Video Game / Tales of Symphonia

"Let's all work together for a peaceful world."

— Dwarven Vow # 1

Tales of Symphonia is the fifth mainline entry in the Tales Series. The game was released on August 29th, 2003 in Japan, on the Nintendo GameCube. It received an international release on July 13th, 2004 in North America and November 19th, 2004 in Europe.

The game is set in the land of Sylvarant, whose Life Energy (mana) is being slowly drained away by the evil Desians. The only way to stop the Desians is the Journey of World Regeneration, a pilgrimage around the world taken by a Chosen One that, when completed, will awaken the goddess Martel and save the world.

Idiot Hero Lloyd Irving, after some hometown-related complications, sets out to protect his childhood friend and current Chosen One, Colette Brunel, on her Journey of World Regeneration. Aiding them is Lloyd's best friend and Bratty Half-Pint Genis Sage, Lloyd's teacher and Genis' older sister Raine Sage, and a mysterious badass mercenary called Kratos Aurion.

After a few hours the storyline drops its first Gut Punch on you, after which the plot expands exponentially from a simple Black-and-White Morality tale to a full-on Gambit Pileup, with multiple sides trying to manipulate or eliminate Colette for their own purposes, and Lloyd determined to do everything he can to protect her, even from herself.

Like many of its predecessors, Tales of Symphonia retained the real-time battle system, the use of food as healing items, the famous summon spirits, and the games' general tendency to include lots of Character Development, themes of discrimination and alienation, and a villain with considerably deeper motives than simply being Ax-Crazy and openly evil. The game also contained numerous references to the first game in the series, Tales of Phantasia, which turned out to be because Symphonia is a Prequel set in the same world as Phantasia, a few thousand years before.

The game was adapted into three sets of anime OVAs totaling at 11 episodes, along with 6 omakes. A manga was published that covered the events of the first game and its ending becomes the first game's canon ending according to the second game (See Third-Option Adaptation below). There are also several Drama CDs. It's unlikely any of this will ever be officially translated to English, but fansubs of the OVAs are circulating around the Internet if you look. It places more emphasis on the relationship between Lloyd and Colette, and is obviously a Compressed Adaptation. You can watch the OVAs in the official Tales of Youtube Channel.

Symphonia introduced several concepts to the franchise, in both story concepts and gameplay concepts; the most notable is the 3D incarnation of the Tales' signature battle system. Nearly every single Tales game that followed in its wake (as well as a number of JRPGs in general) owes something to Symphonia, and its influence on the franchise is still felt to this day.

A spin-off-sequel for the game called Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (originally titled Knight of Ratatosk in Japan) was released June 26th, 2008 in Japan, and internationally on November 11th, 2008 in North America and November 13th, 2009 in Europe, all exclusive to the Nintendo Wii.

An HD port of the PS2 version of the game titled Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (or Tales of Symphonia: Unisonant Pack in Japan) for the PS3 containing Dual-Audio, new bonus cameo costumes, as well as an HD port of Dawn of the New World was released in 2014. Both games can also be bought separately through Play Station Network. The HD port was also released for the PC through Steam. A remastered edition for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch was released in February 17, 2023.

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Provides examples of:

# — B

• 100% Heroism Rating: If you save a town and then donate money to rebuild it, eventually the townspeople will put up statues of you and your party members. Although... you have to pay for the statues, too.
• Abusive Parents: Zelos never had the nicest relationship with his mother, as she was forced into a loveless marriage, even though she "probably loved someone else." When she's killed in an attack that was intended to kill Zelos, her last words to him were "You should never have been born". It's shown in the manga that even before this, she was cold and dismissive of her son, often making the excuse that she's ill or has a headache to get out of having to see him. No wonder he's so messed up...
• Acceptable Breaks from Reality: During the scene at Hima, when Colette is writing on his hand, Lloyd reads her words aloud at a much faster pace than her writing could possibly be deciphered, even if one assumes that she's intended to be writing in Japanese kana rather than English letters. Of course, having him read it at a realistic pace would absolutely kill off the emotion of the scene.
• Achievement Mockery: While the game doesn't have achievements per se, there are a few titles which are awarded for being bad at battle. Some of these actually give decent stat growths and are worth seeking out.
  • Colette's "Oblivious" is awarded for entering battle while poisoned and completing the battle without curing it.
  • Genis's "Study Harder!" is awarded for using ineffective elements repeatedly in a battle.
  • Raine's "Never Say Never" is awarded if she dies repeatedly in a battle. Since she's a healer, she should generally be far away from the enemy and not taking the brunt of damage.
  • Sheena's "Chicken" is awarded after running from over 50 battles.
  • Sheena's "Indecisive" is awarded for initiating and cancelling an escape attempt repeatedly, something which would never be done for any serious purpose.
  • Presea's "Fragile Shield" is awarded for getting guard broken several times in a battle.
  • Regal's "Pratfall King" is awarded for repeatedly being knocked into the air and hitting the ground without recovering.
• Acrophobic Bird: Colette has wings and can fly, and will sometimes think to go check out high places that Lloyd can't reach — but only when the devteam has decided it's the intended interaction. You're out of luck any other time it seems useful, like in most box-pushing puzzles, or a certain quest involving picking a fruit from the high branch of a tree.
• Action Bomb: Marble, after being turned into Exbelua, is able to blow themself up in some kind of magical explosion. This ability only appears in a cutscene, partly because it does seem to kill the user and so can only be used once, and partly because she obviously wouldn't want to kill Genis and Lloyd, but Forcystus is the one who did this to her and is now trying to kill her friends.
• Action Girl: Sheena, Presea, and Colette can charge into battle and fight alongside the guys. Raine is primarily a White Mage, but her offensive spells can deal out some serious pain.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: The OVA series draws heavy story change and design cues from the Symphonia manga, which itself was also a Compressed Adaptation (and ultimately became the source of the alleged 'canon ending'). There are still significant differences between the two versions of the story, but the influence is clear: The designs of Colette, Zelos, and Sheena while they were young children in the OVA came straight out of the manga, as did the inclusion and framing of certain scenes and events.
• Adaptational Context Change: The OVA completely reorders several events of the game, including major plot points. Most notably, Lloyd learns that Kratos is his biological father significantly earlier, before they restore Colette from her soulless state. Meanwhile Lloyd finds out that Raine and Genis are actually half-elves later in the plot, and this reveal takes the place of when the Kratos reveal originally occurred.
• Adaptation Distillation: The OVA series crams the story of a game that easily yields 50+ hours of playtime into 12 OVA episodes that are never longer than 45 minutes. It cuts down significantly on locations and plot points (although some are implied to still occur offscreen), leaving only the most important storylines.
• Adaptation Expansion: While most of the OVA significantly cuts down on the events of the story, it goes about the plot points it does cover in a different way that creates additional scenes and character interactions that weren't actually in the game. The OVA also shows more of the backstory of Kratos, Mithos, Yuan and Martel that was only described in the game, and Yuan's role in general was expanded upon, with him taking on much more significant leadership.
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Subtly in the OVA between Zelos and Sheena. While it was always established that Zelos and Sheena have known each other for awhile and maintain some affinity with each other, their relationship in the game is much more visibly strained and gives the impression there was a falling out that they haven't fully reconciled over. The OVA by contrast portrays them more as people who happen to bicker and annoy each other constantly but ultimately are still solid friends.
  • To a much lesser extent, Lloyd and Colette could be argued as this too in the OVA. Their relationship is largely the same, being Childhood Friends with plenty of Ship Tease, however, they act WAY more slashy toward each other in the OVA adaptation (In the game, Colette clearly has feelings for Lloyd, but is rarely open about them, and Lloyd is completely Oblivious to Love. However, in the OVA, many of their interactions are more openly romantic from both sides, like Lloyd straight-up kissing her on the lips when he is trying to restore her soul, Colette holding hands with him in the Flanoir scene, both of them hugging each other far more often (In the game, they only shared a hug during the coffee scene. However, in the OVA, there was that, plus Colette glomping Lloyd when he and Genis regrouped with her, Kratos and Raine, Colette hugging him again after he broke down sobbing from finding out she lost her voice, Lloyd hugging her shortly after she loses her soul, Lloyd hugging her again to stop her from casting Judgement while she is in her soulless state, and both sharing a pseudo-hug after Colette gets her soul back (They look like they are about to hug initially, but Colette trips and falls, so Lloyd moves to the side and catches her, then they kind of just stand there holding each other for a bit), and other little things).
• Adventure Rebuff: Lloyd wants to join Colette on the journey for world regeneration. All the adults think he will just get in the way, and Colette eventually tricks him into missing their leaving. It isn't until the destruction of Iselia, and later his escape from the Sylvarant Base, that he rejoins the others, who naturally expected that he'd show up.
• Aerith and Bob: There are names like Colette and Lloyd, as well as names like Mithos and Kratos.
• The Ageless: The angels. The Cruxis Crystals halts the aging process, which is why Mithos Yggdrasil still looks more or less exactly the way he did 4000 years ago. Even Expheres slow the aging process considerably under certain circumstances, in addition to the basic skill upgrades they give. Presea even brings up the possibility of a world of Exsphere-preserved Immortals to Lloyd, who gently reminds her that they're Powered by a Forsaken Child.
• All Myths Are True: Averted. Most of the game's myths, including the Opening Monologue and most of the other early-game exposition, are pure lies created by the villains as part of their plan.
• All There in the Manual: Tales of Fandom Vol. 2 has skits that reveal the background of Yuan and Kratos: before they became Mithos' companions, they were soldiers that fought on opposites side of the war in Symphonia's backstory.
• Alternate World Map: Sylvarant and Tethe'alla are both visited by the heroes, with party members coming from both worlds. Eventually, the party gains the ability to travel freely between both worlds. (Incidentally, the worlds' names are references to the names of the two moons of the world of Tales of Phantasia, to which Symphonia is a prequel. Symphonia's two worlds have one moon each, named after the other world- when Sheena reveals she comes from Tethe'alla, Genis asks her how a person can come from the moon.)
• Always Chaotic Evil: Although they collectively have a Freudian Excuse, every Desian is a monster with no qualms about the acts of genocide and oppression they regularly commit. The only half-elves who object to their evil are ones who aren't Desians to begin with.
• Anatomy of the Soul: Soul anatomy here seems to include Mind, Heart, and Life Energy, at the very least.
• And I Must Scream:
  • Borderline — if one is killed while wearing a Cruxis Crystal or its infantile form, the crystal absorbs the wearer's consciousness and slowly 'digests' it. The disembodied soul can interact with the outside world, so much as this is possible without a body.
  • It's made clear that what happened to Martel Yggdrasill due to her brother's desire to resurrect her, and what happens to Colette says after she "sacrifices her heart and memories" are true examples of this trope.
  • It's also shown that Marble and Clara have some form of consciousness, yet are unable to interact with anything for the most part.
• And Man Grew Proud: The Ancient Kharlan War, although sometimes it's treated as an actual historical event.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Shares a page with the rest of the franchise here.
• Arbitrary Headcount Limit: Four out of a maximum of eight members can fight; lampshaded by Gnome when remarking that "you fight dirty" four-on-one... ignoring the fact that half of your party were apparently just standing there, staring dumbstruck, instead of making it eight-on-one.
• Arbitrary Mission Restriction: Features a couple examples of optional objectives. The player can earn a title for not using any Gels until a certain point in the game, and another title for not changing out Lloyd's starting weapon — a pair of wooden swords — until a certain point in the game.
• Artificial Stupidity
  • Kratos and Zelos are heavily inclined towards physical artes rather than magic. This makes learning their new spells difficult, since a second-tier arte/spell can't be obtained until the corresponding first-tier arte/spell has been used 50 times. Naturally, they either don't cast it at all... or they start it right in front of enemies who will hit them.
  • Colette's AI simply doesn't know how to properly chain her artes together, and especially doesn't know how to position her for Pow Hammer. This results in the tech either missing or only getting one or two hammer hits.
  • The Shadow Blobs in the Temple of Darkness have a tendency to dart around wildly for no apparent reason instead of following you properly, making it common for them to get caught on random corners.
• Auto-Revive:
  • Colette's Resurrect EX skill has a chance of reviving her upon KO. Combining it with three other EX skills^note Angel Song, Stat Boost, and Eternal, if you're wondering gives her the Angel's Tear compound EX skill, ensuring she will revive the first time she's KO'd in a battle.
  • The Revive Ring accessory has a small chance of reviving its wearer when they're KO'd.
  • The Reverse Doll accessory is consumed to automatically revive its wearer when they're KO'd.
• Asian Fox Spirit:
  • Corrine, a small, rainbow man-made summon spirit.
  • Verius, the summon spirit of heart. It is rainbow-like Corrine, but much larger.
• Asshole Victim: Before Ozette is destroyed, it's revealed that it was a town primarily of racist hicks anyway. Even a passing traveler that doesn't like half-elves himself thought their hatred for Half-Elves was rather heavy.
• The Atoner: Lloyd helps Colette partly to help atone for his part in Iselia's destruction. Later on, the party is joined by Regal, who embodies this trope. Kratos is also revealed to be one.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Summons, Colette's Sacrifice spell, any of the Mystic Artes — Presea's Crimson Devestation (PS2 exclusive) is especially ridiculous, requiring her to be the only surviving party member and be below 16% HP, amongst other requirements.
• Badass Adorable: Presea is an adorable, tiny little girl who cuts enemies apart with a massive ax.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • Anyone (mostly in Japan) who played Tales of Phantasia first is likely to interpret the opening narration as a recap of that game, as it did involve the death of a World Tree and a hero (of sorts) being sacrificed to take that tree's place, which would suggest this game to be a sequel. However, it soon becomes clear that this game takes place before Phantasia, not after.
  • A priestly girl in Palmacosta appears once the party has been to Hakonesia Peak, asking them to take her there. Players expecting an Escort Mission will be pleasantly surprised to discover it's just a Zip Mode.
• Beach Episode: Well, cutscene, at least. In addition to gaining new titles and outfits, you also raise the Relationship Values of whomever you choose to accompany you.
• Beam Spam: The Judgment spell causes bolts of light to rain down from the heavens onto the caster's enemies. While each individual bolt is powerful, it's not very accurate, so the targets will only get hit by a few beams each.
• Beast Man:
  • Katz are a weird example of this, looking very much like people in cat suits ala Cat-Man from Perfect Hair Forever.
  • The Penguinists and Penguiners, who look like people in penguin suits. And for a plant version, Mandragoras are just people with flowers growing out of their heads (Dawn Of The New World makes them look more like monsters.)
• Betty and Veronica: The game's most strongly hinted at pairings for Lloyd are the sweet, blond Colette (Betty) and the tough, dark-haired Sheena (Veronica), though personality-wise, they're both mostly Betty.
• Big Damn Heroes: This game is chock-full of this trope:
  • Kratos saving the party from Vidar at the beginning of the game.
  • The rest of the party saving Lloyd from Botta.
  • The whole party saving Palmacosta when Magnius tries to execute someone.
  • Sheena, at Kvar's Ranch.
  • Botta saving the party from Yggdrasill and Kratos the first time you go to the Tower of Salvation.
  • Botta again, saving the party (at the price of his life) from Rodyle's flooding lair.
  • Mithos summoning Aska to get the party out of a sealed chamber.
  • Yuan helping to delay Kratos.
  • Yuan, again, when he shows up and tells the party of an alternate route into the Tower of Salvation's seed chamber.
  • The entire party revealing that they survived and helping Lloyd defeat Pronyma.
  • Zelos (or Kratos) reapplying Colette's key crest, giving Lloyd the last item he needs to wield the Eternal Sword and helping Lloyd defeat Yggdrasil.
  • Yuan saving Kratos after the latter sacrifices all of his mana to release Origin's seal.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: Zelos's family situation is a mess. His parents were arranged to be married to continue the Mana lineage. Both of them had relationships on the side, with Zelos's father's half-elf lover eventually mothering Zelos's half-sister Seles. Their father later committed suicide, while Zelos and Seles were still very young. Seles's mother, jealous that Zelos was the Chosen and had all the privileges the position implies, attempted to assassinate Zelos, but Zelos's mother Mylene was killed instead. And as Mylene lay dying, her last words to her son were that he shouldn't have been born. After that, Seles's mother was executed and Seles was placed under house arrest. Both Zelos and Seles believe their sibling hates them for what happened to their family, with Zelos feeling particularly guilty that Seles was locked away for something she had no part in. With all that had happened, it's honestly kind of a blessing that, dysfunctional communication aside, Zelos and Seles actually love each other despite everything.
  • The Mana lineages, in both Tethe'alla and Sylvarant, prove to be this in general once it's revealed that the Mana Lineage and Chosen system is essentially a breeding program to produce the perfect Soul Jar for Martel.
• Black-and-White Morality: Deconstructed. Lloyd believes the world works this way at first, and a large part of his Character Development is learning to fight for actual reasons rather than just "because those guys are evil".
• The Blank: The Gentleman.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation:
  • An NPC in a House of Salvation plays Shiritori with your onscreen character. This was translated fine in the Gamecube release, but in the HD version, they use different words and the ending letters don't match.
  • Finding a Guidepost Monument in the HD version gives a garbled message such as "Long mode can be used now by The circumference of a TRIET desert" — they are, with careful examination (or already knowing what a Guidepost Monument is for), possible to decipher, but it's very messy and again raises the question of why they didn't reuse the perfectly comprehensible Gamecube version's text.
• Blood Knight: The Sword Dancer only seems to care about finding strong opponents to fight. It even lets you live if you lose to it.
• Body Horror: How does turning into a giant monster and attacking your loved ones sound to you? Made explicit in the anime, where Alicia's transformation looks exceedingly painful.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Raine and Zelos perform one in the Altamira theatre scene.
• Boomerang Bigot: The Pope is fiercely anti-half-elf even though — or more precisely, because his daughter is a half-elf. He used to support the cause of half-elf equality, and even fell in love with an elf. But when their daughter was born and her mother died, he found himself growing more hateful and terrified of her differences, coming to understand the perspective of the people who hated half-elves, and he started to support them instead.
• Boss-Altering Consequence: In the second trip to Welgaia, there are three Optional Bosses representing various motivations of the Big Bad. Defeating them removes specific elemental resistances from the Final Boss.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The Devil Arms. Acquiring them all is easy enough, but their true power can only be unlocked by defeating the superboss Abyssion. Raine's subverts it, as it boosts her all-important Intelligence stat without having to go through all that trouble.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • One skit involves Regal and Presea talking directly to the player.
  • The OVA bonuses', to the point of No Fourth Wall.
  • Also, the famous Tower of Mana "Quick Jump" skit. To an extent, anyway.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Zelos is shown to be very good with both swordplay and magic, but he'd prefer to slack off and shamelessly skirt chase than do any of his work. This causes him to believe that he only has any value as the Chosen One, so he engages in blatant hedonism largely because he doesn't see the point in anything else.
• Buffy Speak: Lloyd does this a lot, usually to be corrected by Kratos or Raine.

C — D

• Call-Back: The entire scene in Flanoir could be seen as a Call-Back to a similar scene in Phantasia, both happening just before the game's climax or the last Disc-One Final Dungeon, in Symphonia's case.
  • Both Phantasia and Symphonia also have a special The Tower of Druaga-related title for collecting all of the Druaga equipment (except in Symphonia you have to equip them all on Zelos to get it.)
  • Quite a lot of plot details like Derris-Kharlan, the world tree, and the Eternal Sword also feature in both. Of course, this is because Symphonia is in fact a distant prequel to Phantasia.
• Calling Your Attacks: All of them. Except for Colette when she loses her voice, using a special in combat will result in this trope.
• Cap:
  • The EXP readout at the end of battle will only go up to 65,535, and any more will cause the counter to roll over back to 0. However, you still gain the 65,536+ EXP and level up properly; it just doesn't report correctly on the victory screen.
  • Only 20 of any given item can be held at one time. This can be increased to 30 in the Grade Shop.
• Captain Ersatz:
  • Maybe, but the similarities between Colette and Saikano's Chise are high in number and down right creepy at times.
  • Colette and Flonne are both flat-chested blondes who preach about love and are angels.
  • Ditto for Lloyd and Ichiro Ogami. It doesn't help that Kosuke Fujishima did the character designs for both.
  • Not to mention Zelos and Sha Gojyo. At least one particular version.
• Censorship by Spelling: Zelos calls Kratos an "arrogant SOB" at one point (which is technically censorship by acronym), although Sheena still chews him out for it, presumably since they were in front of Genis, Colette and Presea at the time.
• Challenge Run:
  • While they're not mentioned or explained until you earn them, there are several titles awarded for avoiding specific things until a certain point in the game:
    • Lloyd's "Brave Soul" is awarded for defeating Yuan without having run away from battle up until then.
    • Lloyd's "Gung Ho" is awarded for defeating Rodyle with invokeda party of combined level 145 or less.
    • Lloyd's "Eternal Apprentice" is awarded for defeating the Desian impersonating Kilia without having ever upgraded from his Wooden Swords until then.
    • Colette's "Friendship First" is awarded for reaching the Tower of Mana and defeating Iubaris invokedwithout any party members ever getting KO'd until then.
    • Genis's "I Hate Gels!" is awarded for never using Gels in battle until the first fight with Pronyma.
  • Most of the things you can buy in the Grade shop at the beginning of New Game Plus are advantageous, but you do also have the options to reduce max HP or EXP gains, if you want a harder game.
• Character Development: Over the course of the game Lloyd learns not to see the world in Black-and-White Morality, Colette learns to take the weight of the world on her shoulders, Regal and Sheena forgive themselves, Presea starts to move on with her life, Genis and Raine come to terms with being Half-elves and Zelos learns how to trust the others (Provided you let him).
• Chekhov's Gun: Everything in Ymir Forest qualifies for this is if inspected before they become useful. Pigs headbutt trees, bugs fall out of branches, fish swim through seemingly random patterns, and the sharks are hungry little buggers. The only exception is the birds, which are useful immediately after they are found.
• Cherry Tapping: The player is given a special title for using only wooden swords until halfway through the journey of Regeneration.
• Chest Monster: A handful of dungeon chests are actually Fakes, which are very hard fights for a number of reasons, but primarily the fact that they're immune to physical damage. The first one encountered in Triet Ruins is noted for being extremely difficult, as at that stage of the game only Genis and Kratos have any elemental damage at all.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Lloyd and Colette have been friends since childhood, and it's clear they have romantic feelings for each other. The game's plot gets in the way of them ever actually dating during the course of the game, but if she's picked for watching the snowfall in Flanoir, the ending implies that they will end up together over the course of the quest to collect all the Exspheres, a decision the devs clearly intend to be the canon choice.
• Childish Villain, Mature Hero: The Big Bad, Mithos Yggdrasil, initially acts as the composed and calm leader of Cruxis, but it's later revealed that the death of his sister, Martel has driven him over the edge that for all of his power and intelligence, he never grew up mentally. He becomes so determined to bring Martel back to life that he'll cross any lines to get her back. When Martel finally intervenes and calls out Mithos for his actions, pointing out that this goes against everything they fought for, Mithos refuses to accept her words and goes Laughing Mad, and then deliberately misinterprets her last request to restore the world to the way it was by taking her soul and the Great Seed to Derris-Kharlan just to be with his sister forever, no longer caring about the world. When he's finally put down, he states that he doesn't regret any of his actions and he would do them all over again if he could. Lloyd Irving on the other hand, while his ideals also clash with the way the world works, is willing to yield when it's clear he's in the wrong and actually learn from his mistakes, allowing him to undergo Character Development and become an All-Loving Hero. Lloyd's party members also share some of Yggdrasil's insecurities, but they are able to overcome them by choosing not to go with the easy solution like he has.
• The Chosen One: Played for drama. The world of Sylvarant has a "Chosen One" who goes on a quest to save the world by praying at four altars and reviving the world's mana. It's all a front for Sylvarant and Tethe'alla competing for a very small amount of mana, and all of that is because Mithos wants to find a way to revive his sister Martel. Even then, the people who actually save the worlds weren't chosen by anybody in the first place. Even beyond the mission, the game shows how much It Sucks to Be the Chosen One due to the amount of psychological pressure it puts on one person to save the world.
• The Chosen Zero: Colette and Zelos. In this case, the real question everyone should be asking is "who chose them?"
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Yuan, Kratos, Zelos, and Mithos. This has led to the rather appropriate observation that 'There is no 'os' in trust.'
• Climactic Battle Resurrection: When assaulting the Tower of Salvation in Tethe'alla, every single member of your party (except for Zelos, if you make him evil) ends up "dying" one by one... until you make it to the end and they all pop up and inform you that they were saved.
• Clothing Damage: Actually kinda important. A parting shot from Forcystus' Arm Cannon blows part of Colette's sleeve off, revealing that she's ill and her skin is slowly crystallizing into strange scales.
• Collector of the Strange: Koton.
• Color-Coded Elements: Red for fire, blue for water, green for wind, brown for earth, light blue for ice, purple for lightning, white for light, black for darkness. The only time it really becomes relevant is during a puzzle during the Very Definitely Final Dungeon, the completion of which unlocks the Bonus Dungeon.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: When fighting Kratos, he has access to artes from both his Strike and Technical paths, (most glaring with Fierce Demon Fang (Strike) and Double Demon Fang (Technical), actually same-level upgrades of the same arte) which is flat-out impossible for the player.
• Compressed Adaptation: The biggest problem with the Animated Adaptation. Sylvarant, the first half of the game, was squeezed into four episodes.
• Crapsaccharine World: The bright, cutesy graphics do a great job of covering the dark, nightmarish story.
  • Sylvarant, the "declining world," is wracked with poverty, famine, and suffering under the yoke of the Desians, who regularly kidnap and use the population as production stock for their monstrous human ranches.
  • Tethe'alla, the "flourishing world," at first seems to be a much happier place full of wonder for the Sylvarant heroes when they first arrive, but it all turns out to be a veneer. Underneath that veneer is a society rotted to the core with corruption and atrocities, this time carried out by its human rulers, who prove to be little better than the Desians. Much more than Sylvarant, Tethe'alla society is stratified by social caste. Half-elves and even full-blooded elves are subject to many of the same cruelties that humans in Sylvarant are. And even though the Desians have supposedly been "banished," Cruxis still lurks behind the scenes, quietly manipulating the system to consolidate Mithos's hold on the world. It's telling how many of the musical pieces in Tethe'alla are darker and more somber remixes of their Sylvarant counterparts.
• Creepy Monotone: Presea, at least until she's cured.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Church of Martel, which has a very Catholic bent to it.
• Cultural Cross-Reference: In the beach sidequest of the first game, the names of the four girls you're supposed to find easily remind you of a certain book series that is beloved by the Japanese. Amy, Jo, Beth, and Meg make cameo appearances. Seriously. Bonus points to Jo apparently being a Bokukko here, and having Amy be blonde
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In one of the OVAs, Sheena takes Lloyd down in one hit only to get owned by Kratos afterwords. You do not mess with that man's son.
  • Also in the OVAs: Zelos doesn't fare so well in his second battle with Regal, though he does manage to take him down with him via a Last Ditch Move.
• Cute Bruiser: Presea, as well as Colette once she gains more angel abilities. She even lifts an unconscious Regal with one arm at one point.
• Cutscene Incompetence: At the Iselia Human Ranch, at one point Lloyd and a companion somehow get knocked down and beat up by generic Desians who they had been cutting swaths through earlier. It seems the only purpose of the scene was for one of the prisoners to stand up to the Desians and hit one from behind, giving Lloyd and company enough time to get back on their feet and crush their rather weak opponents like normal.
• Cut Scene Power To The Max: Any time a cutscene calls for a player character to fight, they'll only ever use attacks they're guaranteed to have at this point — they're Acceptable Breaks from Reality, but for most characters, this means that they're one-shotting various baddies with their weakest techniques. Sheena is the primary exception, as her acquisition of Summon Spirits is plot-tied, but even then, she can summon at will in cutscenes where gameplay would demand she be in Overlimit mode.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • Going from a later game like Abyss, Innocence, or Vesperia to Symphonia can be really frustrating, because Symphonia predated free run.
  • In Symphonia, by default, normal attacks are A (the middle/central/somewhat over-sized face button) and special abilities are B (the left face button) on the Gamecube controller. In Vesperia, normal attacks are B (the right face button) and special abilities are A (the bottom face button) on the Xbox 360 controller. It helps though that both games allow you to customize your battle controls.
    • Happens again with the PC version. Default controls for players using an Xbox 360/One controller are A for normal attacks, B for special attacks and X to guard. While that is technically the same as the Gamecube keep in mind that the X/B buttons between the Gamecube and Xbox controllers are REVERSED. This is especially fun if you went from the Gamecube version of Symphonia', got used to Vesperia on the 360 and then later came back to Symphonia'' on the PC.
  • It also works in reverse, not only does playing this game make you forget about Free Run, but it also, especially if you played multiplayer, try to constantly attack bosses and try to overpower him to guard break as opposed to seeking out actual openings or weaknesses.
• Damsel in Distress: Several can be found here, mostly among the NPCs. The character Lloyd pursues as his love interest/soulmate will be briefly hit with a Distress Ball near the end, but it's not enough for said character to qualify for this trope, as they break out just before Lloyd really has to interfere.
  • Colette is kidnapped on two big occasions in the game, and the rest of the party must go to great lengths to rescue her both times. That said, she's quite capable the rest of the time.
  • Chocolat is kidnapped by the Desians early and taken to a nearby Human Ranch, then taken to another Ranch before you can rescue her. The party is not able to rescue her until the end of Disc 1.
  • Princess Hilda is kidnapped by the Pope in one sidequest, but rescuing her is a cinch.
  • Kate is imprisoned by the Pope for helping the party, and is freed when one of the protagonists fights in the Coliseum to gain access to the dungeon. She is then used as a decoy for Princess Hilda's sidequest above.
• Dead Character Walking: Sheena's Purgatory Seal revives a KO'd party member with 0 HP. Healing items and spells will then work as normal; this is best used if you're out of Life Bottles and you don't have Raine in the party at the moment.
• Deconstructor Fleet: Pretty much every main character, including the Big Bad, is a Deconstruction of a standard RPG character archetype. It's particularly savage towards the idea of The Chosen One and just what self-esteem issues a Messianic Archetype could potentially end up with. It tears into the Determinator and Idiot Hero tropes too. And the Big Bad is just as much of a Determinator as Lloyd is — his ideals just got compromised along the way.
• Defiant Stone Throw: The heroes enter the town square of Palmacosta to find the oppressive Desians there, about to hang one of the townsfolk. After her "crimes" (refusing to "sell" them supplies on the basis that they're evil oppressors demanding them for much less than they're actually worth) are announced publicly, a little boy starts throwing stones at their leader. He orders the kid executed, at which point the party steps in to save both townspeople and drive off the Desians.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Just about anyone you fight without killing.
• Dem Bones: There are a few skeletal mooks here and there. And then there's the Sword Dancer, who's a giant hulking four-armed skeletal swordsman.
• Determinator: Half the damn cast, Lloyd being the primary culprit. It's also deconstructed with the Big Bad, whose main character flaw is in many ways his inability to Know When to Fold 'Em, something Lloyd does know.
• Detrimental Determination: Both Lloyd and the Big Bad undergo this, with the latter acting as a Shadow Archetype of the former. Both Lloyd and Lord Yggdrasill are willing to go to any lengths to do what they believe is the right thing. But whereas Lloyd is willing to admit when he's in over his head and learn from his mistakes, Yggdrasill is willing to go to the logical conclusion of his plans, even when it causes suffering and death to everyone around him, even his own allies.
• Developers' Desired Date: Any of the party can be chosen as Lloyd's soul mate (not always but often a romantic relationship) based on who has the highest Affection for Lloyd. However the game heavily favors Colette for this role. While every other party member starts with an Affection score of 0, Colette starts with an Affection score of 500. She also has more chances to increase this score and less chances to reduce it than any other character. Colette also has more scenes alone with Lloyd than the other party members and the final cutscene is with her and Lloyd even if she isn't his soul mate. Zelos and Kratos, meanwhile, seem to be the intended "alternate" choices, as they're the only other ones who must be chosen for eventual 100% Completion, and they both have further-reaching effects on the post-choice story than any of the remaining six characters.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • After you make a summon pact with Undine, you can go make pacts with Efreet and Sylph as well. There's no in-story reason to do this, but it will unlock them as spells earlier and save you the trouble of going back for them later in the game when you need all the Summon Spirits. The bosses are even retuned to match your current level.
  • If you decide to have Lloyd only fight using the wooden swords he starts off with, when you finish your trip to Palmacosta, you'll be given a unique and very useful title for doing so that points how the sheer ridiculousness of achieving it.
• Dinosaurs Are Dragons: The Dragon Rider and his noble steed, the Velociraptor Velocidragon. In fairness, it does breathe fire.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon:
  • First, there's the first visit to the Tower of Salvation in Sylvarant, then it's the Second trip to the Tower of Salvation in Tethe'alla (the third trip to the tower overall). And then after that, it's Torent Forest.
  • In the Gamecube version, the literal Disc-One Final Dungeon is the Iselia Human Ranch.
• Distant Sequel: Tales of Symphonia takes place thousands of years before Tales of Phantasia, enough time for magitek civilizations to rise and destroy themselves in a war before a meteor impact sends the world back into another technological dark age. An exact time gap is not given, but the general consensus is four thousand years, with Symphonia's ending acting as Year Zero for the calendar used in Phantasia.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • The human ranches are very similar to the Nazi concentration camps. Kvar also deserves special mention, as he draws many similarities with Josef Mengele.
  • And Regal is The president of a major company, specializes in martial arts, and has a pretty dark past involving the death of an important person. How oddly familiar...
• Doomed Hometown:
  • Iselia is burned by Desians and Lloyd is banished for being partially to blame for it.
  • Presea's hometown of Ozette is destroyed rather arbitrarily, Luin also becomes completely wrecked, and so does Heimdall... half the hometowns you go to wind up getting thrashed. To be quite honest, Luin was asking for it. That's what you get when your town's name can be written as Ruin. So was Ozette for being full of racist jerks.
• Drowning My Sorrows:
  • Kratos and apparently Colette(?!) are seen doing this in the fourth OVA bonus, in mourning for their loss of lines/screen time. Yuan's there too though celebrating his increase in screentime.
  • Zelos also visits the bar later for the same reason.
• Dub Name Change: Genius or Genis? Refill or Raine? Shihna or Sheena? Regal Bryan or Regal Bryant?
• Duel Boss: There are a few:
  • Sheena challenges Kuchinawa to a Duel to the Death so he can get out his anger over her getting his parents killed.
  • Seles will try to upstage Zelos in a Coliseum match to try and get him to let her join the party.
  • The third time you fight Kratos, at Origin's seal.
  • A variant occurs at the end of the PS2 version's Forbidden Anamnesis, where you fight Mithos, Kratos, and Yuan as they were 4,000 years ago, and they demand that you fight them three-on-three.
• Dumb Is Good: Lloyd and Colette are both rather dim-witted and seem much 'nicer' when compared to the smarter Genis, Raine and Kratos. To be fair, in Genis' case, he is pretty nice, yet for all the intellect he possesses, he's still one of the younger members of the cast, leading him to be quite bratty at times. This usually doesn't sit well with his older sister, Raine, as she still handles him with kid gloves by rectifying his occasional poor behavior with a slap across the head and the occasional spanking.
• Durable Deathtrap: The traps found in the Balacruf Mausoleum are still functional after some several hundred years.

E — G

• Early-Bird Cameo: In the OVA, Zelos makes a brief appearance in the Sylvarant arc even though his proper introduction isn't until the Tethe'alla arc. Mithos appears in the Tethe'alla arc opening even though his proper introduction isn't until the United World arc.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Skills are called "Techs" in this game; the convention of translating them as "Artes" hadn't yet been established. None of the Updated Rereleases change this.
  • Mystic Artes are completely unexplained and also not called Mystic Artes; weapon-based Mystic Artes are called a "Lv. 3 Special Attack" even though that term is also used for what later games would call arcane artes, and spell-based Mystic Artes aren't referred to by anything other than their individual names.
  • Free run doesn't exist yet for the player. While battles take place in three dimensions, your movement is restricted to "towards the targeted enemy" and "away from the targeted enemy".
• Easter Egg: Flanoir has a statue of Pac-Man beside its Bigfoot and Wonder Chef statues.
• Escort Mission:
  • The Temple of Earth requires escorting a Gnomelette down a monster-infested path, defeating anything in the way because the Gnomelette will freak out upon touching a monster. This is annoying mainly because it's slow, but also because if you enter the final exit half a second before the Gnomelette does, the whole escort will have to be redone.
  • The Temple of Darkness features the party escorting five fragments of Shadow, the Summon Spirit of Darkness, to the bottom of the temple. Thankfully, they don't care about touching monsters — instead, they have extremely crude pathfinding and a tendency to dart about randomly for no reason.
• Emotionless Girl: Presea. She comes to her senses at the worst possible time, though... Also Colette, as she begins to become an angel. Thankfully, she gets better.
• Emotions vs. Stoicism: Each of Lloyd's companions is driven by either emotions or logic; Lloyd's decisions impact relationship values based on which side he appeals to.
• Empty Room Psych: In Welgaia, there is a building with five floors, each with two identical small rooms. All but one of them are completely barren, and it's on the first floor anyway, making the whole thing all the more psyche-y.
• Eternal English: The fact that people from Sylvarant and Tethe'alla still understand each other after 4000 years of near-complete separation is pretty amazing, they don't even have different accents! This may have something to do with the fact that both Cruxis and the Renegades are controlling both worlds behind the scenes.
• Everyone Has Standards: A traveler in Ozette's item shop notes that even though he's racist against half-elves, Ozette hates them so much more that he actually finds it unsettling.
• The Exile: Lloyd and Genis, due to being responsible for Iselia's destruction, are exiled from their hometown. The mayor is browbeaten into rescinding the exile late in the game.
• Fake Defector: Zelos, depending on your ending. Also Kratos, but he's much sneakier about it.
• Fanservice: Sheena's alternate outfits (not that her default is particularly modest), as well as a visit to the beach and a hot spring. The massive amounts of Ship Tease also count.
• Fantastic Racism: The discrimination against half-elves is a recurring element in the series, as is the discrimination against humans in Sylvarant.
• Fauxshadow: Genis is seemingly foreshadowed to betray you, such as suggesting to his new friend Mithos that he might pick the latter over Lloyd if they fought. He doesn't.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: The Meltokio sewers are a long, annoying level. The dev team noticed this, and allows the player to Quick Jump from the sewer grate to the manhole after the first pass through. On the way to research Colette's Chronic Angelus Crystallus Inofficium, the quick-jump deposits you at the bottom of the staircase where Regal and the other prisoners ambushed you.
• Flat-Earth Atheist: Weirdly enough, Mithos is one — declaring that there is no goddess. The fact that he was the one who set up the Corrupt Church may have something to do with it.
• Flowery Elizabethan English: This is apparently a requirement for forging a pact with a Summon Spirit (or at least, Sheena was led to believe so). Despite this, Luna is the only one that actually talks this way, while Gnome outright finds it annoying.
• The Force Is Strong with This One: Elves and half-elves are able to detect the flow of mana. This allows them to use and sense magic, sense shifts and differences in the mana levels of both worlds, and distinguish between the different races, among other things.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Most of it is only obvious in hindsight. During subsequent playthroughs you'll probably wonder how you missed some of them. There's even some on the western box art. Notice how, of all characters, It's Lloyd/Colette and Sheena/Zelos that appear on the cover? (with Lloyd & Sheena being in front, and Zelos & Colette being in the back?) Essentially, it's showing two Sylvaranti along with their, for all intents and purposes, Tethe'allan counterparts.
  • At the very beginning of the game, just before you fight the Desians at Iselia Temple, they say "Die at the hands of the Desians you so hate!" Which, if you think about it, is a really weird thing to say if one actually is a Desian — and indeed it turns out that these people are not.
  • During the Unicorn Horn sub-quest, if done while Colette has lost her voice, the unicorn reveals that he can hear her words. This makes Lloyd hearing Colette's words in the Tower of Salvation look a little less out of left field.
  • There's a reason why Mithos and Colette look so similar.
  • Genis replies with hesitation whenever someone asks or wonders what race he is.
  • The Opening Monologue is Kratos' voice. Hmm, I wonder why...
  • Kratos being Lloyd's father is hinted at several times:
    • In the beginning, he asks Lloyd "Your name is Lloyd?"
    • If you say "just a minute" in response to talking to Collete before she leaves Kratos can be seen and spoken to at Lloyd's mother's grave.
    • From the beginning, his moveset and fighting usability are very similar to Lloyd's.
    • His interactions with Noishe.
    • He gets uncharacteristically angry at Kvar when he insults Lloyd's parents. Not only does he kill the bastard before Lloyd can, the ensuing Punctuated Sword Rain could arguably qualify as Extreme Mêlée Revenge.
    • Kratos stops the villagers in Hima from killing Clara, and supports the idea of trying to save her.
    • Pronyma and Yuan both notice a resemblance.
    • Both dislike tomatoes.
    • Whenever the party goes back to Dirk's House, Kratos will always be standing by Anna's grave.
    • In battle, Kratos uses First Aid on Lloyd way more than on anyone else.
    • There's also Lloyd telling Colette at the very beginning that she's lucky to have two fathers.
  • After meeting with Yuan concerning Rodyle's ranch, Lloyd cites Dwarven Vow #18: It's better to be deceived than to deceive. Zelos jokes that "[he]'ll try deceiving Lloyd next", to which Raine replies "If you betray Lloyd, your life is forfeit." The point where the game branches out: a fake betrayal, wherein Zelos books it, or a legitimate betrayal, wherein he dies at Lloyd's hands.
  • Welgaia gives off a very 'endgame' vibe, and has two save points within two screens of each other. When you revisit the 'holy' city during the proper endgame, one save point is between two of three You Are Not Alone cutscenes and related minor Optional Bosses, with the third being that two screens away from the hub — thus combining Foreshadowing with an Anti-Frustration Feature.
  • When making the pact with Sylph, Sephie cryptically says that they do not wish to be betrayed again. If the pact is made as early as possible, it acts as the first big hint that Mithos did something terrible.
  • Many characters directly compare Lloyd to the hero, Mithos, which Lloyd himself discourages. Lloyd’s unwillingness to go the same distance for his ideals is exactly what separates him from Mithos.
• For Great Justice: Dwarven Vow #7. Goodness and love will always win!^note Lloyd has issues with the word "justice" that seem more directed towards Justice Will Prevail.
• For The Cel Of It
• Follow the White Rabbit: The party finds their way through the Torent Forest by following a small animal that leads them along the correct path so they don't get lost.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The party consists of two.
  • Sylvarant Party Members: Lloyd (Sanguine), Colette (Phlegmatic), Genis (Choleric), Raine (Melancholic)
  • Tethe'alla Party Members: Sheena (Choleric), Zelos (Sanguine), Presea (Melancholic), Regal (Phlegmatic)
• Gainax Ending: Hoo boy. After defeating the final boss: Lloyd remerges the worlds, and the Eternal Sword then vanishes. Then the Summon Spirits appear to tell them that the Seed and Derris Kharlan are leaving and the world is gonna quickly die of mana deprivation without them. The heroes think they're screwed without the Sword, but Lloyd needs to try to save the world anyway, and so his Exsphere reacts and he promptly sprouts angel wings, of a completely different style compared to Colette's, and flies to the Seed along with Colette. When they reach the Seed, they think it's too late, but then the Eternal Sword randomly shows up again, and with its power they germinate the Seed.
  • As the Seed falls to Earth, Tabitha, the Artificial Human made as a failed attempt to create a mechanical vessel for Mithos's sister Martel, is standing in the ruins of the Tower, and the seed falls on top of her, opens up, and she's infused with a whole crapton of spirits we've never seen before, including Mithos's sister, and when Lloyd and Colette come down to earth, she introduces herself as the Goddess Martel, the Goddess that Mithos made up for his Path of Inspiration. She's made up of all those spirits, and is the new guardian of the new World Tree. She shows the heroes what the Tree will look like when it's grown (which looks like the Game Over screen), and tells them that in its current state, it will die, so they have to give it happy thoughts or something, and Lloyd has to give it a new name. Then Lloyd goes "This tree's name is- * CREDITS*
  • All of this makes more sense on subsequent playthroughs, if you read the text a little closer. One of Mithos' reasons for what he did was that, just as Martel would absorb the Great Seed if she was revived, the Great Seed would absorb her if it was sprouted. It's just that until the end, no one really understood what that meant. The other spirits that joined her were the souls of the other Chosen Ones, who had died in Martel's name while trying to fuse with her soul, their souls instead absorbed into the Great Seed; the composite spirit of Martel and the Chosen Ones became not a true goddess, but the guardian spirit of the new mana tree, who happens to be named Martel because that's the dominant spirit. Lloyd's unusual wings are most likely because of his special Angelus Exsphere, which was noted as being unique throughout the game. As for the revival of the Seed, this one is harder to see, but after he destroys Mithos' crystal, the sparkling fragments of it flow into Lloyd's Exsphere. When he and Colette are then trying everything they can to revive the Seed, that same pattern of sparkles flows out in reverse — the remnants of Mithos' spirit, seeking peace with his sister and contributing the final burst of mana that allows the Seed to revive.
• Gambit Pileup: Let's just say there's a lot going on.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: When Raine gets the Unicorn's Horn, and when Colette loses her voice. Not to mention a rather subtle one comes from when you notice Kratos's AI behaviour — he actually uses First Aid on Lloyd quite a bit.
  • Zelos is introduced with two ladies on each side. When he joins your party not long after, he's got a Lv 2 EX Gem equipped with his Personal EX Skill.^note That is, the EX Skill named "Personal" — which, for Zelos, gives him rewards when he talks to ladies
  • When you enter the tournament to free the imprisoned Kate, the entrance fee is 5000 Gald, which comes out of your wallet. If you choose anyone except Presea or Zelos, Raine bribes the receptionist with another 5000 Gald, which also comes out of your wallet. If you choose Zelos, you get a preview of his "Masked Swordsman" outfit, and he doesn't pay anything.
  • It makes sense that Kratos seems to put Lloyd as top priority, healing-wise. After all, he lost his wife, he doesn't want to lose his son.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: In the Temple of Lightning, it's possible through diligent treasure-hunting to have assembled an equipment set for Sheena that makes her completely immune to all lightning damage. The game acknowledges this in no way whatsoever, and the plot here always gives Sheena a Heroic BSoD and makes Corrine jump in front of a lightning bolt for Sheena regardless of whether you've given her equipment that should make Volt categorically a non-threat.
• Glass Cannon: Colette, Genis, and Sheena. Especially frustrating with Genis and Sheena, since their most powerful attacks rely on them getting into Overlimit first, which requires them to get hit at least a few times.
• Gossip Evolution: Late in the game, Colette finds herself pulling a not-particularly-convincing impersonation of the angel Spiritua, which mostly involves just hovering there and declaring that she'll totally kill those who oppose her but wait actually she won't because Zelos spares them. Shortly thereafter, you find that the rumors have swiftly exaggerated this into claims of a ten-foot-tall angel descending directly from heaven to devour the unworthy.
• Great Offscreen War: Long ago, during Mithos's time, Sylvarant and Tethe'alla were at war. This war killed the Giant Kharlan Tree, which was once a source of ever-flowing mana. This is also where Mithos met Kratos and Yuan, and where Martel was killed, and thus how he decided to split the world in two. Because the Tree is considered a myth, the war is also assumed to have been mythical, especially since the best-known version of the story ends with the citizens of Tethe'alla exiling themselves to the moon by climbing the Tower of Salvation, which is obvious fairy-tale material. This version of the tale is spread by Cruxis as propaganda, but while it does contain some obvious lies, it's still closer to the truth than one might expect.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Requirements for earning titles are completely unexplained until you happen to do them:
    • Genis earns "Experimental" for changing his weapon a lot in one battle. Changing equipment during battle is rarely necessary, other than if you suddenly realize that you should have used a different loadout, and even that isn't going to happen repeatedly in the same fight.
    • Presea earns "Fragile Shield" for getting guard broken a lot in one battle. You're supposed to avoid getting guard broken.
    • Several titles are earned by avoiding specific things until specific segments in the storyline, for example, Lloyd earns "Eternal Apprentice" for not upgrading from his Wooden Swords until fighting Kilia in Palmacosta. These are all earned at completely different points, so even if you stumbled upon one by accident, you might think to go for one of the others but end up giving up too early.
  • After healing Pietro, he moves to Luin and starts taking donations to rebuild the town. This occurs in several stages, each of which requires a very specific amount of money. In the GameCube version, any excess money donated will be wasted, which fact does not play nice with the requirement of leaving the town between stages for the rebuilding to actually progress, nor with the fact that the game never says how much any given stage costs. The donation entry dialogue has eight digits in it even though the most expensive stage only costs 100,000 Gald. Later releases made all this much less ridiculous by just not allowing you to donate excess Gald; Pietro won't take more than needed for the current stage.

H — L

• Half-Human Hybrid: Half-elves. Talking to the residents of Exire implies that half-elves can maintain their own population.
• Halfway Plot Switch: Starts out with a pilgramage to restore Sylvarant's mana with clear-cut Black-and-White Morality between Lloyd's party and the Desians, and after about half a dozen truth bombs in a row it eventually turns into a journey across two parallel worlds to end a centuries-old mana conflict and confront the organization that started it in the first place with lots of White-and-Grey Morality.
• Hammerspace: Seles's purse, which can hold weapons several times the size of her body. Also: Colette has true Hammerspace, because her Pow Hammer-series spawn hammers out of nowhere.
• Hate Sink: The Mayor of Iselia, mostly for being a huge jerk after the party return to Iselia. He tries to uphold the ban he placed on Lloyd and Genis and part of the reason for throwing Genis out is because he is a Half-elf. He also shows No Sympathy for Colette, who was just shot by the leader of the Iselia Ranch, because she has not performed the World Regeneration yet despite the fact the party had just saved everyone in the Iselia Ranch and he shows a similar lack of concern for the people they saved (even implying he wanted to throw them out as well). Thankfully the other villagers and Chocolat tell him where to go.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door:
  • Kratos, Zelos and Yuan.
  • Also the heroes, from a certain perspective. Their ultimate goal is always "save the world", but pretty much every new piece of information about their situation radically alters what "save the world" even means, and how they plan to accomplish it, and sometimes whose toes are going to get stepped on in the process.
• The Hero Doesn't Kill the Villainess: Pronyma is killed by the Big Bad for calling him by the wrong name, although the heroes did defeat her first and she may have already been dying from that. All the other Grand Cardinals are killed by the party in battle.
• Hero Secret Service: Eventually, the rest of the party become this in regards to Lloyd.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Much to Lloyd's dismay, there's quite a few. Some end without people ending up dead. Others... don't.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Forcystus runs a Human Ranch and looks down on humans as inferior beings like the rest of the Desians, he even thinks an appropriate punishment for breaking a non-agression pact is to pit Lloyd and Genis against a mutated Marble. What made him join in the first place? He fought and defeated an army of humans who were committing genocide against Half-Elves!
• Hidden Elf Village: Three.
  • Heimdall, home of the elves. Humans can't even enter without a decree from the king of Tetha'alla. Half-elves aren't allowed to enter at all. The few half-elves born within the Heimdall are allowed to stay, but if they leave on their own or cause trouble, even if they're the victims in the situation, they're thrown out.
  • Exire isn't technically hidden, but the fact that it's floating makes it inaccessible under normal circumstances. Some of its residents had literally never seen a human before Lloyd's party visited.
  • Mizuho's population is human, but they keep themselves well hidden from the rest of Tethe'alla.
• Hidden Mechanic: The game has Relationship Values for different characters, and how they feel about Lloyd Irving. Whichever character is designated as Lloyd's soulmate will get extra scenes with him, along with potentially changing party composition late-game by making the fake Face–Heel Turn of Zelos into a real one, which replaced Zelos with Kratos. However, the game doesn't tell you about the existence of these values, and also doesn't inform you how they can be increased.
• Honor Before Reason: Yes, Chocolat, Lloyd killed your grandmother, but the time to be angry about that is not right when he's trying to rescue you from a human ranch.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: The game actually seems to throw two of these at you in a row with Kratos and Yggdrasill. Neither one is actually hopeless: the first can be beaten on the first playthrough if you're very good, but the second will probably need you to be on a New Game Plus to beat it, especially since it ends after a set amount of time no matter what. Winning doesn't alter the plot, but it does slightly change the cutscene after the boss fight.
  • The second fight against Yggdrasill is hopeless as well. You're at a higher level than before, and thus able to fight on more even ground, but the fight still automatically ends after a certain point. Unlike the first fight, though, you're not allowed to lose this one (in terms of 'everyone is dead').
• Human Resources: Exspheres are made from the humans in the Desians' ranches.
• Immune to Flinching: The main perk of going into Overlimit. And of course, there's the fact that many bosses require multiple consecutive hits to stun. Presea and Regal can near-permanently gain this ability through the compound-ex skill, Glory.
• Implied Love Interest: The game heavily pushes Colette as the "proper" love interest for Lloyd, to the point that if you get Kratos's ending, Colette will be the one to accompany Lloyd on his journey to collect all the exspheres, and if Zelos has his relationship points maxed out, Colette still goes outside alongside him to check on Lloyd when it's revealed Kratos is Lloyd's father. In fact, if you choose anyone besides Colette or Kratos as Lloyd's soulmate, Colette will replace that character when the rest of the party is trapped in Welgaia. To a slightly lesser degree, Sheena gets a lot of Ship Tease with Lloyd, more so than Raine or Presea. However, nothing explicit occurs during the game.
  • The sequel creates yet another chance to select a character as Lloyd's 'soulmate' for a special scene with him. Although it's worth noting that in these scenes, Colette is the only one Lloyd explicitly tells he loves.
  • It's actually so difficult to not rack up Relationship Values with Colette that the only way to get Colette in the lowest four is to sacrifice opportunities to rack up points with other characters. It really goes to show how strong Colette's bond with Lloyd is.
• Impersonation-Exclusive Character: Kilia, the daughter of Governor-General Dorr, never truly appears onscreen, having been the victim of a Kill and Replace some time before the party arrived.
• Improbable Weapon User:
  • If you equip the fancy clothes for Presea and Zelos, they have a small chance each battle of replacing their actual weapon with a giant stuffed bunny and flowers respectively.
  • The strongest weapons money can buy are Lethal Joke Items. A mop, paper fans, a tambourine...
• Inconsistent Dub:
  • Dwarven Vow #7 is translated as both "Goodness and love will always win" and "Justice and love will always win". This is noticeable mainly because of Lloyd's issues with the word "justice"; while he does dislike this Dwarven Vow, his only stated reason is finding it unbearably cheesy.
  • The Mystic Arte shared by Kratos and Zelos is named "Holy Binds" in the battle interface, but called out as "Shining Bind" by Kratos and "Luminous Bind" by Zelos.
• Infinity -1 Sword: The Lethal Joke Items you can buy after fully restoring Luin. They're pretty much the most powerful weapons purchasable, and you don't start finding better gear until Torent Forest.
• Infinity +1 Sword:
  • All of the characters can earn one from the Meltokio Coliseum, though Regal's and Presea's lose out to certain weapons they can receive at level 80. Lloyd noticeably has two for his different attack stats; the Valkyrie Saber (earned in the Coliseum) for "Thrust", and the Kusanagi Blade for "Slash".
  • Alternately, the Devil Arms. But since unlocking their full potential requires beating the superboss Abyssion, they're also a Bragging Rights Reward — and a Guide Dang It! on top of it. Raine's at least massively boosts her Intelligence even before getting unlocked, so you can still get some practical benefit.
• Informed Equipment: Characters will only be shown using their most basic (and generic) weapons, with a few exceptions: Lloyd's model goes from wooden swords to basic metal swords after the second town. Kratos will equip the Flamberge after a certain event. Lloyd will have the Material Blades after you earn them. Characters will also only use their most basic special attacks in cut scenes, because attacks are split across "Strike" and "Technical", and on top of that, you're allowed to delete known attacks, so it'll only show attacks that you can't not know. So expect to see a lot of Fireball, Demon Fang, and Force Field.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Save on the world map, and your location is listed as Field: Sylvarant.
  • The Palmacosta human ranch is the only one you can return to after destroying it. Naturally, it's also the only one the plot actually makes you return to.
  • A weird example that only makes sense in hindsight: when Kratos does his Heel–Face Turn, the game largely averts So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear by returning all of his equipment... except his weapon^note Which is a particular pain if you customized a Silver Sword for him. This is because a character's weapon slot cannot be empty, which indicates that he'll be returning at some point or another; when he returns at the Iselia Human Ranch, the weapon you had on him (by now invariably outdated) is returned, as he has his Flamberge. If you go the route where Zelos turns traitor, you are likewise returned all of your gear... but this one includes his weapon, because Zelos as a party character just doesn't exist anymore.
  • A rather egregious example, when Colette gives up her humanity at the Tower of Salvation, the lead up makes it sound like she's sacrificing her life, which creates the drama of the scene. Only, moments after she becomes an empty shell, the game helpfully informs you that she has learned a new skill, so obviously she isn't lost forever. She does remain an empty shell for a little while however.
• Invisible to Normals: Presea and Abyssion are the only people out of a population of two whole planets who can hear Nebilim's voice.
• Ironic Echo: One of Lloyd's quotes at the start of battle is "Let's go all out!" Late in the game, if you spend the night in Flanoir, Zelos will betray you and fight you to the death. At the start of the battle, Zelos, who likely has fought alongside Lloyd many times in the past, will taunt him with, "Nothing left to do but go all out, right?"
• Irony: There is exactly one place in the game where you can freely buy Lucky Rabbit's Foot accessories — Luin, prior to its decidedly unfortunate destruction.
• Is It Something You Eat?:
  "Professor, what's a philanderer? Is it something you eat?"
  "I don't think you'd want to eat one."
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: A lot. For both Colette and Zelos. This was one of the reasons this game was notable — it was when the Tales Series started to really embrace this trope.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: A variant; implied to be the reason Kratos didn't reveal that he was Lloyd's father.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Each of the Desian Grand Cardinals has at least one of these, from Magnius snapping a bystander's neck for failing to address him as "LORD Magnius!" to Kvar's casual attitude towards the Exsphere "cultivation" process.
  • Colette gets a literal Kick the Dog to demonstrate just how far gone her transformation has left her.
  • And then the person who the heroes will eventually learn is Rodyle shows up and basically laughs at the whole event.
• Kid Hero:
  • Lloyd, Genis, Colette, as well as Mithos. Presea is a subversion.
  • Although being 19, Sheena's still qualifies in Japan, where people are not considered an adult until age 20. A good reference to this is the ending of Tales of the Abyss.
• Kill and Replace: At some point in the offscreen backstory, a Desian spy killed Governor-General Dorr's daughter Kilia and took their place to spy on the town and ensure nothing interfered with the Desians' plans.
• Kissing Discretion Shot: In Episode 4 of the OVA’s Tethe’alla Arc (Episode 8 overall), Lloyd seemingly straight-up kisses the still-soulless Colette on the lips after putting the necklace he repurposed into a Key Crest on her. The camera zooms in on their eyes just before his lips make contact.
  • This is averted much earlier in the OVA. More specifically, the first episode’s ending credits end with a shot of Colette giving Lloyd a kiss on the cheek, which is left completely uncensored.
• Lampshade Hanging
  Yuan: "Like moths to the flame."
  Lloyd: "Do you ever say anything original?"
  • When you finally get the Ymir fruit, your avatar character will declare "That took forever!"
  • In a skit with Raine and Regal that is available during the party's return to the Tower of Mana to unlock Luna, Lloyd complains about the lack of a "Quick Jump" to get the party straight to Luna's altar instead of having to climb the tower again. Raine and Regal are confused, and Lloyd simply says "never mind."
• Leaked Experience: Meaning you don't have to swap characters around if you don't want to.
• Leitmotif: Every member of the party has one, including a few Dark Reprises. The Big Bad and Kratos also have their respective themes worked into their fight music.
• Lesser of Two Evils: In the first quarter of the game, Lloyd discovers that Colette needs to sacrifice herself in order to fulfill her role as the Chosen and save the world. Lloyd must choose between saving the world and saving Colette, and (briefly) hates himself for the fact that he chooses the world, at least until he uncovers a Third Option.
• Lethal Chef:
  • Raine. She has rather... Interesting ideas on cuisine, such as one skit where she wonders about making a spicy cake. Half of her recipes have lemon as an additional ingredient. And a skit in the sequel has her cooking "lemon rice" for the party. She can even fail at making a Bread Sandwich! Sheena also has weird ideas about food, but she knows which weird ideas work so she is still a good cook (one of the best three, in fact, along with Genis and Regal).
  • One of the funniest moments in the game involves Raine's cooking skills. In a small skit, the stone-faced, humorless stoic Kratos samples some of Raine's cooking to be polite. He even makes a gallant attempt at finding something nice to say about it ("Well, it has an interesting texture") before the aftertaste sets in and Kratos's first reaction is to use one of his healing spells on himself. It's funnier because it's Kratos.
    Kratos: "Ugh! First Aid!"
  • In an OVA, Raine's cooking is literally used as a weapon to kill Kratos...
• Lethal Joke Item: After restoring Luin, each character gets the ability to buy one of these; they are among the most powerful weapons you can buy for that character. Lloyd gets twin Paper Fans of Doom, Colette starts throwing tambourines, Raine a mop, Sheena a wallet, Zelos/Kratos a baseball bat or a pink plastic dagger, Presea a squeaky toy hammer, and Regal a pair of silver boots. Genis is the only one who doesn't qualify, since he's already using kendama to fight with.
• Limit Break:
  • Colette, attempting to cast either Holy Song or Judgment after having used both at least 50 times each, may accidentally combine the two into the powerful Holy Judgment.
  • Genis, while in Over Limits and having used Indignation at least 50 times, can upgrade it to the powerful Indignation Judgment, unleashing dozens of lightning strikes and summoning a blade of fury to deal one final blow.
  • Lloyd, with both the title "Eternal Swordman" and the Material Blades equipped and his health lower than 16%, can press Guard+Attack+Tech all at once and unleash Falcon Crest, creating a circle of devastating magical energy around him and summoning the Eternal Sword to unleash a powerful area-of-effect sword strike.
  • While Sheena has no formal Mystic Arte, her summons (other than Corrine) are highly-powerful attacks with bonus buff effects and a special attention-grabbing animation that can only be used while she's in Over Limits. The PS2 release added portrait cut-ins to the summoning animation that on other characters only appear when using a Mystic Arte, making it clear that summons are intended to be Sheena's equivalent.
• Literalist Snarking: In one optional scene, Zelos invites Sheena on an impromptu Rheiard flight, "just you and the Chosen". Sheena sarcastically asks if that means Colette's free.
• Loophole Abuse: When the elven storyteller in Latheon Gorge brings up the subject of Mithos and his actions, Zelos incredulously points out that this is taboo in Heimdall. But as the storyteller counters, they're not in Heimdall — he lives in the gorge for the explicit purpose of getting around the taboo and preserving the knowledge the other elves refuse to speak of.
• Love Martyr: Kate takes part in some less than moral experiments and impersonates the Princess during the exchange for Zelos, to earn the love of her father, the Pope.
• Love Triangle: Subverted for Max, Lyla and Aifread. Max is in love with Lyla, who only ever talks about tracking down Aifread. But she's not actually in love with him at all- Lyla's a Loan Shark and Aifread, a pirate, owes her quite a bit of Gald...
• Luminescent Blush: Happens multiple times in the OVA:
  • At the beginning of the first episode, Lloyd goes completely red in the face after Colette compliments the necklace he gave her for her birthday, despite the fact he knew it wasn’t very well made, and admitted as such directly to her.
  • Early in the Tethe’alla Arc, when Genis tries to strike up a conversation, he briefly goes completely red-faced.
  • Near the end of Episode 4 of the Tethe’alla Arc, Lloyd compliments Sheena after she says she’ll stick with the group to take down Cruxis. She tries to back-pedal and say she’s only going along out of curiosity about Origin. Zelos and Genis both take notice and start teasing.

M — N

• Magitek: Used by the villains, and the source of quite a few problems as a result.
• Master of None: Kratos and Zelos. They don't really have that many techs to combo with, having only one full combo per tech tree side. Outside of a glitch using it for infinite combos, magic's casting times prevents it from synergising with melee. That's not to say, however, that they're bad characters. In fact, they're usually considered the best characters behind Raine and Colette.
• Meaningful Name: Genis and Raine's Japanese names are Genius and Refill. Also, one of the towns razed by the Desians is named Luin (just remember the whole L/R thing with the Japanese language.) Following the same naming traditions as Luin, there's also Exire, the floating city that's home to ostracized half-elves.
• Meaningful Rename: At the end of the game, after finally sprouting the new World Tree, its spirit tells Lloyd that this is not the Giant Kharlan Tree, but a new tree for a new world, and asks Lloyd to give it a new name accordingly. The cutscene ends right before he says the new name, but context clues both in and out of universe suggest that he will name it Yggdrasill.
• Medium Awareness: One skit has Lloyd complaining about why they have to climb through the Mana Tower again and that they should had just been given the "Quick Jump" option. Everyone else is confused as to what this "Quick Jump" is since Lloyd is apparently the only one who is mildly aware that they are in a video game.
• Merging the Branches:
  • The manga adaptation addresses the affection-related scenes by taking bits and pieces of the Colette, Zelos and Kratos routes:
    • In the Flanoir scene, Lloyd first talks to Colette. Colette leaves to go check in at the inn, then Kratos shows up to talk to Lloyd and play out his Flanoir scene.
    • Lloyd also talks to Zelos in this same night (Again, playing out his Flanoir scene from the game), but the conversation only appears in a bonus chapter.
    • When Zelos betrays the party at the Tower of Salvation, Lloyd and company have a short battle against him right then and there, much like in Kratos’s route. However, unlike in the game, he doesn’t die during this scene.
    • The night before the party enters Torent Forest to release Origin’s seal, Lloyd talks to Zelos. However, Zelos doesn’t offer to join Lloyd on his journey to collect the Exspheres, unlike in the game.
    • After Origin’s seal is released, Colette is the one that gets possessed by Mithos.
    • Both Kratos and Zelos join the group for the final showdown with Mithos, which isn’t possible in-game.
    • Unlike in the game, when Lloyd departs on his journey to collect all the Exspheres, he plans to go alone (Which isn’t possible in-game; he made plans to have his closest ally come along with him back during the Heimdall night. He did speak to Zelos during that scene in this adaptation, as mentioned earlier, but he didn’t offer to join him). However, just before he leaves, Colette suddenly shows up at the last second, wanting him to take her along with him, cementing herself as his closest ally.
  • To a lesser extent, the OVA did this as well, despite not showing most of the major affection-related scenes (Though it did show the Flanoir scene, and used Colette’s); Lloyd is planning to go with Colette to collect the Exspheres, but Sheena and Zelos suddenly show up just before they depart, both asking to come along as well.
• Mighty Lumberjack: Presea Combatir is a female lumberjack. She looks about twelve years old but carries an axe bigger than some of your other party members.
• Mind Screw: Is that coffee hot or iced, Lloyd? To elaborate: Lloyd suspects that Colette's angel rites are slowly destroying her ability to smell, taste, and touch; so he makes her a cup of scalding-hot coffee. Then he lies that it's iced, and she quickly agrees, giving herself away. This is intentional, since the whole point is to trick Colette into admitting that the angel transformation process is obliterating her humanity one step at a time, and she's hiding it to avoid worrying the others.
• Mirror Character: Colette and Zelos. They are both The Chosen One for their respective worlds but their personalities are extremely different, with Colette being a sweet, selfless girl who tries to befriend even her enemies and Zelos being a crass, selfish, cynical womanizer. However, paying close attention to their scenes and backstories show that they are both extreme Stepford Smiler's, hiding their troubles from others to their personal detriment, as a result of their status. Additionally, there is implication that Colette could have potentially ended up with a personality closer in line with Zelos's had it not been for Lloyd and Genis: A side event in the game has Zelos revealing that he's bitter because of how many people act fake around him and try to suck up to him because he's the Chosen. In the manga, there's a side story showing that when Colette was young she also had negative feelings about how she was treated 'just because she was the Chosen'. The big difference was Colette had friends who she knew truly cared about her, and Zelos had basically no one.
• Missing Mom: This game really doesn't like mothers. Anna is dead, Colette's is never mentioned, Sheena's parents abandoned her and she has an adopted father, Genis and Raine's mother is mentally insane, Zelos' is dead, Presea's is dead and Regal's is never mentioned.
• Missing Secret: In Palmacosta, there is a lighthouse with a man standing outside to deny entry on the grounds that anyone who goes inside gets sick. This seems like an obvious sidequest hook, but no sidequest (or anything else) relating to this mysterious illness ever comes up.
• Money Multiplier: The Sephira and Blue Sephira accessories increase all Gald drops by 50% and 100%, respectively. The Blue Sephira is a guaranteed drop from a storyline boss, but fairly late in the game — the regular Sephira is not well-signposted but can be acquired much earlier from Grab Bags (and then upgraded to a Blue Sephira as soon as you acquire your first Rune Bottle from Remiel, still much earlier than the boss fight that drops Blue Sephira).
• Money Spider: Basically every enemy in the game drops Gald whether this makes any sense or not.
• Model Museum: One item you can collect in the game is the Figurine Book. It allows you to view the model of every kind of character in the game. There's also the Monster Book, which allows you to view the models of every monster you encounter.
• Motive Decay: After Martel rejects Mithos, he goes from wanting to bring about an (albeit twisted and unnatural) equality to the world to wanting a world where he can live with his sister, at the cost of leaving the world to die.
• Moveset Clone: Kratos and Zelos have nearly identical movesets. This is accomplished because they both ingested a metal called aionis that can grant humans magical abilities, effectively making them humans with elven blood, and Kratos later becomes an angel as well. It's actually quite a relief, since they take turns traveling with the party, and you don't have to adapt to yet another set of moves. It should be noted there are a few differences between them however: Once Kratos joins up with the other angels he gains the move Judgement, which Zelos cannot get until much later. Zelos also can eventually learn a mystic arte unique only to him called "Divine Judgement". Their fighting styles are also subtly different: Zelos moves quicker than Kratos, and Kratos's fighting animations are arguably better suited to their strike set of moves, while Zelos is arguably better suited to technical.
• Multiple Endings: The last few hours of the game are slightly different depending on who Lloyd watches the snow with while the doctor treats Altessa. The primary thrust of the plot remains the same, but the character chosen gets the main focus in several plot scenes, and joins Lloyd in his quest to collect and destroy all the Exspheres in the world after defeating the Final Boss. One notable deviation from that formula is choosing Kratos results in a slightly modified version of the Colette path, in which Zelos decides to get himself killed at your hands after his apparent betrayal, and Kratos replaces him as a playable party member.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: While player motion is restricted to a 2-D plane between the player and the targeted enemy, the AI, both ally and enemy, can run freely throughout the battlefield. "Free Run" would be granted to the player in later games, but it seems Namco hadn't worked out how to map it to the controller yet in this one.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Nothing good ever comes from an abyss, so it's not exactly shocking when Abyssion's quest to gather the Devil's Arms turns out to be based on false pretenses, and instead of sealing them he invokes their true power.
• The Needs of the Many: When it is revealed that Colette completing the journey of regeneration and becoming an angel will kill her, Lloyd immediately opposes it, but several characters point out that even though it's sad that Colette will die, the alternative is for all of Sylvarant to continue suffering. Lloyd spends a significant portion of the story grappling with this conflict.
• No Flow in CGI: Zig-Zagged. On one hand, Colette's elbow-length hair is stiff as a board; on the other hand, Lloyd's Scarf of Asskicking thing flows pretty realistically (albeit prone to model clipping). To be fair, having an anime opening and several animated cutscenes certainly provides a good comparison between flow levels.
• No Hero Discount: Zig-Zagged. Shops will charge you, but certain events such as the dragon tours and trips to Thoda Geyser will not cost you anything since the people don't want to take money from the Chosen^note Subverted with Thoda; they don't mention that Colette's the Chosen until the return trip. Yet, some people like the old man on Hakonesia Peak will still try to rip you off for a gate pass.
  • Also, you do get a 10% discount in shops if you have Regal's Personal EX-Skill set, as well as a 10% bonus when selling.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • In the OVA, Presea gives one to Regal, after she finds out he killed Alicia, her sister. She tells him to fight back, but he's just too guilt-ridden to do anything. She only stops when Alicia comes back for a few moments to tell her that Regal isn't to blame.
  • Also in the OVA, shortly after Raine, Sheena, Presea and Regal regroup with Lloyd, Genis and Zelos at the top of the Tower of Salvation just before their final showdown with Mithos, Sheena deals one to Zelos for betraying them earlier. However, this is played more for laughs, and mostly occurs in the background while the rest of the group is confronting Mithos. Regal, Presea and Raine kind of join in, but only to hold Zelos in place so Sheena can get him. After that, Sheena does all the work.
• Non-Standard Skill Learning: You can learn skills by getting further in the story, or using another skill a certain number of times.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Kratos. More wrong than you could imagine.
• Now, Where Was I Going Again?: A log keeps track of various story events; incomplete quests are highlighted to remind you, though the way it's written tells you, at best, only what your objective is and not how to go about doing it.
• NPC Amnesia: At one point you have to deliver a letter to a king to help one of your party member friends, but the king is ill and the guards will not let you inside his castle. Just after the first two guards deny you entry, two other guards appear and tell the first two "Your shift's up.". This allows you to leave and come back shortly after you get the help of a future ally who allows you to pretend that you're helping her deliver sacred wood inside the castle.
• NPC Boom Village: Luin starts out as a bustling village that gets utterly flattened by the Desians partway through the game. Over the course of the game, you can donate money to help the village build back up to eventually become even more bustling than it was at the start of the game.
• Numerical Hard: Applies to random battles, and most bosses. Latter bosses do get some new moves though.

O — R

• Old Save Bonus: Tales of Symphonia Chronicles rewards the players who have Save Datas from previous Tales games on the PS3 with costumes from said games, with them being Tales of Graces, Tales of Xillia and Tales of Vesperia; the funny thing is the Western version of Chronicles rewards the player for having a Save Data from Vesperia too, the Japanese Data, Vesperia on the PS3 never got released outside Japan.
• Older Than They Look: Presea, Mithos, Yuan and Kratos, for starters.
• Once is Not Enough: Yggdrasil dies in his third confrontation with the party, and all that's left is his Cruxis Crystal. Genis picks it up, aware that his subconscious might still be inside (if what happened to Alicia was any indication) but wanted to wait until Lloyd used the Eternal Sword to reunite the worlds until doing so, to show him the new world he strived for. Turns out he manages to survive in the crystal and tries to take over Lloyd's body right after making the pact with Origin (only for Lloyd's closest party member to take his place). Even after getting kicked out of that body during The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, he manages to recover his original body for the final battle(s).
• One-Steve Limit: Subverted; the main reason the summoner mentioned by the various Summon Spirits, Mithos, is not thought to be the hero of legend is because it has become a common boy's name. But then it gets played with later when it's revealed that said Mithos is not only the summoner and legendary hero, but also the game's Big Bad.
• Orphaned Etymology: During the formal dance where everyone is dressed up, Genis tells Loyd that Sheena laughed at his outfit and said he looked like he was dressed up for Easter Sunday. Of course, Easter doesn't exist in the story's world since it's a Christian holiday. However, its partially lampshaded as Loyd asks what Easter Sunday is, and Genis responds that its apparently a holiday in Mizuho.^note  In Japanese, the title name is "Shichigosan", a right of passage festival for seven-year-old girls and five and three-year-old boys celebrated on November 15 or the nearest weekend as it is not a national holiday, but very appropriate for a wutai land like Mizuho. As there is no Western equivalent, the best they could come up with was probably Easter.
• Our Elves Are Different: And they're aliens! Eventually deconstructed (like everything else in this game). Lloyd outright tells the elves that their attitude directly led to Cruxis, and the elder even admits that they probably could have prevented everything if they weren't so passive.
• Outcast Refuge: In the world of Tethe'alla is a flying city named Exire. Its basically the one place in both worlds where Half-Elves can live free of the hatred and discrimination they face from everyone.
• Overly Long Gag: The Grand Tethe'alla Bridge joins two continents. It's seven screens long, with one Katz on it. And you have to cross it twice.
• Parental Abandonment: All the main characters, except possibly Presea, Regal and Kratos, as well as the Big Bad. If not for the fact that the game's inherent bias towards idealism means they all get over it, we'd have a Dysfunction Junction on our hands.
• Parlor Games: One NPC in a House of Salvation plays Shiritori with you. No matter who your onscreen character is, you win by always picking something that ends with L, which ticks the NPC off to no end. Alternately, if your avatar is Colette during her time as The Voiceless, the NPC gets mad because she isn't playing at all.
• Permanently Missable Content: Characters may obtain titles that boost stats upon level up. Some of them require doing a specific task (e.g. defeat a boss without receiving a KO earlier in the game), while others get closed off as the plot advances.
• Piñata Enemy: The Dragon in the Temple of Earth is noted in the Gamecube release for dropping a whopping 10000 Gald, making it by far the best target for money farming. This turns out to have been an error; all later releases reduce it to a more on-curve 1000 Gald — but in exchange, the Gold Dragon in Torent Forest has its Gald drop increased from 1052 to 8300.
• Pocket Protector: One of three items can be received in Flanoir — a snow bunny souvenir/good luck charm, a locket with a picture of Kratos, Anna, and baby Lloyd, or Zelos' Cruxis Crystal. All three of them stop an arrow from killing Lloyd in the Tower of Salvation despite none of them being large enough to merit a change his character model.
• Pokémon Speak: Presea in her Klonoa outfit. (She only does this in Altamira.)
• Poor Communication Kills: Several villagers died when Sheena was unable to form a pact with Volt, and she was ostracized for her failure, but because no one could directly communicate with Volt, they had no idea why it attacked them. It wasn't until Raine came along and could translate that Sheena could find out why Volt attacked.
• Power Gives You Wings: The strongest characters are all angels with translucent, multicolored wings. Yggdrasil even has wings on his wrists.
• Power Glows: Certain angels with their glowing translucent colored wings; specifically Colette, the Four Seraphim, Zelos, and Lloyd. Also, Lloyd's Material Blade.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: Exspheres are inert until a person dies wearing it — this is the purpose of human ranches: to work humans to death and power up Exspheres for Cruxis.
• Pragmatic Adaptation: The OVA series gets this a lot, trying to fit entire portions of the storyline into four thirty-minute episodes every arc. While still very well-done, it becomes especially noticeable when Lloyd talks to Colette about their expanded party as if they'd interacted a lot more than seen on-screen—which they do, as evidenced by a flashback earlier in the episode to Sheena and Zelos watching Lloyd at the forge, i.e. a scene unmentioned before said flashback—but since they can't afford to focus on these interactions longer than they do, it can lend to the feeling that there are episode-wide gaps between the strengthening of the party's bonds that the viewer is unfortunately unable to watch. Not that the studio working on the animation doesn't try and even succeed at times to lessen the gap throughout.
• Precious Puppies: A sidequest involves naming all the dogs.
• Precursor Heroes: Mithos's party succeeded in ending the Great War, and Mithos' name went down in history as a great hero.
• Pre Existing Encounters: The first Tales game to use this mechanic instead of Random Encounters.
• Prepare to Die: Sheena says this a lot as a villain, but since she's clumsy, it's ineffectual.
• Prison Episode: This game had Lloyd, the main character, tossed into a Desian prison in the middle of the desert. He busts out on his own, just before the party shows up in time to back him up against Botta.
• Promptless Branching Point: After arriving at Izoold, the game prompts you to take a boat to Palmacosta. If, instead, you hike north to Hima, you will embark on what the fanbase calls the "hard path", in which you unseal Wind before Water. This is significantly more difficult, but has the benefit of Sheena joining earlier than she does on the normal path.
• Punctuated Pounding: More of a Punctuated Sword Rain, but pushing Kratos' berserk button puts you on the receiving end of this trope.
  Kratos: Feel the pain...! *slash* Of those inferior beings...! *slash* As you burn in Hell!!!
• Purposely Overpowered: On a New Game Plus, you can choose to carry over your artes and usage. If you have Genis set for his Technical path, this means you can carry over Indignation... and if you've used it more than 50 times, this means you are effectively carrying over over his Mystic Arte, Indignation Judgement. It does require Over Limit to use (which Genis appears to be locked out of until he has his Exsphere), and this means that you're going to have to control him yourself since Genis' AI knows full well he's a Squishy Wizard, but that's still a Mystic Arte as early as Triet.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Lampshaded by Kratos in a skit found in the Triet area.
  Kratos: Other than the Chosen, our group doesn't look like one that's on a journey to save the world.
• Rare Random Drop: Yellow Quartz from the Golems of the Martel Temple
• Reaction Shot: Happens once, when Genis tries to drag Raine onto the washtubs to Thoda Geyser.
• Red Herring: Raine exhibits some menacing behaviour early on; an Evil Laugh is heard from offscreen with her Leitmotif playing in the background, and upon receiving a Key-Crested Exphere from Lloyd, her eyes light up. All of this leads only to the revelation that she is fascinated by ruins, ancient stuff, the like — NOT that she is going to betray you. Which helps the way Kratos does betray you.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Fittingly to their hair colors, Kratos and Yuan. Although both have learned to act emotionless over the years.
• Red String of Fate: Colette's Necklace, the key item. It is from Lloyd to Colette, and it's literally tied with a Red String.
• Relationship Values: Raised and lowered according to your decisions. Colette, in particular, is almost impossible to shake off unintentionally due to her role as the childhood friend. There are also skits scattered about the world map that raise your status with various characters depending whether or not you answer correctly, but you don't get punished if you choose the wrong answer.
• Revenge Is Sweet: Lloyd eventually encounters Kvar, the person responsible for his mother's death, one of many half-elves who believes in Fantastic Racism towards humans as "inferior beings". After a boss battle, Lloyd and Kratos jump in to deliver the finishing blow on Kvar, with Kratos saying "Feel the pain of those inferior beings as you burn in Hell!" to Kvar. The whole time, this vengeance on Lloyd's behalf is treated as cathartic, righteous, and justified. Even moreso when it's revealed that Lloyd's mother was the wife of Kratos, since Kratos is Lloyd's father, meaning that Kratos also too his own revenge. This makes Kvar's death even more righteous in the game's narrative.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: The Renegades, like the protagonists, are also against the Desians, but their methods routinely involve murder, including trying to kill the Chosen so she won't complete the pilgrimage.
• Rings of Death: Colette uses chakrams in combat. The fact that most of them are obviously magic may explain their boomerang abilities.

S

• Schizo Tech: Justified in Sylvarant because the Desians have been stunting the technological advances of the rest of the world. Played straight in Tethe'alla which is mostly post-Renaissance in design, except for Sybak (which is a Steampunk town) and Altamira (a modern resort town with skyscrapers and working elevators).
• Screw the Rules, They Broke Them First!: A very nasty subversion happens very early on. Iselia has a non-aggression treaty with the Desian human ranch, stating that Iselia will be unharmed as long as nobody interferes with the ranch. When a bunch of uniformed half-elven Faceless Goons charge through the town and attack the temple, everyone cites that the Desians have broken the treaty, which Genis uses to justify saving a victim at the ranch. Turns out, those weren't Desians; they were Renegades, and Forcystus, the ranch leader, proceeds to 'bring judgement' upon Iselia.
• Scripted Battle: The first Hopeless Boss Fight against Yggdrasil comes right after some other tough bosses, setting it up to be even more of a Curb-Stomp Battle than its hopeless nature would imply.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Desians. Subverted once we learn what they're doing during the time they're supposedly "sealed away."
• Secret Shop: It's in Luin, after you rebuild it. And they sell the strongest Lethal Joke Items that money can buy.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: The human ranches all come with self-destruct buttons, which the heroes use to ensure the Desians can't regroup after the prisoners are freed. Why they're there in the first place isn't explained, though they at least seem to have been built under the assumption that no human would be have the technical knowhow to activate them — which is true, because it's Raine who figures out how to do it.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Once the party gets ahold of the Eternal Sword, which has the power to transcend space and time, a skit shows Lloyd and Raine contemplating the possibility of using it to change the past, in a Call-Forward to Tales of Phantasia where that game's party did exactly that. Lloyd decides against it, realizing that they don't have the right to tamper with time, especially considering the odds of messing this up even worse.
• Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!: Time and again, Lloyd and eventually the group proves that there's always a better way of solving the world's problems then just putting one in danger or forcing everyone to be the same. Essentially, they show that actually trying to do the right thing instead of what is necessary will actually change the world.
• Share Phrase: "Inferior beings!" is this for the Desians, an organization of half-elves who look down upon humans as a lesser race and imprison them in human ranches to perform deadly experiments on them and force them to perform backbreaking labour. The player will most likely have the phrase drilled into their heads even by the time they're only a third of the way through the story, since most Desians they encounter will rattle it off as a dying scream when defeated in battle. But when Remiel, one of the angels who has been watching over the party as they undergo their journey to regenerate the world, also refers to them as "inferior beings", it's a massive tip-off that both Cruxis' angels and the Desians are essentially two parts of a singular group.
• Sherlock Can Read: When Lloyd and Genis are trying to catch up with Colette's group, they pay a fortuneteller in Triet to "divine" their location, and she tells them they're headed for the nearby ruins. Genis is skeptical, but the fortuneteller informs him that "The Chosen's companion said so, so there's no doubt."
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Zelos is repeatedly shown attempting nudge Lloyd and Sheena together once he recognizes that Sheena seems to have developed a crush on Lloyd. This is in spite of the fact he himself appears to have feelings for Sheena and is otherwise irked by the crush.
  • In the OVA's where Lloyd's relationship with Colette gets the most romantic framing, almost the entire party is seen rooting for them in some form.
• Ship Tease:
  • Done for every member of the party with the Flanoir cutscenes. The ones with Colette and Sheena are decidedly romantic (the creators obviously knew that people were going to ship regardless), and the other ones explore other types of affection.
  • Some skits are decidedly shippy. In one, Genis point blank tells Lloyd to tell Colette he loves her. Another one has Lloyd, in his idiocy, makes Sheena think he's willing to marry her. Yet another one has Sheena mention that Seles attacked her once, which turns out to be because Zelos told her that Sheena was "his hunny".
  • Aside from the relationships with Lloyd, the narrative teases numerous times that there seems to be something between Zelos and Sheena, and Genis develops a massive crush on Presea.
  • It's worth noting the OVA series, which focuses more on the Lloyd/Colette narrative, also makes the apparent bond between Sheena and Zelos more obvious (though still rather ambiguous).
    • The OVA in general cranks up the Ship Tease between Lloyd and Colette quite dramatically.
  • Minor characters get Ship Tease too; Harley and Aisha in Asgard, the supposed Love Triangle between Lyla, Max and Aifreed, Pronyma is implied to be an Ignored Enamored Underling, etc.
• Shoot the Medic First: In the superboss fight in the Meltokio Coliseum group battle mode, it is absolutely vital to take down Meredy first — if you don't, she'll just bring back whoever you did take out with Resurrection. On higher difficulties the enemy team brings Life Bottles, so you have to take her down multiple times before you can take down her party members.
• Short Range Guy, Long Range Guy: The game's battle system allows characters to move freely, but heavy reliance on magic makes it a better idea for Genis and Raine to stay at long range. ^note  Your resourcefulness and knowledge of the characters (and equippable items) will be put to the test in single coliseum tournaments.
• Shout-Out:
  • Several, such as the the snow statues of Namco characters like Pac-Man in the first game. The Tales developers gave one to themselves with the names of the worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, which are taken from the moons of Tales of Phantasia's world.
  • Someone in the slums of Meltokio says that he heard there was a cute flower girl somewhere in the slums, but it turns out to be just a rumor.
  • Raine's mother going insane to the point of viewing a doll as her own daughter is an idea lifted straight out of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Some of the equipment items are also shout outs. The straw hat and Beam Shield, for example.
  • There is also a couple on one of the boats moored in Palmacosta. If you talk to them, the guy suggests he and the girl do that thing like in that movie, at which point he tries to lift her up over the bow and she screams.
  • One side quest involves finding a woman's four daughters. Two of the daughter's names? Jo and Beth.
  • Tethe'alla's capital Mel-tokio is named after the Japanese capital Tokyo. The mountain that is associated with Meltokio, Fooji Mountain or Mt. Fooji, is named after Mt. Fuji. Meltokio itself is very European themed however.
  • Abyssion's physical appearance is an obvious reference to Dragon Ball Z. Moreso in the PS2 version onward where his hair is changed from red to fiery gold.
  • One of Zelos' titles, gained after wearing a full suit of golden armor, is a reference to Gil.
  • While Genis is asking the other party members for tips for a present to give to Presea, when he gets to Raine and asks what she would want she answers The Necronomicon.
  • A subtle one, but in the Altamira Amusement Park, there is a flustered employee dressed in a dog costume trying to comfort a lost child, which may be a reference to a Japanese children's song called Inu no Omawari-san (The Dog Policeman in English), best known outside of Japan as the startup tune of older versions of Frogger.
  • In the original GameCube version, the rotating lock in the Sylvarant Base is a platinum GameCube, recognizable by its distinctive circular top plate (complete with the logo). gray front controller panel, and fan grille. For obvious reasons, this was changed to a nondescript object in subsequent re-releases on PS2, PS3, PC, and eighth generation systems. Even the Switch version, the first time the game was released on Nintendo hardware since the original, has the same nondescript item in the Sylvarant Base.
  • An orange GameCube is visible as a background object in a scene in the Elemental Research Laboratory. Surprisingly, this one was never edited out when the game was rereleased on other systems.
  • In the sewers of Meltokio, you can encounter Bacura, the spinning plate enemies from Namco's popular arcade game Xevious.
• Side Quest: This game may have the most side quests of any RPG ever. It takes many hours to complete them all, and they can be challenging and fun, even adding a great deal to your arsenal if you complete them. You can get all the way up to getting the Derris-Kharlan Seal and still complete most of them, but because of story branching, it will take more than one playthrough to get 100% Completion.
• Similar Squad: Lampshaded with a little debate amongst the characters from each world about who their counterparts from the opposite world are.
• Slice-and-Dice Swordsmanship: Subverted with Lloyd's Twin Blade sets. All of them have separate statistics for "Slash" and "Thrust", which are usually uneven values, and there is even an Infinity -1 Sword for both values; that doesn't stop him from slashing with a rapier or thrusting with a katana.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Lloyd, The Hero, starts out being very idealistic, but he gets a few reality checks which cause him to see there are obstacles to the creation of the world he envisions, and he slides closer to the middle of the scale.
• Snow Means Death: Zelos's backstory, revealed in his Flanoir Doctor Scene, in which a very vivid mental image of his mother's murder in the snow is left.
• Snow Means Love: The Flanoir doctor scene shown in the intro with Colette's respective scene, is a bonding moment between Lloyd and one of the other party members as they watch the snow. It's not necessarily romantic love, but whoever Lloyd goes outside with becomes his most important person for the remainder of the game. In the OVA (which picks Colette), it's a bit more romantic, as instead of just asking "can I come a little closer", Colette outright holds hands with Lloyd.
• Soft Water: Averted; when Lloyd recommends jumping the gap on a raising drawbridge that spans continents, Zelos points out that the fall will kill them if they miss the jump. Only some quick-thinking summon magic on Sheena's part saves them.
• Solve the Soup Cans: Many puzzles revolve around this; the most blatant example is the "quest" to obtain the Ymir Fruit. You have to change the Sorcerer's Ring to make a pig slam into a tree so that the tree drops a magic seed, which you plant, which then cause magic flowers to appear on the lily pads. Then you use one of the magic flowers on the lily pads to summon a fish that pushes a chest so you get a third magic seed. You plant this one, and then magic flowers sprout on branches. You jump onto the branches and summon a bird that takes you to a place where you shove a box into the water to make a bridge and to the other side of a rock you have to shatter with a pig-summon in order to clear a path for the fruit, which you have to get over via the box bridge. Then you use a pig to make the fruit fall into the water, summon a pig to hit a tree to drop worms to distract a bigger fish that would eat the fruit, then summon a smaller fish to push the fruit past the big fish, then summon more worms to push the fruit down so that a fish waiting on the next screen wouldn't eat it, then summon the fish to swim to the next screen, time the next fish summon so that the fish swims past yet another big fish, then the fish swims through the path you created by destroying that rock with the pigs, then finally, FINALLY, you can leap onto a lily pad to grab the fruit. Why you have to do all this when one of your characters can call upon the Summon Spirit of Water and another one can fly is never explained. The only explanation for why you need to do this at all is that there's a kid blocking the path to your actual goal and he won't move unless you give him the fruit, which he needs to cure his sick mother — but neither he nor his mother ever appear again afterward.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Due to its nature as a Compressed Adaptation that plays rather loosely with the ordering and reasoning for certain plot events (and omitting several altogether), in the OVA, Yuan's right-hand-man Botta survives to see the reunification of the world, whereas halfway through the game he makes a Heroic Sacrifice to save the party from a flooding, self-destructing enemy base.
• Spoiler Cover: As you can see at the top of this very page, the Gamecube cover has Sheena depicted alongside Lloyd in a fighting pose, making it obvious that she's going to join the party at some point.
• Spoiler Opening: Spoilers shown in the opening cinematic:
  • It opens with a still of a blonde-haired angel. That's not Colette, that's Mithos.
  • Sheena attacks and kills an enemy, just like all your other eventual allies, spoiling her Heel–Face Turn.
  • Lloyd prepares to battle with Kratos in Torent Forest, an event which doesn't happen until nearly the end of the game.
• Static Role, Exchangeable Character: In Derris-Kharlan, all of your party members except Lloyd's soulmate are captured and have to be rescued from a psychological trap. The scenes were written on the assumption Colette would be the soulmate, but if someone else was picked, she'll take their place, playing approximately the same role but with a slightly different spin.
• Stat Sticks: Raine's Devil's Arm is useful even without unsealing its true power, as it massively boosts her Intelligence stat. Unsealing it only benefits the damage from swinging it, which, as the healer of the group, Raine shouldn't really be doing much of in the first place — on top of which, the damage boost scales to the number of enemies Raine has personally defeated, which, again, her role isn't particularly suited to.
• Stealth Pun: The light seal is in the Tower of Mana, an old library. Why put the light seal in a library? Because books are enlightening.
• Stepford Smiler: Zelos. Big time. See: His Flanoir scene, or the cutscene in which you kill him if you chose Kratos in Flanoir. Mithos, as a type C, might count, too, at least until The Reveal.
• Stock Animal Diet: A handful of item drops from animal enemies are food that that animal might eat — rabbits can drop carrots, snakes can drop eggs, and rats can drop cheese.
• "Stop the Hero" Twist: Throughout the heroes' adventure to regenerate their world from centuries of decay, they are continuously attacked by a mysterious assassin trying to kill Collette, The Chosen One. Near what's supposed to be the end of their journey, they learn that the assassin, Sheena, is from another world that's connected to this one, and if the heroes are successful, her world will start to decay like their own. This revelation sparks a far more expansive adventure where they learn that the journey of the chosen was a big lie perpetrated by the bad guys behind the original separation of the two worlds.
• Story Branch Favoritism: In Flanoir, choosing to talk to Kratos instead of any other potential choice has far-reaching consequences for the rest of the game. Firstly, even getting the scene is a bit of a Guide Dang It!, since you have to reject the three other characters that Lloyd has built up affection for (and even then, if your relationship with the Guide Dang It! character wasn't high enough, the scene won't trigger in the PlayStation versions). Secondly, this turns Zelos's fake Face–Heel Turn into a real Face–Heel Turn, and you're forced to kill him in a boss battle. That causes major problems at the end of the game, since the character you abandon is required for a good number of endgame skits, cutscenes and sidequests, while the optional secret character has none. Thirdly, getting the secret character also locks in Colette as Lloyd's soul mate, which meant if you wanted to see Lloyd pair up with anyone else, you're out of luck.
  • And on top of all of this? It's non-canon. The sequel definitively shows that Zelos is still alive.
• Stupidity Is the Only Option:
  • Nobody apart from Zelos seems to find it suspicious that they found Mithos, the only survivor of Ozette being destroyed, who looks eerily like Colette, is a half-elf, can do magic, has some kind of magical flute and doesn't seem remotely injured or dirty (unlike Sheena was in Luin, ironically, Raine suspected that Sheena's situation was a trap) despite being trapped in a huge forest fire.
  • Raine admits she knew there was something suspicious about Kratos, especially his "surprising breadth of knowledge" regarding pacts, how he knew not to move Colette when she was suffering from Angel Toxicosis, etc. Unfortunately, she was unable to put her finger on exactly what that was until it was too late, and since Kratos was an important party member, they needed him with them to help protect Lloyd, Colette and Genis.
• Sue Donym: The main male cast does this in the drama CD Maid in Altamira, where they dressed up as maids in a Maid café. Lloyd becomes Lloydie, Zelos Zelda, Genis Ginny, Regal Regala, and Kratos Kratty. Of course, the names don't keep them from running off the customers.

T — Z

• Taking the Bullet: Repeatedly in short succession, in the second visit to the Tower of Salvation.
• Techno Babble: When opening the Seal of Fire Raine launches into one. She talks about how it's made of Polycarbonate and how that makes it magic resistant. Anyone who's taken chemistry or wears glasses knows that Polycarbonate is a type of plastic. It's also the first hint that this isn't a standard fantasy game.
• Temporary Party Member to Villain: Magic Knight Kratos Aurion joins the party early on, promising to help escort Colette and the party to the Tower of Salvation so Colette can regenerate the world, and acts as a bit of a Crutch Character. Once there, he reveals himself to be a member of Cruxis, the Ancient Conspiracy behind the current nature of the world, which coupled with The Reveal that the ceremony will result in Colette suffering Death of Personality, leads to an Open-Ended Boss Battle between Kratos and the party. He's only playable one further time beyond this point.
• Terrible Artist: Whichever Desian drew the "Wanted!" Poster of Lloyd seems to have art skills comparable to a ten-year-old, as the drawing has no depth, gives Lloyd the weirdest facial expression, and overall looks more like a caricature than an actual portrait. Posters of the entire party in this style were released in October 2023 as a Milestone Celebration of the game's 20th anniversary.
• Terse Talker: Shadow speaks mainly in one or two-word sentences.
• Theme Naming:
  • Religious and Mythological Theme Naming:
    • Kratos and Zelus (Zelos) are the names of two winged Greek god bothers that were in the service of Zeus. The mythological Kratos is the personification of strength and power, whereas Zelus is the personification of dedication, emulation, eager rivalry, envy, jealousy, and zeal. And while this one might be coincidental, Colette's name is distantly derived from a variant on Nike, one of their sisters and the goddess of victory.
    • Yggdrasill is the name of a World Tree from Norse Mythology.
  • Asgard is where the Norse gods hang out.
• Third-Option Adaptation: The Manga's ending is canon. The OVA series ends up giving Lloyd three traveling companions instead of a single 'soulmate' character in the story epilogue: Colette, Zelos, and Sheena (who are arguably the most important and commonly picked of Lloyd's potential 'soulmates').
• Too Many Belts: Lloyd, Kratos and Forcystus all love 'em. Kratos's alternate costume takes it up a notch.
• Trauma Inn: One town has three as a result of being a tourist attraction, and they all charge different rates.
• True-Breeding Hybrid: The majority of half-elves are the children of two other half-elves, from communities made entirely thereof. They greatly exceed the numbers and geographic distribution of the pure elves, who are only shown occupying a single Hidden Elf Village. Exire is a whole self-sustaining village of half-elves, most of whom have never even seen a human
• Tsundere: Every female elf is apparently a Type A. If Zelos speaks to them with his Personal Ex Skill equipped, they all give rather scathing responses about how much trouble humans like Zelos cause, then give him an item just like every other woman Zelos talks to.
  • Zelos himself is actually a variant of a Type A Tsundere, where he has difficulties showing or accepting genuine kindness without also being dismissive or turning everything into a joke.
  • Zelos's sister Seles is very tsundere towards her brother, being very rude to him when they see each other but also wishing him well when he's out of earshot.
• Turn Coat: Several characters, but particularly Yuan, who alternates between trying to capture/kill Lloyd and co. and assisting them with alarming frequency.
• Turns Red:
  • Celes, in her optional fight in the Meltokio Coliseum, will start fighting more aggressively and using a wider variety of moves after losing enough HP, signalled by their hat falling off.
  • Superboss Abyssion starts using attacks like Indignation Judgment and Meteor Storm when his HP is low.
• Unaffected by Spice: A Gnomelette in the Temple of Earth wants to experience "spiciness" and demands the party make some spicy curry. Depending on who is picked to cook, the ensuing cutscene implies to some degree that Gnomelettes don't actually have a sense of taste, making the Gnomelette able to eat it no matter how spicy the cook made it.
• The Unchosen One: It is Lloyd, not Colette or Zelos, who rallies everyone to save the world.
• Unlockable Difficulty Levels: Mania mode, a third difficulty level above Hard mode, unlocks upon completing the game for the first time.
• Unicorns Are Sacred: Averted; even though you have to kill a Unicorn to get its horn to heal someone, the unicorn reveals that its death just means a new unicorn will be born elsewhere, so there is no "curse," nor is it an evil act, to kill a unicorn for a greater good.
• The Unintelligible: As per Tales custom, Volt is unable to speak normally (this time, just communicating with a series of "..."s (which might also make him a Silent Bob.)
• The Unreveal: At the end of the game, the spirit of the new mana tree makes a point of telling Lloyd to give the tree a Meaningful Rename, but the cutscene ends right before we hear it. It's never explicitly stated within the game, but context clues both in and out of universe suggest that the tree will be named Yggdrasill.
• Updated Re-release: The game has had bad luck remakes over the years. The PS2 version of the game had a few extra costumes for everyone as well as optional extra battles and even new moves for most of the cast, including Mystic Artes, but also a lower frame rate. Overseas players would have to wait ten years to be able to try these with the HD rerelease in 2014. A second HD rerelease, for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch, titled Tales of Symphonia Remastered, came out in early 2023 — and sadly, it's considered the worst of the lot.
• Video Game 3D Leap: First game in the series to use 3D battles, although free-range 3D running didn't come until Tales of the Abyss.
• Video Game Stealing: Colette's "Item Thief" tech can steal an extra item from enemies in battle. When this isn't just another chance at an item the enemy could drop, it's still usually the same kind of thing as the normal drops — for example, Hares drop Pork and can have Beast Hide stolen from them, both of which are normal spoils of hunting^note ignoring, of course, that you're getting pork from a hare — but sometimes it's way out of left field (you can steal a Magic Lens from a Harpy, for some reason!). "Item Rover" lets Colette grab 500 Gald alongside stealing an item.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Kilia changes voluntarily from some kind of purple monster-thing into a human child to infiltrate Dorr and back when fighting the group.
• "Wanted!" Poster:
  • When Lloyd and Genis arrive in Triet, they see Desians putting up posters of Lloyd in hopes of capturing him for his special Exsphere. The art is hilariously childish, and Genis asserts that it's so bad he'll never be recognized. Naturally, they're caught on the way out of town by a Desian who recognized Lloyd from the poster. These posters can be seen in towns throughout Sylvarant for the rest of the game.
  • After the party gets themselves accused of treason against Tethe'alla, wanted posters of Lloyd go up around Meltokio. Unlike the Desians' posters, these have a reasonably accurate portrait.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: It's a Tales Series game. Most of the villains, except the Grand Cardinals except Forcystus, who was a half-elf hero who wanted to help his people.
• Wham Episode:
  • The first visit to the Tower of Salvation, where you discover that Remiel and his organization, Cruxis, were evil all along, and he isn't Colette's father, and you fight him, and then Kratos betrays you while revealing he's one of the top brass of Cruxis, and then you fight him, and then Yggdrasil appears, and then you fight him, too, in a Hopeless Boss Fight.
  • After making pacts with all eight Summon Spirits, not only does nothing get better, but Palmacosta is destroyed. And discovering the existence of Tethe'alla is like this.
• Wham Line:
  • After defeating Sheena in her second fight, Colette asks why she's trying to assassinate the Chosen who will save the world, to which Sheena says "THIS world will be saved!", revealing that there's another world, and the ritual of regeneration is more complicated than you've been told.
  • At the final seal, during some argument, Remiel lets slip something shocking: "My daughter? Don't make me laugh! When I came down here to play the role of guardian angel, you inferior beings started calling me that on your own." Not only has he revealed that he was lying about being Colette's father, but by using the Desians' Share Phrase, he's made it clear that the angels that have been presenting themselves as the world's benevolent divinities are actually on the same side as the magical fascists that have served as the game's primary antagonists up til now.
  • The dying words of Remiel at the final seal are to beg for help — from Kratos, who he addresses as "Lord", indicating that not only is Kratos also part of Cruxis, he's a high-ranking member of the faction you just learned to have been Evil All Along.
• What Does She See in Him?: This group victory quote:
  Colette: Lloyd! You looked so cool!
  Genis: I’m starting to wonder about your taste, Colette.
  Lloyd: What’s that supposed to mean?
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Several characters abruptly vanish after their final scenes with no explanation; Kate disappears from Zelos' house and is never mentioned again if you complete the "save Princes Hilda" sidequest, if you heal Clara, she apparently just sits there in Izoold and is unaware Palmacosta is destroyed and her husband and daughter are dead, Exire never lands, Chocolat disappears after she's rescued from Iselia's ranch, etc.
  • Clara becomes the new Governor-General of Palmacosta in the sequel, continuing to protect it like her husband did. Chocolat has also returned to Palmacosta.
• World Tree: The Giant Kharlan Tree, come from Derris-Kharlan and destroyed during the Kharlan War^note You know, for all that elves are clever clogs, they certainly are an unimaginative lot when it comes to naming things. A new one sprouts by the end of the game. As shown in Phantasia, Lloyd named it 'Yggdrassil'.
• World of Silence: Welgaia, which is populated by many angels, has many residents that are almost completely devoid of emotions.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: The discrepancies and contradictions of ages between Presea, her younger sister Alicia, Regal and who went through the Angelus Project first is such a Mind Screw that most people just tend to not think about it.
• Wutai: Mizuho. It's even one of the classical names of Japan.
• You Can Barely Stand: During your first trip to the Tower of Salvation, if you lose the fight against Kratos, you face Yggdrasill with 1 HP per character. Yggdrasill has 40,000 HP, and your attacks do practically nothing, though, the boss fight is hopeless either way.
  • This is said to Sheena word-for-word in the destroyed Luin.
• You Lose at Zero Trust: If the character bodyjacked by Mithos has unusually low affection (which is pretty unlikely, as this character is either the chosen soulmate or, on Kratos's route, Colette, who tends to have high affection no matter what), they'll be rescued at the end of Welgaia instead of the beginning. This relatively minor example is the only time the game punishes the player for lowering a character's affection.
• You Monster!: A frequent reaction by the protagonists after witnessing the atrocities that the Desians commit. Kvar and Rodyle are the most common targets of this trope; the former even gets this from his own men.
• You Shall Not Pass!:
  • Used word-for-word by Regal during the endgame Final Battle.
  • Also used by Forcystus when the party assaults the Iselia Human Ranch in order to shut down its Mana Reactor before stopping the berserk Kharlan Tree.
• Zero-G Spot: There's an area while descending the Tower of Salvation where gravity doesn't work. A skit that can pop up in this area involves Zelos fantasizing about bringing a girl up here for "fun", which Lloyd misinterprets as playing tag.
• Zip Mode:
  • The game often lets you "quick jump" through a dungeon you have already traversed when you have to go back to its final room for plot reasons. One time it simply doesn't happen. Lloyd gets amusingly frustrated about it in a rare moment of Breaking the Fourth Wall.
  • A few NPCs in Sylvarant ask to be escorted somewhere else, such as between Palmacosta and Hakonesia Peak. Accepting their offer instantly teleports them and the player party to their destination.

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