Now, as for playing through the game. I have not. I did not own a Wii until recently. However, I consider it reasonable enough to judge a game based on clips of its gameplay and story - because this is a JRPG, story is very important.

ToS: DotNW ignores the fact that summons already exist to add in Centurions, a previously unmentioned lord of monsters, argues that the world regeneration has mana going out of control despite Martel being there to manage that side of things, and puts the focus of the plot on a couple of original characters created solely for the sequel. The Heroes of Regeneration are relegated to cameo roles when they're not being derailed further, and are forced to pale in comparison to the main cast.

This is a bad fanfic of Tales of Symphonia.

Not to mention that for gameplay, the controls mean that the backstep method used by every other Tales game ever results here in you turning around to take double damage from the incoming attack. Yay. Oh, and there's no World Map - there's selecting locations and going there instantly.

And for good measure, you get stupid headgear instead of alternate costumes.

Now, I'm not saying a Tales sequel is impossible. Tales of Destiny 2 - not the Tales of Eternia we got, the Japan-only sequel - did it right. It was set a couple of decades after Tales of Destiny, centred on Stahn's son, and explored the existing mythology in more depth, looking into the source of the ancient war alluded to in the original game. As opposed to tacking on a bunch of things in order to have a plot.

Playing through Dawn of the New World would involve paying for it, and I've yet to find it at a price that I deem acceptable.