Tales of Symphonia Remastered for Switch sitting at 69 on Metacritic

The reviews for the Nintendo Switch version of Tales of Symphonia Remastered from Bandai Namco started coming through this afternoon and those that have surfaced are not so great with a Metascore of 69 based on six critic reviews (7.10pm UK time). Let’s start with Noisy Pixel who state early on that it is “likely the worst version to date, primarily due to bizarre technical issues and design choices” which isn’t a good start. The issues found include a harsh blinding white light before the battle begins instead of the breaking glass effect, which the site says is “harsh when playing the game in low light” and also the problematic fact of software crashes which Noisy Pixel says happens “a good chunk of times” Hardcore Gamer also mentioned this issue in their review saying that “throughout the playthrough for review, Symphonia crashed during every single play session.” The remaster of Tales of Symphonia is based on the PS3 version and runs at 30fps which even then has dips on the Nintendo Switch. Here’s some excerpts from a selection of the reviews:

“To confirm if the issues present on the Switch version were present on other consoles, I was able to play the PlayStation 4 version. As it turns out, many of my critiques are not present in this version of the Remaster. The framerate is stable, as I don’t recall encountering any drops, the battle transitions have a glass-breaking effect, and the backgrounds don’t vanish when opening up a menu. Additionally, I never faced a crash, though considering how random it is on Switch, it’s difficult to say that it doesn’t exist on this platform.”

“Tales of Symphonia is a brilliant action JRPG that set a precedent for the genre. Even all these years later, its engrossing storytelling, vast array of side activities, character interaction, and layers of combative options all coalesce to make it a must-experience adventure. Yet, as a remaster, this specific release fails to hit the mark, ultimately providing a lackluster and disappointing resurgence that could have been so much more.”

Noisy Pixel review 6/10

“This remastered version of Symphonia is perfectly fine on the eyes. There are textures that could have used more work, but most of the key locations look solid and character models are more expressive and detailed than before simply due to being more crisp and clear. The soundtrack is still fantastic as it ever was and both English and Japanese audio options are a wonderful choice.”

“Tales of Symphonia is still one of the biggest highlights in the series with a fantastic assortment of characters, some simple but enjoyable combat and great story to keep players invested throughout. What hurts is that this remastered version has glaring issues that need to be fixed. It’s far from making it impossible to recommend, in fact we still absolutely would for those who haven’t ever played it before, but without autosave and with multiple recorded crashes experienced, it’s hard to tell people to run out and pick it up immediately without proper patches to work out the bigger issues here. With fixes to address the problems, Tales of Symphonia Remastered could easily be considered another fantastic port on modern systems that we hope to continue to see more of from Bandai Namco.”

Hardcore Gamer 4/5

“Tales of Symphonia seems to be a game that is doomed to get a bit worse with every subsequent re-release. It’s difficult to justify calling this new version a remaster at all since it includes all of the problems with the previous version while introducing entirely new problems on top of that. The bare minimum for a port of a retro game should be that you won’t notice any technical problems if you haven’t played the original, and Tales of Symphonia Remastered does not even clear that bar. It is playable; it’s still Tales of Symphonia, but that is the absolute least we can ask of it, and that is the absolute most we’ve gotten from it.”

Nintendo World Report – Not scored

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