Kratos Aurion (Tales of Symphonia)
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Before Colette goes on her Journey of World Regeneration, a mercenary named Kratos Aurion is hired to protect her. Little is known of Kratos save for his skills as a mercenary, though he proves early on that he is wise beyond what most people expected. He also makes it a point to let Lloyd know that his going along with Colette would be a waste of time as he would only find himself getting in the way.
Lloyd eventually catches up with the party and joins them, and after a lot of tension between he and Kratos, Kratos finds himself becoming unusually interested in Lloyd's well-being. There are several points through the early parts of the game in which Kratos gives Lloyd sword lessons, which is very unusual given Kratos's cold demeanor early.
As the game progresses, Kratos assimilates the role of the badass that seems to know too much -- a character archetype that seems to appear in virtually every RPG -- and this causes Raine Sage to question the true identity of Kratos.
This continues until the final stop in Colette's World Regeneration Journey, the Tower of Salvation. Kratos goes in ahead of the party, and the party soon follows. When Colette is about to sacrifice the final part of her humanity, the angel Remiel reveals that the true meaning behind the journey is not to restore the world's mana supply, but for the Goddess Martel to be reincarnated into a new vessel. Colette makes the perfect body for such a vessel, though the party attacks Remiel before Colette goes through with the final sacrifice.
Just when things seem to be saved (albeit with Colette being about as far from human as it gets), Kratos appears, lets Remiel die, and reveals his true identity to the party. He is an angel of Cruxis (which is the group that founded the Desians), and was sent to Colette by Mithos to ensure that she does not stray from the "Path of Salvation" and would thus become Martel's new vessel. Kratos then attacks the party, and afterwards Yggdrasil (the leader of the Cruxis and the man behind just about all of the manipulation that takes place in the game to this point) appears and orders Kratos to kill Lloyd's entire party. Botta and the Renegades appear to save the party, but it takes awhile for the party to digest what in the hell had just happened.
And even though this all seems like quite the massive plot twist, there is a lot more to Kratos. He's the fan favorite in Tales of Symphonia not only because of the badassed nature, but because most feel he has the best story in the game. I personally feel that the fans are correct.
Besides, the man is voiced by Cam Clarke. It gets no cooler than that.
"Feel the pain of those inferior beings as you burn in hell!" -Kratos as he's slicing Kvar to death
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Kratos Aurion's Contest History
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Win-Loss Record
0-2
Summer 2005 Contest
Chaos Division - 4 Seed
Chaos Round 1 --- Lost to (5) Diablo, 37162 [43.24%] - 48783 [56.76%]
Extrapolated Strength --- 46th Place [19.19%]
Had Kratos been paired up again Diablo when both were new characters, Diablo's victory would have come as a huge surprise. But given that Diablo was coming off of his amazing Spring 2005 performance, everyone just compared stats and realized that Kratos had no chance to win.
That said, Kratos was able to prove that he was TOS's strongest representative of the three that has appeared in contest matches, including Lloyd himself. The downside is that even then, Kratos is a fairly weak character that would need a lot of luck to ever win a contest match. Tales of Symphonia is a fairly popular game on GameFAQs, but the overall fanbase is a small one that finds TOS on the losing end of many a contest match. This extends to even board contests, where TOS never seems to have the firepower to get over the hump.
Of all the TOS characters, only Kratos, Zelos and Sheena likely ever have a chance to win a match, though TOS itself seems to be the new Skies of Arcadia. Popular game, too small a fanbase.
Summer 2007 Contest
Division 1 - Fourth Group
Division 1 Round 1 --- 3rd place, 27474 [21.09%] - Scorpion, 47724 [36.64%] - Midna, 32182 [24.71%] - Agent 47, 22874 [17.56%]
Kratos is the strongest Tales of Symphonia character, but he still couldn't get past the first round. He couldn't quite take advantage of the atomic bomb that Midna dropped, but he performed decently. If you swap Kratos with either of the other two ToS characters and he might have advanced. That's just the luck of the (seemingly random) draw.
-Ulti
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