In which I post some thoughts on Dawn of the New World
First things first: if you ever wanted a copy of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment, now's your chance.
And now, my thoughts on Dawn of the New World, let me tell you them: I went into this game with an entire box of salt. I'd heard a lot of negative things on the interwebs, and since Tales of Symphonia is my favorite game ever, I was expecting to flat out not like Dawn of the New World.
I've played about 3 hours so far, and the verdict is that I'm actually enjoying myself.
The thing I had the biggest amount of eyebrow raising over was the whole monster taming system. And yeah, overall I think that's pretty much a wash. The monsters seem to level up faster than your human characters, so that's interesting, but overall none of them have really done anything other than poke enemies and die repeatedly. I keep the starting imp around in my battle party because he randomly makes Emil's unison attack turn into Negative Gate for some reason, but I've kicked the rest of them to the curb for the most part. I'm still fiddling with the mechanics behind them, but really it's like someone shoved Pokemon into a Tales game, and it doesn't really mesh.
The core of your party is Emil and Marta, and for the most part I really like both of them. I'm still iffy about Marta's character, since she seems to have these really random mood swings. Emil, on the other hand, I really adore. He reminds me of Ruca (from the hour I played of Tales of Innocence) mixed with a little dash of early-game Colette from the first Symphonia. His amazing changing voice is kind of jarring, because I always forget about it before boss fights and it surprises me, but it's not bad. People hating on Johnny Yong Bosch's portrayal of Emil just based on random internet videos aren't really getting the whole story of Emil's character, I think.
At the point in the story I just reached, Colette has joined my party, and it really reminds me of Radiant Mythology in a lot of ways. I can't change her equipment, which is kind of annoying (hi, pls give me your 33% less TP consumption ring, kthx), but further, she doesn't gain experience or level up. Annoying, but I can kind of see why they did it. Emil and Marta are the focus of the story, not the older Symphonia characters, so it's really meant to encourage you to not switch out Emil and Marta in favor of all the cameo characters.
Oh, and Heather Hogan came back to voice Colette. Yay. :D
I'll post more thoughts after I play more. Right now I need to not be late for work.
And now, my thoughts on Dawn of the New World, let me tell you them: I went into this game with an entire box of salt. I'd heard a lot of negative things on the interwebs, and since Tales of Symphonia is my favorite game ever, I was expecting to flat out not like Dawn of the New World.
I've played about 3 hours so far, and the verdict is that I'm actually enjoying myself.
The thing I had the biggest amount of eyebrow raising over was the whole monster taming system. And yeah, overall I think that's pretty much a wash. The monsters seem to level up faster than your human characters, so that's interesting, but overall none of them have really done anything other than poke enemies and die repeatedly. I keep the starting imp around in my battle party because he randomly makes Emil's unison attack turn into Negative Gate for some reason, but I've kicked the rest of them to the curb for the most part. I'm still fiddling with the mechanics behind them, but really it's like someone shoved Pokemon into a Tales game, and it doesn't really mesh.
The core of your party is Emil and Marta, and for the most part I really like both of them. I'm still iffy about Marta's character, since she seems to have these really random mood swings. Emil, on the other hand, I really adore. He reminds me of Ruca (from the hour I played of Tales of Innocence) mixed with a little dash of early-game Colette from the first Symphonia. His amazing changing voice is kind of jarring, because I always forget about it before boss fights and it surprises me, but it's not bad. People hating on Johnny Yong Bosch's portrayal of Emil just based on random internet videos aren't really getting the whole story of Emil's character, I think.
At the point in the story I just reached, Colette has joined my party, and it really reminds me of Radiant Mythology in a lot of ways. I can't change her equipment, which is kind of annoying (hi, pls give me your 33% less TP consumption ring, kthx), but further, she doesn't gain experience or level up. Annoying, but I can kind of see why they did it. Emil and Marta are the focus of the story, not the older Symphonia characters, so it's really meant to encourage you to not switch out Emil and Marta in favor of all the cameo characters.
Oh, and Heather Hogan came back to voice Colette. Yay. :D
I'll post more thoughts after I play more. Right now I need to not be late for work.