Tales Of Symphonia: Official Strategy Guide

Rating:
Summary: No dungeon map.
Review: Bad: No Dungeon Map!!!! Hence I don't konw where those chests are. I have to search around myself.
Good: Everything else is like other strategy guide.

Rating:
Summary: I use Japanese websites instead
Review: Because I got this item for free, I like having it, but if I had paid $15 for it, I'd feel a little ripped off.

It's handy for EX-Skills and sidequests, but there are too many things it doesn't do a good job of explaining. The walkthrough it gives you is perfectly linear even when the game isn't, so you have to follow it exactly or you may end up in a situation where its info doesn't help you. It doesn't cover character affection and how it changes the plot, except for one little vague, misleading, and useless paragraph.

It really needed to be proofread too. There are places where text just cuts off in the middle of a paragraph and doesn't continue anywhere, or places where extra fragments of text appear out of place.

Rating:
Summary: Mistakes and Gaping Holes
Review: I honestly cannot believe they published this guide with so many mistakes. There are parts of it where the writing stops, and, when you expect it to turn up in the next column, it's got a new heading and talking about something completely different. Dan Birlew does a decent job explaining the dungeons and everything, but there is no map, and there are times where he gives you just a vague command. The best of the entire guide is the subquest listing. Especially since there are a lot of guides online that don't mention subquests, but just stick to the general storyline. Otherwise, I'd urge you to not spend the money and just find a good game guide site (gamefaqs.com is one I can think of off the top of my head).

Rating:
Summary: Valuable Information, Poor Presentation
Review: This strategy guide contains a vast amount of information needed to find all the goodies and sidequests in the game. There are some problems with the writing, in which some paragraphs abruptly end. It also lacks dungeon maps, leaving you to find chests using tedious step-by-step instructions rather than visually spotting where each is on a map.

If you buy the game, definitely get the guide. It's the only one available on the market so its your only choice. If I had the choice of a competing guide however, I would certainly go for that one instead.