You Have Found a 'ANTIDOTE'!

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I'm six hours into Tales of Symphonia, a full-blown Japanese RPG on the Gamecube. These are the gaming equivalent of going to McDonald's in another state. Honest. Allow me to explain. You go on vacation or you're travelling for work and you find yourself in a state you've never been to and in a city that's completely unfamiliar. You're starting to get hungry so you start driving around. You pass dozens of completely good restaurants, but your fear of the unknown causes you to pass them by. After all, there's nothing worse than getting a weird or bad meal when you're hungry. So you pass by Steak O'Party and Freddy's Fat Shack and East Must Be First (actual name of a Chinese restaurant here in Baltimore) and you end up at the golden arches. From an entire city of new options, you find yourself eating a Big Mac at McDonald's. And why? Because you know exactly what you're going to get. There are no surprises at McDonald's. Sure, there are minor variations in theme and setting, but the meat of it is precisely what you expect. Tales of Symphonia is pure gaming McDonald's, and I'm having a great time with it. I'm doing fetch quests, leveling up on some mobs in the world map, upgrading weapons and armor when I hit a new town, and I couldn't be happier. You say you want a revolution? I think you'd rather just have some McNuggets.

IL Comic

Comments

first... wooot

I'm doing fetch quests, leveling up on some mobs in the world map, upgrading weapons and armor when I hit a new town, and I couldn't be happier. You say you want a revolution? I think you'd rather just have some McNuggets.

Isn't that what Wow is going to be to many of us, and I do not mean that in a negative manner. But they are taking the base mechanics of a MMORG and Blizzardifing(sic) them. The same way they took base RTS mechanics for StarCraft.

Isn't that what Wow is going to be to many of us, and I do not mean that in a negative manner. But they are taking the base mechanics of a MMORG and Blizzardifing(sic) them. The same way they took base RTS mechanics for StarCraft.

Yes pretty much, WoW is just a really damn good EQ.

This comic is great, though it could have more OMG PINKU ^^^____^^^ facial expressions. Still, that's every Japanese RPG I've ever played or even read about right there.

What if there is some crazy twist at almost the end of it.. like if the chosen one is actually the offspring of some evil god .. oh.. wait.. done already..

Carry on leveling..

I was having difficulty getting my tongue out of my cheek throughout.

"East Must Be First". Brilliant.

In Albany, NY there is a place called "New #1 Chinese Restaurant"

I love Japanese RPG's. I want more goodones on the PS2 however. Great comic by the way. Very funny and oh so true.

Actually, a friend of mine picked this up and we played nothing else straight for the past two days. Unknown to me, the game keeps the multiplayer going by allowing you to plug in 3 more controllers and controlling all party members manually! (or just one other one if it's just two of you. The only real problem with this is that you have to fight blind if you're not the main character occasionally. Only bug with Symphonia that I've found (other than the fact that in the beginning, apple gels are rediculously expensive) is that when the game goes multiplayer, the camera should really zoom out instead of focusing on just the main character.

apple gels are rediculously expensive

That is true but why would you want to buy them... I managed to collect them to the max(20 kind of a small number) from random fights, ...I spend some time getting used to the battle system. The nice thing so far I managed to pull of a 20hit combo.

PS... Pyro, funny thing! when I try to make a post, I got kicked out from my account! I had to relog in just to post this.

Hey sway, the art in this is just as good as the wanted poster for Lloyd ^_^

Demosthenes wrote:

Hey sway, the art in this is just as good as the wanted poster for Lloyd ^_^

That poster made me laugh. I love seeing it up in towns.

PS... Pyro, funny thing! when I try to make a post, I got kicked out from my account! I had to relog in just to post this.

I had the same thing earlier.

There is a Chinese restaurant up here simply called "Chinese Food".