#symphs

[windienine]

best part of this game: skits

worst part of this game: finicky block puzzle with clear answer but jank controls

[pyrodraws]

After a long night of trick-or-treating, Roucous just wants to go home and enjoy his (somehow glowing) haul. But something's weird... Oh dear! It seems he's attracted the attention of two Zombie Symphs! Better make a run for it Roucous! Roucous isnt in the masterlist yet, but I'll edit when he is! M059 @ CatInstincts M022 @ Awehhh

[windienine]

me when there's no problem

[windienine]

kratos and i share the same goal: planning to adopt lloyd. he's all covert about it but i see his game.

i have feelings towards him now and they're that he rules, actually.

[windienine]

various symphonia liveblog thoughts

alright! i played a little more of the game, and it's shaping up interesting.

tree of mana is dead, half-elves (deserians?) have resorted to using human bodies as vessels for magic (?) which turns them into monsters (??). the protagonists all live in or near a village that has a tentative treaty with the deserians so long as they don't interfere in the human experimentation business.

colette, born to a human by an angel, been chosen to resurrect the world and become an angel, but this isn't really the kind of journey that you come back from in one piece as a human. she doesn't have any strong outward opinions on this, but from her goodbye letter/will it's clear that she's kind of reached a sense of finality already.

genis is a child of elves (?) (they're not really tolkien elves, just humans with extra capacity for magic, maybe...?) who knows spells and reads way ahead of his grade and is an orphan who has a very close relationship with lloyd.

lloyd is the adoptive son of a dwarf (cool magical tinkerer) and friends with both genis and colette and he's the best because he's an annoying brat who questions everything that happens pretty much ever. he's not booksmart, but he's inquisitive and importantly is not okay with a treaty that forks humans over to a ranch to be experimented on or colette going on a journey that might kill her (at least not without him for emotional support), so he's the only person who truly wants to intervene in both these situations despite the odds. he gets punished for that mindset-- which does have the capacity to hurt people-- but doesn't let that stop him. he knows he's doing the right thing.

kratos,

okay so colette's summoned to a temple where she's supposed to receive her quest, which all happens according to plan except for some deserian goons who try to kidnap her; the gang fights them off.

lloyd fucks everything up by violating the treaty in trying to rescue a human prisoner from the deserians, who were apparently different half-elves from the ones who tried to kidnap colette. whoopsie.

i think it's nice that i can see exactly why these three are friends. colette's kind of resigned to everything and genis has opinions but not really the willpower to act on them on his own, and lloyd acts as a voice for colette when she struggles to assert herself and guiding hand for genis when he feels conflicted. and genis kind of has to reign him in when he gets too Into It. i'm excited to see the third axis there, whether genis and colette have their own unique dynamic, because until now it seemed to mostly be through raine that they had a connection. i don't trust u, raine.

it's all surprisingly charming and a little tragic. i'm logged in. let's go crash a heroes' journey.

[windienine]

whuh oh

[windienine]

liveblog

alright. here to find out what the deal with this game is.

i was born in the late 90s, and tales of symphonia happened just a smidge before my time (i had a gamecube, but i was six and it was largely a mario party/animal crossing machine. i didn't really start playing non-pokemon jrpgs until i was twelve or so.)

i played the 3ds port of tales of the abyss when i was thirteen or fourteen years old, stressed as hell, and happily overlooked the fact that the plot was kind of everywhere for the fact that there were a lot of cute and angsty guys in various states of shirt-having. watching a stream of abyss in recent weeks has illuminated some of what i'd overlooked at the time (some good, some bad) AND i have been told by several friends that symphonia is a more cohesive experience and potentially more up my alley.

and: i trust u!!

so, i'm going to try and play symphonia (my hand-eye coordination has only gotten worse since i was thirteen) and liveblog it (spotty history of that too, chief) and tell you whether i like it.

if this works out, look for liveblogs may be found in the "symphs" tag on my blog.

[windienine]

aw. i was always such a sucker for this kind of friendship, where she's awkward and kind of anxious and he's a point of comfort for her. i want to learn more about why colette's the way she is.