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.