Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Wii)

I couldn't do it. I couldn't play the game long enough to give a full and accurate review. So, I'll just tell you about my experience from the first 3 hours.



Story: Two years after the events from Tales of Symphonia (GC), the two world have merged together, with one side dominating the other. This leads to a rise of rebel groups. The game begins with the town of Palmacosta being attacked by Lloyd (from the original game) who has apparently become murderous since his time saving the world. He kills the parents of this game's main character, Emil. Emil goes to live with his aunt, and meets Marta, a spunky girl who is trying to revive the king of beasts in order to restore balance tothe world. Apparently as long as this king is asleep all the elements of the world will go crazy. Anyway, that's about as far as I got. The two met with Colette from the original game. The plot, I'm sure given enough time it would make sense, but I just innately reject any plot where the idealistic and noble character of one game has become evil. 3/5


Audio: The music isn't bad, I don't remember it much. The voice acting has credible actors, but the dialogue is so painful. Still, not bad. 4/5


Graphics: The graphics feel somewhat minimized. The characters and environments are not as detailed as they could be good. 3/5


Gameplay: The game uses the 3D battle map that appeared in Tales of Symphonia, making reasonable use ofthe wiimote and nunchuck. Regular attacks are limited to the A button, but special attacks can be set to the B button and joystick. A major component of the game is to recruit monsters to join your party. For this you need to have the battlefield maintain certain elements, which can be change by using various artes. There is no interactive world map, instead you have a list of areas you can visit. The game has a crafting system and a cooking system, but these are more in the background, with cooking's purpose to be to feed the monsters you have captured for stat boosts. 3/5


Replay: ..../twitch /twitch 1/5


Overall: I'm not going to score an overall because it wouldn't be fair. i didn't see the overall of the game. instead, I'll tell you what I didn't like. I hated the direction the story was going. The main character made me what to kill everything around me, though I have read he becomes less obnoxious over time. The main female lead is, well, I think Misa from Deathnote. She has no common sense and is in love with the main character for absolutely no reason. It's nice to have characters return from Tales of Symphonia, though I feel if I were Colette and had to keep hearing people talking about how wonderful Mithos was, I'd go insane. I read a reivew that said this was a game for fans of the original, and only they would love it. I would lik to say I loved the original, and because I loved it, I couldn't handle the changes that occurred in this sequel. If you want a fan service game, pick up Radiant Mythology for the PSP. This game takes some serious dedication and patience if you want to get into it.

Upcoming Review

I'm planning on reviewing Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, for the wii. I've started it. So far it's the most soul crushing experience ever. i've never wanted to kill a main character as much as I want to kill Emil. But out of fairness to the Tales games, I'm going to give it some more time. More painful painful time. And pray that suddenly the main character dies and a new, cooler person shows up. That and the story line stops making me want to kill the people around me. I pity my neighbors otherwise.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4 (PS2)

Welcome back. So today we're going to learn about why TVs are so dangerous. That and demons and bottling up your emotions. Remember these life lessons kids.


Story: You begin the game as a young high school student who moves to a small town to live with his uncle. Shortly after arriving and starting school, a murder occurs. There is no evidence and no clues who the killer is, and soon after another follows. Determined to find out who is killing people, you and fellow classmates discover a secret world inside televisions. There you discover a truth, those who died had been sent and killed inside the tv world, leaving no evidence of their death in the real world. Not only that, but they are defeated by their inner selves, the secret personalities that they do not want to reveal to the outside world. The story is brilliantly written, and the characters are deep and realistic. It is by far one of the better game stories I have encountered. 5/5


Audio: The voice acting is well done, with well-known voice actors giving off excellent performances. The music is good as well; it's not deep and memorable but it fits the mood and doesn't grate. The hauntingly beautiful velvet room theme for Persona 3 returns as well. 4/5


Graphics: The graphics aren't terribly impressive. They aren't hideous, and the anime images of the character dialogues are certainly attractive. The dungeon designs aren't amazing either, but they serve their purpose and look distinguished from one another. Overall, visuals aren't perfect, but they don't detract. 4/5


Gameplay: There are 2 aspects to Persona 4: dungeon crawling and social interaction. When you're in the dungeons, it's fairly simple, you have up to 4 party members, which you can now set tactics or control completely. The main character is not bound to one persona, and can merge personas he finds to make even stronger personas. Outside of the dungeons is the real world, whic you need to level up stats such as knowledge, understanding, or expression in order to interact better with social connections you make. By increasing these social connections, you can make stronger different personas you make.The game is all about time management, and it isn't easy balancing all of these things. The gameplay isn't too difficult to understand, but it's a challenge to master. Still its a wonderful balance of dungeon crawler and social sim which keeps the player from being too bored with either. 4/5


Replay: While the overall doesn't change, you can do things differently, plus in a second play through some of your stats carry over. Also some new options appear that were not previously available. 3/5


Overall: The story is amazing, the music is good, the voices are great, the visuals are acceptable, and the gameplay is better than functional. I recommend this game to any RPG fan. Not only because it fits those basic criteria, but because on a number of occasions, I found myself laughing out loud because such entertaining dialogue. 5/5

End of 2008

A few days late, I realize, but I wanted to say a few things about 2008. Mostly, this was a year of remakes, and I'm so happy that 3 of my all time favorite games were remade. This post is just to talk about the games and their remade versions and what I think.



Final Fantasy IV: The graphics were 3Dified and the script was changed. An augment system was added, which i think was for the worst. The difficulty curve didn't change, but it seemed like it was easier to level, and more necessary to do so. Personally I prefer the GBA port, or the original.



Dragon Quest IV: Also updated graphics and script. Th graphics aren't vastly improved, so a person with a need for fancy graphics wouldn't like it. For the most part, the game remains true to the original, it is just as old school turn based and level grinding as when I played it on the NES. Of course playing it reminded me how tedious level grinding could be, but still great to play one of my favorite games on the DS.



Chrono Trigger: Remaining almost entirely true to the original, with some updated script, this has been my favorite of the remakes. Graphics were not touched, butthe anime cutscenes from the PS version made it in. Also in the menu screen is a theater to rewatch the scenes, a music box to listen to the great music, maps to show you were treasures are (in areas you've already cleared), and a guide of all the endings you have completed. There are some buton options to play in DS mode, but I didn't use so I can't comment. I love when they dont screw with a classic, and this is a perfect a remake as I can imagine. PICK IT UP!!!



So that's my thoughts on a year of remakes. I don't know if you'll be affected by this, but i thought I would share my thoughts.

Eternal Poison (PS2)

Eternal Poison, Atlus hurls another strat RPG at me. A note before I begin, This game was not design for your everyday time of gamer it was made to cater to a specific type of arty, mildly pretenious strat rpg player. So I will review it in that context.

Story: Alrighty happy little kingdom, it has a king and a pope and a princess yay! Bam giant evel demon world spews up from the bowels of god knows where and takes over a large part of the happy little kingdom. The Princess runs off the dungeon known as Besek, and is followed by her love the commander of the knights. A strange girl with a wolf companion appears and also enters. As well as a Priest girl looking for her master. Basically you'll run through the roles of these characters and one addition character if you can unlock him and their travels through Besek. each story progresses as you battle from stage to stage and release small details about the characters as you progress. Though in the end unless you clear the story all the pieces never fit which is an excellent motivator. 4/5

Gameplay: So the game plays like your standard tactical RPG. You progress from stage to stage entering a town that acts as your hub where you equip characters recruit charcters and use the demons you capture during battle to create items and skills or assign them as party members. Before battle there is a selection screen where you can chose your team and place them on the field. Enemy units which other than specified battles always consist of demons called majin, by injuring a majin beyond the point of death to a certain level causes overkill which allows you to capture them for said uses. Battles handle well and follow at a nice steady pace. You can easily select any unit to view their stats in a menu or scroll through to other units friend or foe. A designer note was that all the typical flashy animation and status icon we're made simpler. Status effects are displayed on the character window when you scroll over to them having a space for physical and magical effects. 4/5

Graphics: The game is intensely artisic designed to me more of a living painting than a flashy 3D game. The battlefileds, characters and scenes are all displayed in a muted toned almost oil painted set. It gives the game a sort of flare that's uncommon these days. Animations in battle are either cutscene style where the game cuts away to 3D graphics area where the characters interact. This can be toggled off to do a simpler animation to lessen battle times. The animation good have been done better and the characters not of the main story are a bit plain looking in-game. 3/5

Audio: The music is slightly limited but the stories are only a few stages long so you don't really see alot of songs being rehashed. The acts as your hub has an interchangeable them more which can be unlocked as you progress thru each story. Battles are fairly standard from normal, boss and important story. Voice acting was good tho the dialogue can be a bit dry. 3/5

Replay: There are several pathes you can take through Besek though as you play each story they don't differ to much you may get a view sparse dialogue changes but nothing grand. The nice feature is each story seems to be just right not too long and not too short and the story does a good job of making the play through of each character enjoyable. YOu may find one or two story worth playing through a second time. 4/5

Overall: All right this game has gotten alot of flack but like I said it wasn't made for everyone so be honest are you a pretenious tactical rpg player if so then get this game it's good. No its not flashy no the attacks are giant meteors consuming earth and no there's no blond hero saving the world with sarcasm and giant sword. There's simplicity and challenge. No grinding means you need to get things right so some stages you'll find youself doing a second or even third time but this never feels like its dragging the game down as you get a great sense of accomplishment for doing it better. There's a good about of unlockable arts and music just for the player to look back and enjoy. Either way take it ass it is and it's...4/5