>>11895440
Let's see...

I enjoyed the escalation once you hit the middle section, every faction in the world suddenly trying to kill you, that then gave way into deep-diving into how Cruxis worked. And I kept a couple of the very obvious teases in the back of my mind waiting to be paid off. I did notice that the whole mana system felt grafted on to the world and only solved problems it created, and sure enough the game all but says it (and then the bad sequel says it point blank). But once you learn the villains are 4000 years old the broader setting becomes a farce. In Symphonia's own context, anyway, Tales of Phantasia stands on its own. But then I'm pretty sure both phenomenon are common with this series.

>>11896015
The first section absolutely reads like a take on FFX; a naive holy teenager that grew up away from society to be trained to save it from a cyclical evil by visiting classical element temples assisted by her counter-culture boyfriend. After that they do have a lot of shared concepts on paper and talk about self-determination a lot but they go in different directions with them. FFX is definitely the more focused game.

>>11896139
To think if Symphonia has just been a another solid JPRG on the PS2 from the start things would be different.