Gameplay
Like previous installments in the Tales series, Tales of Symphonia consists primarily of three major areas: an overworld field map, town and dungeon maps, and a battle screen. The overworld map is a 3D model, featuring a scaled-down version of the game's fictional world which the player navigates to travel between the game's locations. As with preceding games in the series, the world map can be traversed by foot, on Noishe, and later, flying vehicles known as Rheairds. On field maps, characters are directed across realistically scaled environments. The battle screen is a 3D representation of an area, in which the player commands the characters in battles against CPU-controlled enemies.
On the overworld and field maps, various skits between the characters can be viewed. They involve animated character portraits, subtitles, and, in the Japanese version, full voice acting. Skits concern anything from character development to side details. Overworld map skits affect Lloyd's relationships with other party members. The player will be able to make certain decisions that imperceptibly affect how the other characters think of Lloyd. Some of these choices will have minor ramifications for the game's storyline.
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