heringer said:
I liked quite a bit. I think it's one of the best battle systems in the series so far, with a lot of enphasis on aerial combos. I also liked that you can recruit and evolve monsters, thought it was a nice change of pace for a Tales game. Controls feels great too.
That said, it's not very polished. While some cutscenes can look great due to motion capture, everything else looks subpar. It's also short compared to previous games (20~30 hours) and there's no world map exploration (I actually think this improved the pacing, but most people hated it).
As for the story... well, it's a Tales game. There's a lot of fan service if you played the first Symphonia, and there's one particular twist that I really liked.
A lot of the problems people had with DotNW is that it's really a spinoff, so less budget, less time, and people went in expecting a fully fledged sequel to Symphonia.
Battle system was all right, but it was really loose compared to Abyss', and the aerial combat was nowhere near the greatness as Destiny's remake.
I enjoyed it though, was probably the best spinoff the series had until Narikiri Dungeon X came out.
And the motion capture was a nice change, it sucked that Vesperia didn't use it.
The Praiseworthy said:
Team Destiny is well known for it's good battle system.
edit: oh I didn't play ToV or ToG... so those who played both might help you better
The big thing is the CC system over TP. Instead of having to use orange gels or mash attack over and over to regain TP, you have a bar in Graces that refills. Sidestepping is a lot more fun than Free Run is (in my opinion anyway), and feels like a better natural progression of the Linear Motion Battle System Tales is famous for.
Also different artes on the attack button in Graces instead of a generic attack move in Vesperia makes for a bit better variety.
Mystic Artes are short and to the point in Graces as well, and better animation overall (even the post battle scenes are a lot better animated.)