[Games]
[Books]
[CDs]
[Anime]
[Fan Art]
[Downloads]
[Links]
2004:10:17 - Arrrgh!
Sorry sorry sorry about the late update. ;_; And it's a crappy update too. I don't have a lot of the new gameplay info or character profiles for ToR, but I do have the three new character pictures.
Also have info on a new game: Tales of Eternia Online! Go see the page for that game. I wonder whether or not Namco would even consider releasing this in English.... Doesn't seem to require having played ToE to enjoy.... :/ Probably not though. ;_;
There's a new Tales of Mobile game coming out too, Tales of Breaker. I've decided to group them all in one page, so go see the ToM page for the minimal info which is available. Those two screens up there are from ToB, but since they're so tiny, I won't even put them on the page. Looks like a town and an LMB battle, hmm.
Argh, running out of webspace. Must fix this problem soon....
Oh, btw, for anyone who doesn't know, ClesStahn is alive, and thus so is Tales Central!
2004:09:13 - A new game! Finally!
All the pictures and details accompanying what's below is now up and ready. This includes ND3 screenshots (omg noishe! *huggle*), ND3 story and gameplay info, art and character profile of ToR's Agarte, two ToR screenshots, and some ToS-PS2 screenshots/info.
ND3 is... weird. o_O The story doesn't sound too bad, but it seems like it would have made just as much (more?) sense if they had used new characters instead of Frio and Calo. Hmm, maybe I don't get it since I haven't beaten ND2 yet. But it still has the charm ND2 had. How can a game containing the great Noishe be anything but nifty in the long run? And how about seeing Zelos first with Farah (maybe she'll give him an item).
2004:09:11 - A new game! I... think?
Tales Channel recently announced that they would announce a new game on the 13th and refused to say anything else until then. However Shounen Jump magazine is supposed to give news for it too, and there already scans floating around. So here's the news:
It's Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3 for GBA!
It's a direct sequel to ND2 with Frio and Kyaro being the main characters. (Stop looking at me like that. It wasn't my idea.) The story involves some dude who stole a time machine, and Frio and Kyaro have to do some time traveling to solve the problems, or something. There will be ToD2j and ToS characters. By the looks of it, you are no longer forced to have Frio and Kyaro in your party all the time.
There have been three Tales of Rebirth characters announced since I last updated, and I have added their character profiles and artwork. There's one more added in the recent Shounen Jump: Agerte Lindbaum (name subject to be horribly misspelled) is a gajuma and the queen of Calgia.
Some more new stuff has been announced for Tales of Symphonia for PS2. The opening music is "Soshite Boku ni Dekiru KOTO" (And that which can be done by me) by Day After Tomorrow, the same group which did Starry Heavens. There are five more characters who have a hiougi (super-secret tech like Falcon Crest). Kratos has Shining Bind, Zelos has Divine Judgement, Refill has Fairy Circle, Regal has Garenzesshuugeki, and Presea has Reppaenshougeki. There's a few more little sidequest... things.
The magazine has some screenshots and/or artwork corresponding to the above news, but it's small, blurry, and usually has text over top of it. So I'll wait until Monday until I can get those pictures (and more detailed info) from Tales Channel.
In site-related news, this website will soon be relocating thanks to phoenixrpg.net. If you normally get to this site via aselia.cjb.net, it should just redirect you to the new site automatically, but if you use shadehaapii.tripod.com, you're gonna have to update your bookmarks. I'll tell you the new url once the site is moved. (The reason it isn't already moved is because moved is because I need an FTP client to work the new site, but my computer is getting replaced/upgraded soon, and I don't want to install an FTP client only to have to reinstall it again right away. But this computer's taking so long, I might go ahead and do it regardless.... x_X)
I uploaded a FAQ about the different character-based endings in ToS-GC, which will soon be updated to include some scripts and stuff from the scenes that change. Hopefully I can soon update the EX-Skill guide to apply to both languages of the game and update the battle guide to apply to the English version plus extra info.
Oh! One more thing! Tales Channel is making a "'Tales Series' Anything Poll"! It's a little eight-question survey. If you can't read the questions, here they are. I betcha Chaltier will win for the item and all the others will be Leon or Judas, even the female ones.
2004:07:14 - Noos, butt I are layzee
ToS-GCN news: English version's official release date was yesterday, so most of you should be getting it today. ^_^ Here's some information guides on EX Skills or the battle system, there you go, but they're based on the Japanese version....
ToR news: two new characters w/ chara design artwork, four screenshots, some world info, some battle info.See the ToR page.
ToS-PS2 news: new package art released (click for full-size version). The full version of the artwork used on the package is here, but I haven't updated the ToS page yet. There are some new skills and a few new events in this version.
[comment on this news]
2004:06:21? - ToR News
ToR news: see ToR page. Oh, and in ToS-PS2,the flying scene where you first get to Tethe Alla is gonna be an FMV. Woo.
[comment on this news]
2004:05:21 - Clearity *tomato*
Ahoy! Sorry for the late update. Let's see. If you haven't noticed, the Official English Tales of Symphonia Website has opened! A very great site. Some of the Namco/ToS staff members (particularly localization producer Nao Higo and product marketing manager Tara Samuels) are active on the forums. ^_^
New information and pictures about Tales of Rebirth has been posted on its page. I heard someone say Claire was an NPC, despite being the game's heroine. I don't know if that's the case. (She doesn't look much like a warrior, but then, neither did Reala.)
There's going to be some new FMVs in the PS2 version of ToS. It hasn't been said how many exactly, so it could be two or twenty.
I updated some info on the anime page.
I was recently looking through my fanart, trying to figure out what I had and hadn't posted, and I realized there were 22 pictures I hadn't ever posted. Well, they're posted now. ^^;
[comment on this news]
2004:04:09 - Too much news to decide a title for this post
Well, here's the box art for the US version of ToS, for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. Still has that enigmatic "Rated-RP" on it. The US version box arts are often bad compared to the Japanese version, but we got it good this time. Probably because that's by Matsutake Tokuyuki instead of some random American artist (that's also an art for some ToS merchandise). Anyway, the release of this boxart foiled my April Fool's Joke in advance. Oh, well. Here it is anyway.
I recently ordered two of the novels based on Tales of Phantasia: Katararezaru Rekishi ("Untold History"; about the four warriors in ToP's intro) and Shiku no Hitomi ("Crimson Eyes"; pre-game story about Arche and Lia). If you want to see some poorly digicammed pictures from these books, go here. I am trying to translate Katararezaru Rekishi, but since it's taking me about five hours per page, it will either take a VERY long time or even not get finished at all.
Of course, I'm sure the real reason you're here is for the following news: Freshly announced in a leaked copy of V-Jump magazine, "Tales of Rebrith" for PS2! (ooh, ahh, etc). The only character revealed so far is Vague Ljungbel (J pronounced like Y, not official transcription). He is a silent young man of the race called Huma who grew up in a northern village called Soolz. Someone somewhere mentioned that the theme of the game was "darkness", which I suppose explains the main chara's apparent attitude (and his name). He doesn't look like Tales main characters usually look. Anyway, it's not a direct sequel/prequel to any other Tales game, and Inomata is doing the chara designs. The game seems to use 2D graphics--the magazine even said so specifically--but three of the four screenshots revealed so far look like the character is moving around in three deminsons. It has sprites and hand-drawn backgrounds and all that though. No release date has been given. Normally they don't like to start revealing game info until it's only a few months away, but V-Jump didn't even say that it was in 2004. According to what the Tales producer has said before, they've only been working on this game about a year now, so April 2005 sounds like a likely time for its release. (This game has a slightly higher chance at localization than ToD2j did, but that's not saying much, so don't hold your breath.) More info should come from Teichan on April 12, so come back here then.
Also, it has been officially announced that ToS is being ported to the PS2! There's supposed to be a few changes, but with the exception of changing the logo from blue to red, there's no telling what any of that is. I don't know if this can be blamed on bad sales of the GameCube version or not, because everyone argues on exactly how much was sold. (Popular theory states that some sources include the bundle pack and tally up around 600k--100k more than the goal--and some sources only take the game by itself. The bundle pack should count if you ask me, because no one's going to buy that ugly green Gamecube unless they're getting it for the sake of ToS.) If you bought a GameCube for ToS and only ToS, you're not the only one feeling cheated right now. Anyway, the Japanese version is supposed to come out some time in 2004 (probably not too far away from now), but there's no telling whether ToS-PS2 will come to the US or not. (It has a higher chance than ToR.)
Also, I recently bought and beat ToS. I intend to tweek the info on the ToS page a little, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
I'll add a little messageboard respond thingy here when my messageboard starts working again.
[comment on this news]
2004:02:02 - The epitome of gaming injustice!
With all the trademarks and weirdo rumors floating around, we figured we were prepared for any kind of news Namco could throw at us. There was no surprising us!
Well, they surprised us. As in snuck-up-from- behind-and-smacked- us-in-the-face surprised us.
If you don't ever plan to have access to Japanese cell phone games and you don't like to hear about games you'll never be able to play, skip to the bolded *** below.
It's Tales of Tactics!!!! This game:
--is for the ITmedia Mobile: 900i (it's a cell phone game!)
--has the characters from the five major console Tales games.
--has real-time battles! (You get into battles in the typical SPRG way, then you're given a fixed amount of time to beat the crap out of the opponent in the typical Tales way.)
--has an original scenario/world
--is split into chapters and stages
--has an original character called Rukku (Luke? Ruke? Look?) (Why does she look so weird???) (Oh, she was designed by Inomata-sensei. :3)
--contains the the Craymel Lab mini game from Tales of Fandom
--more info here
I added the game to the list of Tales games with the six screenshots and the art of Rukko. But somebody look at this and tell me whether or not those are screenshots.
Well... chances are, if you're Japanese-impared, you aren't going to have the right phone/service/etc to play game. And the purpose of this website is to a) house my Tales fan art, and b) provide news and info about Japanese Tales games to Japanese-impared Tales fans. Therefore, I probably won't be covering this game too extensively.... I'll try to provide you with some info though.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
What else been going on? Well... someone in #tales mentioned that someone on some forum somewhere foretold of a few new Tales games without giving a source. Obviously my first reaction was, "Aww, what a cute little rumor. ^_^"
But this supposedly comes from an interview with, uh, someone in the Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, which is supposedly a reliable source. Then Magic Box reported it, and a couple other people reported it, but.... It still seems so cheap-rumor-like. o_O
Here's the info; decide for yourself:
Tales of Truthia - 2D Tales game for PS2 (follows Eternia's continuity)
Tales of Legendia - 3D Tales game for GC w/ ML-LMB (follows Symphonia/Phantasia's continuity?) to be released later in 2004
Tales of Fandom vol. 2 - For PS1
Tales of [Untitled] - For GBA.
Now, Namco HAS trademarked the words "Legendia" (a few months ago) and Truthia (back when they trademarked "Symphonia"), but don't you remember what happened to all the Chrono fans who couldn't tell the difference between a trademark and a game announcement? Also, we know there's going to be a Fandom2 and more GBA installments eventually, but they might not be ready to be announced yet.
Also note that, if a console Tales was released (in Japan) in 2004, that gives the game less than two years of development time... despite the fact that the development team is split between that game, another Tales console game, a ToF, and a GBA installment.
It also seems strange that Tales of Truthia would be in 2D, but it could happen. Make all the PS2 Tales in 2D, make all the GCN Tales in 3D, and satisfy everyone forever--makes sense right? (I would kinda like this myself. I want a 2D LMB where the topography of the battle field affects the gameplay.)
(I hope they don't use "Tales of Truthia" because then we'll have two "ToT" games.)
Anyway, how about some more news that's garunteed to be true? Namco has trademarked the following names:
Tales of Honesty (not honestia!)
Tales of Justice
Tales of Rebirth (possibly, but not likely, "Tales of Reverse")
The news about those last three trademarks came after the questionable news sprung up, by the way. Since Namco doesn't seem obliged to continue the -ia endings, why would they put them on words where they sound so bad?
[comment on this news]
2004:01:04 - ake ome, sorry for the lateness
Yes, news on the ToP OVA is out! There's a trailer at the AnimateTV new post for broadband and narrowband. That song is most likely an ending song, not the opening song.
It'll be released in four volumes. There's a bunch of confusion on when it'll be out, so I'll get back to you on that.... Should be sometime in January...?
Tales Channel posted the results of the Tales Character Popularity Poll. They are:
#1: Leon Magnus (no, seriously)
#2: Judas (cheater!)
#3: Kratos Aurion
#4: Celsius (!)
#5: Rid Hershel
#6: Arche Klaine
#7: Presea Combatir
#8: Cless Alvein
#9: Collet Brunel
#10: Zelos Wilder
#11: Farah Oersted
#12: Dhaos
#13: Stahn Ailron
#14: Klarth F. Lester
#15: Fujibayashi Suzu
#16: Genius Sage
#17: Chester Barklight
#18: Mint Adnade
#19: Keel Zeibel
#20: Lilith Ailron
Moral of the Story: Never underestimate the power of fangirls. (Tsk. Kururu should have at least been able to beat Kratos....)
I updated the SamoRine dialogue translation and added a few more sections.
Tales of Symphonia: Tethe Alla Edition (second part of "Sylvarant Edition) came out recently (Third part "Sekai Saisei Edition" will be out in January), as well as Tales of Symphonia: Toki no Kagayaki (part 1 of 4?).
There's some ToS trading cards out. They're ¥400 a pack (10 cards) or ¥6000 a box (15 packs). The cards feature the normal character illustrations, anime FMV screenshots, and the like.
[comment on this news]
2003:11:21 - New novel!
Here's some info on "Tales of Symphonia: Sylvarant Edition". ^_^ It's written by Yuuki Shou and Illustrated by Mitsutake Tokuyuki. It's 260 pages, retails at ¥553 (plus tax), and comes out... today (the 21st)! The ISBN is 4-08-630155-5, if you need it.
Here's a little summary:
A divine message was handed down that the young girl named Collet was the "Miko of Rebirth" who saves the decaying world. This is the beginning of the journey for the world's rebirth. Her friends, the boys Lloyd and Genius, rebel against the adults to accompany her on her journey. Collet carries the the people's hope on her shoulders, so that peace can be regained in the world!
This is another little exerpt or something:
Lloyd squatted down in front Collet and turned back.
"What, Lloyd?"
"I'll carry that. It'll be awful if you fall and get hurt."
"It's, it's okay. I was cure by Sensei, so I'm already okay." [sensei = teacher, presumeably refering to Refill]
"What if you succumb to the angel disease? There are a lot of dangers in this mausoleum. At least let me carry it until we get out... because I'm asking."
Collet glanced at Refill.
"He's right, Collet. It would be safer."
"I understand--Sorry, Lloyd."
And here's the new Tales Channel Article:
"The First 'Tales of' Character Popularity Contest" is underway!
When you vote, you can get this wallpaper!
The "Tales of" series has a lot of charming characters, but who do you think is the most popular. You've probably thought about it if you're a fan. So it may be sudden, but "The First 'Tales of' Character Popularity Contest" is underway! There's more! This Symphonia picture is available to everyone who votes. By the way, similar things will be announced soon at Jump Fest 2004 (Dec 20-21) and at Tales Channel (Dec 22)! Voting ends December 15!
You heard 'em. Go vote. Don't worry about being kana impaired; they give you little pictures. Just click the graphic of ToS charas at the bottom to get to the list. That box at the bottom (not the one for email) is so you can enter the name of some character that's not on the list. (I was tempted to vote for "That kid with the blue hair and ponytail in the northern part of Harmel in the SFC version of ToP", but I didn't.... He's not anywhere close to my favorite, but I think he deserves at least one vote. So if you can't decide who to vote for, and you know the Japanese equivlent of that phrase I used to identify him, vote for him.)
I appologize for my translation abilities is regards to the above. ^_^;
Oh, here are some ToS Bandai GASHAPON figurines: clicky. Those aren't the Kotobukiya ones I mentioned below. Different ones.
[comment on this news]
2003:11:08 - Clandestine Meeting
So Fujishima, Inomata, and Yoshizumi (the two notable characters and the producer) got together to have a Tales-related discussion, but the only REAL news we get is that the illustration collection "Tales of Symphonia ~Fujishima Kousuke no Character Shigoto~" should go on sale this January (sales agency is Studio DNA, and the price is ¥1800). Oh, and we're promised cool news NEXT time.
The big honkin' deal Tales Channel made about this suggests that I wasn't the only one who was under the impression that it was physically impossible for Inomata and Fujishima to be in the same room together. o_O This photo was provided as proof:
Oh, and Tales Channel's new URL is http://www.namco-ch.net/taleschannel/index.html.
[comment on this news]
2003:11:01 - Mechandise and What-have-you
The Fall edition of "Paletta the Visual Express" will feature Inomata Mutsumi's Reala and Farah on the front. The magazine will feature Inomata talking about the Tales series, and I think it has some of her illustrations in there as well. There's an attached poster of the front cover picture, which Namco says Tales fans absolutely possitively cannot miss. It's published by Enterbrain and is already available for ¥1,143.
They're making little Tales of Symphonia figurines now (by Kotobukiya again). Tales Channel had a picture of the Lloyd, Collet, and Genius figures but I forgot to download it before they changed the update page. ;_; Well, the figures are nice-looking, but they're all white.
This info come from Majestic Fantasian: the novel "Tales of Symphonia: Toki no Kagayaki" (Radience of Eternity), published by Famitsu, comes out December 20; "Tales of Symphonia: Sylvarant Edition", written by Yuuki Shou, published by Shueisha Super Dash, comes out November 21; "Tales of Symphonia: Tethe Alla Edition" comes out sometime in December.
And four little fan arts.
[comment on this news]