I just finished(literally 10 minutes ago) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and I have absolutely no idea why this game has such a low average? The ending was beautiful. The gameplay was phenomenal.(I believe the battle system was greatly improved over the original. Being able to free roam is AMAZING and the Mystic Artes were so cool!) The story, albeit a tad cheesy, was a great expansion to the original game and makes sense.
== Begin Potential Spoilers ==
At the end of Tales of Symphonia, the two worlds (Sylvarant and Tethe'alla) combine to become one world. It is ridiculous to expect both worlds to get along right away, and given that Tethe'alla is far more advanced than Sylvarant, it's expected that they would probably see themselves as the superior people. The whole idea of the Vanguard makes sense.
== End Potential Spoilers ==
I enjoyed the story. This game had a lot of plot twists, just like the original. Seeing all of the cast of the first game was a nice touch, too! It was great that instead of giving you all of them at once, they were spread out, which made the time you spent with them much more meaningful, in my opinion.
The voice acting, while not amazing, wasn't bad in my opinion. I didn't enjoy that Lloyd's voice was different. That was a shame :/
I liked the characters a lot. Emil and Marta are just TOO cute and Tenebrae is by far one of the funniest characters I've seen in a game before. Every skit with him was amazing, witty, or just downright hilarious.
The thing that did bother me was the unnecessary framerate drops and the horrible load times. I just felt like the team developing this got lazy.
Overall, I'd say that if you were a Tales of Symphonia fan, you'll love Dawn of the New World. If you haven't played the first, I'm not sure how you'd feel about this game. It definitely is a game that only fans would truly enjoy.
