Tales of Vesperia & Symphonia:DotNW

[BlueFire]

I just got Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for Wii and Tales of Vesperia for 360. I'm going to play each with 2 friends (so 3 players total) and have enough Wii-motes, Nunchucks, and 360 pads. I played the original Symphonia when it was first released but I don't remember very much at all about it or its story, nor did I finish it.

My question is, which of these games should we play through first? If the stories are independent, then I'd like to play the one with weaker gameplay before playing the one that has more features or looks better.

[Momo]

Absolutely play Dawn first if that's what you want to do.

[BrightBow]

I am not sure that playing DotNW with 3 players is a good idea at all. In case you don't know already, DotNW's has only two regular PCs.

The whole Symphonia main cast is playable as well. But they are second class PCs, who among many other things don't level and are only around during certain points in the story.

But most of the time, there should be at least one of them around. Still, with 3 players it's bound to be annoying on quite a few occasions.

The game has some monster catching system instead. But those monsters cannot be manually controlled at all.

Edited July 15, 2013 by BrightBow

[BlueFire]

I don't know much about the series. I just picked them up to play with a couple friends. As long as someone isn't sitting out a lot of DotNW, I think we'll probably play that first, since levelling up 3 characters sounds better.

What's the monster catching system like? Pets?

[BrightBow]

I don't know much about the series. I just picked them up to play with a couple friends. As long as someone isn't sitting out a lot of DotNW, I think we'll probably play that first, since levelling up 3 characters sounds better.

What's the monster catching system like? Pets?

Well, the monsters work pretty much like PCs. They gain spells and skills as they level. On occasion, they will be able to evolve, retaining all their skills and spells but get reset to level 1.

Since the classic Symphonia cast doesn't gain levels (they auto level as the story progresses but it always seems to be set pretty low to me), the monsters usually outperform them.

But as I said, they cannot be manually controlled like the PCs and the 2nd Grade PCs.

And I think that playing through that game with more then two players is a horrible idea. I do remember quite a few stretches lacking a third PC. Though, definitely less so later in the game.

Edited July 16, 2013 by BrightBow

[BlueFire]

Well, the monsters work pretty much like PCs. They gain spells and skills as they level. On occasion, they will be able to evolve, retaining all their skills and spells but get reset to level 1.

Since the classic Symphonia cast doesn't gain levels (they auto level as the story progresses but it always seems to be set pretty low to me), the monsters usually outperform them.

But as I said, they cannot be manually controlled like the PCs and the 2nd Grade PCs.

And I think that playing through that game with more then two players is a horrible idea. I do remember quite a few stretches lacking a third PC. Though, definitely less so later in the game.

Maybe I'll play DotNW without them. Are that + Graces f the only Wii Tales and is Vesperia the only 360 one?

[BrightBow]

I don't know about the 360 since I don't have one. As for the Wii, DotNW should be the only Wii title that actually got localized.

[BlueFire]

I don't know about the 360 since I don't have one. As for the Wii, DotNW should be the only Wii title that actually got localized.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Graces

I believe Graces f is the remake.

[Rainbow Skittles]

f is ps3 only.

[Orpheon]

Graces f is the remake and is only on PS3; the Wii never got a Tales game besides DotNW in the West. Vesperia is the only Tales game on the 360.

In my opinion, I would suggest playing Vesperia first since it's an infinitely better game despite only being a beta version for the PS3 re-release. DotNW is terrible in pretty much everything except combat, which is the games only redeeming factor besides the snarky remarks made by Tenebrae.

As mentioned before: The cast from ToS is only okay at best on your first playthrough. Monsters will start outclassing even the main characters shortly after their first evolution. You and the monsters can do everything the old cast can do as well if not better.

[Silver Lightning]

Yes, Graces f is the remake of the original Graces for Wii; since that never got localized, we got the PS3 Graces, and the only Wii title over here is DotNW. Vesperia is the only Xbox 360 title; it also got a remake for the PS3, but that one never got localized.

And yeah, if you don't mind having less slots for people to play in (I should know, since I've played all of the Tales games with my 3 other siblings), you should play DotNW. The only thing I'd advise is actually playing and finishing Tales of Symphonia first. Its much better than the sequel (though the sequel isn't completely awful, per se...), it lets you play with four people almost the entire game, and I'm a firm believer in fully finishing games before you play sequels. It helps a lot in grasping the storyline, and it sounds like you don't remember much of it; not to mention the ending is pretty huge. Granted, you don't really need to know the whole story to play the second, but it really does go a long way in making a decidedly average game that much more enjoyable when you know the backstory and returning characters.

Just my two cents.

As for Vesperia and Graces f, they are very good games with superior features all around (but that's to be expected since they are Mothership stand-alone titles vs DotNW, which is technically a spin-off title). I haven't finished Graces f yet (stuck on the final boss), but I found them both to be very enjoyable.

And if you do indeed have a PS3 and find that you enjoy the Tales games, I recommend you take note of my sig and wait 21 more days; there is a new Tales game coming to our shores that I'm certainly excited to play! :D

Edited July 16, 2013 by Silver Lightning

[Psych]

Dawn of the New World is awful and if you have anything resembling enjoyment of Symphonia you will act like it never exists.

Vesperia is great, just it's hard getting use to it after Symphonia as you aren't used to the new Xbox control system compared to it as well as the Battle Skills thing from Weapons, such as you can't use items on each other without a certain skill. It's story can lag a bit in places and then it feels like it jumps ahead, but it's not bad and you can't really miss that much stuff either. I recommend it a lot more and you get a party of 3 within about an hour and a half of starting the game depending on how quickly you go.

[BlueFire]

And yeah, if you don't mind having less slots for people to play in (I should know, since I've played all of the Tales games with my 3 other siblings), you should play DotNW. The only thing I'd advise is actually playing and finishing Tales of Symphonia first. Its much better than the sequel (though the sequel isn't completely awful, per se...), it lets you play with four people almost the entire game, and I'm a firm believer in fully finishing games before you play sequels. It helps a lot in grasping the storyline, and it sounds like you don't remember much of it; not to mention the ending is pretty huge. Granted, you don't really need to know the whole story to play the second, but it really does go a long way in making a decidedly average game that much more enjoyable when you know the backstory and returning characters.

Just my two cents.

And if you do indeed have a PS3 and find that you enjoy the Tales games, I recommend you take note of my sig and wait 21 more days; there is a new Tales game coming to our shores that I'm certainly excited to play! :D

I don't have a PS3 or enough decent-working GCN controllers. I could go with an original Xbox title, but I think I'll play DotNW without those buddies and play Vsperia with them.

I don't understand the monsters, though. Are they like playable characters since they level up, or are they weaker or AI-controlled?

[Momo]

They're not as effective as your playable characters since you can't directly control them, but they still do their job... sort of. The returning cast maxes out at level 50 for some bizarre reason (the max level for everyone else is 200), so you'll end up never using them on harder modes, because monsters do their job much better.