I haven't played Tales of Symphonia for a while thanks to that boss of the 2nd seal (which is labeled as very hard by most players) and because I was playing Star Ocean: The Last Hope when I was playing on the PlayStation 3. Today I picked up Tales of Symphonia again because I so desperately wanted to get past that boss. While fighting I decided to record the battle so I could show how I did it.

Before I laid Tales of Symphonia aside I already tried to beat this boss for a dozen times at least and obviously without any success. This was a month ago for sure. When I picked it up again today I tried with my original party to no avail. The walk trough suggests to take Lloyd, Colette, Kratos and Genis and leave Raine out of the party (though she's an excellent healer). It also tells me to get enough apple and orange gels with me (30% HP and MP regen) and I also had 5 life bottles (resurrection) with me. In all fights I ran out of life bottles and apple gels, which kinda made it a party wipe in the end. I also tried a lot of parties including Kratos, but somehow he's a lasy ass that sticks to healing (even if Raine is set to healing amd Kratos to damage) and that didn't work either. Not to mention, his healing powers totally suck compared to Raine

In the end I gave a party of Lloyd, Colette (as the walkthough stated no choice for her ), Raine and Genis a try. I set Lloyd's EX skills to taunt and tough, basically making him the tank of the party, while Collette and Genis were set to do burst skill usage and Raine set to pure healing. This party setup really paid off, with only Collette to die once because of that massive water AoE that this boss does. I did use a lot of gels though to keep Raine alive (somehow she forgets to heal herself most of the time) and keep the MP of both Raine and Genis up so they could keep using their skills.

I know I said I decided to record the battle, and after half a dozen tries I finally had that lucky 7th battle that succeeded with the above party. Sadly though I totally forgot to record this battle and I don't have the footage to show you

Now that I've defeated this boss and have released the 2nd seal I'll be playing Tales of Symphonia a bit more again. Not alone because I want to play through the game itself, but also because from this game on I have all other games in the Tales series and I want to play them in order. Okay, I gotta admit that Tales of Rebiirth and Tales of the Abyss are not completely legal (ISOs for the emulator), but I will try to get them for PSP and PS2 legally as well...