Stories of the Symphony is one of the best entries in the long running stories JRPG series, and one of the more exceptional games in the Nintendo GameCube’s otherwise short-lived and inconsistent library. Of course, old fans and newcomers alike were thrilled that the cult classic was getting a remaster for the Switch. What a shame, then, that the recent remaster is a sub-par port at best, prompting publisher Bandai Namco to apologize and promise an upcoming patch.
“We have confirmed that there is a gameplay issue in this version of the product that is currently available for sale,” reads a rough translation of a tweet thread
Confirmation comes a week later Tales of Symphonia Remastered came out on both Switch and PS4. The sweet and colorful role-playing game challenges you to fulfill an ancient prophecy and fight the evil engulfing a dying world – standard JRPG fare, upgraded with likeable characters and a fun hybrid battle system.
fans were already in turmoil about the fact that the new version would be capped at 30 FPS instead of running at 60 FPS like the original GameCube version, but practical time also confirmed other shortcomings, from long loading times to some textures running under the new Break HD upscaling. A number of gamers have shared their frustration online, even going so far as to directly compare footage to older HD versions available on PS3 and Steam:
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I’ve spent a few hours on the Switch version over the past week, and while I enjoy playing it overall, the technical flaws and lack of new quality-of-life features leave a bad connotation, especially for a $40 port from a nearly 20-year-old Game. Colors are bright and resolution is sharp, but the longer load times between random encounters are really starting to drag, and the lack of an auto-save feature is a real head-scratcher. As RPG site mention, that His review even misses little things like cross fades between scenes, which are now jarringly cut to black, or the blurred background when navigating the pause menu.
We’ve seen this before 2022 remaster chrono cross. While the game included new quality of life features like unlocking fast forward from the start and scaling down the difficulty, the HD effect was hit-or-miss and the framerate actually worse than the original PS1 version. Only when jonly this week that the game has finally received an update that tries to improve its performance and aims for a cap of 60 FPS.
Hopefully it doesn’t take that long Tales of Symphonia Remastered getting patched, although I’m not optimistic it won’t still feel like a big missed opportunity. If you’ve been waiting decades to return to the fight of Lloyd and company against the Desians to bring peace and stability back to the land of Sylverant, I can say that it hasn’t lost its charm. I only wish it had been transported through time with more care and fanfare.