Wetcoaster

User Score
8.3

Presentation - 8.0
Gameplay - 8.5
Value - 8.5

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World takes place two years after the events of the first game in the new merged world of Sylvarant and Tethe’alla. However, things in this new world are not how our old heroes imagined. Bizarre weather patterns have begun to take place and the people of Tethe’alla look down upon the people of Sylvarant because of their inferior technology. It’s up to you to try to restore peace to the world and to wake up the lord of the monsters, Ratatosk, who has the power to bring the weather patterns under control.

With this game comes a new lead character, Emil Castagnier. Emil loses his parents in the beginning of the game when Palmacosta is attacked by Lloyd and the Church of Martel, who sides with the Tethe’allans. Emil starts out as a whiny and overly apologetic individual who gets thrust into the role of hero against his will by Marta Lualdi, a new female protagonist. If the constant whining of Emil gets under your skin it does lessen in time and when he enters Ratatosk mode, after becoming a knight of Ratatosk, he’s your typical badass which a lot of gamers seem to want from a main character. Emil is not to be messed with on the battlefield though. His high flying aerial moves make him a blast to play.

The battle system has been improved upon in Dawn of the New World. Free-run is a welcome addition that gives you complete control over the battlefield. You can also assign artes to motion gestures and unleash havoc that way. The elemental grid can be found in the lower left screen and it’s always changing. Depending on the element of the battlefield some of your party members will get stat bonuses, they’ll be able to join in unison attacks and you’ll even be able to recruit new monsters to join your party.

Ah, the monsters. Honestly, I wasn’t too fond of this addition. I’d much rather have an all main character party and every time I had the chance I definitely used it. The reason for this is that you can’t control the monsters, they can’t use items and if the main characters die you lose, even if your monsters are still alive. A good thing with the monsters is that they level up quickly and they can evolve into new, more powerful forms. You can also teach them healing artes which could come in handy. You are able to cook dishes for your monsters, provided you get recipes from the Wonder Chef who is hidden throughout the game. Cooking for your monsters give them stat boosts and this is also how you make them evolve.

The field map was left out of this game due to time constraints and it was replaced by an over world map where you just select where you want to go. This actually works out quite well and I didn’t find myself missing the field map at all while playing. Sure, that may bring the exploring element down a notch but trust me, there is still a lot to explore. You’ll be visiting the same towns you visited in the first Tales of Symphonia and exploring many of the same dungeons and temples you explored previously; which I found to be extremely satisfying as a big fan of the first game. There are also some new places to explore and everything looks crisp and clean thanks to the extra power of the Wii.

The old main characters return to this game and all are playable except for Kratos. The old heroes all have set experience levels and equipment. They level up at different points of the game though so you shouldn’t have a problem with any party member being too weak. The set equipment is a bit of a disappointment because you can’t customize your characters but in the end it probably saves you a lot of gald. They probably could have at least let you customize their accessories but oh well, the accessories that they are equipped with work well enough. Many of the old characters also have new voice actors. I didn’t really mind though because the new voice actors did a really great job and sometimes it was even hard to tell that new voice actors were being used, well, except for Lloyd, I really wasn’t very fond of his new voice over.

All in all, Dawn of the New World is a worthy successor to the first game and a welcome addition to the Tales franchise. It’s a great experience going back to the world of Tales of Symphonia with a new adventure and getting to adventure again with the characters that made the first game so memorable. If you’re looking for a fun game to soak up a lot of hours you might want to give Dawn of the New World a try, even if you haven’t played the first one.

I can’t let this review end without saying that Dawn of the New World has some of the best skits that have ever appeared in the Tales franchise. They’re a lot of fun on their own.