Time for the third installment of Reviewtiful. This time? Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii. For a sequel to one of the most successful RPGs (perhaps THE most successful RPG) on the GameCube, Tales of Symphonia, how does this game stack up? Is it a worthwhile expansion to the setting of the original game or just a cheap cash-in?

Let’s get started.

Henshin a review, baby!

Introduction

If you owned a GameCube, the chances you didn’t play (or at least check out) Tales of Symphonia are pretty slim. The GameCube was lacking in the way of RPGs until ToS came along. ToS sold very well, and really established the Tales of name in the States. Could a sequel possibly live up to the success of the original?

The Good

Graphics

While they don’t come close to something like Tales of Vesperia, the graphics are nice. Gone are the cel-shading and chibi character models of the original Tales of Symphonia, replaced with more pseudo-realistic anime graphics a la Tales of the Abyss.

Motion-Capture Cutscenes

Several of Dawn of the New World’s cutscenes are done in full motion-capture. The scenes play out in real time (meaning that you don’t press buttons to advance the dialogue like usual) with (optional) subtitles running along the bottom. Overall these scenes are pretty well done, but a few of them were a bit iffy. Perhaps it’s because of the game’s budget, but there were a few of these motion-capture scenes that made me feel like I was watching an old episode of Power Rangers. Characters needlessly wiggling around and the like. Overall, though, nicely done.

Music

Joint-composed by Motoi Sakuraba and Shinji Tamura, DotNW has a pretty nice soundtrack. Most of the music is just reimaginings of old tunes, but they’re still very nice. A lot of them are arguably better than the originals. There’s a bit of nice new music, as well.

Comedy

Not normally something you praise an RPG for, but hey. DotNW has a plethora of hilarious skits and dialogue. There’s the return of old Symphonia gags (Sheena falling into traps, Colette tripping and causing good things to happen, Zelos’ “BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS”, etc.), along with a ton of newer jokes. Most of the comedy, I felt, comes from Tenebrae. He’s very blunt and sarcastic. He’s like the Jade Curtiss of the Symphonia world.

Oh, and then there’s Decus. It’s a shame he didn’t get more screen time, because he was hilarious. Even the way he moved was funny… Not to mention the fact that he has, hands down, the BEST MYSTIC ARTE EVER.

The Decent

Gameplay

Battles feel a bit stiff and clunky when compared to Vesperia and Abyss. You’ve got Free Run, but everything still doesn’t feel as smooth as it should. There are Unison Attacks, but you lack the ability to set specific Artes to… anyone. When you do a Unison Attack, Emil will perform Devil’s Maw, and any monsters or other party members you have will randomly join in.

Story

The story isn’t fantastic, but it’s not bad. Most of the story centers around your quest to awaken the Summon Spirit of the Giant Kharlan Tree, Ratatosk, by gathering the Centurions’ Cores. Ratatosk draws power from each of his Centurions (one of them being Tenebrae), all of which became dormant when the Giant Kharlan Tree whithered… Or something to that effect. The heroine of the story, Marta, is the guardian of the Core of Ratatosk himself. The protagonist, Emil, forms a pact and becomes a Knight of Ratatosk in order to protect Marta from those who would steal Ratatosk’s Core from her, as the removal of Ratatosk’s Core from Marta’s forehead would result in her death.

When Emil goes into battle, he is forced to borrow Ratatosk’s power (rather, Ratatosk’s power takes over). When using Ratatosk’s power, Emil’s eyes turn red, and he becomes very aggressive, harshly contrasting his usual personality. I won’t reveal anything, but this leads to some pretty interesting plot points later on. This would be in “The Good”, but most of the noteworthy plot points are saved until the very end. Most everything up until those points isn’t very exciting.

Monster Collection

I never bothered too much with this. You’re required to recruit two monsters near the start of the game, and I stuck with one of the two until the end. You can teach monsters spells (both offensive and healing), evolve them as they gain experience, stuff like that. They have the potential to be better than regular party members, but… I don’t know. Seemed like a pretty needless addition thrown in only to attempt to cover up the rest of the game’s shortcomings.

The Bad

Voice Acting

Now, normally I don’t mind English dubs. Often times I even prefer them… But DotNW just felt, to put it bluntly, half-assed. Thanks to Bandai, only two of the voice actors from Tales of Symphonia even made a comeback: Heather Hogan (Colette) and Cam Clarke (Kratos). Kratos, I should mention, only does the opening narration, outside of appearing in one cutscene with Yuan, so his return wasn’t really that important. Heather Hogan sounds… a little different, though. Like she’s not even trying. The same can be said for the entire cast, actually. The fact that the skits are voiced makes this especially noticeable.

I know several of the voice actors are more than capable. You’ve got some very recognizable names on this list, but most of them seem like they don’t even care. I chalk that up to the game’s budget and Bandai’s ridiculous stance against union voice actors. I was really surprised they didn’t give Yuri Lowenthal any parts. Not that I have anything against Yuri (Hell, he happens to be my favorite male voice actor), but Bandai really like to slap Yuri and Bosch on everything they get their hands on. I really expected him to voice Decus.

Dungeon Design

It’s like the dungeons are made specifically to bore you to tears. I knew when I bought the game that I was going to be revisting several of the original Symphonia locales, but holy crap. The old dungeons aren’t changed nearly enough to be interesting. They’re only changed just enough to become frustrating and tedious. If you can get through all of them without wanting to take a hammer to your game disc, I applaude you.

World Map / Misc.

As you’re probably already aware, DotNW does away with a free roaming overworld map and substitutes it with a simple point-and-click map. This cuts down on needless wandering, but also on… Uh, fun. Maybe it was just me, but I felt no incentive to revisit old places. The lack of a world map also means you can’t just wander and grind. Now you’ve gotta go into a dungeon to do it… Though it’s not like you’ll ever need to grind. The Unison Attack meter fills up so ridiculously fast you’ll be able to spam Unison Attacks and, eventually, Mystic Artes like there’s no tomorrow. I’m not joking. In one particular boss battle, I used Emil’s Mystic Arte over 8 times. That thing fills up way too fast.

Length

On my first playthroughs, I spent this long on each Tales game I’ve played.

Symphonia: 43-ish hours
Abyss: 55-ish hours
Vesperia: 43-ish hours
DotNW: 26 hours

…Yeah. That’s roughly half as long as the three others. That’s not good, especially when you consider the other shortcomings. Maybe that’s a good thing in its own way, though. I mean, it’d be even worse if they tried to drag the story out, right?

The Verdict

While it doesn’t live up to the original and it has some flaws (…okay, lots of flaws), DotNW is still a decent game. If you’re dying for an RPG for the Wii and/or if you really loved Symphonia, look into it for youself. All in all, though, DotNW is pretty passable.

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World – 3.5 / 5

Time for the second installment of Reviewtiful. This time I’ll be covering the Tales series’ first foray into the current generation, Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox 360. I’m going to try something a little different with this review. From now on, I’m going to try to assume that you, the reader, already know what the game is, more or less. With the last review I did, Sonic Chronicles, I kind of did an introduction to the entire game so someone who knew virtually nothing about it could follow along. I’ve decided that if you’re going to take the time to read my reviews in the first place, you probably already know enough about the game already and are just looking for some second opinions, right? Rather than cover needless basics which you could grab from any gaming site, I’ll only give my personal opinions, or, in the event that I’m reviewing a sequel or a franchise game (like Vesperia, for example), cover new changes or additions to the game’s/series’ basic formula.

Oh, and rather than sticking a disclaimer on every image, I’ll say this now: Click any screenshot in this review to see a full resolution version!

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.

Henshin a review, baby!

Introduction

The Tales series makes its current gen debut on the Xbox 360 with Tales of Vesperia. Sporting a nearly simultaneous release in both Japan and the United States in September, 2008, Tales of Vesperia celebrates the 10th anniversary of Tales here in the States… But how does this shiny new entry stack up to prior installments?

The Good

Graphics

Visually, Tales of Vesperia is absolutely astounding. Hands down the most beautiful game I’ve ever played. Characters and landscapes alike are beautifully cel-shaded and appear more vibrant and lively than ever before. Characters are well-animated and landscapes are vast and incredibly detailed.

Sound

The sound is well done. The effects, the ambient sounds, the voices… The quality of all the sound in general is pretty great. In what (I believe) is a first for the Tales series, Vesperia supports Dolby 5.1 Surround Sound. A very welcome addition. I personally felt that the dub cast was well-done, but that’s going to vary from person to person, so I’ll say this — whether or not you like the voices, the fact remains that the sound quality is excellent. The soundtrack is also very nicely composed by Tales veteran Motoi Sakuraba.

Gameplay

Vesperia introduces an all new skill system, which can easily be compared to that of the Final Fantasy Tactics games. Skills are now attached to weapons. You equip a weapon and battle with it to learn skills. At the end of every battle, you gain “LP”. Get enough LP, learn skills. You also have an SP (Skill Point) total that increases as you level up. Naturally, you use SP to equip skills. Some skills (such as Backstep, which allows you to… backstep by hitting X and left/right) require only a couple SP to equip while more advanced skills (such as Add Combo, which lengthens your basic attack combo) require more SP to equip. Simple. This is easily my favorite skill system of the Tales games I’ve played.

Also changed is the Over Limit system. I personally found the O.L. system in Tales of the Abyss more enjoyable. In it, every character has their own personal Over Limit meter which fills up as you deal (and receive) damage. In Vesperia, there is one OL meter shared between the entire party. This system is more balanced, however, as it prevents mass spamming of Burst and Mystic Artes.

One cool thing about the new Over Limit, though, is instant casting. If you switch to a spellcasting character and activate Over Limit with them, you have zero casting time on any of your spells. Be it healing with Estelle or attacking with Rita/Raven, you have no waiting time whatsoever. This comes in handy for Grade farming. “Blah blah blah, Tidal Wave!”

The skill and Over Limit systems are mere alterations, though. On the topic of genuine new additions to the battle system, we have Burst Artes, Fatal Strikes, and Encounter Links. Burst Artes are, essentially… A watered-down version of a Mystic Arte. I can’t say they really add a whole lot to gameplay. Fatal Strikes are interesting, though. Every arte now has a direction/color it’s associated with. Off the top of my head, the only combo I can remember is Right/Green, so I’ll use that for illustration. If your party keeps using artes with the Right/Green arrow, eventually a huge arrow will appear over the enemy. By pressing the right bumper, you will perform a Fatal Strike, a mighty blow which kills the majority of regular enemies instantly. It won’t have that effect on bosses, but it will deal damage, as well as grant buffs to your character(s), depending on which skills you have equipped.

Encounter Links are an interesting addition. When running into enemies on the overworld map or inside dungeons, it’s possible to receive an Encounter Link when two or three enemy “models” are close together. This will mean the enemies you would normally encounter seperately for each “model” will all be against you at the same time. Both exciting and potentially dangerous. A greater number of opponents means a greater challenge, but also a greater reward. A fine addition to the Tales formula, I say.

The Cast

While there isn’t a whole lot of character development (at least not compared to a couple other Tales titles), your entire party is pretty much likable from the get-go. I didn’t find myself disliking any of the characters, including Karol, who I figured I’d hate with a passion.

Replay Value

As with prior Tales entries, the number of things you can do outside of your main quest is amazing. While the main plot can take less than 50 hours to finish, you can easily clock in over 100 hours if you start sidequesting. Naturally these sidequests are optional, but they shed a lot of light on some characters (like Gauche and Droite), story events, and so on.

Let’s not forget the lovely Grade Shop, either. New to the Tales series is a genuine EX New Game option! Finally! In Tales past, if you wanted to start a new game with Grade, you’d have to go back and defeat the final boss again. In Vesperia, after defeating the final boss, you can save your Game Clear data… and then keep exploring! When you load this data, you’ll be at the final save circle in the game. You can go back out and farm for Grade for a couple hours, save on the overworld (or anywhere–I’m just using the overworld as an example), go back to the main menu, select EX New Game, and start enjoying your delicious Grade Shop extras without having to trudge through the final dungeon and beat the boss again! Nice job, Namco! This was a much-needed addition.

The Decent

Story

This one’s tricky. The story isn’t “bad”, but it… Doesn’t feel as “focused” as in other Tales games. I didn’t feel your overall objective was introduced soon enough. In Symphonia, you were introduced to the general “grand objective” relatively early… About 10-15 hours in. Same goes for Abyss. Vesperia’s “grand objective” isn’t introduced until much later. View that as you may. Playing through for the first time, I didn’t like it, but in hindsight, it was kind of refreshing to have the plot be not so… linear. That’s a double-edged sword, though. On one hand, it’s not as linear. On the other hand, sometimes you wonder what you’re doing and/or why. Anyway, like I said. Be your own interpreter on that one.

The Bad

Clichés and Repetition

Clichés should be self-explanatory enough. There are some character-related “twists” that you can just see coming from, literally, the first hour or two of the game. I mean, they don’t ruin the game or anything, but it’d certainly be better if the Tales staff would branch out a little bit more with their storytelling.

Repetition refers to character repetition. If I had a dime for every time I heard this conversation…

Estelle: I… I don’t know what I should do!
Yuri: It’s your choice.
Estelle: Okay! I’m going with you!

…then I’d be one rich cat, let me tell you. In fact, no, here’s a better idea. I’d probably just eat those dimes so I wouldn’t have to hear that damn conversation again anymore, anyways.

The Verdict

The good far outweighs the bad here. If you need an action RPG for the 360 (which is a rare sight, because, let’s face it, the 360 is a pool of SHOOTAN and sports games), this is about as great a choice as you can make. For Tales veterans who wonder how this one stacks up in a nutshell, “Just fine.” A worthy entry to the franchise, and an excellent game in its own right.

Tales of Vesperia – 4.5 / 5

Welcome to my review segment, Reviewtiful. Props to BluFin for the name. It’s a result of the fact that I go by “Alastor”, a villain/anti-hero character in the first Viewtiful Joe game, on a couple of forums. Anyway, we’ll kick off Reviewtiful with the relatively new Sonic RPG developed by BioWare, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood for the DS. Despite the pretty bad-to-average reviews I was seeing, I was still kind of excited to play this game for myself. After all, it’s a Sonic game with the worst element of Sonic games removed — Sonic Team themselves.

Alright, here we go. “Henshin a review, baby!” (hai Sobou)

Introduction

Released in North America on September 30, 2008, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood is a turn-based RPG developed by BioWare for the Nintendo DS. BioWare, are you are probably aware, were behind the critically acclaimed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, as well as Jade Empire, to name a couple. That said, Sonic Chronicles is unique in that it’s a Sonic game developed by someone other than Sonic Team. This fact raised my expectations for the game considerably. You remove the cancer that is Sonic Team and substitute them for the guys who made KotOR, one of my favorite games of all time? You’ve got my interest.

All control in the game is done via touch screen. You move, battle and navigate menus/dialogue all via the stylus. Field movement can be compared to that of The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Battles play out in a turn-based fashion, with one twist — rhythm segments. Each character has their own unique POW Moves, as do your enemies. Each move has its own rhythm segment. Whenever that move is used, you must complete the rhythm segment. Notes will appear on the screen, and you must tap or slide them with the correct timing (think “watered-down Elite Beat Agents“). Now, let me elaborate just a bit. As I said, each move has its own rhythm segment. Take, for example, one of Knuckles’ POW Moves, Uppercut. Any time you use Uppercut, you’ll be prompted for the same rhythm command. It’s never anything random. This greatly cuts down on frustration, as far as I’m concerned.

The better you perform during the rhythm segment, the more damage your attacks do. They have an increased chance to hit, to boot. As for the enemy, nailing their rhythm segments will cause their attacks to miss completely (or do only 1-2 points of damage). Ergo, the more notes you miss during enemy attacks, the more damage they’ll do to you. You never encounter one single type of enemy for too long, so the rhythm commands stay fresh, as newer enemies have different attacks.

Graphics

I’m torn here. SC:TDB is part pretty, part bleh. The backgrounds and worlds you visit are all very attractive. The character art (the things that show up in dialogue) is well-done… Very reminiscent of the Sonic X art style. The character models themselves, however, are… Not so great. They’re not genuinely bad, but come on, BioWare. The DS is capable of more than this.

Sound

The music holds up well. For some reason it kind of reminds me of the music from Sonic Rush… Well, some of it. Anyway, I’m not sure who the composer for SC:TDB is, but there are several catchy tunes in the game, and the sound quality is decent. The sound effects are mixed. Some of them are well done, and others… Not so much. It was nice hearing some of the retro Sonic sound effects thrown in, though.

Gameplay

As I explained in detail earlier, the battle system is turn-based with rhythm segments. I find that awesome. I’m very picky when it comes to turn-based RPGs… Being a Tales fan, I find most turn-based RPGs extremely boring. The rhythm bits are a nice twist, especially considering Elite Beat Agents is one of my favorite games. Said rhythm bits aren’t near as fun or complex as parts of EBA, but they’re still entertaining and serve to keep the battles from becoming monotonous

Story

The story starts off simple enough. Someone’s stolen the Chaos Emeralds and kidnapped their guardian, Knuckles. Your first task is to rescue Knuckles, then go after the Chaos Emeralds, as well as the Master Emerald. I won’t go too far into it because I don’t want to spoil anything, but the story develops a bit after that. Still nothing too serious, but it’s a nice story. It adds a lot of backstory to the Sonic universe, most of it involving the echidnas. Considering Knuckles is probably my favorite character (despite being gullible to the point of pure stupidity), said backstory was really entertaining.

A large portion of the story takes part in Sonic’s world, but near the end you travel to this alternate dimension (or something like that) called the Twilight Cage in pursuit of the villain, as well as to retrieve the Chaos Emeralds and the Master Emerald. Inside the Twilight Cage are several original worlds, each with their own unique native race. Maybe it was just me, but this part of the game felt a little rushed. You’re not on any one of the four worlds (five counting the final one, but you’re introduced to its inhabitants at the beginning of the game) for too long… Not long enough to really care, anyway. I mean, it was still nice to see all of these unique races, but you don’t spend enough time with any of the four of them to really care about them at all. They don’t really feel necessary to the plot, which is bad.

Misc.

As in Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, SC:TDB uses a multiple-choice dialogue system. You can make Sonic respond in different ways to the other characters. There’s no “light or dark” here, just a couple of laughs, or means to gather more information about the story, your current objective… Stuff like that. You can make Sonic be a total smartass or you can have him be a goody-two-shoes. Take your pick. There are no long-term repercussions for your decisions (not that I’m aware of, anyway), but the different responses keep dialogue interesting. A nice touch.

The Sonic characters themselves are well-represented. The cast consists of characters from Sonic Heroes and prior. No Marine, no Blaze, no Silver, etc. Your party consists of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Rouge, Shadow, Big, Cream (an optional character), E-123 Omega (another optional character), Dr. Robotnik (I’m not calling him Eggman, so shush.), and Shade, the mysterious new female echidna.

Sonic is required to be on your team at all times (which isn’t a bad thing since he’s pretty useful), but you’re free to have any combination of the three others in your party, unless you’re at a point in the story that requires otherwise.

Replay Value

I can’t say there’s too much replay value to be had in this game. After you defeat the final boss (and get through the hilarious credits sequence), you can start a New Game +. EVERYTHING you have is carried over. Your current level, all of your equipment and Chao (Each Chao gives you a unique boost, by the way. Don’t think I said that yet.), all of your POW Moves… EVERYTHING. This allows you to blow through the story start-to-finish in only a few hours. I can’t imagine that being entertaining more than one time, so I guess there’s your Replay Value verdict — One replay if the whole “New Game +” prospect appeals to you.

Overall

I didn’t feel this game really deserved all the negative feedback it’s been getting. Sure, it’s a little rough around the edges, but it’s still a fun game. Most of the stuff that makes it “rough around the edges” will probably be fixed in the sequel, so that’s something to look forward to. The story ends VERY open-ended and the characters themselves even talk about a sequel during the credits… Not to mention the fact that BioWare has already confirmed that they’re writing a sequel.

All in all, it’s a fun, decent-length RPG for the DS. Sonic fans, look into it. If you liked the franchise but are tired of Sonic Team’s crap, this is pretty much your holy grail. Everyone else… Might not be for you, if only because the plot and dialogue are pretty centered around the assumptions that you’re familiar with the Sonic universe (personalities, backstories, all that stuff).

Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood – 4/5