Tales of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World

The bad one is pretty sad.

Oxx wrote:The bad one is pretty sad.

I thought so too. I'd have felt awful if I was left thinking that was the only ending! :oops:

At least I can read through this thread again and look at all the spoilers now.

Far too many posts by this Oxx fella, though.

I can't believe you made me watch that, Tiarny! :evil:

It's your own fault. Just ask Patty why.

Tiarny told me on MSN that he wubs Patty.

Patty. :wub:

Seems like I put 28 hours into the game in the last seven days. :shifty:

Time well spent. :shifty:

As you can probably tell, I quite liked it. More so than Symphonia.

I finished Symphonia on the GC, but I didn't love it. Any complaints I leveled at the opening sections of DotNW are put into perspective by the fact that it took me about 15 hours to start enjoying the first game and the whole thing took me 80 hours because I used grinding instead of skill (By contrast I don't think I had to grind at all in DotNW. Maybe that also contributed to my enjoyment).

I concede that DotNW doesn't really hold up if divorced from Symphonia's nostalgia, but the base game is pretty solid and betters its predecessor in many ways...

- strawberry float Symphonia's world map. I really didn't miss it.
- DotNW looks good, mayne. A little ropey on a big-screen, but a real looker on a standard-def one.
- Pretty nifty voice-acting and characterisation in the skits
- Marta :wub:

- Combat system's better too.

Didn't see Kratos, though.

Oxx wrote:Didn't see Kratos, though.

You can see him once, very briefly, if you go to the Mana Tree just before heading to the final dungeon. It's a fairly touching moment, as it's the last time Kratos can ever speak to anyone back on the planet before leaving communication range forever.

I have to agree with you, Oxx. The US fans seemed to hate the game so I wasn't sure what to expect, especially after adoring Vesperia, but I really, really enjoyed Dawn. I have to say that I think all the nostalgia actually worked against the game as at times it seemed like the game's narrative was fighting against "OMG OLD PARTY MEMBER CAMEO!". I think the game would have been better if the characters had been reduced to being infrequent cameos, although I can't say I hated them making a big appearance either as I do love the Symphonia cast. I also had (major, major) trouble getting into Symphonia at first, while I fell in love with Dawn right from the start.

I liked the cameos. They weren't used as dramatically in the gameplay as they were in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, but they always raised a smile.

Now Namco needs to confirm a Tales of Graces localisation.

Postadditional by **Mr.Jeff** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:37 pm

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:
Oxx wrote:Didn't see Kratos, though.

You can see him once, very briefly, if you go to the Mana Tree just before heading to the final dungeon. It's a fairly touching moment, as it's the last time Kratos can ever speak to anyone back on the planet before leaving communication range forever.

If you play through a second time on NG+, Kratos will talk to you properly at that bit rather than just a cameo.

I'd say overall, I prefered Symphonia myself over DoTNW in terms of gameplay but characters were handled much better in the sequel aside from Emil and his rampant gay-love of Richter. The side quests felt a bit pointless and gooseberry fool and I've never been a fan of static dull map screens. Plus I will never like dealing with enemies that commit character rape with their goddamn mystic artes.

Give it another month and a couple of purchases on ebay and I'll be able to give Tales of the Abyss a try.

I didn't really go far off the beaten track in either game. I did some of the Katz quests earlier in DotNW, but after a while I just powered along the main story.

There's a lot I probably missed. I'm not sure if I even fully understood many of the game mechanics. Once I accidently managed to do a joint mystic arte with both Email and Marta. Don't know how it happened, never happened again.

PostRe: additional by **The Alchemist Penguin** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:48 pm

Mr.Jeff wrote:
The Alchemist Penguin wrote:
Oxx wrote:Didn't see Kratos, though.

You can see him once, very briefly, if you go to the Mana Tree just before heading to the final dungeon. It's a fairly touching moment, as it's the last time Kratos can ever speak to anyone back on the planet before leaving communication range forever.

If you play through a second time on NG+, Kratos will talk to you properly at that bit rather than just a cameo.

God damn. What is it with RPGs and doing things like that!? :cry:

What does he say!?

PostRe: additional by **Count Nood** » Thu Mar 25, 2010 11:49 pm

The Alchemist Penguin wrote:
Mr.Jeff wrote:
The Alchemist Penguin wrote:
Oxx wrote:Didn't see Kratos, though.

You can see him once, very briefly, if you go to the Mana Tree just before heading to the final dungeon. It's a fairly touching moment, as it's the last time Kratos can ever speak to anyone back on the planet before leaving communication range forever.

If you play through a second time on NG+, Kratos will talk to you properly at that bit rather than just a cameo.

God damn. What is it with RPGs and doing things like that!?

What does he say!?

Just for a bit of perspective, there's plenty of stuff I didn't like about the game:

- The character's running animation and movement speed always seemed a bit off. Like they were completely independent. I had the same issue with the original.
- A lot of the pacing in the player controlled story scenes was pretty bad. What's the point in having to click through everybody's dialogue? I guess it made it easier to skip through, but it made the voice-acting horribly stilted.
- The times when you exited a cutscene, walked a couple of steps and entered another cutscene.
- *Marta left the party* *Walk two steps* *Marta rejoined the party*
- The monster evolving stuff wasn't as interesting as I thought it could be.

Anyway, a lot of the worst of it came down to the pacing of the 'interactive' story elements. I know the game zipped along at a breakneck pace already, but I kinda wished that they had condensed a lot of that stop-start story stuff into a single, lengthier cinema scene.

And that's that. Lock this mofo up.

Oxx wrote:- *Marta left the party* *Walk two steps* *Marta rejoined the party*

Aye, that was quite annoying, especially as you'd have to reshuffle your party and reset their formation/strategy each time.

What happens in the bad ending?

(Ending spoilers)

Gideon wrote:What happens in the bad ending?

Youtubed Bad Ending:

It's short, but definitely interesting.

Started this today and put a few hours in. I like it a lot, maybe because I haven't played an RPG for a long time but its fun. Bit talky at the start but now chapter 2 has kicked in I hope explanations on things lessens. I've even warmed to Emil in the short hours of play!

It takes a little while to get going, but the final 3/4s of the game fly by.

...

I'm still a little curious about the monster stuff. I pretty much went with the ones I encountered early in the game. After a certain point I rarely had the chance to recruit fresh meat, and if I did, they rejected me anyway.

For most of the game I was rolling around with a big-ass wolf and a frog-like dude.

Collete is still as irritating as ever, she would have to join my crew. I was liking the duo and their pet set up.

Oxx wrote:I'm still a little curious about the monster stuff. I pretty much went with the ones I encountered early in the game. After a certain point I rarely had the chance to recruit fresh meat, and if I did, they rejected me anyway.

For most of the game I was rolling around with a big-ass wolf and a frog-like dude.

That's how I played the first time, then I lost my save in the great Wii-Fire of '09.

I think that was actually the best thing to happen in the long run, as I really got to grips with the monster stuff on the second play. I had some great monsters by the end of the game, even preferring to use some of them over the original cast!

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn Of The New World

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