Okami
Tales of Symphonia
Tales of Symphonia and Okami both have the same kind of humor. There are characters Issun and Tenebrae who tell awful jokes. You ask what is the point of the same awful jokes? A character who tells awful jokes is much funnier than a character who tells good jokes.
The skits in ToS are optional and can be cleared away with a touch of the C button. There is this one skit in Tales of Symphonia in which Tenebrae advises Marta to withhold all of the gels from Emil. Marta responds "that would be cruel." She reflects with "Wouldn't it?" Her laugh and Tenebrae's laugh never fail to crack me up. The skits are voice acted.
What really makes the gameplay interesting for me is that the level up points for the monsters that you raise can be distributed as you like among HP, TP, P. Atk., A. Atk., P. Def., A. Def., Dex. You can raise the same monster over but have it different each time. You also get a randomly chosen, but fixed, freebie Arte for each monster. The freebies restore HP, TP, life, and status health; buff attack, defense or dexterity; control the elemental grid; boost drop Luck or boost pact Luck. Some of my pets has been real losers but one or two have been immortal.
Symphonia uses a circular weakness scheme. Water is strong against Fire isa Ice isa Wind isa Earth isa Lightning isa Water. Plant is strong against Aquatic isa Beast isa Bird isa Insect isa Plant. Freeform is strong against Magical Being isa Ghost isa Demon isa Dragon isa Freeform.
There is a cooking game with your monsters. You chose food category. Stats can be increased or decreases The "gain" to the (synch) stat that raises the chance of your monster using its freebie Arte is indicated to you before you feed. What happens to the other stats depends on which of 5 sub recipes the games picks. There are some rules. Character and your (ingredient) inventory limit sub recipe.
