I'm playing through Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World at present. The game is about what I expected. A solid but unspectactular game. I am still enjoying it for the most part and I'm actually enjoying the battle system more than Tales of Vesperia. That said, Emil is the most annoying and emo lead character I've ever had the misfortune of playing. Given what happened to him, I gave him a bit of leeway but 12 hours into game and he is still as whiny, self loathing, and as scared of his own shadow as ever. If it wasn't for Tenebrae, I may put the game down by now and returned to at later point in time. Emil is definately no Yuri Lowell, hell he isn't even Lloyd Irving. Lloyd may have been cookie cutter but he wasn't annoying.

hey...Emil is my name. :P

Yep Emil sucks. I kind of like Tenebrae's aloof sense of humor, but my friend hates him. Says Tenebrae reminds him of how haughty and snobbish Frederic from Eternal Sonata always sounded.

I hope that Emil grows a set of balls. I mean Marta was annoying to me at first but she at least seems to be evolving as character. Just look at at how Marta handles the Collette situation. Emil can't seem to grasp why people like Lloyd and believes Lloyd over him. Hmm....lets see, oh he saved the entire planet two years ago. If you want to be technical he saved two worlds. I know he thinks Lloyd killed his parents. That is why I was giving him the benefit of the doubt for so long, but its hard to enjoy an RPG when you dislike the lead.

Thankfully Tenebrae is with you at all times. He, along with the rest of the game's cast seems solid. Richter seems cool. Even that sadist Alice is fun to interact with. I just hope that Emil become bearable in the next few hours of the game. Well it was great seeing Zelos again. They really did a good job on his character model.

BTW: Great sig Torillian

Emil does change, I really hated him at the beginning, but he grew on me. Also so much you don't know about Emil yet.

12 hours should put you where?

I'm at the Iselia Human Ranch. I do all of the Katz quest before I move to the next area. It's a good way to keep my level up and more importantly its great way to get Synthesis and monster building items.

Emil is fun to play... besides pretty much every game has a super-masculine guy as a lead and Emil breaks the mold although he is pretty tough when he attacks and is in Ratatosk mode and he does become much less scared as the game progresses.

Ya Emil improves a little by little. I think the first set of improvements are coming. He will start abusing Ratatosk mode!

Yea, even my wife (who just watches me play) hates Emil and thinks he is such a wuss. He gets better (at 20 hours myself) but he is still a pansy.

Although, marta gets better faster, and has a wicked awesome special arte (that thing where you hold B while doing a high/arcane arte)

Even Sheena's is pretty cool, and I haven't tried anyone elses.

but yea, so far emil is one of the worst lead characters I've ever played as.

Okay, just wanted to know if it was just me. Glad to see I'm not the only one annoyed by Emil.

@Damkira

Oh Emil is great to play as when it comes to battles. I feel like I'm playing Marvel vs. Capcom 2 when I use him. I start a combo, pop them into air continue the combo, and finish them with a super...erm arte. I just find his actual character to be annoying. I'm glad to hear that he gets better. At first I didn't care for him or Marta but Marta grew on me. Tenebrae was awesome from the beginning. Although Collette calling him "doggie" is hilarious. He looks like a panther not a dog.