Tales of Symphonia 2 Opening

In case you forgot, Tales of Symponia: Dawn of the New World (the direct sequel to the original Tales of Symphonia) hits shelves for the Nintendo Wii this week. This iteration of the Tales of series is quite a bit less well-publicized than the recent Tales of Vesperia, but I suppose that's to be expected considering its status as a sub-series installment.

Either way, below is the game's opening sequence courtesy of GameTrailers.



Unfortunately, it seems that Namdai is back to its "rip out the game's theme song in North America" policy. Tales of Vesperia had filled me with so much hope. :(

Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World will be available on Nintendo Wii here in North America tomorrow. It is already available as Tales of Symphonia: Ratatosk no Kishi in Japan.

TGS 2008: Namco Bandai's Pre-TGS Presser is... Disappointing

Today in Japan Namco Bandai held their press-only pre-TGS press conference where they had promised to reveal "secret and exclusive" titles. Exciting!

Except that it really wasn't. Here are the RPG "announcements" from the presser:

-Eternal Sonata will be on the PlayStation 3 on October 21, 2008 in North America. It is already out in Japan. European release date is still undecided. Wow. Is this news? I thought this was announced last TGS.

-Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is due out on the Nintendo Wii in November, 2008 in North America. It is already out in Japan. European release date is still undecided. It was stated that this is a Wii exclusive. ...Sorry, but was that fact ever in question? I didn't realise that there was a big "port ToS2 to something else" movement. If you were part of such a movement, please accept my condolences.

Yep. That's it.

Truth be told, I'm a little shocked that they didn't mention anything we didn't already know. Like, at all. Guess nothing from Namdai on the Bingo sheet. Damn.

But apparently there was a live ninja show for the press in attendance. I guess that makes the event worth it?

Kotaku covered their other "surprising" titles in their entirity here. (SPOILERS: You won't be surprised by anything.)

E3 2008: Namco Bandai Tales of Round-up

Namco Bandai, as was expected, didn't really make any waves this year at E3. Both Tales of Vesperia for the Xbox 360 and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Nintendo Wii were shown, but only ToV had a playable demo on the floor. Tales of Vesperia was also given an official release date for North America, as well as an official Xbox Live demo.

Below are gameplay videos for the two upcoming RPGs. There are certainly more gameplay videos available at various sites around the internet (including GameTrailers, IGN, GameVideos, Gamekyo, and Gamersyde) for those interested. (I personally tried to stay away from them to keep as much of the games a surprise as possible).

Tales of Vesperia (Xbox 360)


Developed by Namco Tales Studio (Team Symphonia)
Published by Namco Bandai
Available August 26, 2008 in North America


Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Nintendo Wii)


Developed by Namco Tales Studio (unknown team)
Published by Namco Bandai
Available November 2008 in North America

Note that ToS2 was developed by a team that was put together specifically for it. I can't seem to find that team's name at the moment, but will update this post if/when I do.

EDIT: Whoops! I totally forgot about the PS3 port of Eternal Sonata. I've embedded a battle clip with Polka in one of the new costumes below.

The game still looks like Eternal Sonata. Not necessarily a bad thing. Not necessarily a good thing either.

Eternal Sonata (PlayStation 3)


Developed by Tri-Crescendo
Published by Namco Bandai
Available Fall 2008