Hype Muffin
Dawn of the New World follows the adventures of Emil, a shy and melancholy youth whose parents were recently murdered by the legendary Lloyd Irving (of ToS fame). When he meets up with Marta, a strange and spunky girl with a monster lord's insignia on her forehead, Emil takes on the task of protecting her as a knight of Ratatosk while she hatches Centurion cores in an effort to restore the balance of mana in the world. It is a fairly convoluted and cumbersome plot, unassisted by the awkward pacing and slow beginning. It lacks the engrossing nature of ToS's story, faltering in large part because of annoying characters--Emil is a whining weakling and Marta can be somewhat overzealous in her pursuit of Emil--and shaky explanations when the plot twists unfold, leaving more questions than answers. Like ToS, Dawn of the New World also features skits, which are short conversations between the characters in your party outside of major cutscenes. They are nice short insights into the characters, and most of them provide the comic relief the game desperately needs, though they cannot revive the dull complications the main story goes through.
Though it retains many features of ToS, Dawn of the New World has the feel of a watered down version of its predecessor. Many characters and locales are recycled, there is no overworld exploration (you merely select the city/dungeon you wish to visit and watch the character slowly progress there), and though past characters such as Collette or Genis can join your party, they do not raise levels with Emil, Marta, and your monsters, and you cannot alter their equipment. The active battle system also remains--thankfully intact--and is still very engaging and fun to play, alone or with other players locally. This is a real boon, as computer controlled allies in battle have a tendency to strike blindly and foolishly or waste items.
One of the significant differences in Dawn of the New World is the monster capture system, where Emil can make a pact with monsters and use them in battle. Overall it is actually rather difficult to capture monsters as pacts often fail, and not terribly rewarding once you have since the previous cast of characters tend to be more useful, despite the fact that they do not grow with Emil and Marta. Ultimately the game is rather linear; dungeon exploration and reaching new towns tend to be very direct and rather bland, losing the grand atmosphere of ToS.
The controls are simple and easy to use; the Wii remote/nunchuk set up provides more than enough functionality. Motion controls are used sparingly to differing results; the fishing minigame is a natural feel but shaking the Wii remote or nunchuk in battle can be imprecise and throw off your rhythm. Graphically the game is essentially identical to ToS, even recycling many environments and of course, characters. While ToS is a great looking game, it is also four years older than Dawn of the New World--some technological advancement would have been nice. A lot of music is also recycled through remixes and again sounds great but lacks a fresh feeling. Finally, the voice acting is so good it is bad--it really accentuates Emil's wimpy, whining tone or Alice's annoying personality, but these rapidly devolve into just plain annoying. Some of the voice work is quite good, though, and the sheer fact that almost every cutscene (and every skit) has a voice over is an impressive technical aspect.
The game is a solid 30 to 40 hours without delving into too much of the side quests. Though the side quests are barely there; the Katz Guild allows you to do meaningless missions for extra items (items that can be found or created elsewhere) and that's about the extent of the side material. There is a New Game + feature (as in ToS) that allows you to start a new game and spend the grade points you earned in battle to retain abilities you earned in your first playthrough, such as experience points, skills, or collected monsters. A few differences accompany this second playthrough, though nothing to truly drive the player to replay the entire game.
Dawn of the New World also suffers from frequent load screens which put the Wii through its paces. Load times are accompanied by loud noises which can be rather disturbing, often audible over the game's music and dialogue. This is most evident during skits where information is being read directly off the game disc; it can be annoying and fairly distracting.
In the end, Dawn of the New World fails to capture the magic and charm of its predecessor, due in large part to the minimization of gameplay elements and uninspired story telling. The game does have some of the appeal of an epic RPG, but it is ultimately a watered-down experience lacking the large scope and attention to detail that make other RPG titles so memorable.
7.5/10
Images from IGN.com
