Marta Lualdi

Marta Lualdi is the deuteragonist of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, the fifth major release's sequel in the Tales series.

Appearance and Personality
Marta tends to think along a fully defined line of right and wrong. As a bit of a tomboy, Marta is passionate about getting her way. On the left side of her forehead lies Ratatosk's core, in which Ratatosk is imprisoned in a dormant state. Emil became her guardian knight, a Knight of Ratatosk, in order to protect her and Ratatosk's core. Marta falls in love with both Emil and "Ratatosk Mode" Emil. As the game progresses, she begins to love Emil for who he actually is, instead of the fantasy she created in his image. Marta also gets very jealous when Emil tries to get along with other girls, stating that she shall not give up on getting Emil's heart. Being the romantic that she is, Marta will fully support anyone's attempts at a relationship as long as it is not directed toward her or Emil.

Marta's family is first described when the trio meets Colette Brunel, the last Chosen of Regeneration and the main heroine from the original game, Tales of Symphonia. According to Marta, her mother was killed during the Giant Kharlan Tree's rampage in the original game. Marta blames Colette, believing Colette ran away from her duty to regenerate the world while being unaware of the events that led to the disaster. Marta claims that if Colette had not been such a coward, her mother would still be alive. Their relationship gets better when Marta discovers the truth about Colette and the rampage of the Giant Kharlan Tree. Later on in the story, Marta's father is revealed to be Brute Lualdi, the leader of the Vanguard. Marta also states that she is the only child in their family.

Fighting Style
In battle, Marta primarily serves the role of a supportive spell caster with a few Light-elemental offensive spells, somewhat like Raine. Unlike Raine, who specializes in area-based healing to support multiple party members at once, Marta's healing spells are restricted to single targets. Her magical abilities are unexplained due to her apparent lack of elf or half-elf lineage, at least in her immediate family tree. In addition, her First Aid is almost necessary for monster capturing as it is the only elemental arte the party would probably have at the time.

Marta's weapon is the saw-like spinner, a unique weapon that is strapped onto her wrist. In close combat, Marta proves to be graceful attacker who uses her spinner along with quick kicks, spins, and leaps to attack enemies. The majority of her artes are named after types of birds or dances. The description of a few of Marta's attacks mentions the use of chi to attack. The chi manifests itself within Marta's hands and she then slams it into her target. Similarly, Regal Bryant is to able fire bursts of chi from his palms and is able to use a limited amount of chi healing. Marta's physical attacks are all classified as base artes, requiring the passive skill "Ability Plus" to link her attacks together into a chain of at most three base artes.

Trivia

 * The game's producers were originally planning to name Marta "Selene", as well as give her much darker hair and personality. Selene is the goddess of the moon in Greek mythology; this name serves as the opposite of Emil's early development name "Soleil", which is French for "sun".
 * In the English-language files of Dawn of the New World, there exist dubbed incantations for spells that Marta does not have access to in the final version of the game. These artes are: Ice Needles, Stone Blast, Stalagmite, Icicle Rain, Negative Gate, Ground Dasher, Absolute, Bloody Howling, Scare Shot, Healing Wind, Healing Circle, and Revitalize.
 * Marta wears a key chain that resembles Mieu, a character from Tales of the Abyss. Tokunaga, Anise Tatlin's doll from the same game, is also visible on the back of her pouch.