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Tales of Series |OT| Tales of Reseteria
- Thread starter Brawly Likes to Brawl
- Start date
Abyss, Symphonia, and Vesperia are often considered the three best entries in the series so you're in for a pretty big treat!
Today's blog post on Arise is a little more interesting than usual as it's more visuals oriented and has a lot of screenshots:
- The general goal of the character rendering is for them to look mature and "substantive", but still capture the look of illustrations. Their CEDEC presentation I'll talk a little more about below goes into how they used a mixture of realistic (material properties, lighting, etc.) and stylized (filters, outlines on the models, etc.) visual effects to achieve that.
- Their presentation at CEDEC (essentially a Japanese GDC) goes into how they built the game's look. Besides the shader to give the game a painterly, watercolor look it's nothing too fascinating to a general audience, but it goes into how they've incorporated various modern and higher quality computer graphics techniques into the game, like volumetric fog and lighting, volumetric cloudscapes, and so on.
- There's a bunch of different screenshots in their presentation that show before-and-after comparisons on various effects, filters, and shaders, show how environments and effects like fog and clouds will look different as the time of day changes in the game, etc.
- They don't say whether it was for demonstration purposes because that wasn't the point of the presentation, but one of the shots shows monsters on the field and it kinda reminds me of Chrono Trigger. The producer said the game would still use an encounter system and kinda implied that there might be some changes to the usual flow/format from past Tales games, but hasn't confirmed anything yet. Would be interesting if the game is using an updated encounter system similar to CT with realtime transitions in/out of battle.
- This may be only mostly of interest to datschge, but the Special Thanks in their CEDEC presentation gives credit to a bunch of people who are probably the leads on Arise's art team:
* Minoru Iwamoto (Art Director)
* Yuko Kajihara (Lead Map Artist for Zestiria, took on a lower Senior Map Artist role for Berseria, possibly because they're the Lead Map Artist for Arise)
* Motomori Nakamura (work history is spotty/incomplete but it seems like they started as a map artist at Tri-Crescendo?)
* Kaori Tosa (Same as Motomori?)
* Miyuki Kobayashi (did NPC designs for Zestiria/Berseria and two PC designs for Crestoria, likely doing NPC designs for Arise as well)
* Seika Arai (Character Modeler since the Tales Studio days)
* Hiroki Izume (mainly a Monster Model Artist since Tales Studio days)
* Toru Kawaguchi (Monster Artist)
You need to sign up to see the presentation PDF at CEDEC, but I guess I'll link it here for anyone curious since I assume most just want to see the screenshots.
- The general goal of the character rendering is for them to look mature and "substantive", but still capture the look of illustrations. Their CEDEC presentation I'll talk a little more about below goes into how they used a mixture of realistic (material properties, lighting, etc.) and stylized (filters, outlines on the models, etc.) visual effects to achieve that.
- Their presentation at CEDEC (essentially a Japanese GDC) goes into how they built the game's look. Besides the shader to give the game a painterly, watercolor look it's nothing too fascinating to a general audience, but it goes into how they've incorporated various modern and higher quality computer graphics techniques into the game, like volumetric fog and lighting, volumetric cloudscapes, and so on.
- There's a bunch of different screenshots in their presentation that show before-and-after comparisons on various effects, filters, and shaders, show how environments and effects like fog and clouds will look different as the time of day changes in the game, etc.
- They don't say whether it was for demonstration purposes because that wasn't the point of the presentation, but one of the shots shows monsters on the field and it kinda reminds me of Chrono Trigger. The producer said the game would still use an encounter system and kinda implied that there might be some changes to the usual flow/format from past Tales games, but hasn't confirmed anything yet. Would be interesting if the game is using an updated encounter system similar to CT with realtime transitions in/out of battle.
- This may be only mostly of interest to datschge, but the Special Thanks in their CEDEC presentation gives credit to a bunch of people who are probably the leads on Arise's art team:
* Minoru Iwamoto (Art Director)
* Yuko Kajihara (Lead Map Artist for Zestiria, took on a lower Senior Map Artist role for Berseria, possibly because they're the Lead Map Artist for Arise)
* Motomori Nakamura (work history is spotty/incomplete but it seems like they started as a map artist at Tri-Crescendo?)
* Kaori Tosa (Same as Motomori?)
* Miyuki Kobayashi (did NPC designs for Zestiria/Berseria and two PC designs for Crestoria, likely doing NPC designs for Arise as well)
* Seika Arai (Character Modeler since the Tales Studio days)
* Hiroki Izume (mainly a Monster Model Artist since Tales Studio days)
* Toru Kawaguchi (Monster Artist)
You need to sign up to see the presentation PDF at CEDEC, but I guess I'll link it here for anyone curious since I assume most just want to see the screenshots.
Thanks for the heads up as well as for the link to the PDF, good stuff!
Those are very reassuring credits, all series veterans aside the two tri-Crescendo staff (which again solidifies that tri-Crescendo will stay involved with the Tales series). Maybe I should get to transcribing the missing tri-Crescendo game staff rolls eventually. ^^
Those are very reassuring credits, all series veterans aside the two tri-Crescendo staff (which again solidifies that tri-Crescendo will stay involved with the Tales series). Maybe I should get to transcribing the missing tri-Crescendo game staff rolls eventually. ^^
They already tried it with Zestiria. Apart from that breaking the scale of the area (battles essentially zoomed into the map, decreasing character size relative to the environment. Zestiria was so all over the place with bad scales...) what prevents completely seamless battles so far is the popularity of the post battle banters. Will be interesting to see how they handle that. Maybe go back to the way the original Destiny showed skits, as a picture in picture chat window.
The topic arised (eh!) in another thread, but by all account it seems like 7th Chord (developer of Innocence R and Hearts R on Vita) closed at some point?
I can't find their official website (maybe it's this one) nor their twitter account, they were a mobile developer first and foremost and the two R titles on Vita were their only venture on console games if memory serves right.
I can't find their official website (maybe it's this one) nor their twitter account, they were a mobile developer first and foremost and the two R titles on Vita were their only venture on console games if memory serves right.
Rpgmonkey btw the one who did the presentation is Hiroyuki Kobayashi, not a series veteran but apparently a rendering engineer at Bandai Namco, that's his latest credit (for Ace Combat 7 ) at mobygames anyway.
The last game I know they were involved in was (still is?) the Valkyrie Anatomia mobile game for Square Enix. They were actually plenty prolific, doing a lot of handheld games for Bandai Namco, mostly Bandai IPs. Their involvement with Tales started with Keroro RPG on DS that had a nicely done 2D Tales style battle system.Their site apparently went down only recently, even Google still has a working cached page. Here's the archived list of products, they stopped updating it back in 2016 already (probably lost Bandai Namco as a major customer around that time): http://web.archive.org/web/20190511110309/http://www.7thchord.co.jp/page/service.html
Yeah I didn't phrase that well (and half forgot about Zestiria lol). I guess I mainly meant something builds on Zestiria, makes a few presentation enhancements, and improves the flow a little.
After-battle banter came up in an interview and reading between the lines of Tomizawa's comments on the subject it sounds like they're going for a happy medium between the traditional results screen and something more seamless. Something like the Destiny skits would be interesting!
Thanks! As speculated it looks like Tales is being more deeply integrated into the overall studio structure with Arise, giving them access to some of the staff that weren't really going to touch Xillia 2/Zestiria/Berseria because of things like engine and platform differences. Based on the art staff it doesn't look like the lead roles are going to change too much from Zestiria+Berseria (I would rather they not do yet another big restructure of the Tales team anyway), but I'm curious to see if there's anyone who hasn't worked on Tales in a while returning to the series. There's technically already Higuchi, but it sounds like he's more of an Executive Producer than someone with regular day-to-day involvement in the game.
Interestingly enough Arise also appears to be the first high profile internal Namco game in the past couple of years where a higher framerate isn't a priority. With it being a late-gen game I wonder if they chose to focus on visuals for current consoles and save higher framerates as an extra for people with PS5s, new Xbox's, and capable PCs.
Unfortunately after the sales of the first two and their apparent decision to drop handhelds for smartphones, I imagine barely any progress was made on a Tempest remake. I was pretty interested if only to see if it was leading into an original spinoff game, or at least fully remade, theoretically good version of Tempest.
Trying to get back into Berseria... after three hours of play I remember why I stopped.
I'm about 25 hours in and all these dungeons and fields look exactly the same. The combat is utterly terrible. The only fun part is the characters. Maybe I should just put the game on hard difficulty and breeze through on low attention span nights after long workdays. What an utter mess.
I'm about 25 hours in and all these dungeons and fields look exactly the same. The combat is utterly terrible. The only fun part is the characters. Maybe I should just put the game on hard difficulty and breeze through on low attention span nights after long workdays. What an utter mess.
Oh hi Tales people
Currently playing playing Berseria and I realized that I played a lot of Tales over the last few years.
Symphonia is still my favourite I think; I like the cast a lot; while the story is pretty cookie cutter (A Tales staple really) and I think its mostly because its my first game in the series, but that cast is still very likable to me. Lloyd is the typical nice idealistic protag, but I just like how he was voiced and how he changed from dimwitted kid to responsible swordsman.
Rest of the cast is fun too. Colette is a total loveable ditz, Raine's obsession for ruins is funny, Zelos is everyone's favourite smarmy asshole, Regal is pretty cool and Sheena is pretty funny too. Kratos in the end is awsome.
While not a very pretty game for GameCube standards, I had a blast traversing the world. I replayed the game about four years ago because I got the Symphonia Collection cheaply, but I was kind of surprised at how much I still liked it. Despite the PS3 port not being up to snuff.
As for my other experiences... Dawn of the New World was a disappointment, but still pretty playable. Emil was just so damn annoying. Marta was far too energetic for my tastes. Tanebrae was awesome though. I loved the final battle theme though.
Abyss is a weird one for me; I know people love that game, but I just think the cast is very unpleasant; Luke turns around in the end, but everyone else is just not fun. I detest Jade and Anyse is one of the worst characters I have experienced in the series. Kind of forgot about the majority of the game. Its certainly not my favourite.
Both Xillia games are decent; the original has a pretty rushed ending, but I like the cast; bad guy was bit of a wet towel though. Xillia 2 is weird with the fractured dimensions, but interesting.
Zesteria was the worst; that game just exists. It doesn't do anything wrong. It doesn't do anything right. Its just there.
Currently playing playing Berseria and I realized that I played a lot of Tales over the last few years.
Symphonia is still my favourite I think; I like the cast a lot; while the story is pretty cookie cutter (A Tales staple really) and I think its mostly because its my first game in the series, but that cast is still very likable to me. Lloyd is the typical nice idealistic protag, but I just like how he was voiced and how he changed from dimwitted kid to responsible swordsman.
Rest of the cast is fun too. Colette is a total loveable ditz, Raine's obsession for ruins is funny, Zelos is everyone's favourite smarmy asshole, Regal is pretty cool and Sheena is pretty funny too. Kratos in the end is awsome.
While not a very pretty game for GameCube standards, I had a blast traversing the world. I replayed the game about four years ago because I got the Symphonia Collection cheaply, but I was kind of surprised at how much I still liked it. Despite the PS3 port not being up to snuff.
As for my other experiences... Dawn of the New World was a disappointment, but still pretty playable. Emil was just so damn annoying. Marta was far too energetic for my tastes. Tanebrae was awesome though. I loved the final battle theme though.
Abyss is a weird one for me; I know people love that game, but I just think the cast is very unpleasant; Luke turns around in the end, but everyone else is just not fun. I detest Jade and Anyse is one of the worst characters I have experienced in the series. Kind of forgot about the majority of the game. Its certainly not my favourite.
Both Xillia games are decent; the original has a pretty rushed ending, but I like the cast; bad guy was bit of a wet towel though. Xillia 2 is weird with the fractured dimensions, but interesting.
Zesteria was the worst; that game just exists. It doesn't do anything wrong. It doesn't do anything right. Its just there.
Symphonia is my favorite too. What did you think about Presea?
I believe it's a solid game overall, but a common criticism is the padding, which makes some parts completely forgettable. Like, you could cut a good 20-30 hours and it would be a better game for it. Surprised you didn't like Jade, I believe he's kind of popular within the fanbase.
Liked the ending too, pretty emotional.
Presea is pretty tragic; that thing with her father is dark and she is essentially a grown woman in a kid's body. It was an interesting take on what they did with her; together with Regal they were taken on a wild ride.
As for Abyss, the ending is cool, I won't deny that. But I can understand why people would like Jade, but he doesn't work for me personally. Compared to other older party members, he is pretty wise, but comes of as snobbish and I dunno, doesn't work me.
Compared to other older Tales characters, he is a pretty sad excuse. Regal and Kratos are pretty cool, even if the latter takes his time in showing it. Rowen in Xillia is awesome and might be my favourite of the Xillia party. And recently I also played Vesperia on Switch, so Raven had his moments too. Very different, complete goofball, but works well within the group dynamic.
In Berseria, while looking young, Eizen has the same role and he's the group's go to guy for knowledge on the world. Although its funny to see him get flustered when someone corrects him and he gets a bit mopey.
So how far out are people expecting Arise to be? It's still a bit surprising to me that they haven't really shown are talked much about it since E3. Even the TGS trailer was really brief. It seems like it might be a late 2020 title.
Besides Xillia 2 which was some kind of attempt at making a low-budget FFX-2 style sequel, so far the trend since Graces has been to announce a new game when they're in the last 13-14 months of development. Usually the marketing picks up once they're 6-8 months away from release.
Graces: Announced as a Wii game October 2008, released December 2009
Xillia: Announced as a PS3 game July 2010, released September 2011
Xillia 2: Announced June 2012, released November 2012
Zestiria: Announced December 2013, released January 2015
Berseria: Announced June 2015, released August 2016
If the pattern holds Arise is probably planned to release July or August 2020 and we'll get more substantial information in December or January.
So I completed Berseria this weekend; it easily became one of my favourite Tales games, together with Symphonia and Vesperia. Hell I might like it more than the latter.
First the bad; dungeon design is still blegh; it wasn't Zesteria levels of bad, but overall too uninspired and just not that good. For the next Tales I really hope they'll do something more inventive or let more things happen in these areas. The whole something happens in town, group investigates and comes across boss design needs to change too.
However, the battle system makes it more bearable as its buttery smooth. Velvet and her breaksoul is OP, but I've been enjoying fighting with everyone.
But the real star is the cast; Tales games stand tall or crater because of the cast, but Berseria's band of misfits work so well. Less goody two shoes compared to series'a protags.
First the bad; dungeon design is still blegh; it wasn't Zesteria levels of bad, but overall too uninspired and just not that good. For the next Tales I really hope they'll do something more inventive or let more things happen in these areas. The whole something happens in town, group investigates and comes across boss design needs to change too.
However, the battle system makes it more bearable as its buttery smooth. Velvet and her breaksoul is OP, but I've been enjoying fighting with everyone.
But the real star is the cast; Tales games stand tall or crater because of the cast, but Berseria's band of misfits work so well. Less goody two shoes compared to series'a protags.
I don't think any of the games before Legendia have particularly enjoyable combat honestly. I guess Eternia isn't too bad but I've only played the PSP version and I hate that game for other reasons
It's "only" the translator throughhim413 who quit, and I think back then the rumor was that he got a job offer of some capacity from Bandai Namco. No idea if that was confirmed or denied since.
I just finished Xillia 2 and think got the true ending and I can see why people hated the story and direction. For me the alternate dimensions had good potential and could have went somewhere, but it never really commits to it. Much of it used as a plot device for pandering and fanservice.
That being said the combat was top notch. I couldn't get into Graces despite everyone loving it, but had a blast with Xillia's system.
That being said the combat was top notch. I couldn't get into Graces despite everyone loving it, but had a blast with Xillia's system.
Haven't played an RPG for a while and Berseria was in my Steam library so going to play through it. Put in about 2 hours so far, seems decent enough. Anything I really should know?
dodging is the most important thing you can learn. most abilities give you bonuses for dodging into attacks since you take minimal damage for doing so (and your opponent loses diamonds for doing it properly too)
I just realized, Graces's anniversary already passed, and...
That's it?
Well, I could still play it on my PS3 anyway...
That's it?
Well, I could still play it on my PS3 anyway...
That's me since 2012.
You can always look at https://twitter.com/tales_ch for news, though obviously 99% of it is for mobile games and merch.
They did recently do an insightful interview with many of the old producers as well as Tatsuro Udo: https://asobimotto.bandainamcoent.co.jp/2742/
They were kinda lowkey about it, but they announced in their 24th anniversary live stream a few days ago that they'll have another one on January 20th that will cover their plans for 2020 and the series' 25th Anniversary. As far as Arise goes they didn't explicitly mention it, but I assume it's still on track for 2020, so there might be new information on it before or during the live stream.
If stuff's just not ready yet there isn't much you can do, but I do get the impression they decided to keep quiet for a few years after Berseria until 2020, where they could also tie everything into the 25th Anniversary.
After all the stories about Japanese developers in the 90s/early 2000s losing or throwing away a lot of their development materials, I'm impressed that Namco seems to still have access to a lot of Tales stuff going back to the original Phantasia. In fact I can't even recall lost source code ever being brought up as a reason why any of the older games would be difficult to port or update.
What impressed me about the interview is that they now are very open about Telenet Japan handling the development, that they were brought in since they had experience with RPGs, that Phantasia started with a pitch by Yoshiharu Gotanda showing the sound capabilities, Phantasia was done in 1994 and delayed a year etc. I guess the NDAs ran out and there is no personal interest in keeping things secret. Also Udo is a top dog now.
As for Namco being good with documentation, that actually wasn't the case with Phantasia SFC considering there were some stuff not documented and thus unknowingly changed in the PS1 version (I think it was some spirit that changed gender on the way as the sprites are ambiguous, the designer Yoshiaki Inagaki has nice tidbits on his Nostalgic Phantasian site). Then again Phantasia SFC was a pitch by an external developer whereas the Tales games starting with Destiny had Namco involved from the start (even if limited to essentially the publisher role for the first couple games). The system programmers (who'd primarily care about the sources) stayed with the Tales series for a very long time (the one for 2D games, Ryuichi Ishizawa, until the 2D staff was dissolved in 2012, and the one for 3D games, Yu Otsuka, only left last year. A third one, Katsutoshi Sato who was last credited on Smash Bros Ultimate, may or may not still be there).
With the Taipei Game Show being moved to June and the Tales of Festival also being held in June, when can we expect news for Tales of Arise?
Is there maybe a State of Play coming up soon-ish? Maybe they will show something at PAX East?
Not huge news, but Bandai Namco recently (like last year and earlier this month) published two articles (in Japanese) about the Tales of Series. They went over a little about localization and how the team/series/pipeline evolved over the years. It's also cool to know who is in charge of the series right now!
asobimotto.bandainamcoent.co.jp
asobimotto.bandainamcoent.co.jp
バンダイナムコ知新 「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 前編」 岡本進一郎氏、吉積信氏、豊田淳氏、樋口義人氏、柳沢直幹氏、有働龍郎氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
バンダイナムコエンターテインメントの主力RPGとしてファンから愛され続ける『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。アニメーション、バトル、ストーリーなど、シリーズを構築していった様々な新機軸は、どのように考案され、そして変化・進化していったのでしょうか？前編では、初期の『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの制作に携わった方々にお話を伺いました。
asobimotto.bandainamcoent.co.jp
バンダイナムコ知新「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 後編」 吉積信氏、富澤祐介氏、池野泰広氏、田川智美氏、竹田奈穂氏、根岸麻衣子氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
1995年に誕生し、現在もバンダイナムコの主力RPGとして愛され続けている『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。後編となる今回は、海外やモバイルでの展開、さらには新たなプレイヤーを獲得するための施策などを伺い、『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの現在と未来に迫ります。
asobimotto.bandainamcoent.co.jp
They can't be waiting for the Tales Festival, can they? Especially with it being up in the air if that'll even happen at the originally scheduled date. It's been dated as a 2020 game worldwide.
Tales Festival might not even be happening the way things are going, lol.
I've seen rumors in the From Software thread that they're planning to show Elden Ring in April, or at least were, anyway. For Tales April also tends to be a popular month for new game announcements, release dates, and such. So maybe...
Cool, I'll give these a read.Not huge news, but Bandai Namco recently (like last year and earlier this month) published two articles (in Japanese) about the Tales of Series. They went over a little about localization and how the team/series/pipeline evolved over the years. It's also cool to know who is in charge of the series right now!
バンダイナムコ知新 「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 前編」 岡本進一郎氏、吉積信氏、豊田淳氏、樋口義人氏、柳沢直幹氏、有働龍郎氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
バンダイナムコエンターテインメントの主力RPGとしてファンから愛され続ける『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。アニメーション、バトル、ストーリーなど、シリーズを構築していった様々な新機軸は、どのように考案され、そして変化・進化していったのでしょうか？前編では、初期の『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの制作に携わった方々にお話を伺いました。バンダイナムコ知新「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 後編」 吉積信氏、富澤祐介氏、池野泰広氏、田川智美氏、竹田奈穂氏、根岸麻衣子氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
1995年に誕生し、現在もバンダイナムコの主力RPGとして愛され続けている『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。後編となる今回は、海外やモバイルでの展開、さらには新たなプレイヤーを獲得するための施策などを伺い、『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの現在と未来に迫ります。
Yeah, I'm pretty sure there's no chance the Fes will be held this year. I feel like they'll have to announce its cancellation soon considering that it's already coming up on the 13th of June.
I would love to hear some news for Arise and Crestoria soon.
I think we talked about the first interview already, but the second one is nice too. Yoshizumi confirms there that around 2000-2001 two development teams were formed, so likely right after Eternia released and about three years before Tales Studio proper was founded. Other than that it's all about reaching consumers, especially younger ones and internationally. Still not sure why Tomizawa is the Tales series producer now, but he seems to be pretty inclusive about the whole process.Not huge news, but Bandai Namco recently (like last year and earlier this month) published two articles (in Japanese) about the Tales of Series. They went over a little about localization and how the team/series/pipeline evolved over the years. It's also cool to know who is in charge of the series right now!
バンダイナムコ知新 「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 前編」 岡本進一郎氏、吉積信氏、豊田淳氏、樋口義人氏、柳沢直幹氏、有働龍郎氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
バンダイナムコエンターテインメントの主力RPGとしてファンから愛され続ける『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。アニメーション、バトル、ストーリーなど、シリーズを構築していった様々な新機軸は、どのように考案され、そして変化・進化していったのでしょうか？前編では、初期の『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの制作に携わった方々にお話を伺いました。バンダイナムコ知新「第4回 RPG～『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの軌跡 後編」 吉積信氏、富澤祐介氏、池野泰広氏、田川智美氏、竹田奈穂氏、根岸麻衣子氏インタビュー | ファンファーレ
1995年に誕生し、現在もバンダイナムコの主力RPGとして愛され続けている『テイルズ オブ』シリーズ。後編となる今回は、海外やモバイルでの展開、さらには新たなプレイヤーを獲得するための施策などを伺い、『テイルズ オブ』シリーズの現在と未来に迫ります。
I found the part where they are interviewing Nao Takeda about localization to be pretty interesting. She even mentions that some fans will import the Japanese version of a game before the English version comes out. They even talk a little bit about how they went about some of the collector's editions for recent worldwide releases.
In that second article, when they are interviewing Tomomi Tagawa on Crestoria, she mentions that they're trying to have a simultaneous release for Crestoria as well. That might have already been confirmed but I hadn't heard it yet.
In that second article, when they are interviewing Tomomi Tagawa on Crestoria, she mentions that they're trying to have a simultaneous release for Crestoria as well. That might have already been confirmed but I hadn't heard it yet.
I imagine he was moved into the position without much say in the matter. Some of the people interviewed in these two articles worked on things like soccer games or Tekken before being moved onto Tales. I guess it probably helps too that he had producing history with God Eater. Regardless, it's definitely a huge step up for him. I agree he sounds pretty inclusive.
You may have already found out somewhere, but no I believe Symphonia didn't have an option to unlock and watch them in the Grade Shop. I think in a New Game+ you can go to that optional Katz town and there's a person there that lets you watch most of them.
I kinda think that instead of promoting someone from within the "Tales bubble" some executive(s) wanted someone who's an outsider to the series but still has a lot of experience in working on a multimedia IP that does a lot of the same things Tales does (anime, manga, merchandise, fan events, etc.). I assume they have a more behind-the-scenes Producer who has more prior experience with the series and team and is more closely involved with the "lower level" elements of the game (general technology, game design, etc.).
My long shot theory at the moment is that it might be Kenji Anabuki, as according to his Twitter he's already working on another game, seems to have become a protégé of sorts of Higuchi and has noted that they're creating a new game together, and occasionally he talks about work where it sounds like he's a Producer of whatever game he's working on and it's reasonably far along in development (he's mentioned listening to the music once). The next Smash is probably only in early stages at best right now and of the known projects in Higuchi's department at BNSI, I'm not sure if there's anything else he'd likely be working on besides Arise.
Yeah, it's a pretty interesting joke.
I would love a new fighting game for the series. I wouldn't envy whoever has to make the decisions on the roster pick though.
Initial roster would probably be a daunting task, but a roster in general could easily be fixed with DLC
The Crestoria twitter, which has been silent since the 14th of January, finally posted something new. Looks like it might be the game's mascot.
Hopefully we'll get to learn more soon.
Hopefully we'll get to learn more soon.
They showed the full thing, Nikyu:
They seem to be sharing updates on a bunch of Tales stuff this month:
- On April 27th there'll be a new trailer and Theme Song information on Crestoria, with a new live stream May 1st: https://twitter.com/to_crestoria/status/1245887806355824641
- They have a weekly series going now where they'll bring in VAs, play some of the games and stuff: https://twitter.com/weekly_tales
- The Tales Festival is still on for now but they're now warning people it's possible that'll be canceled: https://tof.tales-ch.jp/attention/
So far no comment on Arise yet.
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They went with a weird beaver thing? Sure I guess.
Crestoria has been in the process of being released for like two years now. Seems pretty long for a mobile game. I wonder what's up with it.