When comparing Tales of Symphonia vs The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the Slant community recommends The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim for most people. In the question“What are the best games on Steam with a rich story?” The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is ranked 28th while Tales of Symphonia is ranked 70th. The most important reason people chose The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is:
You can set off to any of Skyrim's different towns and discover new storylines from interesting factions that flesh out the world and the lore, with great characters and their own absorbing narratives to get lost in. There are a good number of these factions, like the scholars at the snowy College of Winterhold, the secretive assassins of the Dark Brotherhood, or the cohort of rogues and bandits of the Thieves Guild. After picking whichever faction you want to learn more about, you can eventually become a Master of the guild and learn new skills for your character. Playing through each of their individual stories lets you really feel like a member of the faction you choose, like with how the Thieves Guild sends you on missions to pick locks and steal valuables without getting caught by the guards. And if you only get through some of the faction's story and decide you don't enjoy it, you can easily go find another one and play through that one instead. There are no limits on how you play through the plot, with Skyrim giving you the flexibility to pick up stories, set them down, and come back to them whenever you feel like it.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro It's got a marvelous story, and gets exponentially better as you discover the backstories to characters and areas
While it starts off as your typical "save the world" type of game, it changes rapidly as the player releases various seals and uncovers more about the Chosen and the Goddess Martel.
There's also 9 playable characters in the game, along with several non-player characters, each with their own backstory and development that you have to go looking for. You have to work for it, but it's absolutely worth it for how much more enriched the story becomes.
Pro Combat choices are completely up to you, thanks to a unique battle system
Tales games have always used what Namco calls the "linear motion battle system," a real-time, 2D battle engine that lets you move around the field and attack foes at will. Tales of Symphonia uses an expanded version of this system that's fast, fun, and easy to master.
In Tales of Symphonia, you have 4 characters with you in combat, and there are 3 different ways to fight: semi-auto, auto, and manual. With semi-auto, you control a character of your choice while the other 3 are automated and will act based on patterns you set yourself. In auto mode, every character is automated. In manual mode, every character will act only as you tell it to.
Pro You can play the game over and over again, getting stronger and discovering more storyline along the way
Tales of Symphonia sports "New Game Plus," which essentially means you get to keep aspects from your previous game and carry them over to a new one. You can spend GRADE (which is earned by battling) to get perks for your new game, which makes it a little easier (sort of).
There are certain plots, enemies, titles (which are given to you in-game for specific acts), and items that you can only encounter on a New Game Plus, and you might not even encounter all of them then. Tales of Symphonia has infinite replayability, which is a huge reason so many people love it.
Pro The music fits the mood of the game perfectly
The composer for this title, Motoi Sakuraba, really outdid himself. The music fits whatever's going on at the time perfectly, and will drastically increase the enjoyment you get out of this game. From sorrow, to anger, to happiness, the music will convey those feelings to you wonderfully, and immerse you in the experience even more.
Pro Huge amount of content and gameplay
The game has a bare minimum of 50 hours of play in it. That doesn't include side quests, delving into character development, etc.
Pro Total freedom in how you choose to play through the world's different factions
You can set off to any of Skyrim's different towns and discover new storylines from interesting factions that flesh out the world and the lore, with great characters and their own absorbing narratives to get lost in. There are a good number of these factions, like the scholars at the snowy College of Winterhold, the secretive assassins of the Dark Brotherhood, or the cohort of rogues and bandits of the Thieves Guild. After picking whichever faction you want to learn more about, you can eventually become a Master of the guild and learn new skills for your character. Playing through each of their individual stories lets you really feel like a member of the faction you choose, like with how the Thieves Guild sends you on missions to pick locks and steal valuables without getting caught by the guards.
And if you only get through some of the faction's story and decide you don't enjoy it, you can easily go find another one and play through that one instead. There are no limits on how you play through the plot, with Skyrim giving you the flexibility to pick up stories, set them down, and come back to them whenever you feel like it.
Pro Massive sandbox to explore at your own pace
The in-game map is absolutely gigantic. There are so many places to go and so much to do in the world, easily giving you hundreds of hours of content.
Exploring the wide range of environments, from the snowy mountains to the richly-detailed towns and cities is such a joy because of how lush and beautiful everything is. Wandering around often surprises you with new side quests to find off the beaten path, with new characters to meet and history to learn about in whichever area you find yourself in. You can get into all sorts of battles with powerful enemies or stumble into hidden dungeons with awesome loot at the end. Or you can sneak around towns at night stealing peoples' stuff while they're asleep to sell everything off for money. And there's just a ton of other intriguing secrets and fun diversions to discover as you adventure throughout the world.
Pro Unrestrictive skill-based RPG system
Skyrim has no set character classes or equipment/spell limitations. Instead, it allows you to form your own class based on how you decide to play.
For example, sneaking increases your sneaking skill, hitting an enemy with a shortsword increases your one-handed skill, taking damage while wearing leather armor increases your light armor skill, and so forth. You can you play however you want and the resulting character will be a perfect match for your playstyle, giving Skyrim a different feel from other RPGs.
Pro Deep lore rivaling classic fantasy literature
Skyrim inherits the stories and world-building of The Elder Scrolls series, which stretches back 20 years. It has numerous stories surrounding the various races (orcs, elves, lizardmen, demons, etc.), mythical beasts, gods, cataclysmic events, parallel worlds, and just about any fantasy trope you could think off. What's even better you can read the lore in books found in-game, allowing you to immerse yourself for countless hours.
Pro Huge variety of mods
Bethesda Softworks has upheld a tradition of releasing their internal content-creation tools to the public since Morrowind (2002). Many modders transition to new Bethesda games as they are released, bringing their experience with them and helping newcomers through forums and wikis. As a result, Skyrim's mod selection is outstanding in both variety and quality.
Cons
Con Enemy diversity can be lacking late in the game
As you progress more and more into the game, some of the enemies you'll face are simply re-skinned enemies from earlier areas, meaning they look the same but are colored differently.
Con The PC port isn't the greatest
If you buy Tales of Symphonia on Steam, expect to have to run a 3rd party patcher in order to make the game play optimally. Some users haven't had to do this, but most have.
Con Hard to fully complete on your own
As far as getting the game to 100% completion, it's incredibly difficult. There are many things with complex requirements that simply aren't stated in the game, so you may have to refer to a guide for them.
Con Combat is too simple
Most of the time you can just whack an enemy until it dies and it involves very little strategy or planning to succeed.
For example, targeting specific body parts doesn't deal extra damage, nor can you cripple an enemy. There are no vulnerabilities, so you can't set furry forest animals ablaze easier than humans. The enemies also lack any real variation in how they attempt to fight you – they just run at you swinging wildly or attack you from afar.
Because of this the combat is very one-dimensional and can start feeling like a chore after a while. Luckily most of the combat issues can be fixed with mods, allowing you to enjoy a more varied and deeper combat experience.
Con Forgetful NPCs can break immersion
After completing certain story quests NPCs get new lines added to their dialogue based on your decisions. Sometimes the NPCs might become forgetful and return to their default dialogue, which can break immersion, especially if they talk about an event that's been long resolved.
Con Buggy and crash prone
While this game is not as buggy as it was upon release, there are still many people that encounter various bugs and crashes. These can happen in both modded and unmodded games and it's a common occurrence in Bethesda released titles. Fortunately, there are some community mods that try to fix most memory issues, stability issues, and general bugs.