My only mentioning of Final Fantasy was in reference to the pathetic spinoff the Gamecube got with Crystal Chronicles.  Saying that Final Fantasy is more popular is more of a freudian slip on your part (now tell us what you're really thinking!).

As for Tales of Symphonia's performance on the PS2, look for yourself.  Either it was folded into the Gamecube number making that number pretty pathetic as combined sales... or vgChartz has no data on it.

No, what cracks me up is someone who has "Boycott Ubisoft" in his signature saying that reviewers hate the wii...while at the same time complaining that a Ubisoft isn't releasing any good games for the Wii.

there are like 10 threads live right now on this site that say "Boycott Company A because they are not making good Wii games" or "Company B announces good wii games are coming"

So which one is it? Reviewers hating the wii and giving bad scores or companies making bad games for the Wii?

As far as microsoft buying reviews...they don't do that, otherwise Ninja Gaiden 2 would have been a 9.5 as it should have been.

It's strongly implied that Tales of Symphonia is set in the same world as Tales of Phantasia though, but at a different time (ToS happens thousands of years before ToP I think). Let's hope they make a Tales of Phantasia sequel with zombie/mummy/skeleton/ghost/undead Lloyd .

Dwarven Vow #47.5:  The secret to eternal life is not noticing your death.

Ok, let's us just cut out all the BS. I don't know what you're trying to insinuate with the "WHAT I'M REALLY THINKING" lark, so I'm not going to respond to that. Let's get down to the bare bones on the discussion.

You said that the new ToS game is going to be "weighed down" be being a sequel. Personally, I don't see how that can be a problem, being the most popular saga in the franchise. If anything, ToV is going to have more trouble getting off the ground.

Bringing other consoles and franchises into the equation was a way for you to get your point across? I don't know, it's was a irrelevant response either way.

In a (vain) attempt to get this thread back on topic, I'm going to say Vesperia will be better reviewed. It has a proven team and a higher budget, while Symphonia 2 has already been described as a "spinoff" by its creators, which is never a good sign. And yes, I know that statement was retracted a few months back, but that would be after months of development had already passed, which doesn't do much for my confidence. I'm sure they'll both be good games, but Vesperia will probably be better.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled side-bars.

Actually you're confused as those were separate points. 

One is that Tales of Symphonia was mediocre yet able to shine based in the lack of competition on the Gamecube which is actually looking to be the same situation with the Wii.  That may or may not be a factor because the Wii has a pitiful lineup of RPGs (even worse than the Gamecube...).

The other point is sequels are generally treated more harshly than the original.  Either they deviate too much making people who enjoyed the original game unhappy or they don't deviate enough leaving people feeling like they're essentially playing the same.  It's a hard place to be in.

So according you, seeing as the Wii is so lacking in RPG's, surely ToS 2 is going to FLY off the shelves?

I'm not huge fan of the Tales series or anything, but from what I've seen, ALOT seem to agree that Symphonia IS the best in the series. So I don't know where all this "was allowed to shine on the Cube" talk is coming from. Anyone that has any frame of reference of the franchise is surely a multi-console/Cube&Ps2 owner.

I agree with you on the case of sequel. I myself am not particularly looking forward to the game, but hasn't it got like 150,000 pre-orders in Japan already?

Even with Tales of Symphonia being "so popular" it only did 1.1m.  If you consider that to be "flying off the shelves" then more power to you, but I don't.  150K is a fun number but I'll wait for the NPD/vgChartz data before I get excited.

I'm not a huge fan of the Tales series either but I definitely enjoyed ToP more than ToS.  The characters alone were more interesting.

I like the "Anyone that has any frame of reference" qualifier.  Basically you just shoved most of the people who think ToS is the best thing since sliced bread out the door and said their opinions don't count.