Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

THE GOOD:
- Awesome Story: Both Unique And Complementary.
- Awesome Music.
- Awesome Gameplay.
- Good Graphics.
- New Monster System.
- Wonderful Cutscenes.
- Improved Skit System
- Wonderful Voice Acting.
- Multiplayer.
- A Lot Of Easter Eggs.
- Huge Replay Value.

THE BAD:
- A Lot Shorter Than The First Game.
- People That Leave Your Party Constantly Is Annoying.
- No Interesting Glitches.
- The Monster System Could Have Been Better.
- There's No Longer A World Map.
- Lack of save points.

SUMMARY:
For the looks of it, the wait and constant change of dates for the release of dates was worth it after all. This has to be one of the best Tales games I have played so far. I just can't stress it enough. This game is beautiful. I have never seen such a wonderful story in a videogame, specially when the game in question is a continuation of another one. I will be honest and say that I actually though that Namco would screw this game up in at least one aspect, but for lord's sake, it is now one of my favourite games in history. Namco never fails to amuse me when they release RPGs to the market. Their Tales games are not the only ones that have done beautiful jobs in entertainment.

I think this game should be recognized because of the awesome story it has to offer. I have never seen such an awesome continuation of a game.
Tales Of Symphonia: Knights Of Ratatosk is a direct continuation of Tales Of Symphonia for the Game Cube. The game is about two teens: Emil and Marta, who are destined to hatch Ratatosk's cores to awake Ratatosk, and with prevent the destruction of the world because of natural disasters and uncontrolled monsters. Both Emil and Marta lost important people for them because of the party that combined Tethe'alla and Sylvarant together, so they are also looking for revenge. Emil however, lost his parents in a Blood Purge that occurred in Palmacosta, his hometown. Lloyd Irving is the killer of his parents, and he is desperately looking for revenge.
So, Emil meets the Centurion Tenebrae, who helps him and Marta to locate the Centurion Cores, and transforms Emil into a knight of Ratatosk.
The story of this game is full of awesome plot twists, just like the first Symphonia game, but I have to say that the plot twists Knights Of Ratatosk has are way more powerful than in Symphonia. It's the first time I see such a powerful story in a videogame because of the constant plot twists.
Also, I have to mention that while this game his own storyline, it also complements some elements from the first Tales Of Symphonia. In the storyline of this game, you get to meet and work with all the party members you used in Tales Of Symphonia, for your own goal in the game (awaken Ratatosk) and to complement some elements from the first Tales Of Symphonia (for example, did you ever wonder what happened to Yuan at the end of the game in the first Symphonia?). This game not only makes sure you know the storyline of Symphonia well enough, but also complements the parts of the game that were known. It's some sort of "patch" that patches the holes in the original game, so you can get the storyline perfectly. In this game, the storyline was perfectly though, and there are no details that will be escaped from you. You will understand Lloyd's reasons to attack Palmacosta, and why Emil never kills Lloyd even though his parents died because of that.
Although, it's necessary to point out that you WILL understand the storyline of this game even if you didn't play the original Tales Of Symphonia. However, the storyline will not be as deep as it would be if you played the game, and you will not find the old characters to be as amusing as they are meant to be. You may also get some aspects of the game wrong and some attitudes of some characters wrong if you don't play the first Tales Of Symphonia. So you will understand the story, but it won't be as deep as it is meant to be, so I highly recommend you to play the first Tales Of Symphonia before you get your hands on this one.

You are not going to regret if you play this game. I am telling you.

Now, if we mention the music, we have to say that it's probably the best OST a videogame has ever had. Not only it remixes and improves a lot of tracks the original Symphonia has, but also introduces new pieces of music which are completely awesome. It has a wide amount of tracks, and each of them fit the background of your current scene perfectly. No flaws, no errors here. Depending on the battle (be it boss, or not) has a different background music depending on the place and on the current situation of the game and the awareness of the characters of what is going on. There is a vast amount of awesome music, and a wide array of improved songs from Symphonia. Please note that the music is NOT different in the Japanese or American version of the game, only the opening theme is.









Like you can see, the music has been redone and it is very good. I have no doubt this game will be known for having an awesome soundtrack too.

Another element that makes this game a joy is the wonderful gameplay it has to offer. It uses both Wii Remote and Nunchuck. With this, you get to set more shortcuts to your attacks (if you have played other Tales games, you will know what I am talking about. It is an abstract concept to explain here). You can set shortcuts to your standard controllers (where you could only have 8 shortcuts in Symphpnia) which makes 8, and you can set them to the D-Pad AND to the motion of the controllers. That adds 8 extra spaces making a total of 16 shortcuts for your attacks. Not to mention you can always set shortcuts to artes that other characters do, that has always been a feature. And to enhance the gameplay, when you use the Sorcerer's Ring, you have to point in the screen of your TV and press A to activate it wherever you are pointing it to.





What are you waiting for? The gameplay is one of the main elements that keeps you hooked on this game. It keeps the traditional linear real-time based battle system.

Now, the graphics are also very good. You can easily see that this game is trying to use all the power of the Wii's video card. The graphics could have been a bit better, but they are an improvement. They are not cell shaded, everything is 3D, but this 3D is very good. The environments are rich, and the characters are very well detailed. Everything is too colorful. If you played the first Symphonia, you will see that some of the town you saw before now have richer decorations and colors.









Like you can see, there has been an drastic change on the graphics, but that doesn't mean it is bad. In fact, they look better and more mature.

This game also counts with a new monster system. This is simply a system in which you can recruit some monsters to your side and use them in battle. They can also eat, evolve, and grow a friendship level with you. You can keep 4 monsters with you, and if you get more, they go directly to the Katz Guild. You can later swap monsters, and "devolve" them to their initial forms. That's everything I can say about this system, there's really is not much into it, except that you make Pacts with them to join them, and sometimes you fail the pact and the monster runs away. You don't get to befriend monsters all the time.

This game has a lot of interesting cutscenes that will help you understand the story of the game with more depth. This scenes have wonderful music and awesome action. Some of them are funny and generally are good to watch.
Although, one downside is that there are absolutely no Anime cutscenes on this game. Tales Of Symphonia had at least one, and Tales Of The Abyss had one every now and then. I wonder why they didn't add Anime cutscenes. Time is not an excuse as they pushed the game many times.

The "Skits" are extra scenes in the game in which you only see the faces of the characters talking. This scenes are completely optional to watch, though I would recommend to try to watch them all. Skits are a tradition in Tales games.
In the past tales games, the skits were faces and text, and that was about it. On this game, now the skits are fully voice acted, and there is some motion. In past Tales games you would see half of the skit and then stop it before it was done, because it was boring to read them. Now, the voice acting and the hilarious noices/movements will keep you watching them and expecting them.
Also, I have to mention that if you lose an skit (Eg, entering a town or a battle when they appear), you will be able to watch them after the event that stopped them, unlikely Symphonia where they disappeared right after you entered a battle without reading them. That is certainly a plus, you get to know more funny, interesting, or random facts about the storyline or the characters.

The voice acting of this game is remarkable, in both Japanese And English. In Japanese, the voice acting is good, but in English, in a lot of games it is kinda dull, but for this game, they got an awesome translation and adequate voice actors for the translation. It's actually the first translation with voices I have seen that has been translated a total success in a videogame. For the looks of it, they needed a lot of voice actors, and they selected the actors wisely.

This game also has multiplayer mode. Four people can play at the same time if they have their own Wii-Remote and Nunchuck. However, they only participate in battles, and only one player can control the character that moves in places. This has always being a problem with Tales games. Never the less, it's better than nothing, and playing with your friends can actually be very fun!

There are also many easter games. They are related to other Tales games, most of the time you will see Tales Of The Abyss easter eggs. Marta has a decoration of Anise's bear (character from Tales Of The Abyss) and a keychain with Mieu's decoration (another character from Tales Of The Abyss) on her bag.

Finally, on the good points, I have to say that this game has a lot of replay value, like most Tales games do. This Tales game however has more replay value than the others, because other than completing optional sidequests, view all the skits, collect all the items, or gain all the recipes, you can also befriend every single monster that there is in the game. And that task is quite bigger than the aforementioned ones. Collecting all the monsters can be really fun and it is really a challenge that a lot of hardcore players will want to take. That's a time consuming task, but deffinitely a challenge you will be looking for.

Now, the game has some negative points as well, fortunately enough, they didn't harm the score of the game.

Firstly and most importantly, this game is a lot shorter then the first one. It lasts three hours, while the other one lasted at least 50 (assuming you are not doing a quick time game). This game lasts almost half of the other one, and I didn't like that. I expected to see another surprise in which the game didn't end. For instance, in Symphonia you though you would end the game, but certain event made you play for another 30 hours. I expected another surprise.
If this doesn't harm the score of this game, it's because it has a wonderful story that compensates it. Sometimes, short stories are the perfect excuse to make a game short.

Now, one factor that I found specially annoying is the fact that people are VERY CONSTANTLY leaving and joining your part. I found this annoying because I set shortcuts to many other attacks of other characters in my controller, so I could heal my character whenever it was needed or do a powerful spell. I had many shortcuts for the other characters, but everytime they left the party, those shortcuts were resetted, and I had to set them again. At first it wasn't a problem, but after doing it every hour of the game (literally, seriously), it became quite frustrating to set the shortcuts back every time the other party members joined back.
If you don't set shortcuts for other characters' artes, then most likely you are not going to face this problem.

There are no interesting glitches, or any glitches at all for that matter. The only cheat I found almost made me reset the Wii and lose all the progress I made to that point. I was touched by a monster right after I opened a chest, and I was stuck inside the chest... If I wouldn't have managed to get out, I would have lost all my progress to that point. Anyways, I hope other people do not find the lethal glitches the first Tales Of Symphonia had, in which you could ruin your whole gamesave.

Also, the monster system could have been better. I expected the monsters you had to at least have a minor role in the story of the game, but no, they only helped in battles. And not even like that, personally I didn't have the help of many of my monsters, because every time a new member joined the party, I switched the monster for the human. Eventually, I only had humans fighting, and the monsters didn't fight many battles.

They also got rid of the world map. Yoy no longer have the freedom to walk to a town. Now you are presented a menu where you select where you want to go.
Though it's not that bad, sometimes it was annoying to make long walks in the first game to progress in the game.

Finally, there are no many save points when you need them. It's a problem I face with many RPGs. Luckily enough, the dungeons are not as huge as they are in Final Fantasy games, so you can save your progress in a frequent basis, though sometimes it's not present when you need it.



You must get this game, specially if you played the first Tales Of Symphonia. The fact that it has it's own storyline and that it complements and makes clear some things that were abstract on the first game, makes it a must-have if you liked the first game, or RPGs in general for that matter.