Tales of Symphonia is among the greatest entries within the long-running Tales JRPG collection, and one of many extra distinctive video games within the Nintendo GameCube’s in any other case short-lived and uneven library. Naturally, previous followers and newcomers alike had been pumped to see the cult traditional get a remaster for the Change. What a disgrace, then, that the latest remaster is a subpar port at greatest, main writer Bandai Namco to apologize and promise an upcoming patch.
“We’ve got confirmed that there’s a downside with gameplay on this product model that’s presently on sale,” reads a tough translation of a tweet thread labeled “Apology and Data.” “We’re presently investigating a repair.” Bandai Namco doesn’t go into element about which issues it’s speaking about or when the primary replace would possibly arrive. Kotaku has reached out for remark.
The acknowledgement comes every week after Tales of Symphonia Remastered got here out on each Change and PS4. The lovable and colourful role-playing recreation duties you with fulfilling an historical prophecy and preventing again the evil overtaking a dying world—commonplace JRPG fare elevated by likable characters and a enjoyable hybrid fight system.
Followers had been already in an uproar over the truth that the brand new model could be capped at 30FPS moderately than run at 60FPS like the unique GameCube model, however hands-on time confirmed different shortcomings as properly, from lengthy load occasions to some textures breaking beneath the brand new HD upscaling. Plenty of gamers have been sharing their frustrations on-line, even going as far as to check footage straight towards older HD variations obtainable on PS3 and Steam:
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I’ve spent a couple of hours with the Change model over the previous week and whereas I’m having fun with enjoying it general, the technical shortcomings and lack of latest quality-of-life options go away a nasty style, particularly for a $40 port of a virtually 20-year-old recreation. The colours are vivid and the decision is sharp, however the longer load occasions between random encounters actually do begin to drag and the shortage of any auto-save function is an actual head scratcher. As RPG Website factors out in its evaluation, even small issues are lacking like fades between scenes that now jarringly lower to black, or the blurred background when navigating the pause menu.
We’ve seen this earlier than with 2022’s remaster of Chrono Cross. Whereas the sport included new quality-of-life options like unlocking fast-forward proper from the beginning and letting you scale down the issue, the HD impact was hit-or-miss and the framerate really carried out worse than within the unique PS1 model. It wasn’t till just this week that the sport lastly obtained an replace making an attempt to enhance its efficiency, focusing on a ceiling of 60 FPS.
Hopefully, it doesn’t take as lengthy for Tales of Symphonia Remastered to get patched, although I’m not optimistic it received’t nonetheless find yourself feeling like a significant missed alternative. In case you’ve been ready many years to get again to Lloyd and firm’s struggle towards the Desians to convey peace and stability again to the land of Sylverant, I can say it hasn’t misplaced its allure. I simply want it had been transported by time with extra care and fanfare.