Ah, Tales of Symphonia. Your plot might have all the depth of a puddle, but I certainly adore your characters. (Never mind that they telegraph their moves like… something really obvious. There’s Kratos’s “big secret” for example, and I keep forgetting that I’m not supposed to know about it yet because he hides it so badly. In fact, the only reason he gets away with it is because Lloyd (and most of the others, one would assume) are plot-relevant-ly oblivious.)

An introduction to ToS’s playable characters, plus some of the reasons why I love them. Contains some spoilers, but keeping its plot twists secret isn’t the game’s strongest point to begin with.


There’s Lloyd, our enthusiastic protagonist/player character who has the attention span of an eccentric sponge (He’s always super enthusiastic about something new, but don’t ask him about it a day later. Sounds like somebody you know?) but who is also the one who sometimes has the most practical ideas. (I fell in love with the character when, back near the beginning of the game, everyone is going on and on about how “Colette is turning into an angel” and how she will get awesome super powers and save the world and all that, and there’s a skit (an optional conversation) in which Lloyd proclaims that really, the whole angel business is really rather impractical. After all, it means that Colette will have to cut holes into all of her clothes for the wings, and getting dressed/undressed will be such a hassle! XD)
He lost his mother at an early age (which is, of course, plot-relevant) and was raised by a dwarf according to the Dwarven Vows (Dwarven Vow number six: “Justice and Love will always win!”) and this is also where he gets his knack with metal work from. Lloyd can be reckless and so it’s no surprise that his fighting style features two swords and no shield.

There’s Genis, who absorbed all the booksmarts and left none for Lloyd. At age twelve, he already has a recommendation for the world’s finest university but decides that he wants to accompany Colette (and Lloyd, and eventually everyone else) on their world-saving journey instead. He’s bright and clever and sometimes so busy being older than his years that he forgets to be a child, but when he’s teasing Lloyd or falling asleep on Raine’s lap, he shows his age.
Like… pretty much every fricking person in your party, he has a tendency to blame himself for things that are not in any way his fault and often gravitates towards other party members for that reason. (Regal being the most obvious example; they get very thoughtful skits together later on.) He is best friends with Lloyd, who is closest to him in age, but is also known to form very touching friendships with older people, like the elderly woman Marble from the nearby “Human Ranch” (where humans are enslaved) or, again, Regal. Genis is the party’s blackmage (but when enemies gets too close, he whacks them over the head with a kendama).

There’s Colette, the Chosen of Regeneration, whose fate it is to travel and open seals in temples all over the world in order to become an angel and save the world. Despite being the prophesied heroine, she has the unfortunate habit of thinking of herself as a burden for her friends and everyone around her and tries very hard not to be, to the point of becoming a walking “Boy Who Cried Wolf” – she says “I’m fine” so often, and even when she’s not, that it is eventually hard for people to believe her even when she is telling the truth.
She is friendly, loves dogs (one of the sidequests is to talk to every dog in the worlds with Colette and give all of them a name) and will politely but very firmly stand up against any injustice she sees. As her Journey of World Regeneration goes on, she gets more and more angel powers and looses more and more of her senses, to the point where she can no longer feel pain, or speak, or tell hot from cold. (Her journey covers only the first third or so of the game though.) Colette fights with chakrams and Holy-themed spells and is also potentially the party’s strongest close-range fighter.

There’s Raine, Genis’s older sister and the teacher for him, Lloyd, Colette and the other children and teenagers in their little village. She’s where Genis gets his booksmarts from and a hopeless geek when it comes to archaeology and long-forgotten languages. Very short-tempered when you try to drag her away from her discoveries, she nonetheless cares about her friends, but where they are ready to trust strangers immediately, she tends to be weary of other people and their potential hidden motives. (One could also call this common sense; after all someone has to speak up when the kids are happily welcoming the assassin who came to kill Colette into the party when Colette herself is being all “Let’s be friends! ♥”) She is also the only one suspicious of Kratos and challenges him whenever he last expects it, trying to figure out what his secrets are. (On my recent playthough, I find myself kind of shipping them. What?) She’s intelligent, careful and mindful of possible consequences, but don’t count on that if you go too far… Raine is the party’s healer.

There’s Kratos, Mysterious Mercenary With A Past (and how!) who randomly (or not, obviously) meets the group early on and sells his services to protect the Chosen. What he certainly didn’t seem to expect was to run into Lloyd there, whom he grudgingly starts tutoring, seeming strangely affectionate even as he does his best to keep his distance. (This is of course where Lloyd’s mysterious parentage come in, but psssst. It’s supposed to be an end-game spoiler.) He’s the perfect image of a calm, collected professional who answers the kids’ idealism with a bitter (rueful?) smile, but every now and then, we see the cracks in his façade. And of course then there’s the end of Colette’s journey 1/3 into the plot and him turning on the party… or does he? “Conflicted” doesn’t begin to describe the man, and remember what I said in Genis’s paragraph about the party members’ bad habit? Kratos is another close-range fighter, wielding a sword and shield combination.

There’s Sheena, who came all the way from a different world just to kill Colette. Not that she particularly wants to kill Colette, really, but it’s not easy, trying to save the world… She’s one of those people who try to hide that they’re really fundamentally good people and can best be described as “driven” even as she learns to trust. Torn between running from her past (and a past failure) and going back to face it, she finds that she could not live with herself if she were as heartless as she tried to tell herself she was. Sheena is the party’s summoner, forming pacts with spirits and using cards in battle when she isn’t calling upon them.

There’s Zelos, also from a different world and best-known for being his world’s Chosen of Regeneration. But in a world that does not yet need saving, what is a Chosen to do with his time? Flirt his way through the female population of the capital, apparently. Appearances aside, he actually knows how to use that pretty head of his and while he is originally sent to accompany the party to keep an eye on them, he’d rather make up his own mind about them. Easy-going and cheerfully confident, he (like everyone else…) does of course have both a dark secret and a more serious side to go with it. (I fell in love with the character when they reach the Great Bridge and everyone sees that it’s powered by Ex Spheres and therefore calls it horrible, and it’s Zelos who points out that considering what Ex Spheres are, it’s quite insensible to call them “horrible.”) In battle, Zelos is nearly identical to Kratos even though the characters aren’t actually connected to each other. There is a reason for it of course…

There’s Regal (same different world) who comes to the party in prison clothes and with his hands bound and who insists on wearing both even when Lloyd offers to open the shackles for him. His name implies nobility and Zelos even recognises him as such, yet he insists that that’s a right he forfeited when he committed murder. (Here’s where Genis comes in, being the one who keeps approaching Regal, saying that he might understand him a little.) With his hands tied as they are, Regal fights with his legs. (Lloyd thinks practical, part 136: Does he also cook with his feet? Cooking is part of the game mechanics.)

There’s Presea, an emotionless, pink-haired little girl, and the only thing about that sentence that is actually true is that she has pink hair. Her big themes are reaching out to the world and dealing with time that was taken from her and that she isn’t going to get back. Ever. Presea fights with a giant axe.

These characters and their development might all sound fairly predictable, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re all so thoroughly likeable (even when they’re not), and I haven’t even mentioned the two or three other memorable recurring characters (including the main villain – guess who he makes friends with?). So yeah. That’s why I play Tales of Symphonia, not for the plot, but for the characters (and the fun gameplay, of course), and here are a couple (okay, there’s 49) icons I made from the opening cinematic. (Not that the video hasn’t been iconed to death already, but who cares.) Feel free to use, alter or eat with ketchup. (Credit for my “work” of fiddling with recolouring tools? Is nice and appreciated, but not all that necessary.)

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