Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World – Wii Review

Reviewed by Rich Banks on December 24, 2009

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World - Wii Review  | read this item

The world of the RPG – an often inconsistent genre of gaming, one that requires expertise and the careful eye of a perfectionist to portray the correct balance between character development and strategic battling; get it wrong and you’re in for a wild ride through boredom and unbalanced gaming. The first Tales of Symphonia game for the GameCube was highly praised for its intricate battle system and art style, so it was only a matter of time until a sequel made its appearance on the Wii; a games console that, just like the GameCube did, currently has a severe lack of good RPG’s. With all this in mind, how does Dawn of the New World compare to the first game, and could it be the game the game that Wii RPG fans have been looking for?

The story continues from where the first title left off, with the lands of Teth’alla and Sylvarant still reunited as one by the new World Tree. It’s not all happy families though, and the combination has led to a whole load of problems like climate change and all manner of beasts littering the land.  The main protagonist, a young orphan boy named Emil (who everyone seems to blame for everything) leads the way with the help of a girl called Marta who has a gem seemingly stuck in her face who intends to awaken Ratatosk, the lord of monsters who should be able to sort the mess out. Fans will rejoice at the inclusion of some notable and memorable characters and locations from the first game, as well as a load of fresh faces. Most of the old characters still boast the usual charms they originally had, but the new hero’s are not a patch on the old ones. Take for example new lead hero Emil who spends most of his time whining and feeling sorry for himself, and even when he does pluck up the courage to stand up for himself, he still boasts all the passion of a wet fruitcake. It’s here you start to notice there’s a lot of problems in Dawn of the New World, and it’s only a matter of time before you wonder into something else you dislike.

The game is split into three different sections; wondering about in towns and dungeons, the map screen and battling. As you can imagine you will spend a lot of time in all three, but you will mostly find yourself in dungeons and towns, fighting battles and interacting with NPC’s. The controls are simple in all sections, and mostly the game fails to utilise the Wii remote to its full potential. Apart from pointing a ring about now and again to fire fireballs around in dungeons and having limited use in a few mini games, you’re not required to use the remote’s interactive abilities at all, but rather use the remote and Nunchuck control pads and main buttons to move and interact with characters and objects. It’s a simple affair and it’s easy enough to get in to, but it would have been nice if the game had incorporated some of the Wii’s more unique controls.

When you’re not battling your way through monsters and chatting to townsfolk, you’ll find yourself using the world map to travel to the different towns and dungeons. It’s simple to navigate, but there are no random battles or anything really on the world map worthy of your time. You simply select where you want to go to and your team will head there in a matter of seconds. It would be nice to have a few monsters jump out at you, just to spice things up. This does also mean that character development can only be completed in dungeons as your fellow characters won’t be levelling up any other way. Also, boss battles can be tricky if you’ve not levelled up enough, and simply fighting your way through dungeons once sometimes isn’t enough to suffice. You’ll basically find yourself heading back through previously completed parts of the game in order to get your team up to a level that should do the job in defeating those harder enemies. It’s annoying really; random battles would have helped make the game a bit meatier, but traipsing back through past dungeons will do nothing but secure the feeling of repetition.

Tales of Symphonia has plenty of little niggles, but there’s one that sticks out like a panda in a lion cage. Now, everyone likes a good cut scene, but there’s absolutely no need for one every couple of seconds. It doesn’t just boil down to being slightly annoying, but rather edges on putting a complete stop to getting any enjoyment out of the game itself. A typical game situation will see you walking around for possibly 15 seconds, but as soon as you hit a location of importance or clap eyes on an NPC, you seemingly always end up watching a ridiculous, cliché and all-round boring cut scene that does nothing but hamper your experience. It wouldn’t be as bad if the cut scenes weren’t so ridiculous and downright badly put together. They play out so slowly and mechanic that watching them is painful and even trying to follow the storyline can become altogether tedious, and you’ll often find yourself resorting to skipping numerous cut scenes and simply trying to catch up with what you’ve missed. The voice acting is equally terrible, and simply does nothing to improve the cut scenes or the gameplay in anyway. It’s so bad in fact, I’d rather they had shipped the game with a microphone and let me put my own voices over it. The characters neither suite the voices they have been given, nor have they been acted out in a way that makes the game any better. They instead make the cut scenes even more tedious, both by being badly acted and being about as well scripted as the Queens Christmas speech.

I’m starting to feel a bit guilty about all these harsh words I have about this game, but the more I play it, the more things I dislike. Take for example the overall presentation of the game. Fair enough, the Wii isn’t exactly a graphical powerhouse, but most games manage to display themselves an awful lot better than Tales of Symphonia does, as it practically looks like it’s came straight from the GameCube instead of a much more advanced games console. Some characters do however look decent, but that’s mostly down to the art style that the game portrays itself though and not the animation. It’s a typical blast from arty past, incorporating a charming cell-shaded Japanese anime style that suites the title, but it’s been slopped over the game so badly that it’s more of a rag tag, jaggy edged mess of bright colours and badly designed characters than a beautiful cartoon-style gaming experience. It can sometimes, but only sometimes, look half decent, especially in some of the more bright and vibrant locations, but you still can’t help feeling like the games trapped in the past.

One notable positive for Tales of Symphonia is the battle system. It’s far from ‘Best of the genre’ as the box would lead you to believe, but it’s still a step in the right direction. Simply walk into one of the many enemies that litter the caves and you’ll be thrown into a real time battle with one or more enemies ready to try and beat you down. Attacking is achieved with a simple click of the A button, and a quick knock of the Z on the Nunchuck will whack out a special move that you’ve learned along your travels. As well as simple one strike moves, button mashing with the A button will achieve combo attacks that will take your enemies down much faster. A bar at the bottom of the battle screen will build up every time you cause damage to an enemy, and once it’s reached a certain level it’s possible to deal massive damage with special joint attacks unleashed using both you and your allies. A battle menu can be whipped out in times of danger, and allows you to order your allies about with a few tactical options. You can also take control of your allies from the menu, allowing you to use their powers directly. If you’ve had enough of the computer helping you out, you can enlist up to three friends into your group, letting them control one of the four characters in any battle (as long as there humans – monsters can only  be controlled by player one). Although there are only limited multiplayer options, it can be pretty fun to play with a couple of friends and can give the game a healthy boost of much needed depth. You can also befriend monsters that you come across in caves. These creatures will fight alongside you when you create a pact with them, and they basically become a part of your main fighting team. You can have over 200 monsters join your pact, but you can only use four characters in a battle at one time, with the rest being stored at a pen at the Katz Guild. These creatures can level up and evolve, meaning you can gather a group of extra strong monsters that will help you in the battlefield.

If you get bored of catching monsters and fighting through dungeons, there’s a few other things that you can do to stretch the game out, such as side quests and weapon forging, but neither really offer anything substantial that could possibly keep you interested for very long.

Tales of Symphonia isn’t going to change the shape of the RPG genre, but instead sort of shifts itself somewhere in-between the rest of the mediocre games that have laced the Wii since launch. There are some great things about the game; the battle system is very simple to use and can be wholesome fun, especially with some friends, but there’s also some points that spoil things majorly. If you enjoyed the first title, you might find some enjoyment in Dawn of the New World, but there are some things that even hardcore fans will find difficult to get through. It’s not a terrible RPG, but when you compare it to an awful lot of other games, it’s a second rate title that should have been a hell of a lot better than it’s turned out to be.

Tags: multiplayer, Nintendo Wii, Reviews, role playing game, RPG, Tales of Symphonia Dawn of the New Worlc, Wii review