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Originally Posted by SilverSyko
I don't know if game discussion is allowed in here, but since this is a Q & A topic I figured I would try here first.
I'm just about finished playing through Tales of Symphonia again after about 7 or 8 years since I last have done so. Back then I wasn't that fond of the Tales games and Symphonia was the only one in the series I played to completion.
Now that I'm a bit more fond of the series presently, I was wondering if playing Dawn of the New World would be a good idea? The story of Symphonia is even better than I remember it being and I'm very curious how the story of the sequel is. However I haven't heard very many good things about the game.
The main thing I want to ask, is the story worth slogging through all the bad gameplay aspects it has? Because if it isn't, I may not bother in the first place.
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IMO, the real selling point of the game is to see the old chars and what they are up to in this newly combined world. Whether you like it or not depends on how much you liked the original characters' personalities and how they interacted with each other. If you liked it fairly well, despite the whininess and clinginess of the main male and female protagonist respectively, then I feel you'll be able to tolerate the game enough to see it through.
Story-wise, it has some minor things that aren't explained, but does an otherwise great job at tying the elements of the previous game, and even some minor elements from Martel's era(i.e. 4000 yrs ago) into a cohesive plot that makes sense.
Most people are actually put off by the gameplay elements. The game uses a monster capture system so that you can use monsters in battle, but they can only be AI controlled. You get orig ToS members here and there throughout the story, but their artes and power have been completely gimped; they are only a shadow of what they are capable of in the orig ToS(locked levels, not all of their artes, no Shiina summoning, etc). They all at least get Mystic Artes(like Llyod's Falcon Crest, Colette's Holy Judgment, etc), but cannot exceed a max level of 50 by end game, despite your 2 new protagonists maxing at lv 200 which makes them lackluster in the bonus dungeons. The system itself, despite having Free Run, is not as polished as the original, not in terms of speed, but....how to say it...it just doesn't look as elegant.
On an unrelated note, the criticism is heightened even more due to the fact that Tales of Vesperia came out a couple of months later in the same year ToS2 did, and story-wise and battle system-wise, was a much more structured and vibrant game, at least in the general opinion of others.
You said you only played ToS all the way through. You've never played Vesperia, Graces f, or Innocence?