Tales of Symphonia: All Characters RANKED!

As in most Tales games, the combat in Tales of Symphonia is quite superb, as each and every character in the game is unique to play as—and worth using! One of my favorite parts of Tales games is that these games are rather balanced, so this ranking was a little difficult, but fun nonetheless! Now without further ado, RPG Ranked presents... Tales of Symphonia: All Characters RANKED!

9. Genis Sage - B Tier

Yeah... nobody in this game is lower than a B Tier character in my eyes. While Genis doesn't offer support like Sheena, his damage output is exponentially more consistent than hers—making him the slightly better offensive caster of the two. Truly, Genis does dish out a lot of damage. If you use Inspect Magic and/or the Monster Book to keep track of the elemental weaknesses of the enemies you go up against, Genis can dish out absurd amounts of damage. However, Genis has a problem that Sheena rarely has—spell interference. Only one spell can be cast at a time in Tales of Symphonia, so while Genis deals huge damage, cancelling an important healing spell is just not worth having Genis in your party for. Also, until you are able to get the Concentrate EX Skill, it is incredibly common for Genis's spell to be cancelled by enemy attacks, which isn't a problem for other damage dealers in this game. Overall, while Genis does insane damage, stopping Raine's awesome spells is a significant issue. Unless you want to use Zelos's Personal EX skill to obtain an absurd amount of amazing healing items and kick Raine out of the party, I personally wouldn't recommend using Genis. He isn't bad by any means, but he's definitely outclassed.

8. Sheena Fujibayashi - B Tier

Sheena is definitely the most unique character in the game, which is both a blessing and a curse. This means she is fun to play as, but hard to master. Her main techs include card-based techs and summons. Her card techs allow her to lower enemy stats (albeit not stats that are really worth lowering) with abilities like Serpent Seal, Power Seal, and Mirage Seal; revive allies or lengthen enemy staggering with Purgatory Seal and Force Seal; she can steal HP and TP with Life Seal and Spirit Seal; she can dish out great damage and displace enemies with Pyre Seal, Demon Seal, and Cyclone Seal; she can infuse her attacks and ally attacks with elements to increase their physical damage! On top of her card techs, she gets a summon for every element in the game, as well as two awesome ultimate endgame summons. Each of these summons do huge screen-wide damage and buff ally stats! While Sheen a sounds fantastic in theory, she isn't quite as good in practice. While her card abilities are nice, they are not combo-able at all. This makes her attacks quite clunky and hard to execute, and having to think quick on your feet what card to use out of her variety of weird options? This is super tricky. Also, though her abilities are possibly the most close-range abilities in the game, she is a mage at heart. This means her defensive stats are terrible. Also, her summons, while incredibly powerful, can only be used during Over Limit, which is hard to control and plan around. This means her actual damage output is locked behind a not-so-common occurrence. Overall, while Sheena does have some incredibly useful support abilities & high-damage summons, her low defense, situational abilities, and lack of combos makes her a pretty average character. If only Limit Bottles were in this game... then Sheena could be top tier.

7. Presea Combatir - A Tier

Presea is the hard-hitting tank of the group, dishing out huge amounts of damage for very little TP. In fact, she may hit the hardest of any character in the game. So why is she in seventh place? First of all, she is rather slow, both in terms of attacking and moving. Second of all, because she is slow, her combos are slow, and therefore she can be easily staggered. Third of all, she has absolutely no variety in her abilities outside of pure damage. In fact, she doesn't even have that much versatility in doing damage, as she basically only has five abilities: Punishment, Devastation, Destruction, Infliction, and Beast. Sure, these abilities have tons of variations, but not enough variation for them to be unique from one another. Punishment attacks do damage to the side, Devastation attacks do quick damage to the ground, Destruction attacks lock enemies into an animation, Infliction attacks launch enemies into the air, and Beast attacks knock enemies over. Almost every of Presea's abilities are just some sort of variation of these five attacks. Now consider Lloyd, the second highest damage dealer in the game—he is fast, has great combos, and while he only deals damage, he has a huge variety of abilities like Tempest, Tiger Blade, Rising Falcon, and more! Overall, Presea is still a fantastic and valid choice, but there are stronger characters in the game.

6. Colette Brunel - A Tier

Colette is one of the wackiest characters in the series in terms of gameplay! Armed with chakrams, rubber hammers, and angel magic, she is a fun and unique character in concept. She has solid ranged attacks, magic damage, and angelic buffs! But quite honestly? None of that is good enough to put Colette above the last three characters. What is good enough to put her above the last three characters? Three skills: Para Ball, Torrential Para Ball, and Holy Song. The first two dish out huge amounts of damage and stun-lock the enemies, something no other character can do reliably and quickly. Holy Song is fantastic, buffing stats separately from Raine's stat buffing—making them stackable! Overall, Colette's awesome staggering and buffing abilities are fantastic, but I can't exactly put a two-trick pony any higher on this list.

5. Regal Bryant - A Tier

Regal is another very interesting character. Instead of base arts and arcane artes, Regal has air, anti-air, and ground artes. He has very fast and effective combos, good evasive/protective abilities (like Force and Mirage), and three single-target healing artes! This makes him a very versatile character—the most jack-of-all-trades, master of none character in the game (Kratos and Zelos are masters of all, so they do not qualify). His damage is the third best in the game, his healing is the fourth best, his comboing is the third best, et cetera. While nothing too special, Regal does a lot of things well, and he really is my favorite character to play as in the game! But as much as I main Regal, overall, he is just outclassed by Kratos and Zelos.

4. Lloyd Irving - S Tier

While Presea hits the hardest, Lloyd hits the best! Hopefully that absolutely made sense, I mean, it did for me. With a variety of fantastic ablities that are incredibly versatile, Lloyd can combo enemies so much better than any other character in the game. While he doesn't have the versatility of the next three characters on this list, he is a must-have in the party. Want to knock enemies into the air? Tiger Blade. Wanna knock enemies over? Use Beast. Wanna get behind an enemy? Use Rising Falcon. Wanna fly to the other side of the map? Use Tempest. Wanna dish out ranged damage? Use a Demon Fang ability. Overall, Lloyd is absolutely fantastic, but just can't do as much as the next three characters on this list.

3 & 2. Kratos Aurion and Zelos Wilder - S Tier

I personally prefer Zelos a little bit, but these two are basically just as good as one another! Kratos has the fantastic Guardian Field and a much better version of the Holy Binds Mystic Arte, whereas Zelos has by far the best Personal EX Skill in the game and is much easier to have in the endgame party. These two both have amazing physical artes, awesome healing and damaging magic, and almost every good EX Skill and Compound EX Skill in the game. Do they have as good of physical artes as Lloyd? No. Do they have as good of offensive spells as Genis? No. Do they have as good of healing spells as Raine? No, and it isn't even close. But are they literally the second best at everything in the game? Absolutely. And for that, Kratos and Zelos are some of the best characters in Tales of Symphonia.

1. Raine Sage - S+ Tier

Raine is absolutely a must-have party member! Even if someone argues that healing items are more than plentiful enough—especially with Zelos's Personal EX Skill—Raine has a ton more going for her than just healing. The only character with amazing healing artes, buffs, and offensive magic (Raine is the only character in the game with light magic!), Raine is insane! Spells like Keenness and Acuteness, Revitalize and Ressurection, Revive and Holy Rain? These are absolutely broken spells that can completely change the course of battle. Overall, Raine truly speaks for herself with amazing healing techs, buffing spells, and exclusive light magic, and is truly the best character in Tales of Symphonia.

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