body as Martel's vessel. The party is rescued by the Renegades, a group that poses as Desians and aims to prevent Martel's resurrection. The Renegades' leader, Yuan, explains that the Desians are servants of Cruxis and act to terrorize the population of the declining world. When Yuan declares his intent to secure Lloyd to further the Renegades' purpose, the party escapes for Tethe'alla, where they restore Colette's humanity after crafting a Key Crest for her Cruxis Crystal. In search for a way to save both worlds, the party determines that awakening the Summon Spirits in both worlds will sever the mana tie between them. Believing that to be the answer, they successfully sever all mana ties between the two worlds. Their actions instead destabilize the Great Seed, the supplier of mana to both worlds, causing it to grow and engulf Sylvarant at an exponential rate. After the party re-stabilizes the seed, they learn from Yuan about the origins of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla and how they used to be one world but was split by Cruxis' leader Mithos with the Eternal Sword; the party realizes they can save the world if they wield the Eternal Sword, merge the worlds, and germinate the Great Seed. They decide to confront and defeat Mithos before seeking the Eternal Sword. Kratos is revealed to have been gathering materials to have Lloyd use the Eternal Sword. He succeeds but Mithos survives his apparent death and possesses a member from the party before fleeing to Derris-Kharlan. Mithos attempts to take the Great Seed with him but is foiled and killed by Lloyd. Using the Eternal Sword, Lloyd merges Sylvarant and Tethe'alla together and germinates the Great Seed into a Giant Kharlan Tree to supply the world with mana. Development and release The game was first announced on May 8, 2002, by Namco to be one of the many titles it would be releasing on the Nintendo GameCube. Namco stated it would be a part of the Tales of Phantasia series and expected comics, animation, drama CDs and novels to be spun off from the game. Its name was revealed to be Tales of Symphonia in February 2003. An April 2003 edition of Famitsu revealed the game has been in development for two years, its developers are the same from Tales of Eternia, the game will have the most main characters in the Tales series, and will be