Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
 

This was released along with Mirror's Edge yesterday for the relatively cheap price of $39.99, and I'm sure it'll sell well and all that. I picked it up, and I'm not sure what I think.

The game has significant portions that scream low-budgetism, such as bad voice acting, relatively crap motion-capture, and a battle system that's mostly recycled from Tales of the Abyss. Emil is the kind of protagonist that you wish you could beat the shit out of for being such a goddamn sissy, and even Tenebrae, his little pact monster dude, gets sick of it after five minutes.

All in all, I'd say the first 30 minutes are pretty bad. Now that I'm a Knight of Ratatosk I can actually fight properly (you'll see what I mean when you play it), and it's starting to get pretty enjoyable.

I'm not really expecting much from this, so as long as it tops Legendia it'll be okay in my book. Just how recycled is the battle system? Vesperia's refined version of it aside, Abyss' system was already better than previous Tales games so that might not be a bad thing.

Well, it's mostly the same thing, except maybe slightly easier since you automatically block in semi-auto mode if you're idle. What else... you can only slowly back away from enemies (unless you go into free run). Did enemy hits on you in free run always cause critical damage? Because they do in this one.

That's all I've seen so far. Overlimit is still here, but it looks like activating it just causes a special move rather than being buffed for a period of time. Nevermind, it's called a Unison Attack.

Monster recruitment has a sort of Shin Megami Tensei feel, as you can use monsters of the same type or element to aid in the recruitment process (making actual recruitment more likely).

I'm not sure, but I think getting hit in free run just caused you to either be stunned for a second, or a higher chance of getting knocked down. The auto-blocking won't make a difference for me since I always play Tales games in manual mode.

How well does jumping work? I like doing a lot of jumping slashes, and for some reason attacking in mid-air doesn't work as well in Vesperia.

Upper attacks typically fling any enemies who're hit by them up into the air with you following them, where you can complete your attack chain in mid-air. Can't do any aerial artes so far, but I imagine there's a Skill or piece of equipment that'll change that.

I meant actually leaping across the battle field and doing a normal attack in mid-air, not necessarily upward attacks or aerial artes. It worked really well with Lloyd and to a lesser extent Luke once he had some skills. If you play in semi-auto then you probably never bother since jumping is a pain in the ass outside of manual control.

Typically I play in semi-auto only to keep the game from mistaking my neutral attacks for side-directional attacks.

But yeah, I actually don't know how to jump yet. Let's see... the music sounds like it's from Valkyrie Profile.

I can say that the game is better than Legendia, at least.

Its out already? Damm, time flies. I assume by out you mean North American release, correct?

Yes. The Japanese version has been out for several months now, so I'm talking about the North American version.

Barely touched it the past couple of days, but mostly because I've been busy. I'm just leveling in Hima, evolving some of my monsters. Battles are still easy as all hell.

I've started playing this game a few days ago, and it seems like aerial moves feel quite different from ToS. I can't say I've been experimenting much with aerial slashes because it seems more of an air-to-air type of attack now, rather than air-to-ground like in ToS. This means Emil does some pretty decent combos after launching enemies up into the air, but doesn't seem to be able to drop in for an attack from a jump. It's a bit annoying, and I'm still adjusting to it.

In terms of mid-air artes, Emil learns a skill (mini-spoilers, maybe) that allows him to perform base artes in mid-air, so you can use demon fang like how Ky uses his lightning projectiles in the GG series. Not sure if he learns other skills that allow him to use higher level artes in the air, but this is what I got so far.

I haven't gotten far in this game, but I have to say I like ToS more. I think the story in Dawn is decent so far, the monster catching is slightly addictive, and I don't mind the lack of overworld exploration, but I don't like some of the battle mechanics and overall detail doesn't match ToS's level (a lot of doors and whatnot can't be opened, and I think there's even less things to interact with than before). Also, it's sort of a hassle to control any characters aside from Emil or Marta, and it's a bit disappointing that the animals can't be directly controlled.