Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Nintendo Wii proves the unlikely hero with a rare and entertaining fantasy role-player. Sumptuous artwork and endearing characters, witty dialogue, on and on…lovely!
Although surely targeted at younger adventurers, these exploits will captivate most RPG fans. As with the game’s predecessor on PlayStation 2, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World leans more heavily on character relationships than most in its genre. Sure there’s a ton of battles to endure, but it’s unusual to care about the lead protagonists so early on, as we have done with hapless Emil and cute Marta.
And despite its candy-cane appearance, grim themes arise in the very opening scenes. Your heart will be crying out for a hero from the start, which makes it even more compelling when you realise that Emil, the least confident and apparently incompetent guy in the village, is your man.
As with Tales of Vesperia on Xbox 360, part of the same series from Namco Bandai, the artwork of Kosuke Fujishima helps boost appeal for even the most archetypical supporting roles. Details such as the mascot dangling from Marta’s satchel make all the difference; just that little bit more care and attention.
Two major additions from the PS2 original are the free-roaming battle system, and a focus on collecting up to 200 monsters a la Nintendo’s Pokemon. In the first instance you might feel like this is cheating a bit, being able to – basically – keep running away from your enemy in the hope of being healed by Marta. But since the game supports up to four players in co-op, you won’t impress your friends that way.
The collecting monsters thing is tricky, as it requires players to form pacts with criters at the close of a battle. You’ll need to have a compatible monster within your group, and only use certain types of attack to pound them into submission. Otherwise they’ll just vanish like regular enemies upon being defeated. Potentially, though, you’ll have a party of 200 to choose from, all levelling up in unique ways.
Finally there’s cooking! Yes, the ability to concoct potent recipes that’ll boost your monsters abilities in cool, surprising, and in some cases rare new directions.
We haven’t yet tried the mini games, thinking it better to plough ahead into 80+ hours worth of gameplay promised by Namco Bandai. For the record we rather like Emil so far, though he as attracted legions of haters on account of his constant whining!
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is released by Namco Bandai in November, exclusively for Nintendo Wii.