Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of The New World - Reception

Reception

Dawn of the New World sold 120,000 copies in Japan on its first day of release and concluded the week of June 23 to June 29 (with Dawn of the New World being released on the 26th) with over 151,000 copies sold. This made it the bestselling game of that week. In a report detailing Namco Bandai's results for the first fiscal quarter 2009, the company revealed that as of 6 August 2008, Dawn of the New World has sold over 215,000 copies in Japan. The game was later released under Nintendo’s "Everyone’s Recommendation Selection" of budget titles in Japan.

Since its release, Dawn of the New World has received mixed reviews. There are conflicting opinions about the game's voice acting on IGN: Mark Bozon stated that the voice acting was stronger than the previous game, whereas Matt Casamassina said that "the voice acting is...simply atrocious". Nintendojo expressed their disappointment when it was learned that Scott Menville did not return as the voice of Lloyd Irving. Reviewers of Famitsu magazine gave the game a score of 31/40 whereas Famitsu Wii+DS's reviewers gave the game a 35/40. IGN rated Dawn of the New World 6.7/10, praising the presentation, real-time battles, and length of the game, while criticizing the music, voice acting, graphics and linearity. Gametrailers gave it an overall rating of 7.9/10, stating that in some ways the game was a worthy successor to Tales of Symphonia, but that the "erratic difficulty, budget production values, and a poorly paced story" make Dawn of the New World "ultimately just another passable action RPG". Nintendo Power gave the game a score of an 8.0/10, praising the battle system and nostalgic aspects of the title, though criticizing the limits on the old casts' levels and equipment, the removal of a traditional field map, and the voice actor changes. GameSpot gave the game a 6.5/10, hailing its familiar battle system, characters, and "fun" four-person multiplayer support; however, the abundance of cut scenes, the poor plot, deficiencies in the AI, and the monster system received harsh criticism. Other reviews were far more harsh, X-Play gave it a 2 out of 5 almost criticizing every aspect of the game, claiming that the graphics and writing are horrible, also saying that character animation were made hyper realistically, thus calling it a "bland and flawed RPG".

Emil has often garnered much criticism, and is even listed as the fourth most irritating RPG protagonist of all time by 1up.com.