Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

"It's nothing special, but still a nice game to add to your collection"

This game had a lot of hype before it came out due to the raging symphonia fanboys out there. Compared to the newest of the Tales series, Vesperia, this game just doesn't match up. But since this isn't a vesperia review I'm not going to be talking about it too much. I've played ToS, ToA, and ToV, so I'm going to be making comparisons throughout this review. If you don't like that, then leave now.

Story:

This game takes place after symphonia when the two worlds were connected. Emil, the protagonist thinks that Lloyd the protagonist of the original game killed his parents. More like he saw this, and thus wants the hero of the old game to die. He then meets Marta who is trying to summon the Lord of Demons to bring back the balance in the world. That's just the basics. Soon Emil and Marta join together and all sorts of things happen from then on.

So far from what I've played the story isn't that bad. It's nice to have the cameos of the previous game (No Kratos. He's the narrator.) and it's got a bit more to the story than the usual RPG gotta save the world thing. The whole revenge thing is a bit hard to find in JPRGs these days. The problem is, it's not original enough to bring anything out of the ordinary like Abyss did.

7/10

Gameplay:

This game works just like any other Tales game. It has a side view active time battle system. Emil plays similar to most tales characters, but unlike most leads, he is able to pull off powerful air combos, something people like Lloyd, Yuri, and Luke missed out on. The controls make use of the wii's buttons, and the only time you need to swing the remote is if you want to set attacks to your wii mote. Battle wise, they added free run, something ToS lacked. the problem is, due to the wii's lack of buttons, you have to guard then free run. Thus making it harder to backstep. It's a little inconvenient, but not a problem. The system isn't as polished as Vesperia's due to it having the kill an enemy and you hit air problem found in previous games. In Vesperia, if you kill an enemy mid-combo, the character will move to the next enemy while still taking up the hits you made. Again not a problem, but it would have been nice. Oh they also removed magic lens, so that means no more having to use items to see enemies hp.

The skill system works like most games. You learn more skills the more levels you obtain. This is pretty cool. The thing is, it lacks customization which has been something Tales games have been doing for a while. Symphonia's ex-gems, Abyss's Capacity cores, and Vesperia's weapons, all made it so that you weren't forced to have skills.

Next is the big hit, the lack of world map. There is one, but due to budget cuts, it's only a map that you point and click to get to the next area. To prevent you from going to places too far from you, they don't add them to your list of possible places to go to. This also removes the ability to level grind on the field like in previous games. They make up for this with the quest system (missions). Again, not good, but not bad either.

Whoops, forgot about the monster catching. Basically you can catch monsters when the element at the bottom left of the screen matches the enemy. The monster joins you at level one, which isn't a problem if you leave them out of your party for a few battles until they catch up.

6/10

Sound:

The music in this game is very nice, having multiple songs that are either remixed, or brand new. This is great for old tales fans, and new. It's a pleasant soundtrack that fits the game well.

Now for the voice acting. It switches from being completely horrible to really awesome. Even worse is that the voice actor for Lloyd from the first game didn't reprise his role in this game. If you played the first, this could be really annoying. I have to subtract points for their mix of good and bad voice acting.

Another good point is that skits are voiced. Voiced>>>>>>.Unvoiced

7/10

Graphics:

Okay, this game has graphics that have "could have done better" written all over them. The characters move fluidly, but they tend to have a habit of shaking just a little bit. The graphics also don't look as cut as you would expect from a wii game. Their facial expressions also seem painted on, unlike Vesperia's smooth facial expressions. Still, I'm comparing a wii game to an Xbox360 game. So I won't take any points off of what I would have anyway.

7/10

Overall this game is fun for a tales game (all of the are), but if the people making it spent more time and money on it, this could have become a real gem for the wii. It's good but not bad, and so my final verdict is:

7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 11/21/08

Game Release: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (US, 11/11/08)