Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

"Is that a Nutcracker? Oh wait, it's just Lloyd Irving..."

Hey, remember 2003? Hey, remember when the Gamecube had no good RPGs at all? Hey, remember in 2003 Namco released Tales Of Symphonia for the Gamecube, which was a good RPG that sold millions and became the most successful installment in the franchise? Yeah, of course you do! Now that the Nintendo Wii is out and allowing Nintendo execs to wipe their asses with $100 bills, Namco Bandai has figured it would be a good time for Tales Of Symphonia to pull a “Final Fantasy X” and get it's own sequel. So here we have Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn of The New World, which gives us a new story focusing on two new characters while including all the old ones in on the fun. Is it as successful as it's big brother?

DAWN OF A NEW STORY

New World takes place two years after Lloyd Irving and friends went on a world regeneration quest and joined together the two worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla. However, the joining of the worlds caused some climate changes and tensions between the people of the two worlds started to rise, with the Tethe'alla people looking down on the Sylvaranti because of their inferior technology, and the Sylvaranti generally fearing the Tethe'allas. All this leads to the Sylvaranti creating an army know as the Vanguard to fight against the Tethe'allas and their Church of Martel. It is during these battles that the town of Palmacosta is caught in the crossfire, and it's during this time that the main character of the game, a boy named Emil, witnesses the murder of his parents by Lloyd Irving himself! After the battle, Emil is sent to live with his aunt and uncle is the town of Luin, but they treat him like crap and the townpeople resent him because of his feelings toward Lloyd, who is considered a hero. One day, Emil meets a girl named Marta, who for some reason is being hunted by the Vanguard. It doesn't help that Marta believes that Emil has saved her once before and immediately develops a crush on him. Things happen, it becomes clear that the world needs saving, and it's up to Emil and Marta to do it. Of course, they get some help from some old friends along the way.

So we get the old “world needs saving” ultimate goal of 95% of JRPGs, so truth be told I don't really look towards plot originality when it comes to these things. What I do look towards is character development, sharp writing, and good pacing, and in these regards New World tells an entertaining story. Emil, while pretty annoying and whiny in the beginning of the game, grows to become a much stronger and likable person. Marta is cute as a freakin' button so it's hard not to hate her. Of course, the old Symphonia characters seem to be their old selves: Raine still goes nuts for ancient ruins, Regal still gets arrested a lot despite being the CEO of a successful company, Zelos is still a ladies man, etc. The only difference here is Lloyd, and one of the more intriguing parts of the game is trying to figure out what has gotten into him. Sharply written and often very funny dialogue and events make New World an entertaining journey. But hey, we still got to play it…

DAWN OF NEW (PRETTY MUCH OLD) GAMEPLAY

A quick tip before you even start up the game: If you have clear data for the original Tales Of Symphonia on a Gamecube memory card just lying around, plug that bad boy into your Wii and then start up New World. For your laborious and time consuming task, you'll unlock some extra items for use in the game. Wee! Besides that, New world for the most part plays just like it's predecessor, and in turn pretty much like any other “Tales” game or JRPG for that matter. Gameplay, as always, is divided into exploration and combat. Exploration is pretty much what you'd expect: you take your on-screen character (either Emil or Marta), and go from town to town to dungeon to dungeon across a world map talking to NPCs, buying things at stores, defeating enemies, and moving the story along. However, there are a few differences from previous Tales games that make New World stand out…and really not for the better. For one, the world map in previous Tales games was a full 3D landscape where you travel from place to place fighting enemies on the field, usually to grind levels and find hidden items, locations, and to tackle side quests. However, New World totally ditches the 3D world map, instead giving you a simple 2-D interface where you point the Wii-mote at where you want to go and hit the A button. Yep, that's it. You then get a small scene of Emil sloooooooowly walking to the destination you've picked, which thankfully can be skipped.

The problem here is pretty apparent, as with this interface there is no enemies out in the field to fight. Worst of all, this also means that unlike other Tales games, there are basically no side-quests in the game. You get a couple of extra areas toward the end of the game where you can kill 10 minutes watching some humorous cut-scenes, and there is still a battle coliseum, but other than that you've got nothing. This also means that the game is very linear, so don't expect to go off the beaten path. New World instead offers players missions to tackle from the Katz (yep, those annoying buggers) that set up shop in pretty much every town. These missions range from eliminating monsters to fighting wandering swordsmen to traversing a dungeon to reach an objective. The missions will get harder as you level up through the game. Completing a mission will give you an accessory, weapon, or item to use, and of course they are a good form of earning extra experience. The biggest problem with these mission though is that they will start to repeat themselves. Its pretty embarrassing when you do the same mission three times and it always features the same events and dialogue from when you did it the first time. Seeing as how this is a sequel to Symphonia, the places you'll visit in the game are all pretty familiar, sans some snow and such added to a few towns to illustrate the climate changes. Dungeon crawling remains the same as well, as you go through them fighting monsters and solving puzzles until you get to the end and usually fight a boss. The dungeon puzzles for the most part are solved using one of the staples of the Tales games, the Sorcerer's Ring. It's used here by holding down the Z button on the nunchuck to bring up an aiming cursor which you control with the Wii-mote. You then point at what you want to shoot and hit the A button, which usually leads to opening doors are messing with the environment. The element of the Sorcerer's Ring is usually changed in every dungeon, requiring you to use wind, ice, darkness, light, and fire elements to solve the puzzles. For the most part, the puzzles are actually varied and nicely designed, ranging from reproducing a melody on ringing bells to giving power to elevators in a specific order.

Of course, any RPG that claims to be worth it's weight in salt needs a good battle system to back it up, and the Tales games have one of the best. It's no different in New World, as we've got another fun real-time battle system to jump into. Just like in other Tales games, enemies appear right on the field and you can choose to fight them or avoid them if you wish. To kinda compensate for no world map, enemies usually respawn literally seconds after you defeat them. Anyway, when you touch an enemy out in the field, the game switches over to the battle screen, which basically takes place in an enclosed area. The battle system in New World incorporates the free-running mechanic that was introduced in Tales of the Abyss. Basically, holding the Z button on the nunchuck will allow you to move freely around the area, as opposed to the original Symphonia which had you fighting enemies in a 3D area but on a 2D plane. The A button on the Wii-mote controls your basic combo attack, and the B trigger activates your characters Artes, or special attacks, which you'll earn as you level up. Artes are divided into two categories, base and arcane. Base Artes can be linked to regular combo attacks and are generally weaker attacks, while Arcane attacks are usually much stronger and can be linked both to regular combos and base Artes. In Marta's and a couple of other characters cases, Artes are magic spells that incorporate elements and can even heal and resurrect allies. You can assign four different Artes to use in battle, with a combination of the B trigger and a direction ,in the game's menu, which is brought up with the + button. In the menu, you can also view character status, assign character titles that you'll earn, read the games journal, use and look at the items in your possession, etc. You can also set player skills that will be earned, like adding an extra hit to your combo or decreasing the casting time for spells. If you expect any motion controls to come into play during your battles, well don't. Motion controls are limited to activating the Artes shortcuts you've assigned in the menu, which allows you to make another character use a specific Arte during battle. There are 8 shortcuts you can assign and truth be told it's a pretty clever way of using the Wii's motion controls.

In battle, your party will usually consist of four participates. Your enemies consist of many different types of monsters to soldiers to bosses. The battle ends when you've defeated every enemy or a specific condition is achieved (in this games case, when an enemy you obviously can't defeat stomps a mudhole into your entire party). A bar below your party's health and TP point (Arte points) display fills up when you damage enemies, and when it fills halfway you can press the C button on the nunchuck to activate the returning Unison Attacks. Here your currently controlled character will be joined by one or two more party members to unleash an high-damaging attack on a single enemy. This bar, coupled with your TP points, will also allow you to unleash a power single-character attack called a Mystic Arte, which is earned when reaching a certain level. In New World, Emil and Marta are the “main” party members. The original Symphonia characters act kind of like “guest” participates, as in they also come and go throughout the game. The originals also can't have their equipment changed and they never earn experience, only leveling up and getting new Artes and skills after certain plot events. It helps save up on gald, at least. When the original Symphonia cast isn't available to help out Emil and Marta, it's time to call on the help of your monster friends! Yep, New World encourages you to “catch em' all” with a new monster recruiting system. After a event early on in the game where Emil is basically given a set of balls, he also gains the ability to capture monster to use in battle. In the lower left hand corner of the screen during battle is the Elemental Grid, which has one main element (the battlefield element) and 5 minor elements (which change depending on the type of monsters and attacks being used during the battle). Besides controlling which characters participate in a unison attack, when the grid has four minor elements that match the major one, you'll be able to attempt to form a pact with one of the monsters you've defeated. A monster won't always join you, but you can increase the chance by using one of your other monster's power when you form the pact. When you have monsters in battle, they will earn experience and learn Artes and skills just like normal, and there are even items you can find that will give boosts to their stats as well. You can even cook meals for your monsters at the Katz guild in towns, which could cause them to evolve into more powerful monsters. Every monster in the game is available for a pact, that's about 200 different species that you can collect and have fight for you. I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy building their own army of the night, as for me…I just used the first couple of monsters I formed a pact with for the entire game. Seemed to work out OK :) Overall, New World's battle system is just as fast and enjoyable as previous Tales games, with overall dependable ally AI and tough enemy AI. Boss fights in particular can give you a run for your money. Those with friends will also be happy to hear that just like the original, up to four players can participate in battles.

Besides the familiarity of the setting and having no side quest and such, I do have another problem with New World: I still can't hot key items. I mean…I have eight available shortcuts to use and Namco Bandai just won't let me use any for items. It is pretty annoying and flow-breaking to have to pause a battle to go into my items to use a gel or a life bottle. They do kind of relieve this by adding in an Arte called auto-item, but even then the item used is usually random and so is the person it is being used on. They have yet to allow me to do this in any Tales game I've played, and I really hope they add in shortcutting items in future installments.

DAWN OF NEW (EHHHH…)TECH

New World does away with the more kiddy, cell-shaded look of the original Symphonia and replaces it with a more “realistic” look reminiscent of Tales Of the Abyss. Overall though, there's nothing here that really takes advantage of the Wii hardware, as the game could have easily been done on a Gamecube or PS2. Pretty much all the places you'll go to have been lifted from the original Symphonia, albeit with an upgraded texture or two and a change in climate. The biggest difference here, for me at least, is that in addition to the basic “stand around and talk” cut-scenes, New World features actual, motion-captured cut-scenes. These cut-scenes are actually pretty good, and for some reason remind me of the cut-scenes from the Onimusha games (NOT the CG scenes, the in-game scenes). The actual character designs are obviously anime-inspired and look decent enough…but what the hell is up with the clothes!! I mean, Emil is basically wearing a strapless purple evening gown, Regal wears a quarter of a white t-shirt, and Raine wears an orange poncho with oversized cowboy boots and MC Hammer pants. Makes you wonder if the Tales character designers just throw darts at a board when coming up with clothing options. Unfortunately, there are no alternate clothes in the game. The game does run in 480p and supports widescreen, but everything in the game is merely adequate. Damn you Bandai and your…OK visuals!

The game's sound fairs a little better. Voice acting is pretty good and actually features both a timid and confident performance from Johnny Yong Bosch! The returning skits are also fully voiced, unlike the original Symphonia. Music is your typical whimsical and synthesized fair, and besides repeating the same dungeon music over and over again, its all pretty good. All other effects and such get the job done, and supports Pro Logic II.

NOT TOTALLY NEW, BUT STILL PRETTY FUN!

Like all Tales games, you earn (or lose) certain amount of “Grade” depending on your performance in every battle. Once you beat the game (which takes about 30 hours, 15 hours less than the first Symphonia took me and a full 20 hours less than both Abyss and Legendia) you'll be able to unlock certain perks with the Grade you've earned to use for a next playthrough, such as carrying over all your Artes and skills or earning 10% more gald and experience. Dedicated players can also add in more hours capturing all the monsters, leveling up to the max level, or doing every single Katz guild mission. The game also has two endings, but believe me when I say the bad ending is not worth getting at all, simply because it won't allow you to save a new game+ file. Just Youtube it if you must see it.

As a JRPG, Dawn of the New World is worth playing for Wii owners who may be starved for a quality game that will last them for a while. For Tales fans who will buy the game regardless, it may be a little bit of a disappointment with the lack of side quests and a more linear structure. However, the battle system is still fun and the story and characters are quite interesting, so both fans and newcomers should be quite satisfied. Recommended.

KEWL
+Story and characters are interesting
+Battle system is still very fun and frantic
+Monster collecting can be time consuming
+Dungeon puzzles are nicely designed
+Enemies and bosses can put up quite a challenge
+Cut-scenes are great
+Good sound and voice acting
+New game+

LAME
-No 3D world map means a more linear game with hardly any side quests
-Katz guild missions will start to repeat themselves
-Graphics are mostly reused and underwhelming for a Wii title
-No item shortcuts! Grrrrrrr!
-Shorter than a typical Tales game
-God, I hope Namco Bandai hires some fashion designers…or at least Tetsuya Nomura

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/03/09

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