Tales of Symphonia - Dawn of the New World announced for Europe w/exclusives!

[Carnivol]

Saw this posted on NeoGAF just a moment ago.

NAMCO BANDAI GAMES EUROPE ANNOUNCES 'TALES OF SYMPHONIATM: DAWN OF THE NEW WORLD' FOR Wii

Follow-up to Smash-Hit RPG Coming to Wii in Europe and PAL Regions this Autumn 2009, with Exclusive New Content

CERGY-PONTOISE, FRANCE – 22 April 2009 – NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe today announced that role-playing title Tales of Symphonia™: Dawn of the New World is heading to Europe and PAL regions this autumn 2009 with exclusive new content. Only on Wii™, the game continues the story of the best-selling Tales of Symphonia™ for Nintendo GameCube™, while introducing a new monster collection system that lets players capture, evolve and do battle with more than 200 monsters alongside a huge cast of new and returning characters.

Set two years after the events of the award-winning Tales of Symphonia, Dawn of the New World introduces two new young heroes, Emil Castagnier and Marta Lualdi, as they journey to find the cause of a catastrophic change in their world. Crossing paths with fan-favourite characters such as Lloyd, Colette and Sheena, the brave adventurers will also encounter a spirit known as Ratatosk, lord of all monsters, who will grant them new and incredible powers over the fearsome creatures that now roam the land.

Debuting a major new gameplay system for the Tales series, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World allows players to capture more than 200 unique monsters that they face in battle. Players can feed these monsters to make them more powerful, and even evolve them into several new fearsome forms. Up to three monsters can be taken into any battle situation, offering unique benefits against enemies and imparting new strategic depth to the Tales series’ lauded real-time battle system.

Brand new content exclusive to the PAL version of Tales of Symphonia™: Dawn of the New World include the Gallery Mode and head accessories. Unlocked once the game is completed, the Gallery Mode includes a Skits Library containing viewable skits of the gameplay, and an Image Library with a wealth of design sketches, illustrations, pack art and more. The game also contains a number of new themed masks and head accessories for Emil and Marta which are exclusive to the PAL version and allow players to customise the characters in battle and will also add new special effects during fights.

Featuring a massive cast of returning playable characters, Dawn of the New World offers complete freedom in creating a custom party that best suits the needs of each enemy encounter. Up to four players can enjoy the full game together cooperatively, working together to strategically complete each battle.

For more information on the Tales series, please visit www.namcobandaigames.com.

Oh my! After my recent negative words directed towards Vesperia 360 Europe announcement vs Vespera PS3 Japan announcement, this comes as a bit of a shocker...

Makes me wonder even more about Vesperia 360 (dual-audio, additional content, etc... hmm...)


Oh, well, good news, at least

Knew I made a good choice when I decided to wait with the English version until Euro release~

[Hoa Dao]

Hee, good news for you then :'D

It's good for PAL regions to have the goodies.  I still envy Euro and Australia for having Terranigma.

[Kogahazan]

The masks and head accessories are starting to remind me of horse armor, except you guys don't need to pay any extra for it, other than the price of PAL games compared to NA.

[Datschge]

Don't care for the extras as long as the battle loading times are improved...

[Shawn]

I never expected them to do extra content for the European release, I just expected the American version with extra subtitles.

Namdai surprised me for once. 

[Kevassa]

"Featuring a massive cast of returning playable characters, Dawn of the New World offers complete freedom in creating a custom party that best suits the needs of each enemy encounter."
What...?
Complete freedom?
When was "complete freedom"  having the equipment locked, not being able to level up at wish, having pre determined skills and limited moveset?
Without mentioning not being able to set into slot 1 and not being able to use U attacks by themselves...

[Shawn]

"Featuring a massive cast of returning playable characters, Dawn of the New World offers complete freedom in creating a custom party that best suits the needs of each enemy encounter."
What...?
Complete freedom?
When was "complete freedom"  having the equipment locked, not being able to level up at wish, having pre determined skills and limited moveset?
Without mentioning not being able to set into slot 1 and not being able to use U attacks by themselves...

Companies always bullshit game descriptions to make them sound really good.

[pedrocasilva]

Don't care for the extras as long as the battle loading times are improved...

THIS. (sadly, won't happen)

I gotta say though, the loading times for the game are ridiculous, specially considering ToS had no loadings whatsoever; it's ridiculous to see a unoptimized ToS engine fork being used on PS2's Tales of the Abyss (ridiculous because of how unoptimized it was) and then ported back to the original architecture... only to fare worse than the original engine, one would expect they'd take a peek at the original code and figure out why it didn't have the same bottlenecks and shortcomings (GAH!)

Can't this game fetch data at all? can't a game whose assets are not any better than ToS ones (heh, they're the same!) use the extra RAM for other stuff like... fetching? not that ToS on the GC needed the extra RAM to do it and decrease loadtimes, but damn if, even with the lack of optimization going on here they did have a massive overhead to avoid loading the battle engine and monsters for 5 seconds each time there's a battle.

[Carnivol]

Don't recall there being any obnoxious load times in the Japanese version of Dawn of the New World. I didn't play it for many hours, but there weren't really anything that bothered me.

As for graphical assets; the ones in Dawn of the New World are not the same as the ones in Symphonia. They use the same art direction and a lot of the same designs, but the models use a somewhat new style and are of much higher detail than in Tales of Symphonia GC/PS2.

If you can't see the difference, I suggest popping in the Symphonia disc again and give it a spin and behold the evolution of graphics (Or maybe it's just time for another journey to the eye doctor...  I dunno.)

'cause of these
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3

Look the same to you as this, then something is horribly wrong.

[edit]
Also, about the loading thing, if there really is a loading problem (or not), improved load times is certainly not an impossible feature. A lot of games have had their load times improved in their localized releases.

[Cless]

The only loading time I can even remember being notable in DotNW were the 5-7 seconds it took for the first battle after loading a new room. The rest loaded quickly. It was hardly intolerable.

[pedrocasilva]

The only loading time I can even remember being notable in DotNW were the 5-7 seconds it took for the first battle after loading a new room. The rest loaded quickly. It was hardly intolerable.

I recall them... over and over and over again, it was like, taking a few steps "loaaaading", a few extra steps... loading again; and those katz guild quest thing had too many loadings aswell, which made me not want to do them even more.

those quests have small events going on, like, you get to a enemy you're gonna fight and there's a dialog, but that dialog happens with the in-game models and in the scenario that was already loaded... yet I had massive load times in there (like... 10 seconds) with the "now loading" screen flickering, plus I also had to wait quite a bit with the "cracked" screen before a battle and sometimes had to wait a little after it to get back to the level I was in (without loading, but with a black screen).

really reminded me of Tales of the abyss without a HDD

Don't recall there being any obnoxious load times in the Japanese version of Dawn of the New World. I didn't play it for many hours, but there weren't really anything that bothered me.

that's the one I have and beaten. haven't imported the US version just yet, and with the PAL extra announcement... I gotta say I'm torn in regards of what shoul I support/buy.

As for graphical assets; the ones in Dawn of the New World are not the same as the ones in Symphonia. They use the same art direction and a lot of the same designs, but the models use a somewhat new style and are of much higher detail than in Tales of Symphonia GC/PS2.

I was talking about the scenario assets and not the character models. Character models are different (and might I add I prefer the original ones, because of how odd and low poly the DotNW ones seem) but the level assets are for the most part the same, taking aside one texture or two changed here and there. I disagree with you on the behalf of it looking better though; the textured mouths seem really bad with the more "realistic approach", they're so low poly the motion capture doesn't really bring them to life in cutscenes, plus, they seem like they have a serious problem with their necks, like if they're broken or something. And the returning characters really deserved better.

Character model textures are a lot better in DotNW, but that's the only "improvement" I can think of, that and a few scenario asset textures who were swapped; and bare in mind that it's not that I would prefer chibi designs to say... vesperia/graces ones, but it is just that these are really bad looking for me.

If you can't see the difference, I suggest popping in the Symphonia disc again and give it a spin and behold the evolution of graphics (Or maybe it's just time for another journey to the eye doctor...  I dunno.)

popped it in only yesterday; I think I have a fresh memory of it.

'cause of these
pic 1
pic 2
pic 3

Look the same to you as this, then something is horribly wrong.

I think you're dragging this onto the "you must be stupid" territory too much and understimating my opinion in result, like I said I wasn't talking about character models.

speaking of those images though... one of them is meltokio and that reminds me... I also noticed the engine seems to have problems in order to keep up with certain geometry in levels (a problem the original engine lacked), like in Meltokio, when you're coming from the "lab" into the stairs that go up near the entrance, on the buildings to the bottom, I noticed and reproduced it that when I go through there, when they appear on-screen (and in front) the framerate while scrolling through seems to fall onto the 20 frame realm, which is just strange.

All in all I found it a really badly optimized title.

[edit]
Also, about the loading thing, if there really is a loading problem (or not), improved load times is certainly not an impossible feature. A lot of games have had their load times improved in their localized releases.

tbh, I'm starting to think I gotta clean my lens or something, when I saw someone complaining about the loadtimes I had to agree and jump on that bandwagon, but then I see two people I have into account saying they didn't notice them at all, and one of them which I'm positive hearing complaining about Tales of the Abyss loadings various times... In my book and to what I experienced it was impossible not to notice.

Funny thing is... I tested ToS yesterday on the very same wii and got zero loadings, just like I remembered.

Going back to ToS battle system feels really slow and sluggish without free run and stuff, but... going to the DotNW seems like a drag to me because of the loadtimes... during a big part of the game I started avoiding battles because of how long they were taking to load, the loading would take more time than the battle, at times. (those fast battles when you're already overpowered)

[PikohanRevenge]

The loading times were reasonable and never really an issue for me. Don't remember ever experiencing ~10 seconds of loading time. Could be your lens, like you mentioned.

I'm glad DotNW and ToV are making their way to Europe. The extras are a nice touch. I don't think anyone could have predicted extras for a European Tales release.

[Cless]

I totally call bullshit on character models being the only "improvement" graphically.





Please. DotNW is far, far more detailed. There are a lot more textures, the textures are higher resolution, and there is even a bit more lighting. Plus, they even threw in 3D grass patches and such.

[pedrocasilva]

The loading times were reasonable and never really an issue for me. Don't remember ever experiencing ~10 seconds of loading time. Could be your lens, like you mentioned.

I'll look into it, no matter that though, I had no loadings in the same platform with ToS, and if I recall correctly gc reads dvd's at about half the speed, I'd still say that I think the game is really unoptimized, although a improvement with loadings on my end as is would be a godsend.

I'm glad DotNW and ToV are making their way to Europe. The extras are a nice touch. I don't think anyone could have predicted extras for a European Tales release.

ToV also has extras?

And to spice the talk a little, could adding extras this late mean Team Ratatosk was not disbanded?

I totally call bullshit on character models being the only "improvement" graphically.

Please. DotNW is far, far more detailed. There are a lot more textures, the textures are higher resolution, and there is even a bit more lighting. Plus, they even threw in 3D grass patches and such.

I noticed that when I played ToS2 and noticed again when I played ToS1 again yesterday, but let me add two things...

First of all, I also noticed that "there" as if it was a proof of concept, that's the case where improved visuals in recurring areas is the most improved in the game, it jumps into view as improved in a way no other location in the game did for me, cities in particular apart from some texture differentiation (cracks in meltokio) and some re-organizing in stuff like palmacosta, as well as snow in a city I don''t remember the name (... triet?) don't look better at all. I would even argue this is graphically a Tales of the Abyss 1.1 and would easily be achieved by Team Symphonia on PS2 (and taking into account how unoptimized TotA was)

Plus I've felt they did some texture color saturation in some towns and areas that I didn't really like, mainly because I think it didn't benefit the game at all, the textures didn't have quality for that and messing with the color gamut gave that away even more, green soil interpolation in particular, that can be seen in some areas, looked like vomit and it was better like it was originally, with less contrast. (the texture itself wasn't better, or different, but the colors clearly were)

Like you said on the top of that hill there's even a lot more grass going on, and it doesn't look too bad (there's some strange "color pop-up" difference though, when you're climbing it's a grayer green and then turns the regular color , certainly not as barren as the original, but it is still not impressive and doesn't excuse how sluggy the game is (like I said slowdowns in certain areas) and if they had the original code upgraded to flex range battle system the game would be way more fluid and optimized. And while the scene is certainly improved texture wise, it still could easily look miles and bounds better. And even so, if all the game was refitted that way it would look a lot better... it doesn't.

Thanks for taking the time to take a photo, I notice exactly what I felt was different in there but had never seen it side by side. (was thinking of taking photos to do so though)

[Kajitani-Eizan]

First of all, I also noticed that "there" as if it was a proof of concept, that's the case where improved visuals in recurring areas is the most improved in the game, it jumps into view as improved in a way no other location in the game did for me

what? could you please restate this in clearer terms for our benefit?

[pedrocasilva]

what? could you please restate this in clearer terms for our benefit?

hmm, I don't know how it was unclear, but I was saying that, from the revamped areas I've seen that one was the better revamped one and one of the only few that appeared in my eyes as such, so I'm saying Cless chose well and chose something I noticed as well, but also a area that is dissimilar compared to the rest of the game standard.

Thus I classed it as a proof of concept, even because I remember hearing about it from developers themselves when showing a pic of that particular area, it's something they could have done on the rest of the areas but, for the most part didn't, or didn't do as well. Due to lack of time and budget I suppose; the starting point for this project was to recycle assets anyway.

Perhaps I'll go over ToS again to reinforce my point but I'm pretty sure of what I'm saying. Most places didn't have something I'd call improvements, just pontual diferences for the sake of it.

That said, yes, that temple entrance is very improved, but that doesn't happen often in the game, or improvements for that matter. Plus the point I was coining is that if they had forked the original build and upgraded it into flex range territory they'd have a more robust performer at hands; letting them do more and better.