Please GOD don't ruin the Tales of Symphonia name with this. From what I've read so far, they are introducing story elements that were never mentioned in the previous game and are just using the Symphonia universe with cameos as a sales gimmick.

I really hope I'm wrong about this, but sequels to great games/movies almost never work out...

Trust me, it won't be ruined. There were some parts (I forget where) in the original Symphonia game that did seem out of place at times (just lack of explanation in a few parts; I think it was the scenario conversations within the group at times). If Lloyd were to be leading a cruisade, it would have been beneficial on the Church of Martel's part, but Lloyd was ALWAYS going for and supporting justice.

So if they introduced nothing new in this game and used all the characters from Tales of Symphonia full time you think it would be a better game?

I'm sorry but I want a sequel, not a remake.

Mmm... that's not quite what I was trying to say. I'm not passing the game by. I'm just slightly upset with the direction. I understand that new plot elements and characters are needed... but for example, what the hell is this "Ratatosk" spirit? You'd think such an important entity would have been mentioned a couple times in the previous installment with all the things that went down, but here it is out of blue with no prior meaning to the franchise. 

 By the way, more often than not, the point of a sequel is to continue the stories of the characters you learned to love. Having to learn to give a shit about a cast I don't care about just because they are under the "ToS" title is rather annoying. They don't mean anything to me, and it's going to be very hard to care when I'm wondering when the hell Sheena is going to show up.

That's a piss poor argument, Symphonia's cast were just the same, a bunch of new Tales characters no one was supposed to give a **** about until they played the game. They could have just as well replaced them all with the Phantasia cast, which isn't inconceivable considering that they're actually in the same game world canon ad have used time travel.

Also bitching about the spirit Ratatoskr is just silly, it had no direct role when it came to Lloyd merging the worlds, therefore it's not really surprising to me that no one really knew about it considering that Lloyd + company aren't exactly experts on merging and splitting entire planets with a super sword. They're not going to lay out the entire plotline of a sequel that most likely wasn't planned in the original, that would sort of make the sequel redundant when you know every detail right from the start. If they knew about Ratatoskr, it would make even less sense for everyone to start looking for it now after two years.

Also, why the hell would Namco use Symphonia as a "sales gimmick"? It's not even the best selling Tales in Japan, if they wanted to milk a popular Tales they would be doing it with Destiny.

Ratatoskr Knight seems to be doing everything right with a sequel, introducing new and interesting characters ALONGSIDE the returning cast, and improving gameplay in all the right aspects, yet it seems like people are dying for a reason not to like it. It could very well be better than the original ToS but I'm afraid it will be submitted to this mindless bashing all of it's life simply because it's a sequel and sequels are not allowed to be good.

LOved ToS but i'm not feeling this game. Rather wait for Golden Sun.

 Well Ratatosk is the spirit of the original tree from what I understand. Also Sheena was in the last trailer for the game. 

You guys are too cynical; have faith in the developers. Not much else you can do at this point, unless you enjoy making erroneous assumptions and biased judgment calls on any new info that comes your way. I for one am pumped about this game probably more than Soriku is, Tales of Symphonia is incredible, and so far so good with what I've heard about KoR

wish ppl will stop puttin a downer on this game. every game has the potential to be either bad or good, but hopefully his game will be what we all hope, a good rpg experience on the wii. i didnt play the 1st one, but i wish i had, because it sounds extremely good, and this one seems to be following suit!

btw i love the part about adding monsters to your group, seems like u could get caught up in trying to capture the strongest monster possible. does raising their level and abilities come into play aswell?

Personally I'm very excited about this game, hates be damned. :)