minna ni naisho dayo

New Game: Tales of Rebirth (JP)

Title: Tales of Rebirth
Platform: PlayStation 2 (JP)
Publisher: Namco

Where: Shibuya Tsutaya
When: January 20
How Much: 3,790 yen (3,980 yen w/tax)

The Tales series is quickly becoming one of my favorite RPG franchises, second only to Dragon Quest in terms of overall appeal. I own every game in the series, yet I've only actually finished one of them -- Tales of Destiny, on PS1. One of my goals for 2005 is to "catch up" with the series by finishing at least three Tales games before the next new entry arrives, which'll hopefully be in December, if recent history is anything to go by. I've recently started playing Destiny 2, Symphonia and Rebirth (all within a week of each other -- yikes), so hopefully at least one of them will stick and I'll be that much closer to my goal before summer arrives.

I managed to find a used copy of Rebirth, which was nice, and so far I'm liking it quite a bit. To paraphrase my comments on GAF, I would say it looks, sounds and plays a lot better than Destiny 2 (the most recent 2D Tales game before Rebirth), and the overall package is overflowing with polish and style. I've read some worrisome impressions about the story but the first two hours at least have been top-notch, so I'm hoping things will remain interesting throughout. The pacing for skits is very unbalanced (seven in a row? huh?), and the changes to the title system are a bit strange (you get permanent stat enhancements as soon as you get a title, and then it's pretty much useless), but otherwise I'm feeling very satisfied so far.

I'm enjoying Symphonia quite a bit as well, though I can't take as much interest in the story now since I already know it inside and out from working on the translation (my company translated the game for Namco back in 2003). The visual style is very nice and I love the fact that you can see enemies roaming around on the overworld and in dungeons before actually fighting them. I guess we'll see how the overall package holds up after I get some more playtime in with it. I'm curious to see what they changed in the PS2 version, too.

As an aside, I can't wait for the PSP port/remake of Tales of Eternia on March 3. I hope Namco Hometek decides to release it in America, though if they do I really hope they'll re-record the voiceovers, because the voices in the original PS version were...not very good, to say the least.

How do you guys feel about the Tales series? Like it? Dislike it? What do you think about Namco choosing to skip the 2D versions in the US? Are they unfairly pre-judging their potential audience or is it just a sound business decision? I've got some thoughts on this too, but I'll save them for later. For now I'm curious to hear what you guys think.

Posted by john tv at February 6, 2005 02:12 AM