Had to get this game, the first Tales-game I played and as I think still the best one, for the most part. Story is that the world of Sylverant is dying so as the Tower of Salvation appears the chosen Colette sets out with her friends Lloyd (the main character) and Genies on a pilgrimage to save the world. On their journey they have their teacher Raine, who is Genies older sister and Kratos, a mercenary paid to protect the chosen since the last several chosen have failed (I assume). They fight the evil Desians, half-elves operating from human ranches where they enslave humans to create exspheres, crystals that will empower the user under the right conditions, otherwise it turns you into a monster. So this part is basically Final Fantasy X, you travel the world visiting temples and Lloyd learns that Colette as the chosen has to sacrifice herself for the world to regenerate it. Meanwhile they encounter the assassin Sheena that intends to kill Colette, but ends up joining them. So, at the tower of Salvation Colette loses her soul and the truth is revealed, that the order of angels, Cruxius that is behind it actually is behind the Desians as well and uses the regeneration journey to balance the worlds of Sylverant and Tethe'alla (the opposing world that have been phased into a parallel dimension) as they fight for the sliver of Mana that is generated by the Karhlan seed.
They travel to Tethe'alla and meet the chosen of that world, Zelos, and girl named Presea and Regal, a convict on death road that was the former duke and president of a big company. They uncover the truth that 4 000 years earlier, the half-elf Mithos Yggdrasill ended the Kharlan War by splitting the worlds in two and now heads the organisation Cruxius in order to create a vessel for his sister Martel that died at the end of the war after being betrayed by a human. As well as creating the Age of the Half-elves by making everyone into lifeless beings in order to end discrimination as elves and humans shuns the half-elves. Basically a communist! He succeeds in using Colette to bring Martel to life again, but she just calls him out on his foolishness before deciding to give Colette back her body. He goes on a rampage as his friends and family have now all abandoned him, you get the power to wield the Eternal Sword in order to set it back, but you have to fight Mithos once again and after that set all right. Well, at least till the sequel.
I loved the game as a kid, it was rather complicated with several fractions fighting each other with spies everywhere, including in your own group. The moral of discrimination is bad is done very good with both racial and class aspects. But this Tales-game has the best villain of all I have played, you sympathise with Mithos, the great hero (and I learned way to late that the voice actor for older Mithos is Tidus in Final Fantasy X). And as his broken body just mutters "I'm going home", when you know he has been cast out by everyone. It's also rather fun to replay with the different ways you can play it, temples can be done in varied orders, your affection for different characters gives differences to certain scenes and you can actually play as different characters for the most part. The music is fine (made by famed Golden Sun composer Motoi Sakuraba) and the graphics still looks good, although looking at the original Gamecube on a modern TV I gotta say, the pixelated remnants as you move looks rather hideous. Which brings us to the remastered version on Switch... and it doesn't look good.
First off, I can accept that it isn't the original intro from the Gamecube version, and 30 FPS verses 60 FPS don't bother me that much either. But god damn, the loading times after finishing a battle can drive you nuts and then we have the lost effect of glass breaking as you enter combat. Doesn't help that the frame rate drops something fierce at "intense" areas, for example the very first town Triet and its desert storm or the amusement park with its attractions. I mean, everyone have already mentioned this, but the remaster is bad on the Switch. Now, as of writing they have mentioned that they are looking into fixing some of the problems (probably helped that the Switch version is apparently the best selling version), but who knows how long that will take (well, as of release of this post they have at least released two patches fixing some issues), Chrono Cross took a year to get an update. I might not replay it on Gamecube again since it looks worse now (even if it might play better), but the PS3 version might look like the better choice (it plays better than the Switch, looks better than the Gamecube and you have the Trophies for yet another reason to replay it). If they fix it the ease of play might make it worth it, but since it also misses the sequel (that was in the package for the PS3 and I have the original for the Wii) it might even put PS3 above the fixes as well). Stupid me also got the Chosen edition with a steel case and several poster cards. Strange decision to not include a normal red case, but I'm not that bothered, but my boss told me he preferred normal cases so that it looked uniformly. Well, it was fun watching the credits again... wait, the credits are also stuttering? God dammit!
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