You know that feeling you get when you've been wandering in the desert aimlessly for what seems like an eternity, and then you stumble upon an oasis a mile wide, surrounded by a bevy of nude supermodels carrying hamburgers and filled with the cleanest, crispest water? Or maybe you recognize the feeling of being locked in a box forever with no food, and then finally being released to find a huge banquet placed in front of you, on a table made of gold bars and propped up by Cirque Du Soleil performance artists?

That's probably the only good way to describe the unique feeling of opening up Namco's newest GameCube-exclusive roleplayer for the first time. The GameCube's been without a real RPG ace since it was released in late 2001; yeah, there's been a few bones tossed its way like Evolution Worlds, Summoner: A Goddess Reborn or the Lost Kingdoms card RPG series...but those were hardly anything to crow about. Sure, the little six-sided system scored an exclusive Final Fantasy title earlier this year with the multiplayer Crystal Chronicles; of course, that game was as much a straightforward Final Fantasy game as the Insane Clown Posse are talented musicians.

Even the undeniably awesome Skies of Arcadia Legends was a slightly gussied-up Dreamcast hand-me-down. It's not even worth the time to mention the PS2's embarrassment of riches when it comes to fantasy games, and the Xbox, which isn't exactly stocked with the stuff of swords and spells itself, received the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic in 2003 as its signature roleplayer - but the 'Cube was still without something to really call its own. That's all over with Tales of Symphonia, the newest installment in Namco's top-flight RPG line and as true a roleplayer as you can get without cracking open a Dungeonmaster's Guide. All the good stuff RPG fanatics love is here; vaguely angsty teens with magical powers and gravity-defying hairdos, dungeons and secrets galore, scads of monsters to fight - and all tied together with perhaps the most streamlined battle system in RPGs to date. ToS goes straight for the Square-Enix jugular here; is their effort rewarded?

The story of Symphonia is a twisty, turny one and is sort of difficult to explain (go ahead; try to explain what mana depletion and angels have to do with alternate worlds and salvation towers, and see if your friends aren't ready to pad your room - I DARE YOU), but it's pretty much the obligatory "chosen one picks up his/her sword/wand/turntables and totally saves the world to the extreme" deal. The plot is fairly well done regardless, clichés-be-damned; besides, the Tales series of RPGs has never had "story" as a strong suit, so for it to be as good as it is this go-around is a plus anyway.

The gameplay begins as standard RPG fare too; you know, overworld, towns and dungeons, battle mode - the whole nine. The basic progression has you on the vast overworld map gleefully removing the burden of existence of monsters for experience, money and items, and hunting down the next dungeon or town to get down to business in. The overworld's vastness gets a little tiresome as you and your party are charged to go back and forth across it, but you get new modes of travel as your progress through the game. The storyline is generally advanced when you're in towns; those are where you'll come across jobs to do, party skits that reveal things about the plot and characters in the game, minigames now and again, and so forth. Of course, that's also where you'll come across the majority of the NPCs that'll drop signs regarding where you have to go next or what you have to take care of the advance further - business as usual, right? It's fair enough to think so at first...but Tales of Symphonia, more so than any of the Tales series games before it, is a bit of a kick in the ass for those who are expecting nothing but the norm when it's time to knuckle up.

Combat in ToS is governed by a real-time battle system that's not like any other game out there. Yeah, you're still fighting with your party against monsters that you pick a fight with or pick a fight with you; however, that's where most similarities with other games ends. Instead of rocking a staid menu system as found in other roleplayers, you directly control Tales' battles. Using various inputs and combinations of the A, B and directional buttons deals attacks, combinations, counters, blocks and parries from the character in your party you choose to control in battle, not unlike a game of Street Fighter or something. Movement on the battlefield is in a 3D plane, but technically since you can only move forward and backwards in a line when targeting a foe, attacks take place in a 2D plane.

Your party's characters have unique skills that they can use aside from the normal moves which use technique points (TP), and these usually are more powerful; depending on the character, they have different magical or physical properties. There are other, more complex and devastating maneuvers such as unison attacks, EX skills, and more; these are learned and unlocked through experimenting with attack combinations and repeated usage, among other methods. Characters can be statistically customized in every conceivable way with EX Gems and Skills, and further combat depth comes from setting your party's computer AI. Should you set your magic users to be more aggressive, or be support healers? Should your attackers act more like tanks and set up for powerful summon spells, or should they make with the wanton smashing and bashing? It's all up to you, and such settings can be changed at any time, making AI management as important as item management or party micromanagement with health/TP and such. You can also switch control to any other character at anytime, so if your healer's AI commands aren't getting that healing spell to your fighters quickly enough for your liking, you can do it yourself with no problem.

Tales of Symphonia's battle system doesn't have time to play with you or your wussy "I gotta open a menu and wait for a time bar!" sensibilities; you won't have time to get bored of long, drawn-out slugfests, since most scraps are done before your weak, Dragon Warrior-addled mind can process what you did on screen – bitchin’. Battles are hectic and tend to be short - a half-minute for the average skirmish, and maybe 5/6 minutes for a real barnburner of a boss battle - but they're great fun each and every time, not to mention difficult as you get to the more powerful monsters. The real-time battle system takes a little time and effort to learn, but it rewards perseverance with some of the coolest fighting to be found in any RPG. Best of all, if you've got other RPG fans dying to get a piece of the action, they can just plug in another controller and get to scrapping alongside you, instantly taking manual control of another character in the party. In between fights however, other players can't do anything like move around the overworld or a dungeon or whatever, so don't get your hopes too high. Send your wingmen to grab you some snacks or solve a Rubik's Cube or whatever while you're exploring; that's what all the cool kids do.

That isn't to say that non-combat events aren't fun either, now. The typical dungeon crawl in Tales of Symphonia is home to puzzles that wouldn't seem out of place in a Legend of Zelda or Wild Arms game - box pushing, lighting things on fire, pulling levers, magic/elemental puzzles, and everything else you can think of to open doors, unlock new areas and do other RPG-ish things. These puzzle types are smartly done and are sometimes even approach the entertainment level of a good battle. Seriously. The game's also got some boring crap in it, affectionately referred to as "fetch quests". All things considered, few games in general, much less role-playing games, don't have fetch quests in them, so you can't really fault Namco for putting them in here...but man, these things are always a pain in the ass. Despite the later stages of the game having more of these fetch quests than there should be, you'll want to see it all the way through. Thankfully, seeing it all the way through is a pleasure, and one that lasts quite a while at that; Tales of Symphonia's easily got 45 hours or so in it - and that's not necessarily with having done everything there is to do in the game.

A lengthy quest, excellent combat, surprising multiplayer support, and every imaginable RPG convention there is...Namco's Tales of Symphonia is jam-packed with everything a marquee roleplayer's gameplay is supposed to have. The story isn't too bad either, and the characters are pretty cool, if a little bit generic. GameCube owners will definitely want to grab Tales on gameplay merits alone; the question now is how the visuals hold up? Thankfully, the graphics whores'll eat this one up too.

Tales of Symphonia is rendered in a cel-shaded style that evokes the 2D heritage of its predecessors while cleanly making the big leap to 3D graphics. Everything in the game, from dungeons and towns to characters and items, looks like it was ripped out of your favorite hyperkinetic Japanese anime; however, Namco still managed to put in work on the visuals to amazing effect. Towns, shrines, battlefields and backgrounds all have distinct looks to them and are designed vibrantly, with nothing half-assed when it comes to sweating the details. Weather-beaten rocks, undulating waves, tree bark, reflections, shadows and however many little details that Tales Studio could work in while crafting the eye candy to lend the cel-shaded visuals some oomph are in there, and the effort is much appreciated. The character models are nicely done and all unique, even though they tend to animate a little less than perfectly. The most notable thing about the switch from sprites to polygons here is that even with all the new bells and whistles afforded by the third dimension, the framerate is locked in at a blazing 60 FPS, almost never faltering. That's a beautiful thing really, especially because the gameplay is dependent on the responsive controls and pinpoint accuracy you'd find more often in a fighting game than the average roleplayer.

The audio is probably the least impressive thing about Tales of Symphonia; all things considered though, that's only because it's merely above average as far as game music goes. It's sufficiently epic when it needs to be, and there are a few battle themes that you'll probably be humming for a while after your done, but overall it's a utilitarian effort. The sound is pretty nifty though; the game goes for the super-stylized look of a hyperkinetic Japanese cartoon, and the sounds match the style to great effect. Crashes, thuds, slashes and spells sound sufficiently satisfying, which is par the course naturally.

For what seemed like eternity, GameCube owners were pretty much assed out when it came to swords and sorcery...and sometimes, it didn't seem like there was going to be any break in the drought coming at all. Lucky for gamers everywhere, Namco came out with mana pools blazing and brought us all this gem of an RPG. Tales of Symphonia is everything you could want in a big-name roleplayer, right down to the flashy attacks and heroes with gravity and logic-defying hairdos. However, don't be mistaken; Tales also brings its own nuances to the table - most notably its uniquely action-packed battle system - and manages to stand out as an ace on its own merit, even within the crowd of high-caliber RPGs on the Playstation 2 and elsewhere. Wannabe heroes, Final Fantasy fanatics, and everyone else in between looking for a meaty game to sink your teeth into - look no further. Tales of Symphonia is a must-purchase for the GameCube, and a top 10 RPG this console generation, period.