Tales of Symphonia - Development and Release

Development and Release

The game was first announced on May 8, 2002 by Namco to be one of the many titles it will be releasing on the Nintendo Gamecube. Namco stated it would be a part of the Tales of Phantasia series and expects comics, animation, drama CDs and novels to be spun off from the game. Its name was revealed to be Tales of Symphonia on February 2003. An April 2003 edition of Famitsu revealed the game has been in development for two years, its developers are the same from Tales of Eternia, the game will have the most main characters in the Tales series, and will be the first series to be in 3D. During Electronic Entertainment Expo 2003, a North American localization was confirmed. A conference by Namco on June 9, 2003 revealed the game will be on two disks and its theme song will be "Starry Heavens" by Day After Tomorrow. To celebrate its release in Japan, the game was bundled with a symphonic green Nintendo Gamecube. For the North American version, the localization producer replaced Starry Heavens with an orchestral anthem and focused on hiring professional voice actors to dub the game in order to appeal to the Western audience. The game was released in Japan on August 29, 2003 and was localized in North America and Europe on July 13, 2004 and November 19, 2004 respectively. The game was re-released in North America under the Player's Choice label on July 19, 2004.

During the second week of April 2004, Weekly Shōnen Jump announced a PlayStation 2 port of Tales of Symphonia. It received new in-game additions and its theme song is "Soshite Boku ni Dekiru Koto" (そして僕にできるコト?, lit. "And Thus, I Can Do It") by Day After Tomorrow. It was released exclusive in Japan on September 22, 2004 and later, under the PlayStation 2 the Best label on July 7, 2005.