Namco also seems to be getting on the collector’s edition band wagon since coming right off the heels of their fantastic Tales of Xillia CE last year, they have a beast of a package for Tales of Symphonia Chronicles.  Seriously, this thing is a monster:

Just look at that box.  High quality durable cardboard and while you can’t really see it from that picture, the entire thing is full of wonderful artwork from both of the Symphonia games that received HD remakes for this title.  It also appears that the top comes off like a lid.  Let’s see whats inside shall we.

WOW!!  This thing is packed to the gills!  Everything is organized and packed tightly.  But enough of the box, lets get to the goods.

The game itself featuring some really nice cover art.  This game features HD remakes of Tales of Symphonia, which everybody who had a Gamecube played, and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, which not a lot of people played.  Either way, you get both titles here and Dawn of the New World really isn’t that bad, it just looked really mediocre when put up against a classic like the original Symphonia.

Next to the game is this collectible steel book case which was so beautiful that I had to take 3 pictures of it.  You get the game cover on the front, some cute chibi artwork along with the Symphonia 10th anniversary logo on the back, and some awesome looking art on both sides when you open the case itself.  You could use this to hold the actual game if you wish, but I’m just going to keep everything in that monster of a box.

Ok, if you checked out my Bravely Default unboxing feature you will remember that I complained a bit about the soundtracks that are usually contained in these things.  You usually get a CD with some nice artwork and a selection of about 8 songs for you to enjoy.  Well, Namco said screw that and gave us this.  It comes in it’s own special box and it’s a 4 disc, 98 track monster.  Yes, you read that correctly, 4 discs with 98 tracks from the games!!  Take note publishers as Namco just put you all on notice.

Then you get your usual artbook.  This one is nice as I really like the art in the Tales games, but it’s kind of small.  Guess they had to make room for that 4 disc soundtrack huh?

No, this has not suddenly become one of those Saw movies, I mean yes, it is a box of body parts, but I can explain, I swear!  Seriously though, these are 4 chibi figures featuring the 4 main characters from the 2 games.  Lloyd, Colette, Emil, and Marta.  Obviously I haven’t put them together yet as I just got this today, but if the pictures I’ve seen of them are any indication, these things are quite nice.

To top it all off you get a 130 page novel detailing the events that occurred between the two games.  I’ll let the novel speak for itself, but this is quite a treat.

So yeah, Namco really hit a grand slam with this one.  The packaging is beautiful and they didn’t skimp out at all on whats included.  No eight song soundtrack here.  If you are a Tales fan I urge you to run out and try to find one of these things.  Namco only produced 18,000 of them, so act quick.  It comes in at a pretty whopping sixty dollars more expensive than the regular edition but collectors know that you would pay near that to import the soundtrack anyway, this is totally worth it.