RPGs for Moms: Tales of Symphonia's Wii Sequel
Dawn of the New World Can Fit in Any Gamer Mom's Schedule
May 29, 2009
Nintendo, so far, hasn't released many role-playing games for their motion-sensing Wii console. Aside from games from the Pokemon franchise, the sequel to the GameCube's hit Tales of Symphonia was one of the first real story-driven JRPGs for the console.
However, like many movie sequels, Dawn of the New World is a bit lackluster in the story department. This fact alone may keep many gamer moms away as they have little time as it for games, much less games that aren't interesting. But what should rally gaming moms is the fact that this Wii sequel contains many elements that make gameplay easy and accessible to the busiest of moms.
Quick Overview of Tales of Symphonia Gameplay
Like other games in the Tales franchise, Dawn of the New World uses a party system for combat, but instead of the typical turn-based system found in JRPGs, the combat is all done in real time. Players can set each party member to auto, semi-auto, or manual play. In theory, one could set all party members to auto and let the game play itself in combat mode, but there's no real fun in that.
Each character has the usual arsenal of attack moves, artes (magic spells), and items to use during battle. Artes can be set to shortcuts for easy access, but they can also be summoned from the selection menu, where the player can use an item and swap controls of characters as well as selecting an arte. The arte shortcuts can be assigned to simple combos or to motions with Wii-mote or nunchuck.
In addition to party members, Emil (the hero) will forge pacts with random monsters he encounters. If he is successful, the monster will join his party and he will fight along with the party members, gain experience, and learn new skills like everyone else.
Menus, Katz Guild Quests, and Abundance of Save Points Were Almost Made for Moms
While Dawn of the New World implements the use of set save points, there are many save points scattered all over the world. There are fewer save points in the dungeons, but the dungeons are so short that it doesn't take long to come across one. In addition, players can save at any time when in the Overworld map. Gaming moms will never have to hunt or continue to play for more than a few minutes in order to find a save point if she needs to suddenly drop the game.
The Katz Guild sidequests provide another venue for some quick game time as well. These quests rarely take longer than ten minutes and there's no real penalty if all characters are knocked out. The player fails the quest but will not receive the dreaded "Game Over" screen.
However, there are not always quests availabe within the Guild. Characters have to reach certain points of the story before more clients give missions to the Guild, and even then, it's recommended that the party's average level be a certain number before accepting quests.
Dawn of the New World has an uphill learning curve for combat play, so it's helpful to play the game for long periods of time and often. However, it isn't entirely necessary to do so to recall how to play.
The game has extensive menus that can tell players where they are in the main story and sidequests, remind players what shortcuts they have assigned to their characters' artes, and what monsters they have previous fought. This eliminates the need to pick up the instruction booklet if players haven't played the game for a week. For the gaming mom of an infant, this is almost a certainty.
Moms Hungering for a RPG May Want to Give this Tales Sequel a Chance
It's difficult to recommend this game for gaming moms. On the one hand, it has so many elements that makes gameplay easy to fit in their hectic lives, but on the other hand, the story isn't nearly as intriguing as one they would find elsewhere. Moms who are fans of the Tales franchise should definitely give Dawn of the New World a whirl, but others may want to rent it first before committing precious time to a game that could possibly disappoint.
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