Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Knights of Ratatosk)

Okay so Lady Ventus is back to the blogging arena with the sequel of Tales of Symphonia - Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World! Or in Japan it'd be called Knights of Ratatosk (which sounds cooler than DotNW, but whatever).

So when this came out, I was ecstatic. I was thrilled. I was practically jumping on the walls of my bedroom, school hallways, then all the way to the mall and bought it after the first day it was out I believe. I was mystified to find out that I was actually holding the sequel to the successful Tales of Symphonia.

Shortest game I have ever played.

Personal story aside, I shall get back to the all important substance of this review: The actual review.

After Tales of Symphonia:

It's been two years since the first game. The worlds - Sylvarant and Tethe'alla - have finally merged after the original cast of heroes have finished their quest. Ah, but of course, even if there is enough Mana in the world, without the two worlds competing with it through the dangerous Chosen of Regeneration ritual, there's still trouble. The Sylvaranti and the Tethe'allans are not seeing eye to eye with one another - almost as if it was a repeat of Half-Elves and everyone else - and have been making it clear that they're not on the same level. To make matters worse, ever since the worlds have merged, the climates changed greatly, and maps are now useless.

Current status:

The Sylvaranti, inferior to the Tethe'allans when it comes to technology and unification, formed an army called the Vanguard - which rise against the Church of Martel and Tethe'allan population.

The fated day came at once when the Church and Martel attacked the Vanguard, everything breaks loose and thus a massacre erupts in the Port City, Palmacosta. Flames are everywhere, people are frantically running for their lives and out from the smoke comes the old hero clad in red, drawing out his twin blades and calling out punishment. This doesn't look good. This is the event that was been proclaimed as the Blood Purge. As this sole figure strikes upon innocent victims and leave them to die.

Somewhere in the brouhaha of the Blood Purge is a girl - who is in fact the heroine if it wasn't obvious enough - holding an important looking orb and getting chased. Pleading for help, she's knocked out and wakes up to find a mysterious boy in front of her and the people chasing her out like a light. She tries to talk to him, but he runs off. Where he runs off to is: his parents dying in front of him, telling him to live in Luin with his aunt and uncle.

...Thus starting the game.

Story:

Emil Castagnier, your ordinary, cowardly, and alienated boy wakes up in his bed to a monster's howl. A former Palmacosta resident, but was moved into custody of his Aunt Flora and Uncle Alba, who....hate him. Actually most of the town of Luin hate him because of him despising their hero - Lloyd Irving, the swordsman clad in red. The one who was rumored to have caused the Blood Purge. In short, he's a murderer in Emil's eyes and the one who ended his parents' lives. So you pretty much have him walk around town, getting bad mouthed at and mercilessly ordered around by the kids and his own guardians.

In short, he's the black sheep of Luin only because of his belief of Lloyd being a murderer. Well I mean seriously, Lloyd an antagonist? Pleeease. Ahem. ANYWAY.

He's being called by the monster's howls and runs off to the source only to get attacked by a bear type monster. He's holding a sword, but he lacks the intent on killing off the beast and that's when the typical "boy meets girl" meet when the heroine - Marta Lualdi and her companion, the Centurion of Darkness - Tenebrea. This meeting gradually becomes the downfall of Emil's peaceful life of dealing with Luin and it sets them up in going on a quest together after an encounter with the enigmatic Richter Abend who gives Emil a mantra to live by.

"Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality."

So through out this entire game, you will hear this said by the newest additions of the cast of heroes. Yes, you definitely will and might or might not be annoyed by it.

The beginning:

Slow. It is slow. It takes a while to leave the first town due to the amount of flash backs you're given because of Emil's lack of confidence. He needs to confirm everything in his thoughts or have someone else confirm it. So...due to first observation: he's a spineless, incompetent hero who has the powers of a demon king. And Marta is a high school girl with a world sized crush on the kid and she's not afraid to show it. The way to phrase it...they are the opposite of Lloyd Irving - the original hero - and Colette Brunel - the original heroine. However there is Tenebrae, the sarcastic, bitter and spiteful Centurion who guides the duo through the newly merged world.

Their mission is to find all of the orbs - erm...well 'eggs' - for the sake of saving the world and also because of Ratatosk, the so-called 'King of Monsters/Demons'. The Goddess Martel just got pushed aside as being an all-important being, but if you play the first game...then...yeah she's important. So those eggs have to be 'hatched' and apparently only Marta can do that because she has Ratatosk's egg/orb embedded into her forehead after asking him for help.

Getting there....:

Alright cool, we got attacked by...Lloyd?! Wait, Lloyd you're my hero! ...Who attacked two fifteen-year-olds and got the egg you almost got. Oh that sucks. We apparently got a new look too, which they find time to converse about. Now we get the plot rolling, sorta, and leave Luin in search of a better place. Don't worry, we come back.

Along the way...:

We learn about the story of Marta's travel and Emil joins in and we meet the original cast one right after the other. Apparently, it doesn't seem like they aged one bit, they still keep their clothes too, but they're all doing other things. However, it all connects to looking for the newly masked swordsman, Lloyd. Yep, can't get enough of this guy.

They become friendly with the original cast, after some rocky beginnings and no, no one else questions it. Through these meetings we meet some of the antagonists and learn more about the Vanguard.

There's the 'sadist' Alice and the zealous Decus who make their appearances. They prove to be quite the duo at near the end of the game by the way.

Almost there...!:

There's more fighting and other stuff like hatching the eggs and information gathering. As well as monster hunting.

THERE!:

You discover the truth, but fail.

Nah kidding, why would I wanna spoil anything? Don't worry, this game is relatively easy, the time to beat it is around thirty hours. I beat it thirty-three hours only because I was doing quests.

Features:

Three endings - This also appeared in the original Symphonia.

There's the Bad Ending, deciding on the choices of the games and your choice at the end. It leads to the death of a person done through suicide.

There's the Good Ending, deciding on the choices of the game and your choice at the end. Everything is done with, but you don't really get anything out of it.

There's the True Ending, deciding on the choices of the game and your choice at the end. Everything isn't done with immediately like in the Good Ending, you have the chance to battle Ratatosk as well as a scene between Emil and Marta.

Monster Hunting - Seeing as how you could never have a party that doesn't consist of Emil or Marta, you have monsters. This is a first in Tales, but not in any other Monster Hunting game. When conditions are met and made, you can capture a monster, train it, level it up, and even give it the choice to 'evolve' into a different form. It's like Pokemon, but not as tedious. Instead of cooking for the party, you cook for the monsters, because they help you more and are just more useful.

Good thing is that you can keep the monsters you got in the first play through in the second and next ones.

It's either one or the other - Based on what I said previously in the Monster Hunting section, your party HAS to have Marta or Emil as the leader. You can't have everything apparently.

Katz Katz Guild - Remember the Katz? Well they remember you! This time around, you're able to accept requests/missions from their guilds. You don't travel to them, you instant get there with only drabbles of dialogue about your mission. You complete it, get your reward and go. Nothing too special, but it helps kill time and get items.

Elemental Grid - In the last game, there's the favorite Unison Attack. In this game, there's still a Unison attack (which can be done with monsters as well) but it also helps to have the right elements for more effect.

Skits galore - Skits are just a fantastic favorite amongst fans with their conversational elements between characters. There were some funny skits here, but others were usually revolved around Emil and Marta and their opinions on the others. Don't forget about Tenebrae's usual side comments!

Taking from past success - Apparently America was being cool. They added in something that Japan didn't have and that is the ability to use completion data from Tales of Symphonia (GC) in order to get some goods for Dawn of the New World. There's also another gift from them of having more shortcuts.

Titles (hooray!) but no costume (SAY WHAT?) - If you've played Tales games before playing this, you're used to the idea of attaining titles through certain events and also being able to get a costume to specific titles. This time, unfortunately, you can't get costumes. Why? I don't know, maybe they just don't think Emil and Marta like getting dressed up. I mean I totally would've loved to have Marta find a wedding dress and force Emil into a tux or something. That's something that seems like a costume for the two. But y'know, I'm just a fan.

Characters:

Unlike most people, I liked the characters...after the rocky beginning. I'll only be talking about the first three major characters you meet. Excluding Tenebrae.

Emil is annoying due to his whiny and cowardly nature - it also doesn't help that he's still kind of like this through the game, but it's to be the foil of Ratatosk as well as a 'decoy'. He could've had better character development, and possibly a better way to word things. Despite what I said about him, I actually found his personality adorable. Although, I would've loved it if he 'manned-up' more.

Marta was funny at the beginning because of how she fawned over Emil, then her comments about Alice, but when she flamed on Colette, that's what got to me as well as her constant leaving of the party. SHE NEEDS A LEASH. Later on, she was fine after learning about her back story, but it could've been made better. In all honesty.

Richter was just cool through and through. He had that tough guy act, but he's just a really nice guy. He kept his cool - even if he shook Emil vigorously until the mayor told him to stop - and held his ground. It's like they were trying to recreate another Kratos Aurion, but seriously, that just can't happen.

Battle systems are go!:

Flex Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System. Aspects of Tales of the Abyss's battle system and Tales of Innocent's come together to form this. The addition of the Elemental Grid comes into heavy play. So, therefore, the type of attack you use has an element. For example: Photon is Light, so therefore there is going to be a Light element in the Elemental Grid.

Originally here but...:

We got the previous cast with us, but only for limited time. However, as much as I'd loved to have them in my party at all times, it was just nearly impossible for me. During the time span of the game, they were at a lower level than I was and that was only because they leveled up during the progress of the story. They're equipped with their best weapons, but their highest level is fifty. FREAKING FIFTY. I would've played this much, much, muuuuch longer than thirty or so hours. Possibly fifty if I felt like it. Anyway, they're equipped with specific elements. i.e: Lloyd is fire and Raine is Light.

Also, the majority of the cast had a makeover with the voices. Sadly, the original voice actors didn't appear. Save for Colette and Presea. What bothered me to the point of wanting to tear something apart was the fact that when they were dubbing the game, the original voice actors who didn't appear in Dawn of the New World weren't even contacted. I loved the voices in the prequel and the game would've been at least more enjoyable if the original cast was still up. I mean, it's not like the new people didn't do great, it's just that they didn't capture the feel the previous cast did.

Into the mouth of danger:

Since it's only been two years, there are still dungeons that are used - recycled. For example: The temples that were used to house the Summon Spirits. Instead of Summon Spirits though, the Centurions are the residents and are sleeping soundly in their eggs. There are new dungeons, but they're not hard even with their puzzles. There are also new places to go to, but there's not much to do after everything's done with.

What else returned?

Items still the same and there are the artes that came back too. The Sorcerer's Ring came back as well in order to help you on your journey!

What does Lady Ventus think?

Overall, this was a good game for the Wii, since y'know, there aren't many JRPGs on the Wii. It used the Wii's abilities like having to use the nun-chucks in order to play this game, but it would've been fun to ...I dunno... swing the Wiimote around like a sword? Too much? Yeah...I guess.

I really do believe this had potential. However, I could tell that there was a lot of pressure and expectation riding on them due to how successful and splendid the previous game had. If you want an JRPG to pass time with then try this one, it's still good, regardless of the mixture of flames and praise it's receiving. My advice is that you need to play the first game, it's not like it's forcing you to just like in InFamous, but you should just play it to understand why everything's the way it is.

It's a sequel people.

Rating: 7.0/10

This is as generous as I can get.