What happens when you take a classic jRPG, add a completely emo protagonist, include a barely-still-a-loli cutie who wants nothing more to impale herself on said emo protagonist's dong, throw in some Pokemon style monster growing, then put it all on the Wii?
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World! That's what you get.
I have had this game for all of a day and have played it about 2 hours. With 2 hours of experience, here is my micro review:
Characters: Unsure protagonists are kind of a trend in jRPGs but the good guy in this one, Emil, takes the cake. Unsure to the point that everyone yells at him. It is actually kind of refreashing to be honest. They even show him as a coward during the first few battles (instead of the old stand buy: give random person random weapon and he will know exactly how to use it without any doubt).
The main female protagonist, Marta, randomly starts begging for Emil to declare his love for her. He, of course, can't because his balls haven't dropped or something. Seriously, when I say that she probably rapes him in his sleep when they stay at an inn, trust me when I say I mean it. Turns out she has the hibernating god of monsters embedded in her forehead and Emil grains that god's power (which is what makes him less of a coward in battle).
The other main protagonist is a magical dark wolf thing named something I can never pronounce. He's a black wolf that floats around and talks. That's about it so far.
Other than that, the original cast from Tales of Symphonia (on the GameCube) return and one of them is oddly evil. There are also Marta's ex comrades which so far has included random soldiers, a liutenant named Hawk, and a sadistic super-loli named Alice. She even has a riding crop for a weapon. I'm not making that up.
Story: Boy meets girl. Boy pisses pants. Girl needs help. Boy pisses pants then saves girl. Girl wants to fuck boy. Boy pisses pants. Something about a squirrel and natural disasters. Boy pisses pants.
Gameplay: Battles are pretty fun. They are done in real time (though managing characters can be a hassle if you do not know what exactly you are doing). The only thing I do not like about the gameplay in general are cutscenes.
Seriously, when I was playing the game for the first time, I decided to update my Facebook status with my thoughts on the game:
Matt Grob 6 feet cutecene, 6 feet, cutscene, 6 feet, fight, cutscene, disc stops working, 6 feet, cutscene. FFS!
Yesterday at 9:33pmMatt Grob DRAMATIC SUDDEN VOICE CHANGE! Becoming a knight of a squirrel that lives in the world tree will do that.
Yesterday at 9:41pmMatt Grob SERIOUSLY, THE CUTSCENES.
Yesterday at 9:45pmMatt Grob Um...wasn't this city....literally just on fire?...
Yesterday at 10:32pmMatt Grob Damn, this game should be called "Cutscenes, The Game."
Yesterday at 10:47pm
There was one part where walking from one side of the screen to the other, I hit THREE GOD DAMNED CUTSCENES.
THREE.
Ugh!
Fun: Despite the over abundance of cutscenes, so far this game has been pretty fun. The charactes are actually unsusual for the genre and that is nice. The character interactions can be pretty funny too. Overal, if I were to rate this game on a scale of 1 to 10 so far, it would get a 7. I can tell by the game so far, and it's prequel, that it will get really heavy later on but for now there is just a lot of Marta wanting to get boned by Emil.
