Yeah, I did do another Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World playthrough.

So, I did a second playthrough of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and finished it two nights ago.

Just so I say it...no, I still do not think it's the piece of crap people make it out to be. Yes, it has problems but it was still playable and I still enjoyed it. Also, no, I do not hate Emil or Marta and I actually do enjoy the story. I still stand by what I say that I rather play this game than Tales of Legendia. It's been five years since I did a playthrough of the game and my stance hasn't changed.

Now, I do hear that this wasn't a necessary sequel. Then again, was it really necessary for Tales of Symphonia to have vague connections to Tales of Phantasia? Just sayin'. I have heard that just having Symphonia connected to Phantasia has caused some plotholes itself but I'll have to go back and do some research on that again. Probably why I even brought that up. Not only that, if people ended up playing Tales of Destiny 2 after an accessible fan translation comes out, I have to wonder how many people will say that was an unnecessary sequel?

This is just a quickie I did. Yeah, this is not going to look good on me.

(Yes, this is cross-posted with my Tumblr).

15 years since Pokémon Red/Blue and Tales of Destiny's release in NA...

So, I remember that around this time in September, both Pokémon Red/Blue and Tales of Destiny showed up in North America 15 years ago. Yeah, it's been that long.

I actually remember being 12 and actually going to a Toys R Us on Pokémon Red/Blue's release day and getting the Red version. Usually, back then, you would have to grab a ticket for the game, pay for it, and hand it over to the stock room. Well, not that time, I actually had the game in my hand before needing to pay for it. Pokémon was just starting off at that time and have yet to really explode until some months have passed. It was just some no name at the time and there I was getting the original game on release day.

I wouldn't even know Tales of Destiny was released in North America at the same time as Pokémon Red/Blue until years later. I mean, I would only really had my true first encounter with the Tales series 4 months after that (January 1999) and got myself really addicted to Tales of Destiny at that time. By then Pokémon ended up exploding, while Tales of Destiny would still be some obscure RPG and I wouldn't encounter the series again until 2 years later with Tales of Eternia, while I was still hanging around Pokémon.

Man, it feels like I've been around the block for both of those series.