Tales of Symphonia for the GCN was one of the franchise's surprise hits. Gathering less than stellar sales numbers in Japan, the game was localized for North America and Europe, where it achieved almost entirely unexpected success. Roughly 700,000 sales of the game came from these two regions, pushing the title to a million-seller and making it one of the most beloved entries in the 13-year old series. With such success, it was only natural for Namco-Bandai to release a follow-up on the far more popular Wii.
The game's plot takes place two years after the original Symphonia, but the narrator explains Dawn of the New World's and Symphonia's backstory fairly quickly. 5000 years before the events of these two games occur, a great war known as the Ancient Kharlan War erupted. The war raged for around 1000 years, and was so destructive it sapped the land of its life source, mana, and caused the death of the World Tree, which supplied mana to this world. In response, a young boy named Mithos Yggdrasill, his older sister Martel, Kratos Aurion, and a man named Yuan, eventually traveled all over this world, and used a mighty blade called the Eternal Sword to separate the warring lands and return peace to the land.
However, Mithos had gained the power of the Eternal Sword on the premise that he would eventually reunite the two worlds, Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, once a new World Tree was born. Mithos, however, had no such intentions. On the death of his older sister at the hands of humans, he instituted a policy called the World Prolongation Project, a system designed to keep the two worlds apart until his own goals could be realized. 1000 years later, a group of heroes, protagonist Lloyd Irving and his friends Colette, Genis, Raine, Kratos, Sheena, Zelos, Presea, and Regal, defeated Mithos, reunited the two worlds, and resurrected the World Tree.
However, world reunification did not go as smoothly as Lloyd and his friends (sans Kratos, as by his own decision he left the planet
Symphonia's world takes place on at the end of
Symphonia) had hoped. Natural disasters, such as glaciers falling into the sea, deserts freezing, among other disasters, brings chaos to the world. In addition, the forces of the Church of Martel, which supports the interests of Tethe'alla (now more of a country) clash with the forces of the Vanguard (which claims to represent the interests of Sylvarant). Into this context enters the story of the new protagonists, Marta Lualdi, Emil Castagnier, Tenebrae, and Richter Abend.
Tenebrae, a Centurion of the spirit of the former World Tree, Ratatosk, tells Emil and Marta that they must travel the world and awaken the Centurions of Ratatosk to restore the balance of mana throughout the world and stop these natural disasters. Additionally, they must gather them before Richter and Lloyd get their hands on the Centurion Cores, both of whom are collecting the cores for their (unstated by themselves) reasons. The development of the story largely focuses on Emil as his character is developed, eventually climaxing in a tale that stretches from the present day back to the beginnings of the world.
The gameplay itself is radically different from Symphonia. In battles, characters can move on a three dimensional plane, as opposed to Symphonia's 2D, multi-line system. Characters can string together long combos from basic strikes to base artes, then to arcane artes. The functioning of spells is similar to their function in Symphonia, and by and large the basic gameplay remains the same between the titles.
However, a very important new gameplay features, monster catching, is introduced for the first time in the Tales series in this title. Monster catching involves Emil forming pacts with monsters to fight alongside him in battle. Monsters are all of a certain element, and many different artes can change the elemental make-up of the field. If enough artes of a certain element are used, the field becomes a certain element (i.e. Lightning) and Emil has a better chance of being able to make a pact with a monster of that same element. The system is very elaborate and useful, and makes for a very worth-while addition to the gameplay.
Other changes from Symphonia's gameplay have also been made. For one, the world map is no longer a free roaming affair. When on the world map, players simply move the cursor (via the Wii Remote) at a location and select it, which causes Emil and his party to move to that new location. In addition, players must have either Marta or Emil in every battle, in contrast to Symphonia, where a party could have any make-up of characters it wanted (save for a handful of battles where one or two characters must be present in the fighting party, but this exception only applies to boss battles). The old characters, when they do join, are usually very powerful and useful, but join for usually fleeting periods, so proficiency with Emil and / or Marta is mandatory to progress through the game.
The music has great variety and is a constant highlight of the title. Dawn of the New World features musical remixes from Tales of Phantasia (the world map theme in Dawn of the New World is a slower remix of one of Phantasia's world map themes) and Symphonia (all town themes and many battle themes) while featuring a great number of original songs (all boss battle themes, many "event" themes, and some location themes). All the music is very appropriate to its setting, and the world map theme and several boss battle themes are particularly remarkable, making for a very enjoyable experience musically.
Another great highlight of Dawn of the New World is the skits, which are voiced by the characters (as opposed to Symphonia, where skits played out entirely in text). A great number of skits, especially toward the beginning, are some of the most enjoyable skits in the series to date, with a great sense of humor in the writing. The effect of these skits is to build a very important connection between the player and Emil, Marta, and Tenebrae (the main cast), the three characters who dominate most skits. Toward the end, however, the skits increase in seriousness, but still retain a very solid sense of humor about the characters' world.
Finally, in (largely) a first for the series, there are multiple endings that vary significantly based on the actions the players take during the story. The ending a player gets depends on the choices they must occasionally make, as well as their actions during the final required battle. If a player has made a certain combination of choices, and loses the final forced battle, then they are thrust into an alternate final battle, but if the player wins the final required battle, the story ends there.
