Tales of Symphonia; Dawn of the New World Review

Backstory:

The people at Wolfteam have been making games in the tales series since 1994. Ever since then, the series has been seeing decent sales which merits them to continue making games under the concept “why fix what's not broken”. The original game which this review is named on is Tales of Symphonia* and so far, it's proved to be the most successful game in the tales series. The game was credited for addictive storytelling, Fast paced action RPG gameplay, beautiful environments, and exceeding long game time clocking in at a suggested 80 hours of gameplay. From my perspective, I still hold this game as one of the best because I loved every part of it. Now we have the sequel to this prominent tales game, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World* so, let's see if it's up to snuff.

Characters:

The game manages to focus a lot of attention on the first game's protagonist, Lloyd Irving. Throughout the game you manage to see many familiar characters that haven't changed much since the first game; Collette is still a klutz, Zelos is very shallow, and Presea is still expressionless. The new characters in this game are named Emil and Marta. Emil is a wimp and Marta is an annoying girl with daddy problems. These new characters however, are still just as deep and humanly flawed as the last set of characters. Emil turns out to be a pile of angst, but it becomes easy to ignore; Marta is hyper and bipolar, but the same still applies. The characters remain lively and likable no matter how you try to look at them and they continue to make you altruistic as you play through the story. The one issue that is brought up however, is that they replaced the voice actors of Lloyd Irving and Sheena Fujibayashi. For most people who played the first,this will get a little annoying mainly because the new voice actor for Lloyd did a terrible job. The one good thing is that you don't hear him talk much anyways.

Storyline:

The end of the first game leaves you at a real cliffhanger and basically, doesn't give you an ending. The game takes place two years later and for those wishing to fill the gap that the original left off, you won't be disappointed. The game focuses around Emil wanting to get revenge on Lloyd for killing his parents in Palmacosta. He makes friends with Marta and the guy trying to kill Marta so it sets the plot very quickly. He decides to help Marta on her quest to wake up the lord of all monsters which has you find his minions; Most of them are around places you visited in the first game. You have numerous encounters with the original eight characters and you get to use them from time to time. You spend most of your time listening to Marta confess her love for her prince Emil and most love stories are ok, but Tales of Symphonia 2* attempts to shove it down your throat. The ending doesn't leave you at a cliffhanger so you feel more fulfilled at the end.

The World:

You end up revisiting many of the towns and landmarks from the first game from Altamira, to The Iselia human ranch, all the way to the infamous Hot Springs. You end up seeing many different places changed due to the combining of the worlds such as the desert oasis Triet being covered in snow. The land manages to be just as beautiful as ever even figuring that two identical worlds had been crammed together. You don't get to trek it yourself however, you just get to say where you're going and it will send you there post haste. The one main failing with the world is that you revisit many of the old dungeons and because you already finished them in the old game, a lot is done for you. They do add on little pieces to it or alter it to make it into a “new” puzzle but old players will feel like they've done it all before.

Gameplay:

You have the option of fighting your battles alone, with some friends, or not at all. You have artes like the last characters and the health and TP bar remain. They decided to change the unison attack though; Instead of telling each character what move to perform, the character you're controlling does the same move and sometimes people in your party join in if they're feeling sassy. This becomes irrelevant as later you get the option of using a special attack which does fours times the damage and throws the old unison attack right out the window. The one issue with this is that it's so easy to use, you end up with the option of finishing every battle with it. They also added a monster taming element where you get to capture poke.. monsters. You can feed them and they evolve and I feel like I've seen this somewhere before. This is a good addition though, because there will be battles where you are by yourself and without those monsters, you'd turn into lunch meat. The Katz guild also makes a return in which you can do little mini quests for them in exchange for items. Many of the quests are just copy-paste versions of the dungeons you already finished but doing these adds more time to the game. The puzzles are much the same in most places but there are extra parts which gives you more to do. The wiimote comes into play for you using the sorcerer's ring. It opens up a world of new puzzles they could have put into the game, but they didn't utilize it very much. The last thing is that there are a few points in the game in which you make choices which can effect the ending, although this isn't an issue because you'll end up picking the choices which move the game along which gives you the full ending anyways.

Final Judgment: 8.5 out of 10

This game despite it's little flaws is a welcome addition to the series. The storyline is gripping and as immersive as ever. The characters are interesting and you'll enjoy all the bits of dialog. You get 30 hours of gameplay so you know you get your money's worth. If you haven't played the first one and are interested, I recommend the first one because you're getting the same game but once you finished the first one and you want a bit more, this is the right place to turn.