Genis out for Raine, which was the dumbest thing I could do, as Genis was the only one who could hurt it...

Anyways, I reach the fire ruin's boss, which turned out to be 2... fire panthers? I dunno. Either way, I killed it with relative ease. After that, I returned to Triet, where I got a new title for Rain, got some supplies, and advanced onword to a small fishing spot. I was able to get a boat to get to Palmacosta, as well as a letter I have to deliver! I dunno, this lover girl wanted to deliver her letter to her lover, and I was the only one able to deliver it. Yay me, and the letter!

Well, I reached Palmacosta, where I stopped for the session. : ) So far so good! Back to the other!

Platina, I may not think Symphonia is a good game, but you have really done well with your updates. Much respect.

Indeed, especially that banner, looks awesome! :D