What is it, in summary? Two years after Lloyd and co saved the world in Tales of Symphonia, the world is not doing so great because apparently smashing two worlds together and forcing them to co-exist does not undo thousands of years of exploitation on both sides. Our protagonists are a cowed and abused kid with a worryingly violent alter ego, a girl out to stop the organisation she co-founded while also determined to find her true love along the way, and a sarcastic being who knows everything but doesn't say anything because a) he's also trying to save the world and b) it's funnier this way. (Jury's out as to which factor is more important).
There's three plots going on: Marta's quest to collect all the Centurion Cores before the organisation she defected from does, a tall and brooding half-elf who seems to know Emil very well while doing what he think is necessary for his own goals, and "What The Hell Is Going On With Emil", which is ultimately my favourite part. Emil doesn't remember anything about Tales of Symphonia, so the game will tell you everything that Emil needs to know.
What do you love about it? As far as successsors to Tales of Symphonia goes, Dawn of the New World is ... not a good one, as it undoes the main thesis of that game that no-one should be sacrificed to save the world. As a standalone game, however, Dawn of the New World has a lot of really neat things going for it. It's one of the few games that goes "yeah, the deus ex machina didn't actually fix things", and that while you may have had to do bad things to win overall the people who were killed because of said bad things are not going to be okay with it.
But a big part of why I love Dawn of the New World is Emil himself. He's explicitly an abuse survivor who is obviously very traumatised by his past (both his own and his alter ego's). He dumps everything that he finds too difficult onto his alter-ego, while his alter-ego becomes increasingly unpredictable as he regains his memory. As the game progresses, his entire existence becomes a living nightmare as his powers go haywire, it becomes more apparent that people are keeping secrets from him, the sexy brooding half-elf seems to insist that Emil has to be killed but is super reluctant to do it, and he has flashbacks to his own death.
He's a surprisingly complicated character for a Tales escort game, is what I'm saying.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? In the middle of the game, Emil starts going through some pretty weird things - he keeps waking up in strange places, manifests powers outside what a human can do, and forgets what his alter-ego does in his place. The game did not spend enough time on this, or what the consequences could have been had things played out a little differently. This should be fixed!
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? You don't need to play Tales of Symphonia, but you do need to watch the scenes for Dawn of the New World.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World contains child abuse, fantasy racism on various axes, references to genocide, an abusive relationship between two people, and amnesia if that's not your thing.
Also, I promise Emil stops thinking "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" all the time.
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World
Media: Video Game
Approx length: About 35 hours to play.
Where to find it: Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is available on Wii and PS3. Here's a compilation of all the cutscenes, and here's a compilation of the skits.
What is it, in summary? Two years after Lloyd and co saved the world in Tales of Symphonia, the world is not doing so great because apparently smashing two worlds together and forcing them to co-exist does not undo thousands of years of exploitation on both sides. Our protagonists are a cowed and abused kid with a worryingly violent alter ego, a girl out to stop the organisation she co-founded while also determined to find her true love along the way, and a sarcastic being who knows everything but doesn't say anything because a) he's also trying to save the world and b) it's funnier this way. (Jury's out as to which factor is more important).
There's three plots going on: Marta's quest to collect all the Centurion Cores before the organisation she defected from does, a tall and brooding half-elf who seems to know Emil very well while doing what he think is necessary for his own goals, and "What The Hell Is Going On With Emil", which is ultimately my favourite part. Emil doesn't remember anything about Tales of Symphonia, so the game will tell you everything that Emil needs to know.
What do you love about it? As far as successsors to Tales of Symphonia goes, Dawn of the New World is ... not a good one, as it undoes the main thesis of that game that no-one should be sacrificed to save the world. As a standalone game, however, Dawn of the New World has a lot of really neat things going for it. It's one of the few games that goes "yeah, the deus ex machina didn't actually fix things", and that while you may have had to do bad things to win overall the people who were killed because of said bad things are not going to be okay with it.
But a big part of why I love Dawn of the New World is Emil himself. He's explicitly an abuse survivor who is obviously very traumatised by his past (both his own and his alter ego's). He dumps everything that he finds too difficult onto his alter-ego, while his alter-ego becomes increasingly unpredictable as he regains his memory. As the game progresses, his entire existence becomes a living nightmare as his powers go haywire, it becomes more apparent that people are keeping secrets from him, the sexy brooding half-elf seems to insist that Emil has to be killed but is super reluctant to do it, and he has flashbacks to his own death.
He's a surprisingly complicated character for a Tales escort game, is what I'm saying.
What sort of things are you likely to request for it? In the middle of the game, Emil starts going through some pretty weird things - he keeps waking up in strange places, manifests powers outside what a human can do, and forgets what his alter-ego does in his place. The game did not spend enough time on this, or what the consequences could have been had things played out a little differently. This should be fixed!
Are there sections of canon (rather than the whole canon) that can be consumed by themselves to fulfil your requests? You don't need to play Tales of Symphonia, but you do need to watch the scenes for Dawn of the New World.
Content warnings (ie, rape, incest, racism, gore/violence) Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World contains child abuse, fantasy racism on various axes, references to genocide, an abusive relationship between two people, and amnesia if that's not your thing.
Also, I promise Emil stops thinking "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" all the time.