Just finished Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, and it was nowhere near as bad as people made it out to be. I really like the main trio (Emil, Marta, Tenebrae), and the character development between the three is fantastic. Biggest downside about the game, though, would be the short runtime (approx. 30 hours, compared to Symphonia's 40 or Abyss' 60) and the fact that my list of Top 5 Worst Tales characters comes from this game (Decus, Alice, Brute, Hawk, Alba).
Gonna finish up Trinity: Souls of Zill O'll now, which is an incredible action RPG.