The Journey Is Over
...Unless there's a Symphonia 3. And I highly doubt that will happen.
I will be splitting up this review into different sections and then giving the final score at the end. There are going to be spoilers for the end of the game, so be advised.
Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk
Storyline:
Consisting of 8 chapters, the main character, Emil, goes through a number of different experiences and hardships, ultimately learning how to grow up and become a person that can "truly be called a hero", like in the traditional Tales fashion. He meets friends along the way that help shape him into a stronger, braver character than what he starts off as. The lack of originality in the story is not the defining problem, however.
The game is nothing short of uninspired, story-wise. When I first started the game, I had already noticed a few similarities, but I dismissed the thought, believing that Bandai-Namco wouldn't possibly recycle a storyline they had used for another Tales game, still fairly recent. Eventually, by the time it was established that Emil and Ratatosk!Emil were two different entities, I couldn't help but be vastly disappointed in the story. To me, this game felt like a failed attempt to merge the stories of Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Destiny 2 together, both of which were games that I thoroughly enjoyed.
One simply has to take the entire story revolving around Luke's identity from Abyss, and then the romance between the hero and heroine of Destiny 2, and anyone will see that that is exactly what makes up Knight of Ratatosk. If Bandai-Namco had found a better way to execute the story though, then perhaps it would have gotten more points, not just from me, but from many other reviewers. And as far as a romance story goes, Tales of Destiny 2 was definitely better, and much more realistic.
The actual plot, which was basically "Protagonists stop an evil organization only to discover a terrible truth that further prolongs their journey" was also weak and lacking in depth. Much of it was predictable, and the parts that were meant to be shocking, were... not. If you can sum up the entire plot in a single sentence, then you know it's just not that great.
The story was never that engaging for the audience. It left me feeling rather empty; there wasn't any feeling of fulfillment in beating the game, like how a person usually feels afterwards (though it would depend on the game).
Now, I'm not really sure where to place this, but this "Ginungagap" that was the final plot twist of the story... couldn't they have come up with a better name than that? If it's a demonic realm, it should have a name that reflects the terrors of the realm, not something that causes stifled laughter every time it is said aloud.
Well, despite my ranting about the story, I am happy that I got the true ending on my first try, and that's all that really matters to me.
Score: 5/10
Characters
Emil wasn't the first Tales hero to be cowardly, weak, and slightly effeminate. However, he is my favourite of the new characters (and the old), because Emil is easy to like as a character. Of course, this is just my humble opinion, and maybe some male players would have preferred someone more "manly" to this "wimp". I liked both versions of Emil, and I was less than pleased when Ratatosk!Emil was sealed away and I had to use the normal version in battle for the last dungeon or so. It wasn't a matter of who was stronger in battle though, I just missed the badass voice acting for Ratatosk!Emil.
Marta was, more or less, an enjoyable character to have around, but sometimes she was just frustrating to listen to whenever she felt powerless to do anything. That's really all I have to say about her.
As for the main villains, aside from Richter, they were all easily forgettable and never had much going for them, anyways. Entertaining, though Decus may have been, doesn't make up for the lack of depth (once again) that most of the main Vanguard was.
Richter, on the otherhand, made a pretty good villain, with a real objective and a means of getting his goal, without being "controlled by something that made him evil even though he's actually a good person". For my ending, at least, I liked the sacrifice he made of himself to help Ratatosk hold back the door to the... Ginungagap, for the next 1000 years.
Now most people will probably disagree with me on this, but I felt that too much of the game centered around the old Symphonia characters, and not the new main protagonists. I say this because the game really felt like it was forcing itself to present all the Symphonia characters in whatever way was most convenient, and trying to at least give them each a very important role, even if they were only around for an hour or so. Even in the final chapter, I had expected Yuan to be given a major role as opposed to just being there, explaining stuff, and then never being mentioned again (he had made a very short appearance at the beginning of the game, as well).
I would have liked to see Lloyd being more of a villain, rather than just being impersonated by someone; knowing that, it makes the entire "Lloyd is evil" ordeal seem kind of pointless.
Score: 7/10
Graphics
The graphics are vastly improved, and what I would like to call a "more refined version of Abyss'". The towns are all greatly detailed now (or at least it's easier to see the details), and the colors used are pleasing to the eye, not too bright or pale (but the last dungeon was terribly bright).
Aside from the opening movie, there were no anime cutscenes for the entire game (unless you count the ending credits...). To make up for this, Knight of Ratatosk was the first of the Tales franchise to employ motion capture for the event sequences, and I have to say, it was quite impressive. I personally wouldn't mind more of this, considering the amount of anime cutscenes for a Tales game has dropped significantly since Tales of Destiny 2, anyways (I don't know if this still stands for Vesperia, though).
Score: 8/10
Battle System
The best part, and possibly the most flawed part, of the game was the battle system. I had a great deal of fun with the aerial combos, always averaging at least a 35-hit combo, and letting loose much of my frustration (which also stemmed from this game in the first place... go figure). I managed a 90-hit combo on the final boss, and I have to say that's pretty good considering how tired I was by that time.
The problem with the battle system is that the controls don't seem to register a lot of the time. It's not the Wii controller itself, because it has new batteries and I've used it in different parts of the room. There is a slight delay after Emil hits the maximum number of times allowed for one regular combo, but sometimes when I try to use an Arte or activate a Unison attack, nothing happens, and so I am left vulnerable to enemy attack. There are also times when Emil isn't facing the right direction, and every time I try to turn around he just attacks thin air. It's very frustrating.
Sometimes I will attack the enemy, whether on ground or air, and I will completely miss, wasting my TP. But I think of this as my own inability to use the battle system effectively, rather than Emil just being too "flippy" or "all-over-the-place" and needing a little refinement from the creators; I really hope the latter is not the case.
Score: 8/10
I was going to make this an entire section, but I'll include Monsters as a list of positive/negative traits, because the post is starting to get long.
Positive traits:
-Level insanely fast (if you keep the same ones in your party); by the time I'm level 50, they're well on their way to the 90s, with maxed out HP. It's ridiculous.
-They're adorable....... when they're little. And sometimes even after they've evolved (Slimes, for example).
-They have weird names, and this can be good or bad. Wait, why are so many of them named after food (Peas, Waffle, Gelato...)? It's like they're implying something...
-They probably are preferrable over the old Symphonia characters, because they can take a lot of hits before going down. However...
Negative traits:
-If the human characters die, it's game over. Monsters can't use items.
-They never really learn when to use healing artes effectively until level 50 or so (I spent 3000 gald to teach you these damn artes, so use them!).
-They get in the way when they're bigger (stop blocking off the screen! Get out of my way! Stop ruining my combos!).
-Monsters also can't equip anything except for specific accessories (no capes).
Over all, monsters are a cute idea, but they need to be worked on a little more.
Score: 6/10
Music
Ah, Sakuraba, you still continue to disappoint me with your Tales OSTs.
The music is, like the story, uninspired and everything sounded the same. Most of the music comprised of either an old track from the first Symphonia, or a remix. None of the tunes really worked with the scenes (unless it was a silly type of situation), and it felt more like a track was thrown in just for the hell of it.
However, admittedly I have always been fond of Sakuraba's battle themes for Tales, usually being the best tracks for each game, in my opinion.
......I forgot where I was going with this, because I don't remember liking most of the battle tracks used in KoR.
At the very end of KoR, before Emil sealed the door and was separated from all his friends, a piano track started playing that I recognized almost immediately, knowing part of it was taken from the ending credit theme of the ToD2 OST. Quite fitting, I must say, considering the likeness between the relationships of the main hero and heroine for both games.
One thing I have always liked about the way Sakuraba composes his Tales music, is that he will take bits and pieces of tracks from different Tales games and put them all together, creating a new song. I like the feeling of nostalgia it gives off for older Tales, even if it may seem like laziness to others. I believe this slightly redeems the otherwise lacking music that was the majority of KoR.
Score: 7/10
Voice Acting
Now I usually wouldn't include voice acting in my reviews, but I felt there was a need to, considering the change and all that. But since I'm bored of typing all this, I'm just going to make blunt statements.
The new voices suck. All of them. Colette sounds the same, but who the hell cares about her? Anyone could play a character like that. Raine doesn't sound good at all; sometimes she's more smug than she needs to be, and she doesn't know how to go insane during Ruin Mode. Genis sounds extremely obnoxious, Zelos just sounds bad, Sheena can't pronounce Mar-ta without it getting on my nerves, Presea doesn't sound sweet enough; the only character that wasn't exceptionally bad was Regal, and I'm used to Lloyd's new voice by now.
I've already said my opinion on Emil's voice(s), and I don't really have anything to say about Marta.
I'm really, really sick of hearing Bosch's voice right now.
Score: 6/10
In general, Knight of Ratatosk was the kind of game that I enjoyed and absolutely hated at the same time, and that's my reason for sticking to it and finishing it (besides, it only took 3 and a half days to beat... why stop?). There was a massive number of typos that I noticed in the game though, so they could have worked on that a little. If more time were spent into developing the game, the story, and the characters, then I think this would have been much more enjoyable to play than what we were given instead. For casual gamers, I would probably recommend it; for gamers that actually care about story and stuff, it's a 50/50 recommendation.
Some cameos I noticed in the game:
-In the ruins of Asgard, a painting of the "Wind Goddess" is on the wall; this is actually Natalia from Abyss. It was pretty cool.
-In a skit about Presea making charms, she mentions an "outfit with a bare mid-drift", known as the "Loni-Kyle", and also her proudest work that was soon stolen after development, the "Judas Mask". ToD2 cameos!
-I don't even know if this is a cameo or not, but there was another skit where everyone was discussing why the Lezareno company had such high-tech security. Colette deduces that it is because they need to fend off an army of spies that use cardboard boxes to hide in, sent to destroy an evil company.
And now a little story that I feel like I must share, because it's such a tragedy.
During my fight with Commander Brute, I noticed sometimes that (I was using all human characters) dead characters would suddenly come back to life, even though I saw no one using Ressurrection. This puzzled me, but I did not think much of it and continued my attack on Brute. It was a tough battle, but somehow I survived and rarely used any items.
As I made my way out of the room and moved on to the next event, I unwisely forgot to save and, as luck would have it, I was supposed to fight Richter and beat him next; two boss battles in a row. I didn't think it was that bad of a problem even if I didn't save; I still had all my items, right?
As Marta dies during the battle, I check my inventory for a Life Bottle, to see that I am reduced to a mere 6 and I have no Apple Gels left. WHY? I then realized that I must have forgotten to turn off that ridiculous arte that Raine had in my last fight against Brute, the "Auto Item". As you can tell by the name, Auto Item lets a character use an item whenever an ally is in trouble. I was completely screwed over.
Marta was dead, I had no Life Bottles left, and I, as Emil, had to survive because there was no way in hell I'd fight Brute again, and my monsters couldn't use items. Luckily, Richter likes to cast spells a lot, which worked to my advantage very often; I would spam Heavenly Tempest to first cancel his casting, and then, when my overlimit meter was full, I would use Emil's Mystic Arte. My monsters were very helpful in the fight, and I'm glad I taught them those healing artes. Eventually, Peas was taken down, and only I and Waffle were left. Richter focused mainly on me, and I ran around the battlefield with Free Run while Waffle cast First Aid. I continued with this offensive-defensive strategy, attacking Richter whenever possible, and eventually took the bastard down, two characters dead, nearly out of items. It was an incredible accomplishment.
Breakdown
Story: 5
Characters: 7
Graphics: 8
Battle System: 8
Monsters: 6
Music: 7
Voice Acting: 6
Overall: 6.7/10 (Yes, I actually calculated the average... I would have given it a 6.5 otherwise).
Frustration Levels: 10
Replay Value: 6
Recommendation Value: 6
And one more thing: NO MORE PUZZLES. I HATE PUZZLES.
I will be splitting up this review into different sections and then giving the final score at the end. There are going to be spoilers for the end of the game, so be advised.
Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk
Storyline:
Consisting of 8 chapters, the main character, Emil, goes through a number of different experiences and hardships, ultimately learning how to grow up and become a person that can "truly be called a hero", like in the traditional Tales fashion. He meets friends along the way that help shape him into a stronger, braver character than what he starts off as. The lack of originality in the story is not the defining problem, however.
The game is nothing short of uninspired, story-wise. When I first started the game, I had already noticed a few similarities, but I dismissed the thought, believing that Bandai-Namco wouldn't possibly recycle a storyline they had used for another Tales game, still fairly recent. Eventually, by the time it was established that Emil and Ratatosk!Emil were two different entities, I couldn't help but be vastly disappointed in the story. To me, this game felt like a failed attempt to merge the stories of Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Destiny 2 together, both of which were games that I thoroughly enjoyed.
One simply has to take the entire story revolving around Luke's identity from Abyss, and then the romance between the hero and heroine of Destiny 2, and anyone will see that that is exactly what makes up Knight of Ratatosk. If Bandai-Namco had found a better way to execute the story though, then perhaps it would have gotten more points, not just from me, but from many other reviewers. And as far as a romance story goes, Tales of Destiny 2 was definitely better, and much more realistic.
The actual plot, which was basically "Protagonists stop an evil organization only to discover a terrible truth that further prolongs their journey" was also weak and lacking in depth. Much of it was predictable, and the parts that were meant to be shocking, were... not. If you can sum up the entire plot in a single sentence, then you know it's just not that great.
The story was never that engaging for the audience. It left me feeling rather empty; there wasn't any feeling of fulfillment in beating the game, like how a person usually feels afterwards (though it would depend on the game).
Now, I'm not really sure where to place this, but this "Ginungagap" that was the final plot twist of the story... couldn't they have come up with a better name than that? If it's a demonic realm, it should have a name that reflects the terrors of the realm, not something that causes stifled laughter every time it is said aloud.
Well, despite my ranting about the story, I am happy that I got the true ending on my first try, and that's all that really matters to me.
Score: 5/10
Characters
Emil wasn't the first Tales hero to be cowardly, weak, and slightly effeminate. However, he is my favourite of the new characters (and the old), because Emil is easy to like as a character. Of course, this is just my humble opinion, and maybe some male players would have preferred someone more "manly" to this "wimp". I liked both versions of Emil, and I was less than pleased when Ratatosk!Emil was sealed away and I had to use the normal version in battle for the last dungeon or so. It wasn't a matter of who was stronger in battle though, I just missed the badass voice acting for Ratatosk!Emil.
Marta was, more or less, an enjoyable character to have around, but sometimes she was just frustrating to listen to whenever she felt powerless to do anything. That's really all I have to say about her.
As for the main villains, aside from Richter, they were all easily forgettable and never had much going for them, anyways. Entertaining, though Decus may have been, doesn't make up for the lack of depth (once again) that most of the main Vanguard was.
Richter, on the otherhand, made a pretty good villain, with a real objective and a means of getting his goal, without being "controlled by something that made him evil even though he's actually a good person". For my ending, at least, I liked the sacrifice he made of himself to help Ratatosk hold back the door to the... Ginungagap, for the next 1000 years.
Now most people will probably disagree with me on this, but I felt that too much of the game centered around the old Symphonia characters, and not the new main protagonists. I say this because the game really felt like it was forcing itself to present all the Symphonia characters in whatever way was most convenient, and trying to at least give them each a very important role, even if they were only around for an hour or so. Even in the final chapter, I had expected Yuan to be given a major role as opposed to just being there, explaining stuff, and then never being mentioned again (he had made a very short appearance at the beginning of the game, as well).
I would have liked to see Lloyd being more of a villain, rather than just being impersonated by someone; knowing that, it makes the entire "Lloyd is evil" ordeal seem kind of pointless.
Score: 7/10
Graphics
The graphics are vastly improved, and what I would like to call a "more refined version of Abyss'". The towns are all greatly detailed now (or at least it's easier to see the details), and the colors used are pleasing to the eye, not too bright or pale (but the last dungeon was terribly bright).
Aside from the opening movie, there were no anime cutscenes for the entire game (unless you count the ending credits...). To make up for this, Knight of Ratatosk was the first of the Tales franchise to employ motion capture for the event sequences, and I have to say, it was quite impressive. I personally wouldn't mind more of this, considering the amount of anime cutscenes for a Tales game has dropped significantly since Tales of Destiny 2, anyways (I don't know if this still stands for Vesperia, though).
Score: 8/10
Battle System
The best part, and possibly the most flawed part, of the game was the battle system. I had a great deal of fun with the aerial combos, always averaging at least a 35-hit combo, and letting loose much of my frustration (which also stemmed from this game in the first place... go figure). I managed a 90-hit combo on the final boss, and I have to say that's pretty good considering how tired I was by that time.
The problem with the battle system is that the controls don't seem to register a lot of the time. It's not the Wii controller itself, because it has new batteries and I've used it in different parts of the room. There is a slight delay after Emil hits the maximum number of times allowed for one regular combo, but sometimes when I try to use an Arte or activate a Unison attack, nothing happens, and so I am left vulnerable to enemy attack. There are also times when Emil isn't facing the right direction, and every time I try to turn around he just attacks thin air. It's very frustrating.
Sometimes I will attack the enemy, whether on ground or air, and I will completely miss, wasting my TP. But I think of this as my own inability to use the battle system effectively, rather than Emil just being too "flippy" or "all-over-the-place" and needing a little refinement from the creators; I really hope the latter is not the case.
Score: 8/10
I was going to make this an entire section, but I'll include Monsters as a list of positive/negative traits, because the post is starting to get long.
Positive traits:
-Level insanely fast (if you keep the same ones in your party); by the time I'm level 50, they're well on their way to the 90s, with maxed out HP. It's ridiculous.
-They're adorable....... when they're little. And sometimes even after they've evolved (Slimes, for example).
-They have weird names, and this can be good or bad. Wait, why are so many of them named after food (Peas, Waffle, Gelato...)? It's like they're implying something...
-They probably are preferrable over the old Symphonia characters, because they can take a lot of hits before going down. However...
Negative traits:
-If the human characters die, it's game over. Monsters can't use items.
-They never really learn when to use healing artes effectively until level 50 or so (I spent 3000 gald to teach you these damn artes, so use them!).
-They get in the way when they're bigger (stop blocking off the screen! Get out of my way! Stop ruining my combos!).
-Monsters also can't equip anything except for specific accessories (no capes).
Over all, monsters are a cute idea, but they need to be worked on a little more.
Score: 6/10
Music
Ah, Sakuraba, you still continue to disappoint me with your Tales OSTs.
The music is, like the story, uninspired and everything sounded the same. Most of the music comprised of either an old track from the first Symphonia, or a remix. None of the tunes really worked with the scenes (unless it was a silly type of situation), and it felt more like a track was thrown in just for the hell of it.
However, admittedly I have always been fond of Sakuraba's battle themes for Tales, usually being the best tracks for each game, in my opinion.
......I forgot where I was going with this, because I don't remember liking most of the battle tracks used in KoR.
At the very end of KoR, before Emil sealed the door and was separated from all his friends, a piano track started playing that I recognized almost immediately, knowing part of it was taken from the ending credit theme of the ToD2 OST. Quite fitting, I must say, considering the likeness between the relationships of the main hero and heroine for both games.
One thing I have always liked about the way Sakuraba composes his Tales music, is that he will take bits and pieces of tracks from different Tales games and put them all together, creating a new song. I like the feeling of nostalgia it gives off for older Tales, even if it may seem like laziness to others. I believe this slightly redeems the otherwise lacking music that was the majority of KoR.
Score: 7/10
Voice Acting
Now I usually wouldn't include voice acting in my reviews, but I felt there was a need to, considering the change and all that. But since I'm bored of typing all this, I'm just going to make blunt statements.
The new voices suck. All of them. Colette sounds the same, but who the hell cares about her? Anyone could play a character like that. Raine doesn't sound good at all; sometimes she's more smug than she needs to be, and she doesn't know how to go insane during Ruin Mode. Genis sounds extremely obnoxious, Zelos just sounds bad, Sheena can't pronounce Mar-ta without it getting on my nerves, Presea doesn't sound sweet enough; the only character that wasn't exceptionally bad was Regal, and I'm used to Lloyd's new voice by now.
I've already said my opinion on Emil's voice(s), and I don't really have anything to say about Marta.
I'm really, really sick of hearing Bosch's voice right now.
Score: 6/10
In general, Knight of Ratatosk was the kind of game that I enjoyed and absolutely hated at the same time, and that's my reason for sticking to it and finishing it (besides, it only took 3 and a half days to beat... why stop?). There was a massive number of typos that I noticed in the game though, so they could have worked on that a little. If more time were spent into developing the game, the story, and the characters, then I think this would have been much more enjoyable to play than what we were given instead. For casual gamers, I would probably recommend it; for gamers that actually care about story and stuff, it's a 50/50 recommendation.
Some cameos I noticed in the game:
-In the ruins of Asgard, a painting of the "Wind Goddess" is on the wall; this is actually Natalia from Abyss. It was pretty cool.
-In a skit about Presea making charms, she mentions an "outfit with a bare mid-drift", known as the "Loni-Kyle", and also her proudest work that was soon stolen after development, the "Judas Mask". ToD2 cameos!
-I don't even know if this is a cameo or not, but there was another skit where everyone was discussing why the Lezareno company had such high-tech security. Colette deduces that it is because they need to fend off an army of spies that use cardboard boxes to hide in, sent to destroy an evil company.
And now a little story that I feel like I must share, because it's such a tragedy.
During my fight with Commander Brute, I noticed sometimes that (I was using all human characters) dead characters would suddenly come back to life, even though I saw no one using Ressurrection. This puzzled me, but I did not think much of it and continued my attack on Brute. It was a tough battle, but somehow I survived and rarely used any items.
As I made my way out of the room and moved on to the next event, I unwisely forgot to save and, as luck would have it, I was supposed to fight Richter and beat him next; two boss battles in a row. I didn't think it was that bad of a problem even if I didn't save; I still had all my items, right?
As Marta dies during the battle, I check my inventory for a Life Bottle, to see that I am reduced to a mere 6 and I have no Apple Gels left. WHY? I then realized that I must have forgotten to turn off that ridiculous arte that Raine had in my last fight against Brute, the "Auto Item". As you can tell by the name, Auto Item lets a character use an item whenever an ally is in trouble. I was completely screwed over.
Marta was dead, I had no Life Bottles left, and I, as Emil, had to survive because there was no way in hell I'd fight Brute again, and my monsters couldn't use items. Luckily, Richter likes to cast spells a lot, which worked to my advantage very often; I would spam Heavenly Tempest to first cancel his casting, and then, when my overlimit meter was full, I would use Emil's Mystic Arte. My monsters were very helpful in the fight, and I'm glad I taught them those healing artes. Eventually, Peas was taken down, and only I and Waffle were left. Richter focused mainly on me, and I ran around the battlefield with Free Run while Waffle cast First Aid. I continued with this offensive-defensive strategy, attacking Richter whenever possible, and eventually took the bastard down, two characters dead, nearly out of items. It was an incredible accomplishment.
Breakdown
Story: 5
Characters: 7
Graphics: 8
Battle System: 8
Monsters: 6
Music: 7
Voice Acting: 6
Overall: 6.7/10 (Yes, I actually calculated the average... I would have given it a 6.5 otherwise).
Frustration Levels: 10
Replay Value: 6
Recommendation Value: 6
And one more thing: NO MORE PUZZLES. I HATE PUZZLES.