Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (known as Knight of Ratatosk in Japan) is a Tales game for the Nintendo Wii, and was released in Spring of 2008 in Japan and is scheduled to be released in November 2008 in America. The game is the sequel to the popular Gamecube/PS2 title Tales of Symphonia.

Character Design
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World features the designs by Kosuke Fujishima of returning Tales of Symphonia characters, but the designer of the new characters is Daigo Okumura. The main character's name is Emil Castagnier, and the heroine's name is Marta Lualdi. Other revealed characters, such as Richter Abend, Tenebrae, and Aqua, have little to nothing known about them. Also other characters known as the Vanguard have been revealed such as Alice and Decus, but little is also known about the group.

Storyline
Long ago, Sylvarant and Tethe'alla were united as a single world that drew strength from the Great Kharlan Tree. Divine intervention tore them apart, however, and the Tree withered and died. It was eventually left to a boy named Lloyd to restore the world to its true form. At his journey's end, a new Tree was planted to replace the old one and to hold the two worlds together. This was the story of the Journey of Regeneration.

Together once more, the world is now entering a new era. However, its people are still faced with many problems. After the lands became one, maps were rendered useless and the climate went through many vast changes: desert towns became frozen wastelands and lakes dried up into valleys. All of this stems from an overlooked factor in the unification of the worlds: the spirit of the old Kharlan Tree, Ratatosk, still exists somewhere, and its slumber has sent the world into chaos.

However, Ratatosk isn't the only problem: the people of the two worlds are starting to hate each other. The citizens of Tethe'alla look down upon the citizens of Sylvarant due to their inferior technology, and the citizens of Sylvarant fear the citizens of Tethe'alla because of their power. Two years have passed since the worlds were first merged, and the people of Sylvarant have created a vanguard with which to rise against the Church of Martel and the people of Tethe'alla.

One day, the Church of Martel went to war with Agents of the vanguard, and Sylvarant's city of Palmacosta was caught in the crossfire. Countless innocent people died and Palmacosta was consumed in a terrible fire. This event came to be known as the "Purge of Flames", a bloody massacre caused by the Church of Martel.

Setting
Knight of Ratatosk takes place two years after the events of Tales of Symphonia.[2] The protagonists are named Emil and Marta, and characters from the original Symphonia will return:[2] certain screenshots have revealed that Colette will return as a playable character, it was revealed in a new trailer that all of the original characters, except that of Kratos will be playable. However, this same trailer depicts Lloyd in an antagonistic light: he fights the protagonists from Ratatosk. However, Lloyd is just a temporary enemy, like Kratos, and not the key antagonist. In addition, Zelos has been revealed, implying that the canonical ending of Tales of Symphonia had Zelos live, rather than die. Kratos has also been revealed to be in the game as it's narrator as in the first game.

It is suggested by the name that the game will relate to the character Ratatosk from Norse mythology, who is a talking squirrel that lived on the World Tree, Yggdrasil. Tales of Symphonia features a giant life-giving tree that functions similarly to the Yggdrasil of myths. This tree also exists in Tales of Phantasia, which Tales of Symphonia is a prequel to. In Tales of Phantasia it is called Yggdrasil, supposedly after Tales of Symphonia's main villain.

Battle System
The battle system that this game uses is a variation of Tales of the Abyss's FR-LMBS, (Flex-Range Linear Motion Battle System) called Flex-Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System. (FREE-LMBS, for short) This system creates a similar style of gameplay compared to Tales of Innocence's Dimension-Stride Linear Motion Battle System.

Exploration
From what Namco Bandai has shown of this game, it appears that it will not feature a world map. Instead, when the main characters leave the town, they will appear on a small drawing of the world with major towns and cities painted across it. By pointing at these areas with the Wii remote, the party will walk instantly from place to place.

Capturing Monsters
Monsters are able to be captured (and evolved) to fight for the party by changing the elemental balance of the field to match a monster's elemental attribute. Cooking is also centered around them (meaning that the Wonder Chef returns) by cooking meals for them to increase their stats, affect what stats are gained by leveling, or, if it is the right food for the right monster, will evolve them. There is an affection system related to the monsters, though the system does not tie into the story. The contracts that the main character(s) make with monsters (via recruiting them) also ties into the story: every contract you make with them slowly brings the world's balance to normal.

North American Additions
It has been confirmed that the North American version of Dawn of the New World will have additional features that were not present in the Japanese release. Additions include the ability to load cleared Tales of Symphonia game data to receive extra items and Gald at the beginning of the game. In addition to this, while not a new feature, the number of motion control shortcuts in battle has been increased from four in the Japanese version to eight for the North American version. :D

Presentation
The only animated segment in the game is its opening. Most of the story is told through real-time cut-scenes that were filmed using a motion capture system. Skits, which are short, optional conversations between the characters, make a return; in the Japanese version of the game, these skits are fully voiced and have been confirmed to also be voiced in the North American version unlike the original Tales of Symphonia. Much of the music in Dawn of the New World is remixed from the soundtrack of the original Tales of Symphonia. The game also has widescreen support. Many of the assets and locations in the game have been taken directly from the original Tales of Symphonia, but the textures have been updated.