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It's currently being localised, and will drop the "Knights of Ratatosk" subtitle in favour of "Dawn of the New World". And...that's about it. Nothing else new to report since we've already seen the thing, but hey, it's nice to know American Wii owners will soon have the option of a meaty JRPG. No word on a US release date, but the Japanese version's out in the spring, so it shouldn't be too much later than that.

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- Symphonia highest selling Tales game in the US and still selling better than Abyss
- originally planned as a spin-off, but plans changed into full-fledged, direct story sequel
- dev started in 06, before the Wii casual market was established
- Nintendo specifically asked for a game that would cater to the core audience
- Monster system was added for casual appeal
- no specific changes were made after it became clear that the Wii was clicking with casuals
- Wiiimote uses, button shortcuts, pointing at what you want to shoot with the Sorcerer’s Ring; click and drag the world map and select destination with the pointer.
- more motion controls may be added for NA release
- Scenario writer for DotNW wrote the original game. There are others on-board from the original project, but most of the staff is new.
- Character proportions changed to stay faithful to new designs
- Fujishima was too busy to do the character designs, so Daigo Okumura (art director for Symphonia and Abyss) did it.
- Monster capturing system intended to be strategic, and also provide people with something to collect. It’s a difficult task to collect all the monsters first time around.
- Affection syssystem present in the monster attraction aspect, no story changes as there were with the original game. Optional side quests available.
- Cooking system returns, but now the Wonder Chef teaches you recipes for monster food, which will change your monster parameters or aid their evolution.
- Ratatosk was in the original game but was dormant, and has now awakened.
- Whenever Emil et al find a new spirit, Lloyd is there trying to stop them - why?

Spoilers

- 8 surviving characters are all playable at some point.
- Zelos in, Kratos out (but he’s the narrator of the intro). Emil and Marta are the only permanent human characters, the rest of the party of 4 is made up of monsters and guest appearances.
- About half of the locations and dungeons are rehashed from the original game (though quite a bit different due to changes in the world)
- Monsters recruitment is determined by the element of the battlefield compared to the element of the monster, and influenced by the monster from your party you use to sway them.
- 11 hours of voiced event scenes and character skits. Event scenes feature realistically proportioned characters, cinematic camera angles and motion-captured character animation. “Prospects looking good for fully voiced skits and perhaps even actual theme-song vocals in the game’s North American version.”

Magicbox

 

- Namco Bandai confirmed that new Tales RPG will be coming to both Xbox 360 and Wii in US this year. Tales of Versperia will be coming to Xbox 360 in Q4 2008, while Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World will be coming to Wii around the same time.