A Step into Tales – The Decimals #5.5 – A Knight, a New World, and Another Symphony January 25, 2009
Posted by Ren in The Decimals.1 comment so far
They say, “Only the best is rewarded with a sequel.”
Actually, that’s a lie. A total lie. I don’t know if anyone actually says that, I just made that up. Because from common reception, it’s true. For what the gaming population believes is the “best” and mostly highly rated is often rewarded with a sequel. Or at least some sort of fandom.
People simply can’t abandon their cashcrops, y’know?
Just take a look at Final Fantasy VII. A firm, solid example.
Now.. we all know that Tales of Symphonia is pretty much the FFVII of the Tales series. It’s certainly not a surprise that it was gifted with a sequel, either. Worth the fandom? I suppose so.
In the summer of 2008, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World was released for the Nintendo Wii in Japan. Then in November 2008, it was released in the United States.
The hero of this tale is a young, timid, and rather cowardly boy named Emil Castagnier. You could say he’s somewhat similar to our former ToI hero, Ruca. However, you’ll quickly discover that Emil is a more complex character as you delve deeper into the storyline.
The game starts off during the purge and destruction of Palmacosta. Our heroine, Marta is being chased. As she is about to be attacked, she pleads for “Ratatosk’s” help. Our hero, Emil, emerges out of no where and quickly saves her. After this, Emil catches sight of our former hero, Lloyd, killing his parents. He’s aghasted and keeps a grudge towards Lloyd.
He goes to Luin to stay with his aunt and uncle who hate his guts. The whole town believes he brings some sort of “bad luck” with him. After hearing a monster’s calling, he rushes towards it, only to be attacked. Through this, he meets the heroine, Marta.
Much later, he becomes a “Knight of Ratatosk,” serving and protecting Marta. Marta’s purpose for traveling is to unleash Ratatosk once more onto the world so that it may be “saved”. In order to do this, however; she must collect a number of cores (which Lloyd is also collecting). This begins their journey.
This game introduces a peculiar love story between the shallow and shy Emil and the annoying enthusiastic Marta. There is some development in it, however; it’s pretty much thrown in there. Like in stereotypical anime, Marta pretty much views her precious Emil as her “prince” or “knight in shining armor”.
There are two personalities to our dear Emil. We have our “normal,” green-eyed Emil and our red-eyed “Ratatosk Mode” Emil. They’re pretty much the complete opposite of each other, “normal” Emil being the more compassionate, yet fragile and weak one. “Ratatosk Mode” Emil was the super badass more agressive type with pretty much all of the fighting skills.
Emil is dosed with a large amount of character development in this game, making the player want to delve deeper and deeper into the storyline. It depends on if you like our young hero, though.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World pretty much takes its predecessor’s dungeons and revamps them, introducing a remixed experience. The dungeons aren’t exactly the same as the original, as they have new features among other things. New puzzles and all that junk.
The world map has also changed, bringing us a less exciting experience by POINT AND CLICK. Still, if you’re not one for world maps, then this is pretty much a big relief on your end. There really isn’t a need to use the Wiimote’s ability, aside from a few puzzles here and there.
We also get a large dose of Symphonia reminsicing by bringing back characters. Not only this, but they also join your team. However, they don’t level up. As they come and go in later chapters, their levels jump. One thing that annoyed the crap out of me in this game was the Lloyd praise. I hate his guts. It seems his personality changed, as well, making him a more serious person, etc. That’s not the Lloyd I knew.
This game brings back a combination of the LMBSes of TotA and ToD(PS2). Full field roaming and all that junk. The aerial attacks and combos are perhaps the most captivating this about this game. Its battle system can be compared to ToI, however; I personally prefer this one. It’s more fun.
You can also catch monsters and level them up to fight with you in battle. It’s quite fun, once you’ve collected the right ones. I personally enjoyed this aspect, EXCEPT FOR THE FACT THAT THAT STUPID DOLPHIN STEALS MY KILLS. 
But yeah, you get my point. They level up extremely fast, as well. They have elements and they evolve. Kinda like Pokemanz.
Either way, this game is fairly easy. It presents to us a large change in the Symphonia world, showing the aftermath of the joining of the two worlds.
I’m sick as hell right now, so this post may seem a bit half-assed, but oh well.
A Step into Tales – The Decimals #6.2 – Oh, you solemn world, you. October 10, 2008
Posted by Ren in A Step into Tales, The Decimals.4 comments
This is the first post to my subsegment, The Decimals.. terrible name, huh.
These will be far shorter than the mothership titles, as I have less to talk about regarding them. I also won’t be covering any common occurrences that appear in Tales games. Except maybe the item names? They’re all the same, every time. o_o
Except in the American releases, they change “gummi” to “gel”. LULZ.
Anyway, following the new year of 2005, Namco releases their third Narikiri Dungeon game, Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3 for the Game Boy Advance.
Wow, that dull ass gray hair does NOT suit both the hero and heroine. Anyway, the names of these two underdogs that no cares about are Frio and Kyaro. My guess is that they’re both siblings. >_> They are two young adults who greatly admire the Tales Legends.
Like children who read fairy tales, they read about the Legends every day before bed. An alarming earthquake occurs and the professor of the town, Doctor Brown is astonished to find a time machine amongst some ruins. If they use this machine, they can travel to the Legends and watch them happen.
Frio reads another Legend before bed, this time the story ends in tragedy where the hero is late and the world is led to destruction. The next day, they find the machine stolen. Another machine appears, this time bearing a different color and another doctor appears from the machine.
Incidentally, he is Doctor Brown from the future, but he is called Doctor White because of his white hair. They find out that he’s from 100 years in the future, where chaos occurs. They also find out that there are perpetrators ruining the Tales Legends.. and their timeline.
Of course, they must be stopped. And Frio and Kyaro are the ones that must do it. However, they are aided by Doctor White’s acquaintances.. who are ironically, the heroes and heroines of the Tales Legends.
Let me start off by saying that Tales of the World: ND3 is the best Tales of the World, characterwise. They have EVERY party member from ToP, ToD, ToE, ToD2, and ToS. They also throw in extras that you can get and you can also fight bosses and reoccurring characters from each series.
Doctor White first introduces the aiding cast, whom are: Stahn, Mary, and Kongman from Destiny. Rid, Farah, and Keele from Eternia. And last, but not least.. Lloyd, Colette, Genis, and Raine from Symphonia. As you travel through time, you unveil more characters and you can customize your team even more… making the ultimate team.
Unfortunately, you MUST use the main characters, those two dull ass obsessive kids. It’s not too bad, though… because you can buy costumes and eventually BUY a Tales character.. and then you can wear them and fight as them. That means you can have like… 2 Rids and a Farah in one battle. Pretty badass, huh?
Depending on how you customize your team, you gain “party titles”.. like if you had Rid, Farah, and Ras(KICKASS TEAM) you get the party title of “Love Triangle” and get a team bonus. Same for a hero and a heroine in the same team. You get the title “Love Love?” Lulz.
The game pretty much throws the Eternia battle system at you, however; you are only able to have 3 people on your team. It’s not so bad, considering it’s not that hard and Eternia’s LMBS was badass. I’m the only one who’d probably prefer this LMBS over stuff like TotA and ToV, nowadays.
As you fight and level up, you gain more skills, allowing you to execute different attacks. Most Tales characters have their attacks which were exposed to the player from the character’s designated game. You can also get a mixed number of attacks for Frio and Kyaro and can use them, as well.. depending on what or who you’re dressed as.
It’s considered “cosplay”.. it seems. o_o I know what cosplay is, I just find that a bit sad and a bit weird. But whatever. If there was a ToL cosplay, I’d totally wear it. I DON’T CARE WHO IT IS. (Just not Shirley.)
TotW:ND3 is a mix of strategy and the classic LMBS. You delve into it.. once you get the hand of it. It’s actually pretty fun. I enjoyed this game. You’ve got your enemy units and your own units. You can take a max of 4 parties(or was it 5?). You select the unit leader and appoint them to a designated location on the map. The map is pretty much enclosed, so you can’t just roam freely.
There’s also a limit to how far you can go, as well. If you go too far, the dotted white path line will turn red. Enemies can also move, but I don’t think there’s a “SURPRISE ATTACK” condition. There are certain objectives during the course of the mission and you can NEVER allow Frio and Kyaro to die. Afterall, they are the main characters. They’re pretty useful once you attain the right costumes.
The stages are actually pretty complex, especially as you gradually get to the end. They reminisce us with different stages from the different Tales games.. but that makes it enjoyable.
Damn, I said this wasn’t going to be long..
Well, overall.. this game was created for Tales fandom. And damn, it’s great… especially for a GBA game.
