Tales of Symphonia - Journey to Remaster

A series of Japanese role-playing games developed by (then) Namco in 1995 for Super Famicom sparked the beginning of what has come to be a legacy of legendary stand-alone titles that seem to echo into each other.

Each game is unique and has its own faith both in lore and outcome, yet one consistent aspect can be found in all Tales of series, they stay true to gender: "'Resonating With You RPG" (君と響きあうＲＰＧ / Kimi to hibikiau RPG).?

"Tales of Symphonia" brings the world of Sylvarant and its intricate faith to both new and longtime fans eager to embark on the Journey of World Regeneration.

As the fifth main title (and eleventh overall) in the Tales of series, Symphonia follows the adventures of Lloyd Irving and his friends, who work to help Colette regenerate the world they know. Upon its release it brought a new battle system in 3D and the possibility to customize the main protagonists with alternate costumes.

Since its debut in 2004 (in North America and Europe) the game has been ported to PlayStation 2 in 2004,?a sequel for Wii in 2008, an HD release for PlayStation 3 and a Steam version in 2016. And it's not all about gaming.

The impact and praise?led to seven manga collections, two novel series, seven drama CDs and an OVA series (which you can watch on the Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe and America's YouTube channel dubbed in Italian, Spanish and French).

With 2.4 million copies sold worldwide, it is one of the best-selling titles of the franchise; fast forward to 2019, and the Bandai Namco Entertainment team in Romania took up the task of remastering this title and expanded the horizon into the next-gen console available. Anything but an easy task.

While the feedback from the publisher in Japan was good, the added need for enhancement and an expanded language accommodation led to the scope of this project increase, initially set up for Nintendo Switch, the team also had to consider Xbox 360 and PlayStation 4. As of 2021, the project entered its final phases.

Not short of setbacks: the source code used came from Steam, content from old-gen consoles (PlayStation 2 and 3), limitations in terms of "real-time" awareness of some graphic changes, together with the overall size of the game proved at times challenging for the team to maintain the time-frame.

It gave Bandai Namco a chance to perform its Union Attack ???as the teams from America, Japan and France, as well as third parties involved, came together to support this project.?

Considering the length, no surprise almost all technical aspects were visited and revisited to keep the consistency of quality with many intense hours testing the gameplay, linguistic matching, and so on.

Of course, much of this would not be possible if not for a dedicated fan base that kept the game alive for all these years. Aspects of lore, walkthrough, puzzles, combo lists, and mechanics came from fandom chatrooms and wiki pages, adding to the information and test cases given by the American team of Bandai Namco.

Players will immediately see the improvement brought to the quality of the environment, cloth and facial texture and resolution, taking it from SD to HD and even 4K, all this done with reverse engineering, rendering and optimizing the engine to accommodate the 64-bit CPU, running at 30 FPS.

Staying true to one it's highly praised battle system, the player will be invited to use battle strategies and system such as combos, a variety of skills and Union attacks, all based on the player's choice.

The main storyline would keep someone engaged for around 48h to complete the main objectives, but the beauty lies in the re-playability to uncover all hidden and unlockable items. Tales of Symphonia can be challenging, even for experienced jRPG players, so keep that in mind as you embark on nearly 200 hours to achieve 100% completion.

The game's lore can also rival the events that took place in the real world.

For Bandai Namco Entertainment's team based in Romania, this project was the first to be ported from PC to console platforms (where usually the reverse would be seen) and gave the team worldwide contact with our colleagues from all over the world!

In the words of our Country Lead, this project gave the team in Romania a chance to partake in a high-caliber project and receive the support of many Bandai Namco worldwide.

For a game released in 2003/2004 on Game Cube, this Tale has come a long way.

“Fun for All into the Future” is our motto, so we never stop in our quest to invent new ways to bring great entertainment into your life.