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6#@%!'s Adam Riley recently had a chat with Tales of Symphonia producer Teruaki Konishi and Tales brand manager Hideo Baba about the new Tales of Symphonia spin-off/sequel for the Wii. Here's what we gathered from the interview.

As with any title moving up to a next-gen console, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (Tales of Symphonia:Knights of Ratatosk in Japan) features better graphics compared to the Gamecube's Tales of Symphonia. All of the game's character models have been given more realistic body proportions and the background textures for all of the game's towns and dungeons were newly-created.

On the gameplay side, players have been given the ability to tame monsters. Aside from being useful in a fight, monsters can also evolve into more powerful versions that come with new skills and abilities. Cooking, skits, and even the Neko-kin Guild are also making a comeback, with cooking now tied in to the game's monster evolution system. All of the characters from the original Tales of Symphonia will also be returning.

There's also a new battle system called the Elemental Grid that's based on the Free Run System. It kinda works like the system used in Chrono Cross. By using certain skills, players can affect the dominant element in the battlefield to give them an attack advantage. The dominant elements also affects which characters can do Unison Attacks and if players can tame monsters at the end of battle.

Another new thing is Dawn of the New World's point-and-click map system. Apparently, two things contributed to its implementation: the Wiimote (of course) and the limits of the production schedule. Motion control can also be utilized in battles to activate shortcut commands, so there won't be too much Wiimote waggling in the game.

There are currently no plans at this time for WiiConnect24 or Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection support. Worse yet for fans in Europe and North America, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is strictly a Japan-only game at this point according to Hideo Baba. Weird, since Namco has supposedly set a September 2008 U.S. release date for it. Plus, why give a game another English title if it's not gonna be released outside Japan, right?

Keep checking back here for more updates.