Overview
This guide will explain where to find the minigames in Tales of Symphonia, when and how you can do them and what you get as rewards. If you spot any errors or have any questions/suggestions let me know.
Izoold – Katz Emotion Game
This is a small minigame that you can play fairly early in the game to get some supplies. When you first enter Izoold, talk to the Katz standing near the wanted poster at the docks to start the game.
The game is available from the first time you enter Izoold (requires Genis to be in your party). The minigame is occasionally unavailable during the story even if you do have Genis with you. Just continue the game and the Katz should return.
The Katz emotion minigame is a game in which a Katz will randomly display one of six emotions, your goal is to copy the Katz by pressing the right buttons. At the start of the minigame you will see which emotion is tied to which button. When the game starts it will become hidden so you will either have to memorize the emotions or write them down. I personally just used a small noteblock and used my amazing drawing skills to draw the emotion corresponding to each button. Taking a picture with your phone also does the trick.
The following four game modes are available:
- Easy (10 rounds), rewards you with 5 Apple Gels.
- Normal (15 rounds), rewards you with 5 Life Bottles.
- Hard (30 rounds), rewards you with 5 Lemon Gels.
- Non-Stop, plays untill you make an error, gives no reward.
- Endless, the Katz will do 1 emotion in the first round, 2 in the second 3 in the third and so on. This mode gets hard pretty quick but gives no reward.
If you like the game you can play Non-Stop and Endless to get yourself a high score (shown as Record when talking to the Katz). This is purely for yourself, you get nothing for doing it.
Palmacosta – Colette the Maid (Title)
This is yet another memory-based minigame and it’s found in the Palmacosta Academy cafeteria (Door at the end of the hallway on the first floor).
The minigame becomes available as soon as you reach Palmacosta and requires you to have Colette in your party. It remains available untill Palmacosta is destroyed.
You have to speak with the man at the counter, he will request assistance with distributing food to his customers. The game will start with a few customers appearing and requesting one or more of a dish. What they want only remains on screen for a few seconds before they sit down at random tables. It’s recommended to write down the amount and which dish they want, using a phone to take a picture should make it much easier.
- First round: The first time there will be only two customers.
- Second round: The second time there will be three customers.
- Third round: The third and last time there will be four customers.
If you decide to write it down I’d recommend using abbreviations for each dish so you only have to write down “1 Tea” etc. These are the ones I used.
The rewards will vary depending on your performance, but if you are at the part where you require a Palmacosta Potion this game will grant you one. If you didn’t make alot of mistakes Colette will earn the title “Turbo Waitress“. Depending on your performance you will also receive 0~500 Gald.
Palmacosta – Orienteering (Title)
The orienteering minigame, or scavenger hunt, is a small game in Palmacosta where you have to find places and people using clues. You can play the game by talking to a knight south of the square with the Church of Martel, Government building etc.
This knight appears after you defeat Kilia and remains untill Palmacosta is destroyed.
The knight will start by giving you a clue on where to find the first person or object, these are randomly selected from about 15 people/objects. Once you find it you will be given another clue. This repeats untill you’ve found 3 objects or people, return to the knight to finish the minigame.
If you finish the game in under 1 minute Lloyd will earn the title “Palmacosta Pro”.*
*Bug: The game currently says you earn Colette’s “Dog Lover” title, but you end up getting Lloyd’s title. Colette’s “Dog Lover” title is part of a different sidequest found in my other guide !Guide unfinished, will add later!(Colette the “Dog Lover”).
Tethe’alla Bridge – Red Light! Green Light! (Title & Weapon)
This is a small minigame available for Genis where you have to try and reach a Katz before other children. You can find the Katz on the Grand Tethe’alla Bridge (found on the second screen from the Meltokio side). If you want to get all the rewards from this game in one go I’d recommend waiting with it untill the very end of the game. Open the door to the final boss, enter, watch the cutscene and then leave.
When you can cross the Tethe’alla bridge for the first time, untill the end of the game (requires Genis in the party). At some points the Katz will be unavailable, progressing the story should make him return. Sometimes he won’t be on the bridge even if he should, simply go back to the field and re-enter the bridge to make him appear.
In this game you have to spam a button to move while the Katz isn’t looking, as soon as he turns around you have to stop moving. If the Katz sees you move you will be forced to go back to the start. This is the easy part however, as there will be other children playing the game that will try to knock you back. If you get knocked back there is usually no point in trying anymore because it’s difficult to catch up with them. If you fail during any round you have to start over from round 1.
- Round 1: You will compete against three other children.
- Round 2: You will compete against four other children.
- Round 3: You will compete against five other children.
My strategy is to try and avoid the children as much as possible. You can do this by moving sideways: hold the correct button (L1 and R1 on a controller) while spamming the move button (B on a controller). I noticed that often I would be ahead of a child and try to bump them back, but instead I would be pushed back.*
Completing round three will give Genis the title “Strategist“.
If you complete round three after opening the door to the final boss, entering and watching the cutscene, Genis will also receive his most powerful weapon “One World” (excluding a fully powered up Devil’s Arm).
*Sadly the pauze-glitch from the GameCube version has been fixed so you can no longer run extra far by pausing as the Katz turns around.
Triet – Uncle Game (Title)
You can start the minigame by talking to a man in front of the Triet Inn, near Lloyd’s wanted poster. It can give you some Gald and a title for Lloyd.
The minigame becomes available fairly late into the game after you kill Rodyle on the Remote Island Ranch.
The Uncle Game is a game where a bunch of men will line up and run to a finish line. When they cross the finish they will say a number and you will have to pick out the correct uncles in order afterwards.
The game will start off with two uncles, once they cross the finish line there will be four uncles to pick from. You have to pick the man that crossed the line first as the first one, the second as the second one and so on. Make sure you remember their appearance since 50% of the uncles you can pick from haven’t even participated in the race. On top of that, picking the correct uncle has a 30 second time limit. Lucky for us the time only ticks when you are walking around, once you’ve found the first you can take your time to find the second and then press confirm. The first game mode has 5 rounds in total, the second game mode also has 5 rounds.
- Round 1 & 6: Two uncles race, four to pick from.
- Round 2 & 7: Three uncles race, six to pick from.
- Round 3 & 8: Four uncles race, eight to pick from.
- Round 4 & 9: Five uncles race, ten to pick from.
- Round 5 & 10: Six uncles race, twelve to pick from.*
*You need to be cautious when speaking to the uncles in the final rounds as they will be so close together it’s very easy to mess up. I personally lost several final rounds simply because I couldn’t align myself perfectly to speak to all the correct men.
If you struggle with this memory game in later rounds like I did you can help yourself by giving each uncle a name. You can write down their names on a piece of paper from left to right as they appear before the race. You can take all the time you want because they won’t start to run untill you press the confirm button. As they cross the finish quickly write a number under their name based on who was first and so on.
One last tactic is to simply record the race with your phone, memorize the first that crosses the line and then quickly speak to that person. While you are talking you can take all the time you want to check who came second etc.
If you manage to complete normal mode and you want to earn Lloyd’s title you will have to play High Speed mode. High Speed mode is the same as Normal except this time the uncles will run faster and the uncles will show their number for only a split second when they cross the finish.
Completing all five rounds in Normal mode will give you 1980 Gald.
Completing High Speed mode AND having a total amount of identified men of 100 or more will grant Lloyd the title “Midlife Crisis“. You need to win High Speed mode either after having identified 100 men or during that winning game to get the title. High Speed mode will also give you 1980 Gald.
Altamira – Casino Games (Title & Weapon)
At some point in the game you will unlock the ability to visit the Altamira Casino. In the casino you can play Blackjack or use three different Slot Machines to earn chips. If you earn enough chips you can buy a few unique rewards.
You can go to the casino during the night by sleeping at the Altamira Hotel and choosing to stay awake. Nighttime becomes available afterRegal and Presea say goodbye to Alicia.
When you speak to the man at the counter you will be able to to buy Casino Chips at a rate of 1 Chip per 500 Gald. Once you have purchased about 100 Chips you should first leave the casino, go to your bedroom on the 4th floor of the hotel and sleep. Now save the game at the save point and stay at the hotel a second time. After you’ve done that you can start playing some games without worrying about going bankrupt. If you lose too much you can simply reload and stay at the hotel again. If you earn enough Casino Chips you can trade them in for a few special prizes.
- You can start Blackjack bets at a maximum of 100 Chips. Each time you win you can choose to double your bet or take your earnings. If you win enough rounds in a row to cause your bet to go over 2000 you’ll automatically take your earnings. If you are there purely for Chips then the slot machines will give you ALOT more. Both routes take alot of luck however.
- You can bet between 1 and 500 Chips at the three different slot machines, however unlike the maximum payout for Blackjack, you can earn up to a maximum of 500.000 Chips in a single bet if you get three rows (3 horizontal lines and 2 diagonal lines) of 7’s.
At the rear side of the casino you can find the Blackjack table. If you are unfamiliar with Blackjack, the goal is to get a hand with a total value higher than the dealer. However, if you draw cards with a value over 21 (the best hand is 21, a Blackjack) you will automatically lose the round. Cards are valued as following:
2 – 10 = The number displayed on the card itself.
Jacks, Queen, King = 10.
Ace = 1 or 11. (automatically counts as 11 if it would not bring your hand over 21)
You start off with two random cards, the dealer will also receive two cards but only one will be revealed to you. You can then ask for another card untill you reach 21/lose the round or keep your hand. The dealer will draw cards up to a value of 17 or untill they go over 21 (whichever comes first). This means that if you have a total value of less than 16 there is a chance the dealer will draw higher than you if you stop picking an extra card.
The game has two special cards in addition to the regular 52 cards. One of them is the Lloyd Card which will instantly turn the hand of the owner into a value of 21. This can happen to both you and the dealer and from my experience it seems as if the game is rigged to give the dealer better chances at this. The second special card is the Colette Card which either doubles your bet for free if you get it or halves your bet if the dealer receives this card.
There are three slot machines found on the right side of the casino. Each machine accepts a different range of bets.
- The machine at the top will accept bets of 1 – 5 Chips. It pays out 1 x multiplier.
- The machine in the middle accepts bets of 10 – 50 Chips. It pays out 10 x multiplier.
- The machine next to the lady accepts bets of 100 – 500 Chips. It pays out 100 x multiplier.
At the start of the game you can choose how much you want to bet. The more Chips you bet, the more combinations of winning become available. Below is an image displaying in which ways you can win by having combinations of three of the same icons.
If you want to maximize your chances of winning you should always put in a maximum bet (5, 50 or 500). You should start using the first slot machine when you have 100 Chips or less and go out to save each time you double or tripple your Chips, once you have about 500~1000 you can start using maximum bets on the middle machine. When you have 5000~10.000 Chips you should use the bottom machine. Depending on your luck it can take between one to three hours to earn enough Chips for all prizes. If you are really lucky you might even earn 1.000.000 Chips for the Steam Achievement.
The most notable rewards are the three unique prizes, the first will grant you the Devil’s Arm “Disaster” for Genis. The second one is a flower that will let you watch the cinematics from the game in the Katz Village. The third is a reward that will give Raine a casino hunny costume title “Chosen Beauty“.
All prizes that can be purchased from the hunny near the counter.
*Requires you to be at least at the part of the story where your group looks for Zircon
Changelog
- Added requirements to purchasing the Forget-Me-Not and ???? from the Altamira Casino. Information provided by Ponxha
- Added the Casino Games section.
- Updated the Red Light! Green Light! minigame section.
- Added images to the Red Light! Green Light! minigame section.
- Fixed an error in the game mode descriptions for the Katz Emotion Game.
- Added images to the Katz Emotion minigame section.
- Added images to the the Waitress minigame section.
- Fixed an error in the Orienteering description.
- Added images to the Orienteering minigame section.
- Published version 1.