I’m not going to lie, JRPGs are not my favorite genre of gaming and within that, the Tales games are not at the top of my list, except for one. Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube instantly captured my attention and kept it, a task not easily performed with any game that lasts over 60 hours as I am usually easily distracted by shiny objects or the ice cream man. So when I heard that a direct sequel would be coming out for the Wii, titled Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, my curiosity was piqued since the only two RPG titles I desperately wanted a sequel for were this and Skies of Arcadia.

The combat system doesn’t look like it’s changed too much, which is fine with me since I got enough turn-based battles out of Lost Odyssey than I think I’ll ever need. In case you’re wondering about the plot and don’t speak Japanese I’ll fill you in: It’s two years after the events of the original game, there’s a new big bad guy and he’s threatening the land of Symphonia and you have to kill him. Most likely someone will betray you.

I don’t really read or speak Japanese but I know the two years things is right and I’m 99 percent certain the rest of it is too, they don’t really vary the plot much with these things.

I’m glad to see all the characters returning and that the graphics have met with some really solid improvement over the GC. To often we’re seeing last-gen graphics on the Wii but Namco seems to have actually taken a step forward here and, while animated-style graphics have looked prettier, Dawn of the New World definitely looks good.