In Japan, Namco-Bandai has a press conference for the Tales series, which officially announced two games that were "revealed" via a Weekly Shonen Jump scan earlier in the week. Famitsu covered the event, and through various translations, a lot of information about the two games, as well as the future of the series was revealed.

First up was information on the newest Nintendo DS title, Tales of Hearts. In the Jump scan, there was realistic character artwork, which was a huge departure from the Production I.G. anime-based artwork the series is known for.

To cater to both sides, two versions of the game ("Animation" & "CG") will be released in Japan. The battle system is entitled CNAR-LMBS, which is an altered version of the AR-LMBS aerial-based LMBS that was in the PS2 remake of Tales of Destiny. That, along with the theme song being sung by DEEN (who also did the theme song for Destiny), pretty much points to Team Destiny developing this game.

Team Destiny is known for the 2D-derived Tales games, as well creating brand-new LMBS's, while Team Symphonia is known for tweaking them (example is how Tales of Vesperia's is an enhanced LMBS of Tales of the Abyss's). It is important to note that none of Team Destiny's recent games have been released outside of Japan.\

Next up was a sequel to Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, which was released in North America, as well as Europe, obviously titled Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2. It will include around 50 Tales characters (more than double the first game), all the way up to the most recent game, Tales of Vesperia.

Many of the issues from the first game will be fixed, most namely adding hi-ougi (or Mystic Artes, as they are named outside Japan) for the characters, a type of special and powerful super attack, and expanding on the limited character creation choices (adding more voices to choose from, as well as physical features such as hair styles and builds). The graphics also seem to be updated.

It was also rumored that the next "mothership" title (i.e., main series game) will be on the Wii, according to some translations and press websites. It hasn't been confirmed yet by the company as of yet if this is correct.

Lastly, the rumored Tales of the Abyss anime has been made official. It will be 26 episodes long (planned), and will air in Japan starting in October.

Links to all of these new games (and the anime) can be found on Tales Channel, the official headquarters for the Tales of series in Japan.

Source: Symphonic Heaven

Tags : Namco-Bandai : nintendo ds : playstation 2 : playstation portable : Tales of Hearts : Tales of the Abyss : Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2 : Wii

Comments

By: Wilhelm

On: 06:20 Jul 8th, 2008
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(Yay, the BBCode seems to have worked. ;))

There was also two YouTube videos for the games, but I didn't want to bog down the main news post with them. So here they are...

Tales of Hearts

Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology 2

By: Dragonfly

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On: 02:08 Jul 9th, 2008
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Seeing those characters looking lifelike is just... really, really surreal. It's going to be interesting to see how that little experiment turns out, but I imagine most of the fanbase think it's a horrendous idea.

By: Wilhelm

On: 05:32 Jul 9th, 2008
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Dragonfly;53684

Seeing those characters looking lifelike is just... really, really surreal. It's going to be interesting to see how that little experiment turns out, but I imagine most of the fanbase think it's a horrendous idea.

It's half and half, from what I've seen. The diehards are annoyed (but then again, most of them act like weaboos when a characters name is changed outside of Japan, like Refill/Raine, and keep using the Japanese name on purpose), but most of the other fans are okay with it (taking a wait-and-see attitude).

By having two versions, it's a nice way for Namdai to get an idea of what people think money-wise about the idea. ;)

(BTW, I'll have that scan on SH in a hour or so, in case the host goes down again, like it has earlier in the day.)

EDIT:

http://symphonicheaven.com/assets/images/gallery/nds/hearts/print-media/scans/famitsu/up3544.jpg" class="picture">