Teiruzu obu Shinfuonia: Ratatosuku no kishi

Let me just say at first I thought this Tales game was going to be a total letdown. It just did not feel right, and was unbelievably hard right from the get go. I got rather annoyed when killed by a monster in the first dungeon and then I had to go through the tutorial battles again. However, it picked up and once the gang for the first game started showing up, that was when this one was actually beginning to become as enjoyable as the first game. Then it kind of let me down near the end as some of the battles just became insanely hard at times. This one's story was rather interesting, somewhat different from the first game though in essence the same as it is just going from temple to temple recovering artifacts called centurion's cores. The lead guy, Emil, is shown at the beginning of the game losing his mother in an assault on the town of Palmacosta. The surprise here is that the person leading the assault is Lloyd, the hero and main character from the first game. Well a girl named Marta is in this town too, and she is seemingly saved by Emil, but then they get separated as Emil goes to live with his aunt and uncle and is rather disliked by the whole town. He has a seething hatred over Lloyd after what he did to his town, but no one in town can believe Lloyd the great could possibly be behind this heinous attack. Emil is kind of a whiny wimp at first, and truthfully I did not really care for his character at first. This may be more because of the American voice they chose for him though. He is soon reunited with Marta and the two begin their quest where they run into many of the heroes of world regeneration as Emil must learn who he is and Marta must face demons of her own. They are also accompanied by a creature called a centurion named Tenebrae. A creature that is a dark elemental and looks like a dog. You can recruit monsters into your party, but once you were able to have the gang from the old game in your party join up with you I usually used them as they proved to be much more capable partners than the monsters. The fighting is typical Tales, as you control one character in action combat, and as always you usually just use the main guy, in this case Emil. Like I said though it was real fun especially during the middle of the game when you were still trying to figure things out. Regal from the first game was very integral in this part as he was in your party for a good portion. Then near the end after I had been basically dispatching the enemies with ease I had a couple of fights that made my head pound they were so hard. Some guy named Hawk, Alice and some dude whose name started with a D and the leader of this resistance grouped proved very frustrating opponents. The ending of the game was rather good, though somewhat vague too. All in all though this one was enjoyable, just needed work here and there and it could have been a really special game, however it is nice to play a sequel to a role playing game that is an actual sequel and not just in name only.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is very much a fan service game. It was made with fans of the GameCube/Playstation 2 game in mind. The game only gives you two new playable characters and a handful of new characters in the world while you revisit old locations with new paint jobs. Most of the music is carried over as well. That being said, the game does a good job at creating a new conflict that drags everyone into it. The Norse background greatly influences the game's story. The game has a very slow start as you play as Emil, a whiney annoying child who suddenly grows a pair while he's in battle and in his "Ratatosk Mode", you almost wish that this mode continues for the rest of the game. But if you played the original and can suffer a bit of annoying voice acting then you'll be able to enjoy the game.

Being a spin-off sequel to one of the most popular and legendary games in 'Tales of' history I expected this game to be good. It was supposed to follow the same style of Tales of the Abyss so I assumed we would get all of the Mystic Artes we missed out on and get all the added battle system improvements of Abyss but what I got was a sad excuse for a Tales battle system. The combo system is supposed to be aerial though you don't find yourself in the air much. The added monster capture system was a nice idea but it's too confusing. You don't even get a tutorial on how to do it so you find yourself button mashing when trying to capture and evolve one. Free run is as broken as ever. They fixed it up for other Tales games so why not this one? Collision data in battle sucks. You can't get near the enemy without getting pushed back by the collision data. It's like your kicking, sword slashing and bashing air!

As for the characters, well it's a different story. Emil, the lead male is a sad, soppy and soggy boy that could easily be mistaken for a girl. He even has a high pitched voice! He goes through the game having his angst moments and converting personalities into the Demon Lord every now and then but when he's normal Emil he's afraid to speak up for himself. There is next to no character development because it's always Emil the scared one and Ratatosk (alter ego) the strong one. Marta, the lead female is the most annoying tales girl to date. Tales of has many annoying loli girls but this one just takes the biscuit! Apart from having the most annoying voice actor in the world she has the most pointless character. She yearns for Emil to love and protect her but then turns around on him and starts trying to stand up for him. She's the most contradicting tales character to date!

The original Tales cast of the game has been completely ruined by shoddy voice acting and personality changes to the max. Lloyd is now an evil man who travels alone, Colette is no longer stupid, Genis thinks he's about 80, Raine is too soft on people, Zelos doesn't flirt, Sheena is to friendly, Presea talks so, so much and Regal has become the type of guy who would skip around a field throwing out cookies. A great cast ruined!

As far as the story goes, you will be disappointed. The "Centurions" are beasts that have shrines in the same temple of the Summon Spirits. They have their own "Centurion Cores" which play part in awakening Ratatosk, the Demon Lord who once guarded the Giant Kharlan Tree but abandoned it because everyone "Killed it" as he put it. The Centurion's are basically Summon Spirits. No originality there. Not only are there no summon spirits in the game but there Temples have been taken over and are now known as Centurion Temples. Quite ridiculous. The journey of the story is that Emil, Marta and the Centurion Tenebrae will meet up with members of the existing Symphonia cast to try and collect the Centurion Cores before Lloyd (now evil) and the Vanguard, which is basically the same as Cruxis except they are not thought of as Holy and non of the villains have giant wings. The story, in my opinion had loads of potential but it seemed rush and there wasn't much to it. The spoilers were typical and the lack of character development in it just made it grow tiring.

Would I recommend this game? If you like spin-off, non mother ship titles, then yes. If you like games like Abyss, then no.