Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World Preview

vashivihan · 04-24-2008, 12:30 PM

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At the Namco Bandai press event last week, we were given the opportunity to take a look at their two latest entries to their Tales of... series of games: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and Tales of Vesperia. The original Tales of Symphonia sold record amounts for the Gamecube in 2004, marking the highest grossing Tales title for the company. With a few years gone, and a new piece of hardware to play with, Dawn of the New World ushers in a few new advancements for the series.

After seeing the latest Japanese trailer, one thing is clear: this game moves brilliantly. This entry on the Wii utilized motion capture to build all the cutscenes and the characters' animations. While this may be blasphemous to proclaim at this stage, I'd go so far as to say that the animations in Dawn of the New World trounce those found on the 360's Vesperia. Of course, this is all from just a few moments with each game, but it's pretty easy to see that Symphonia's characters benefit greatly due to the motion capture system-especially in a genre where story ends up holding the player after 30+ hours.

As for the story itself, we know next to nothing beyond the names of the two main characters: Emil and Marta. Being a sequel, we've been promised that a number of players from the previous game will make and appearance, while others will be playable as well.

Rather than provide a world map on which the characters trudge across, Dawn of the New World takes to travel like a tactics RPG. Players are provided with a huge map containing points of interest, and with a single click, you're transported to the next area. All of the battles take place in these dungeons, which are almost entirely made up of locations from the previous game. These dungeons aren't just re-hashes of a familiar campaign though. They've all been re-envisioned and updated with new textures and models to boot.

New to Symphonia, a familiar element-based system that we see in many other RPGs comes into play. Dungeons, monsters, attacks, and skills are all linked to a specific element (be it earth, wind, water or fire). By attuning your characters to an element, you're able to solve puzzles as well as capture monsters to bring into your party. Yes, you read that right, monster capturing rears its head in Dawn of the New World.

These days it seems that a nary a Japanese RPG is complete without some sort of pet to collect and upkeep-much to my chagrin. I could do without the system entirely, but I'm the type that prefers to feel as if I've achieved most everything in a game (something that monster hunting tends to make near impossible). But, if that's the kind of fare that wets your whistle, here are the details.

Capturing monsters is made possible by aligning the elements of all your characters' skills with that of the monster you wish to capture. To align your skills, you must go into the menu and equip only skills of that element for each of your characters (thankfully, most creatures in a given dungeon are of one type, so you won't have to be moving in and out of menus constantly). Once you defeat a monster, they will ask to join your party. From there you can set them into your current traveling party, or send them off to storage to either ignore or use at a later date. Things don't stop there though. Managing your little friends involves feeding them all sorts of treats to boost their skills. Depending on their tastes, foods will provide a number of bonuses to your creature, even allowing them to evolve. You can clearly start to see how this addition could end up adding endless hours to the campaign.

The rest of Dawn of the New World is familiar territory. When exploring dungeons, all the enemies are visible, so you wont have to worry about any random encounters. Once in a battle, events occur in real time. Movement is controlled via the analog stick, while standard and special attacks are assigned to A and B, respectively. Depending on the direction of the analog stick while attacking, different attacks occur-all of which can be easily assigned in the game's menu.

During combat, friends can join in and take control of any of your other three party members. But if you find yourself without friends, situational AI can be set up as well. Additionally, a cool power up bar is indicated at the bottom of the screen that indicates when your party members are able to team up to bust out some heavy damage.

Dawn of the New World may just deliver exactly what some Wii owners have been waiting for: a solid Japanese RPG experience on a system that has only a handful to speak for. For now, check out some of the screenshots, as well as the trailer to get a glimpse of what's in store for us this fall. Hopefully, we'll have plenty of more details in the coming months.

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