Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World



"Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality."

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (in Japan, the game is called Tales of Symphonia: Knight of Ratatosk (Ratatosk no Kishi)) is a spin-off sequel to Tales of Symphonia, released in 2008.

The game's story takes place two years after the end of the first game, and things aren't quite as happy as our heroes had hoped. When the two worlds of Tethe'alla and Sylvarant merged, all maps became useless and the climate of the new world was thrown into chaos. Furthermore, the people of Tethe'alla- having come from a more advanced civilization- look down on the people of Sylvarant, and relations are becoming strained, with a group of Sylvaranti calling themselves The Vanguard beginning a campaign of military opposition to the Tethe'allan Church of Martel.

The story focuses on Emil Castagnier, a timid boy whose parents were killed in the "Blood Purge" of Palmacosta, an attack apparently led by Symphonia protagonist Lloyd Irving. He meets and befriends two people: an enigmatic Vanguard warrior called Richter Abend, and a girl named Marta Lualdi, who is being hunted by the Vanguard due to the Plot Coupon embedded in her forehead which contains the dormant Summon Spirit Ratatosk. Determined to protect Marta, Emil makes a pact to become a Knight of Ratatosk, allowing him to use a fraction of the Summon Spirit's power in battle and awakening a much more ruthless side of himself in the process.

Ratatosk's slumber is the cause of much of the chaos in the current world, as his presence interferes with that of the new World Tree created by Lloyd at the end of Symphonia. Thus, Emil sets out with Marta to awaken the other slumbering servants of Ratatosk and in turn awaken the Summon Spirit himself, while protecting her from the pursuing Vanguard and seeking his revenge against Lloyd. This being a Tales game, you know nothing is going to be that simple.

Unlike the first game, the major themes of Dawn Of The New World are the nature of Good and Evil, and what can make a person switch from one side to the other, or why they become evil in the first place.

Dawn of the New World plays a lot differently than its predecessor. The player only has Emil and Marta as permanent members of the party, and over the course of the game they meet and join up with the other heroes of the first game, who are in various stages of disbelief about the situation with Lloyd. To fill out the roster between them, Emil is able to defeat and recruit any regular monster in the game. Cooking is used in the game to power up the monster beyond the usual leveling, and can also evolve them into their different variations. Gathering monsters also helps Emil become stronger as more of the Centurions' cores are awakened.

This game provided examples of:
"Marta: Beautiful roses have thorns! Ratatosk Mode!Emil: Beauty, Marta, has a fang."
 * Accidental Pervert:
 * Lloyd gets stuck with this role again, when Genis (jokingly) accuses Lloyd of wanting to have an affair with a married woman. All of the previous game's possible love interests scold him while Marta eggs him on.
 * And when the party visit the hot springs, the same thing as last time happens when the girls bathe: Lloyd tries to stop Zelos from peeping, but Lloyd is the one who is caught and blamed.
 * When it's the boys' turn to bathe, Marta puts Emil in a similar situation, causing him to bond with Lloyd over the sorrow of being members of the Accidental Peeping Toms club.
 * Art Evolution: Compared to the original game, the CG models became more detailed and bear a greater resemblance to their drawn character models as well as having more detailed movements. (The fact that this game uses motion-capture instead of Going Through the Motions helps greatly in this regard.)
 * All of the Other Reindeer:
 * Alice allegedly recruits monsters to massacre all of her fellow orphans, because they teased her about her half-elven blood. The end of a quest chain about her past reveals that . She
 * And I Must Scream:
 * Everyone in the party that still has a Derris Emblem in the final dungeon experiences a temporary condition that they describe as this.
 * The bad ending of the game will result in this for  as he traps himself in his core form to seal the Ginugagap forever.
 * Richter's plan to
 * Anguished Declaration of Love: Played with. Marta's love for Emil is well known, even as it changes from infatuation with an idea of him to truly falling for the real Emil. Even so, Marta
 * Awesome but Impractical:
 * Ars Nova is a secret unison attack that can be used when the Unison bar isn't full and two of the minor elements are Light and Dark. It's a long stream of attacks that do a small amount of damage. It's actually a lot more useful if one can use it at the END of their combo chain. If used before doing a combo, it is fairly useless.
 * Ain Soph Aur is a move that can be chained into from Emil's Mystic Arte after a certain story event if you know how. It costs twice the amount of a normal Mystic Arte (100 TP instead of 50, and if you don't have enough it drains all of your TP), and it's based off Emil's naturally low Arte Attack stat. It hits more times (and possibly does more damage) the more monsters the player has pacts with. This, unfortunately, still doesn't really make it that useful unless you really work for it, and it's still based off of Arte Attack.
 * Back-to-Back Badasses: Emil and Marta during their "Ars Nova" combination attack.
 * Bag of Spilling: No matter how powerful you got the party in the first game, they won't have any of the Infinity Plus One Swords or techniques in the sequel at first, and the first time they each join your party, their level caps are much lower than you probably got them (especially if you got 2x, 10x, or combo experience in a New Game+). At endgame though, they'll once again have their endgame equipment from the last game (with the exception of Lloyd, who is using a new weapon due to the fact Flamberge is at Anna's grave). They'll be stuck at level 50 though.
 * Barrier Maiden: Richter's master plan involves . Emil.
 * BFS: Decus has one. And after Alice, using the power of forsaken love, manages to wield it as well,
 * Bishonen: Several of the males.
 * Bittersweet Ending
 * Blue and Orange Morality: Monsters, according to one series of quests.
 * Bloodless Carnage: Which is normal for the series, but really noticeable in cutscenes where people take lethal hits ; clothes are not even damaged.
 * Book Ends: Assuming one gets the "good" ending, the story begins and ends with
 * But Thou Must!: A few choices are offered to the player during cut scenes at the very beginning of the game. Either choice causes the cut scene to ultimately play out the same way and the story continues on in the same path, although one choice does affect which ending the players might get.
 * Chaste Hero: Still somewhat played straight by Lloyd, but Emil subverts this, despite his naivete about the world.
 * Chekhov's Gun:
 * Quite a lot of Emil's early idiocy (such as not knowing how to fish despite growing up on a coastal town, nor knowing anything about the Desians' Human Ranches despite there being one near his home town) comes across as lame exposition on the Symphonia world for those who haven't played the original game..
 * Everything about the awkward way Richter interacts with Emil, and especially the way he frequently refuses to look directly at him, makes much more sense by the end of the game.
 * Also, Emil's being able to imitate each other.
 * Chekhov's Boomerang: Decus' cologne.
 * Combination Attack: Emil and Marta's "Ars Nova" Unison Attack.
 * Continuity Nod:
 * Tons, all over the place, but manages to avert Continuity Porn. Special mention goes to the overworld theme, which is not from Tales of Symphonia (like most of the music), but from Tales Of Phantasia.
 * One portion of the game (a skit maybe?) has the characters discussing time travel. Tenebrae says it's impossible, but then corrects himself, saying "There are those who can manage the task, but for humans it is exceedingly difficult." The obvious implications are the time traveling events of Tales of Phantasia.
 * Convection, Schmonvection: One series of quests has you jumping over pools of lava without any ill effects in order to, wait for it, deliver someone dinner.
 * Counter Attack:
 * If Emil uses his Limit Break extension against Richter in battle, then Richter will block and counter it while saying, "Did you really think the same attack would work?"
 * Crutch Character: The Tales of Symphonia cast, and Richter. They're powerful initially, but they don't gain experience points or level up. That said, their Mystic Artes are still ridiculously powerful.
 * Cute Little Fangs:
 * Marta actually has a single fang. They don't draw that much attention to it, though. One post-battle scene actually did mention it directly.

": What do you know?! My methods are my business! I don't need you telling me what to do!"
 * Alice has one too when she's in sadist mode.
 * Cutscene Incompetence: When you use the Ain Soph Aur Mystic Arte in an actual fight, then as long as it's not against, then it will operate perfectly fine, flying across the field almost before you can blink. When Emil uses it in a cutscene....
 * Dark Is Not Evil: Tenebrae is just really snarky, rude, and condescending. Also Emil, the protagonist, is a good person yet of darkness element.
 * Distressed Damsel:
 * Seles and Marta. Alice insults Marta for that tendency in her speech in the final dungeon.
 * Also Regal as James Bondage. This is even Lampshaded as the other characters get worried about how he seems to be used to getting imprisoned and being in handcuffs.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?:
 * Indeed, the more we learn about Richter's backstory, the more it seems like . But...
 * It's not enough to be considered a Whole-Plot Reference, but in this game, the main protagonist  Where have they done that before? Given the previous game's big twist, one wonders if.
 * In one skit, Colette mentions the "Symphonian Eight" and that they fought against the sinister "Dark Five", as well as one of the Dark Five proving to be Symphonia Red's father. This also doubles as a reference to that one show
 * Doomed Hometown: Palmacosta and Luin, though they recover very quickly.
 * Downer Ending: The Bad Ending.
 * Dual-Wielding:
 * Richter dual wields a sword and an axe.
 * Lloyd's still using two swords as well.
 * Dummied Out:
 * An alternative battle quote for.
 * Another example would be the multitudes of items that were going to be in this game (such as Holy Bottles, Magic Lens, etc) that were apparently dummied out when the developers decided to not use a world map.
 * In addition to that, there is a unique set of Boss Banter in the final boss fight for each of the heroes of the first game, triggered when that character is in the first slot in the active party. The only problem is that the game doesn't allow you to use anyone but Emil or Marta in that slot, so it's impossible to hear those lines unless you hack the game to remove that restriction. They're fully voiced and include the boss's responses and everything.
 * Dying Declaration of Love: Villainous twist:
 * Earn Your Happy Ending: An out-of-the-ordinary-example; if you play the EXP X10 or Combo EXP games, chances are that Emil will be around level 150 or so by game's end. Seeing as the Good or Normal endings require you to, be prepared to sit and wait for an hour or more as they whittle away at him one point of damage at a time One of the few times that it would be nice if \the computer WAS a cheating bastard! The best way to deal with this is to either change your equipment to the worst possible or (if you have it) equip the Pain Killer. After that, just hold the free run button and run in front of Lloyd.
 * Evil All Along / Good All Along: Surprisingly enough,.
 * Fan Nickname: Some have come to referring the altered versions of Emil's artes by names referring to the elements that alter them (like Demon Fang becoming Black Fang when infused by darkness due to the Tenebrae skill, or Burning Havoc, Phoenix Gale, & Ravaging Thunder for Havoc Strike, Phoenix Rush, and Ravaging Tiger when infused with their respective elements through skills).
 * Fan Service: A return to the hot springs from the original has the new female lead, Marta, joining Emil for a bath... Emil, upon being discovered, is accused by everyone else (Except for Lloyd) for being a major Peeping Tom.
 * False-Flag Operation:  who destroyed Palmacosta in order to eliminate any dissent in the Vanguard and have Lloyd and the Church of Martel take the blame. In the game itself, Magnar tries to do the same thing to Luin, with the same motive.
 * Fantastic Racism: In addition to the return of the half-elf bias from the last game, there is now a class war waging between Sylvarant and Tethe'alla.
 * Flashback to Catchphrase: For the first couple of chapters, it is almost guaranteed that when someone speaks the words "courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality", the scene will cutaway to Richter's initial utterance of the phrase.
 * Fun with Acronyms: "Flex Range Element Enhanced Linear Motion Battle System" (FREE-LiMBS).
 * The Glasses Come Off: Richter, in his final boss form and cut-in. Apparently, pacts with demons can also correct your eyesight. Who knew?
 * Going Through the Motions: Take a shot every time Marta leans over with her hands behind her back, Richter adjusts his glasses, or Emil slumps forward.
 * Good Is Impotent: Emil is a complete and utter wuss when he's not channeling his Blood Knight persona..
 * Got Me Doing It: One of the Katz Guild Quests have Emil and Marta saving a man named Donero, who speaks with a sort of coutry/Texan drawl. Marta is the first to start talking like him, then Tenebrae, who constantly wonders why Emil hasn't been "infected." When Donero is saved, Emil finally starts speaking like him, too.
 * Gotta Catch Them All: The Centurion Cores, which Marta has to hatch so the nature will stop being all messed up. The Mons Emil recruits too, though it is not a requirement to get them all.
 * Gratuitous German: Decus' artes. The word "Zauberbindung" appearing to signify possibility of forming a pact. "Richter Abend".
 * Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Emil tries to convince himself of this in a short skit after he finds out Regal was forced to kill his lover, spurring Emil to wonder if he could do the same thing with Richter... Seen here at about 0:35.
 * Heroic Sacrifice: A massive Double Subversion. Richter's Thanatos Gambit was to end with him
 * Hoist by His Own Petard: Decus' cologne
 * Hot for Teacher: You can make Lloyd and Raine an item in one small optional scene near the end of the game.
 * Humans Are Bastards: Ratatosk was planning to kill humans and half-elves for destroying the original World Tree.
 * Improbable Weapon User:
 * Marta uses a bladed pinwheel strapped to her wrist.
 * As well as Genis, who fights with a Kendama.
 * Alice's weapon is a riding crop styled to look like a toy rapier.
 * Inconsistent Dub: Tethe'alla and "mana" are pronounced differently from the original game.
 * Infernal Retaliation: in the final boss battle.
 * Insistent Terminology: "Nazdrovie!" "Light-Frog!!" Which, of course, leads to Dialogue Reversal after Tenebrae eventually gives up.
 * Interspecies Romance:
 * Aqua/Richter, though that is one-sided.
 * Ratatosk!Emil/Marta.
 * Invisible to Normals: The Centurion Tenebrae can hide himself from most people. Yuan and Colette can see him just fine. He's still invisible to the rest of the original cast, but can reveal himself whenever he so pleases.
 * Journey to the Center of the Mind: Near the end, where you fight inside Emil's mind. It's implied this is another event that determines the ending.
 * Karma Meter: Determines the ending if you don't get the bad ending.
 * La Résistance: Subverted with The Vanguard, who are downright villainous.
 * Large Ham: Emil in Ratatosk mode. The hamminess is taken to an extreme with his Mystic Arte.
 * Lethal Chef: Marta has experience, but because she never tasted her own food and her only taster was her father (who assured her that it was delicious) she's horrible. However, once she realises this she vows to get better and eventually becomes a decent cook. Richter is also a bad cook, but for the opposite reason: his utter lack of experience.
 * Limit Break: Mystic Artes
 * Load-Bearing Hero: Junko
 * Loves My Alter Ego: Subverted, Marta falls in love with both Emils, even asking Emil if there is a way both Emils can stay instead of one of them being sealed away. She calls herself out on this soon after.
 * Loving a Shadow: Emil calls Marta out for this, showing that he is growing a spine. She later gets further comeuppance as manly, badass "Ratatosk Mode" shows up more often and proves to be a huge jerk. Subverted in the long run when she falls truly in love with both sides of Emil.
 * Meaningful Name: Aside from the above-mentioned Genius Bonus with 'Ratatosk', 'Tenebrae' is Latin for "shadows". All of the Centurions are named similarly for their respective elements. And 'Aster' is Greek for "star", and it turns out  'Richter' is German for "judge" (literally "righter") and 'Abend' is "evening", but that's just Gratuitous German with no particularly deep/ironic meaning (unless you consider it Theme Naming, given that the previous game's purple-wearing redhead mentor, Kratos, had a last name that translated to "Tomorrow").
 * Minion Maracas: Richter does this to Emil at the beginning of the game.
 * Mons: A major gameplay system and plot point and the source of all non-Emil, Marta, or TOS 1 party members. Fortunately, it's not the entire point of the story.
 * Multiple Endings: Three of them--two for intentionally losing the battle against, and the Bad Ending (essentially a Nonstandard Game Over) for winning said battle.
 * My Name Is Not Durwood: This happens to doggie...er... Tenebie...er... Tenebrae. He eventually accepts being called Tenebie.
 * Names to Know in Anime:
 * Hiro Shimono / Johnny Yong Bosch- Emil
 * Rie Kugimiya / Laura Bailey - Marta
 * Mami Kingetsu - Alice
 * New Game+: As with most Tales games, Dawn Of The New World has a New Game+ once you complete it.
 * Ninja Log: Used to fake out Richter.
 * Nonstandard Game Over: The bad ending.
 * Not So Different: Emil eventually has to deal with the fact that he and Lloyd think along the same lines.
 * Official Couple: Emil x Marta.
 * One True Sequence: Considering the antagonists have Rheiards on their side, you'd think Emil and co. wouldn't be able to get to all the dungeons exactly when they do every time, especially with all the sidetracking they do.
 * The Other Darrin: Out of all the returning cast, only Colette, Presea and kept their original voices.
 * Painfully-Slow Projectile: Emil's Ain Soph Aur attack in a few cutscenes. In one, it takes several seconds to cross a small room. Which is odd, considering the fact that in battle, it sweeps across the battlefield in about second. Not to mention a certain flashback, where the projectile was as fast as lightning.
 * Pair the Smart Ones: Likely subverted with Raine/Regal, specifically with Raine's love letter,.
 * Pettanko: Marta gets her "Ironing Board" title in much the same way Colette did in the original.
 * Power Creep, Power Seep: None of the original cast have given up their Exspheres yet... and yet are easily matched by Marta and Emil, as well as the Vanguard.
 * The Power of Love: Decus uses it AGAINST the player.
 * Quirky Miniboss Squad: Decus alone has enough quirk for two miniboss squads.
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Alice gives one to Marta during their final confrontation.
 * Red Eyes, Take Warning: When Emil's eyes turn from green to red, it's an indication that he's tapped into his Super-Powered Evil Side. As no one else seems to notice this, it's more a wink to the audience than anything.
 * Regional Bonus: The PAL release of Dawn Of The New World has an exclusive Gallery option, allowing players to view the artwork and all of the skits.
 * Remember the New Guy?: an Ascended Extra, Aster, is retconned into the first game. What's depressing is that, since there actually were NPCs in the place where Lloyd supposedly met him, Team Tales could've just picked one of them and not bothered with these sorts of shenanigans.
 * Rescue Romance:
 * Decus became enamored with Alice after she killed his harassers at the orphanage they grew up at.
 * Also, Marta loves Emil for this reason, but it's subverted... because
 * Rogue Protagonist: Lloyd is the poster child of this trope.
 * Say It with Hearts:
 * Alice!
 * Marta does it as well, though less often. She even writes them in the diary.
 * Schrodinger's Gun: Lloyd asks Emil to guess who went with him on the journey to collect the Exspheres. No matter what the player chooses, he's right, and that person becomes Lloyd's 'special person.'
 * Screwed By The Budget: The game was deemed an 'escort' (side) title in the series and given limited budget. It shows.
 * Ship Sinking: Subverted: Lloyd, in his stupidity, proposed to some random woman named Lilia--torpedoing all main ships? Nope. It's stated in the same scene that Lloyd never had feelings for Lilia, and was proposing to her out of duty, 2. She rejected him massively, and 3. the second Flanoir scene confirms any canon ship you desire. The torpedo was fake. On the other hand, it's played straight with...
 * Ship Tease: The "Love Letter", which is sunk once you find out the contents of the letter.
 * Shout-Out:
 * Several skits make references to other Namco games -- Presea makes charms called Loni-Kyle and the Judas Mask, for instance, and Klonoa is explicitly stated as the mascot of Altamira. The most surprising reference, though, is Colette speculating that Regal's training an army of spies to hide in cardboard boxes to save the world.
 * Given that Regal is voiced by Akio Ohtsuka in the Japanese version, it's not that surprising.
 * One skit also makes references to Phantom of the Opera and V for Vendetta, of all things.
 * Don't forget about The Man In The Aluminum Mask.
 * Raine also quotes Sun Tzu in a victory skit: "If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the results of a hundred battles."
 * After her iron maiden scene, Presea admits in a skit that she was scared at the time. Her heart was going waka waka waka. Waka waka waka.
 * Might be overspeculating, but the ogres that you can fight in the Iselia Human Ranch look like Expies of Blanka.
 * Shut UP, Hannibal: In a rare villainous example,  does this to the party when they try to talk him out of his plan.

"Tenebrae: Why do humans have a tendency to stop and talk? Need I remind you that we are currently being pursued?"
 * Single-Target Sexuality:
 * Decus is Alicesexual.
 * And Marta is Emilsexual.
 * Slasher Smile:
 * . Emil's Super Move Portrait Attack during his "Devil's Hellfire" Mystic Arte.
 * Alice has one of these at times, especially during her own Super Move Portrait Attack.
 * Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Addresses this aspect of Lloyd from the original, showing that the world hasn't gotten that much better, and that many people blame Lloyd for many deaths that he may or may not have indirectly caused. On the other hand, this is Tales of Symphonia we're talking about, after all.
 * Snow Means Love: Features a return to this from the first game, when  at the very end of the game, although it's optional. Moreover, the scenes themselves are optional (and only one can be chosen) and can very well be missed.
 * Spank the Cutie: After the group saves Paul from the monster inside the abandoned human ranch he wandered into, Raine proceeds to give him a spanking.
 * Spot the Imposter: Hilariously done when you finally find the Lloyd responsible for the Palmacosta attack.
 * Staged Populist Uprising: Inverted, The Vanguard is formed after the unification of the two worlds, as a way for the Sylvaranti to oppose and resist their status as second-class citizens to the Tethe-Allans, and their systematic oppression by the Church of Martel and the protagonist of the previous game, Lloyd Irving. Later,
 * Story Overwrite: While it is possible to win a certain Hopeless Boss Fight, which occurs near the beginning of the game, the story continues as if you lost anyway.
 * Sudden Sequel Heel Syndrome: Lloyd Irving, sort of.
 * Super-Powered Alter Ego: Emil.
 * Talking Is a Free Action: Lampshaded by Tenebrae during a chase scene.


 * Taking the Bullet: . In his shock at this, he doesn't move... then Marta takes it for him.
 * Theme Naming: All of the Centurions' names are simply the Latin word for their respective elements. Alice's Mons are called Athos, Porthos and Aramis, referencing the Three Musketeers. As shown in the pictures gallery unlocked after beating the game once, Emil and Marta's early designs were initially called 'Soleil' (French for "sun") and 'Selene' (Greek goddess of the Moon).
 * Those Two Bad Guys: Alice and Decus
 * Tomato in the Mirror: Emil is
 * Treachery Cover-Up: The heroes of the original hide the truth regarding Cruxis and Mithos.
 * Tsundere:
 * Richter towards Emil, to some serious lengths. Also parodied with Marta in skits.
 * Also, in the aforementioned Schrodinger's Gun, if you choose Sheena, she gets this towards Lloyd.
 * Two-Person Pool Party: Marta tries to have one with Emil, or at least some variant of it. It doesn't work.
 * Ungrateful Bastard: How does Ratatosk mode Emil thank you for healing or reviving him? "You're slow!" Ironically, when he uses an item, he tells the recipient to "Be grateful."
 * The Un-Reveal: Remember how the original game teased us with "This tree's name is-"? Well now we've got this game, and we think that we'll learn what he named it, but it turns out that it's a plot point that Emil can never learn the Tree's name, for its own protection. And it turns out that everyone from the previous game knows it already. Presumably they all learned its name during the credits of the first game.
 * Weakness Turns Her On: While Marta is infatuated with Emil's "heroics" early on, she eventually comes to terms with Emil's true personality, and ends up loving his "wimpy", pacifist self all the same.
 * We Cannot Go on Without You: If all of the players human characters are defeated in battle, they get Game Over, even if any of their Monster Allies are still capable of fighting.
 * With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Centurion Cores grant their owner great power, but will drive them insane. Except Marta (using Ratatosk's power),.
 * Xanatos Planned This Index: Lots of people with differing plans
 * 's plan for instance was a Thanatos Gambit.
 * Surprisingly, Emil carries out a Batman Gambit although the trope is rather subverted since.
 * Zettai Ryouki: Marta. Aster also manages this in boots.