TOS: Dawn of the New World -- IGN: 6.7, GT: 7.9, NP: 8.0

[quote name='stefonzie']

Just a question... does anyone's game disc make a bunch of noise when you enter a skit scene (ones where you press the c button)? The disc starts making loud noises that it can be hard sometimes hearing what the characters have to say in the skit.

Other than that... I love the game, but I'm probably sure I am missing a lot of things. I am at the ice dungeon part! I don't quite understand why Regal is a water type either... Raine yes, but Regal?[/quote]
Yeah the disk drive on my Wii is very loud when I play this game, ToS must have it running at full speed.

It looks like we're at the same part right now. :D
 
I got this at Blockbuster/GameRush for $20. Beat it today, and I enjoyed it. It was nothing legendary, but it wasn't anywhere as bad as many review sites were making it out to be.

- Yes, the first chapter is pretty annoying, with Emil's patheticness and the abusive townspeople, it reminds me of a more extreme version of Secret of Mana's starting town. But I think after leaving that town, things take a big improvement. By the end, Emil and Marta evolve quite drastically. I enjoyed the later parts of the game, and I thought the ending (I got the Good Ending) was great.

- On that note, I did enjoy the quality of the voice acting and translation. There were no voices that felt grating to me, and the actors performed with sincerity, even in the numerous skits (Enjoyed the Klonoa reference in one of the skits). I also don't know what IGN was talking about when they said that the translation was poor, I certainly didn't notice any hallmarks of a poor translation job. The story and characters were conveyed clearly, and I don't remember any spelling or grammar errors. I guess the IGN writer must have either skipped through all the skits or didn't talk to NPC multiple times.

- I really didn't pay much attention to the monster collecting aspect. Heck, before reading about it, I thought that being able to invite them was just a random chance. As a result, I considered the monster part largely optional, and stuck with evolving some monsters I got from the first two dungeons (The wolf, and a Chirpee, which I evolved into a Fenrir and a Simurgh for the higher level caps). With I would feed them and evolve them when they leveled up enough, and I made sure to give them all First Aid and Heal spells. I mainly used them as backup healers and physical powerhouses. I will admit that I didn't like that you couldn't directly control the monsters, but it rarely bothered me.

- Uneven difficulty at times. The fights with Decus are tough, and so are fights with melee humans near the end, when they get that annoying skill where they guard everything, and they can't be dazed or interrupted. That skill makes those battles much harder than they need to be. As for Decus, he's made much worse in "that" fight, but I still ended up beating that fight rather handily after changing up my usual tactics.

- I didn't enjoy the gald system in this one, how it seems that only humanoids and bosses actually give you gald. Of course, I'm coming off of Phantasia, where you could easily have tens of millions of gald at the end. Even with this, near the end of this game, I still didn't feel like I was short on Gald (Had over 300k), since I rarely bought stuff at the shops during the middle part, I usually concentrated on buying HP/TP healing items and cooking ingredients.
 
[quote name='stefonzie']
Just a question... does anyone's game disc make a bunch of noise when you enter a skit scene (ones where you press the c button)? The disc starts making loud noises that it can be hard sometimes hearing what the characters have to say in the skit. [/quote]

I get this with Eternal Darkness. I just figured the hamster powering the GameCube was getting really, really scared. I haven't noticed it with any of my Wii games, but my wife has.
 
I loved ToS for Gamecube, but never picked this up due to the things I read about it. Being forced to use monsters in your party is pretty dumb, and it's probably the main reason I never got this.
 
I suppose if you're someone who likes to have their hand on a lot of different characters, the AI monsters would be disappointing, but when I usually focus on the main character 90% of the time, it wasn't a big deal. Honestly, there was a full complement of human characters a lot more than I expected from the previews, though you didn't have much of a choice in who fought until later on.
 
Yeah, I still don't know why this game reviewed as badly as it did. No it wasn't as good as a real Tales game, but for a spin off the game was fine. The whole thing with the monsters is pretty much just there. For the most part, you don't even have to use them. Sometimes you do, but so what? The only thing that really bothered me was not being able to change the equipment or anything on the returning Symphonia characters, but even then it doesn't really affect the game much.

The story in the game is actually pretty good I thought. I didn't guess all the twists right away this time like I did in the first ToS, so that's a plus.
 
Well, from what I understood, you had the 2 main characters all the time. You could collect monsters to use in battle as well. Once in awhile some old ToS characters will join/leave your party, so you can use them for a limited amount of time as well.

If that's the case, that offers like zero replay value, which has always been a strength of the Tales games. I also really like character development, and with just the 2 main characters staying all the time, doesn't seem like a lot of room for others.

Obviously I could be wrong, but all the reviews made me feel very disappointed with how this game sounded, so haven't wanted to spend the $$$ on it.
 
It's a solid game, but it's also not very Tales-like. If Pokemon became an action RPG and was grafted onto a Tales of Symphonia sequel, this would be it. The gameplay is actually pretty solid and the monster component allows for a lot of customization, but it's also not really the same kind of game as ToS and that will be a turn-off to some. The plot is adequate enough -- about on par with its predecessor -- and there are a couple of nice big twists to keep things interesting.

If you are a devoted fan and can handle some Pokemon, it's a decent game. If monster-catching makes you vomit, look elsewhere.
 
This game deserve a solid 8 in my opinion. It is not an original Tales game, as one might have already figured out by the title. This game is simply a sequal to the original gamecube TOS. Most of the characters from original ToS are playable in DotNW, and such approach has never been done before in the previous Tales series. Namco has proven to us the potential of expanding original storyline. I am sure we will be seeing more of this in the future, Tales of Mythology is a perfect example. With the sequal addiction, Namco introduced another innovative appoarch in which players are allowed to capture monsters and play through the game with our own style. This, for one, benefits both Tales and non-Tales fans. For those that have never played Tales-series before, especially the original ToS on gamecube, can enjoy this game without worrying too much about the plot / characters from the previous ToS. Most JRPG players are already familiar with monster capturing games like devil summoner / pokemon / etc, so it is not something that is new / it is only new to the Tales-series. For Tales-fans, like I said previously, it is another innovative appoarch to prevent this game becoming a remake of the previous one. Monster capturing is essential in the first few chapters, but definitely not necessary to beat the game. I beat the game with like 5-7 monsters captured. However, players that are familiar with the new battle system or spend the time learning it will probably enjoy the game a lot more, as the game is formulated around monster capturing which made it different from the original ToS. It is hard for Namco to add too many new characters to a sequal game, because they already have a set storyline. I am really glad Namco decided to make this game and offered it on Wii.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top