Final Fantasy-less title: Tales of Symphonia
Totally Square-free developer: Namco
Why you should ignore Yuna and play this: If you're any kind of RPG fan, you know the Tales series. It's the one you always tell your friends they should check out, but there's so much Cloud merchandise piled up in between your mouth and their ears that they can't even hear you. Of the whole series, this one's hands down the best - popular enough even to warrant asequel.
It's starting to sound like we're repeating ourselves, but Tales' biggest asset is its alluring cast. Sure, they all fit into obvious roles (the wide-eyed optimist that never gives up, the ditsy blonde, the hardened warrior, the slinky, sexy ninja lady etc) but said roles are performed exquisitely by talented voice actors. The dialogue may waver now and then, but with people like Cam Clarke and Dean Cain on board, these are characters are tough to shake once the adventure's done.
Even if the globetrotting posse was full of boring, uninteresting characters, Tales would still rock thanks to its participatory battle system - instead of taking turns, you directly control your fighters' moves. The overworld and towns may look and feel like standard RPG fare, but once in battle everything switches to hack 'n' slash heaven. You can string combos together, stack magical attacks so they happen in a precise order, interrupt enemies attacks with your own carefully planned assault... it's really quite intense.
Saying this is the GameCube's best RPG isn't huge praise, but well, there it is. Do your Wii a favor and track this down - you're probably not using it for much else these days.
