Saturday, January 10, 2009

Slow week...

The week crawled by, with no interesting things, just video games*, school, eating, playing with the dog, and sleep. I really need to start working on programming! Anyways, there have been no flash games to review, as, all Stumbleupon brings me to, are games I have already played, or games of low quality. Even though I change all my topics to games!


In other news, I finished Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World! So that gives me something to write about.


Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World review:



This game is a squeal to Tales of Symphonia, I regard the first game to be better. This is for a few reasons;

1. There seems to have been a bit of scrip lost in translation! (characters will repeat what others say, right after they say it)

2. Character's eyes won't move, though they will change. (They have three or four different things they might change to, I don't quite remember.) Their face will move though.

3. At the start of the game, there are flashbacks, for example: "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality, now are you a dog, or a man?" *FLASH BACK* "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality". Thank whatever GODS there are that this stops by the time you get to a new town, though, there are a few mixed into the rest of the game.


4. They only show two of the eight Centurions. (If you play the game, you will know what these are, basically, they control monsters, and maintain the balance of mana.)


5. They ruined the character Genis, made him more childish.

6. Not enough weapon and armor upgrades. **


I think that is all my gripes, and it is comparison to the first game, but, you would think they would give the character's faces a bit more life, I mean, the opening sequence had their eyes shifting, and looking life-like***... I didn't do the sidequests, but I will next playthrough. They used towns from the first game, dungeons from the first game, and only a few new places, with additions, like, the lamps in the first game that were "only for decoration" in the shadow dungeon, turn out to be of use in this one! I thought the battles were a little tough, though, I avoided monsters whenever I could, so that may have been the cause****. The skits***** were like the old game, with a few different configurations******

As I read somewhere else, this game is more of a "side" adventure, while Tales of Symphonia, was a "main" adventure. This makes sense; In this game, without sidequests, it took me thirty hours on my first play through, on ToS, it took me fifty to sixty hours. I am hoping that they make more "side" adventures, but don't try to upgrade the technology too much, so that games would come out better/faster, with more focus on story, instead of graphics.


Without giving too many spoilers away, that was my review. I give the game a 73/100 compared to the original, and a 84/100 as a stand alone. Though this is just my opinion, I suggest that you make up your own, this game was fun, could have been better, but it is what it is, right?


* WoW, ToS, Moo, MP1.*

**No elemental weapons, just things from the stores that are better, or are not.

*** This was in the skits***** too...

**** I also didn't figure out that there were "skills" until two thirds into the game, even though the menu for them appears whenever you go to equip a new weapon/armor...

***** Small chats between characters, sometimes the entire party!

****** Where the character's portraits were in the skit screen, sometimes they would touch, other times they would have four at once, and just switch depending on who was talking...


*All of those are names for games, though, only half are on consoles.

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