Tales Of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World

Ill start off with a big point. If you haven't played the original, Tales of Symphonia on Gamecube, you might not understand the complete storyline as it is a direct follow up set 2 years after the first events. There is a short explanation at the beginning of the game so if you haven't played the first game, you get what basically happened and where the world stands now. It has an immediate appeal to people who loved the first game as you want to know why Lloyd is apprently attacking towns and killing people for no reason, whereas he was the hero and main good guy in the original. On the note of Lloyd, this game has all of the original characters returning in some aspect in this game, as they join your party at certain times on your quest as you hunt down Lloyd to find out the truth. the main character you control this time is Emil, a timid boy, who becomes a Knight of Ratatosk to protect Marta who has the Core of Ratatosk emblazed in her head. The story being that you need to collect all of the Centurion Cores to restore the balance of monsters and mana in the world by reawaking all of the Centurions [monsters who control other monsters of the same element] and thus reawaking the leader of all monsters Ratatosk to restore normality to the world. Lloyd is apparently collecting the cores for his own personal use, whilst there is another group of people collecting the cores too. I dont want to give away the story so i will just highlight some points of mine:

Good points:
+Plays similarly so you can get straight into it easily if you know the last game or other Tales of games. Also easy to learn if your new because of in game help at the start of the game.
+Exploring some original areas 2 years after the first game to see how they have changed.
+Returning characters!
+Good music.
+Great battle system.
+Collecting monsters [kind of like pokemon to be fair, you fight along side them in battles]

Bad points:
-The graphics have not improved at all since the original from 2003......
-You cant walk around the world map nomore, just click on where you want to go and your there.
-Some original characters do not have the same voice actors anymore.

All in all its a great game which is just an enjoyment to play, well worth buying if your a fan of RPGs and only have a Wii.

An Old School RPG with great graphics,amazing music and a deep story.

We want more games for wii like this one...

like RPG's...

Make no mistake this is one of the very best RPG's on the Wii, but it only scores 4 because it has to naturally be compared to the prequel on the Gamecube.

The original churned out every used to death form of story telling filled with plot lines you'd be hard pressed to find in the most wacky soap opera. But the whole thing was genius. Oh yes, without a doubt the greatest video game I've ever had the pleasure to play (Seek it out if you can because it will make sense when you play this sequel).

Does this beat its Gamecube counterpart? In some ways yes. The graphics are much improved for the Wii, and the painstaking effort thats gone into providing voice acting for every single cut scene really adds to the storytelling element. All the original characters appear in one way or another and its wonderful to actually see how the lives of the original game characters have changed and developed, as well as introducing some new ones.

The humor and banter between them is actually really good. With the voice acting, its a bit like watching a TV show, and across cultures (this game originating in Japan) the jokes really translate well.

The flaws are limited but here they are;

The battle system has changed (Like the original non turn based battles). Its better for the most part as the field is larger, but the battles are too quick, its lost the voice in your head and pounding heart moments wondering if you are going to finally beat the boss. Emil moves very fast and the action whizzes by, you have to pause the game to view the action and decide who does what, perhaps that was the idea but it works better when you can fight in real time I think.

Its much shorter, the maps are no longer explorable which in other tales games gives you a real sense of freedom and you obviously "wasted" many hours finding the new towns and leveling up before moving on with the story. This is point and click action (One of only a few uses of the Wii remote)

Some new voice actors. You get used it to. But its a pity.

This game is for people who like RPG's. Its for people who like a good story that you follow and feel part of . Its for people who don't like bigotry, closed minded attitudes, and finally those who don't mind spending a bit more on a computer game. This is a quality title and I doubt the game will fall much below the 20 pound mark if at all.