>>717872576
This.
The 2D tales team got absolutely BTFO by Symphonia and never recovered. Tales of Rebirth was such irredeemable dogshit that it's a surprise Symphonia came out BEFORE Rebirth considering how everything in Rebirth feels like a de-evolution of the Tales series. The only thing the 2D team were able to muster up afterwards was a crappy remake of a different tales game.
People like to clown on Symphonia for "only getting recognition for being one of the few GameCube RPGs" but they fail to recognize that Symphonia is simply the "correct" evolutionary line of the Tales series which incidentally had high production values for the time, a miraculously competent English localization/dub (the only thing that ages the game poorly is no English dubbed skits, which was a huge oversight), and was, at the time, a fairly innovative title in terms of JRPG battle mechanics.
Symphonia would not be popular or "the best" if it wasn't a damn good game. Otherwise, what is Tales of Destiny's (PS1) excuse? It launched on the most popular platform of its generation and yet no one gave a fuck about it. Because it's not that good. Or what of Eternia? Same story. Mediocre titles that couldn't survive even on the hottest-selling platform.
Symphonia did well DESPITE being on the worst platform of its generation BECAUSE the game was high quality.