Namco readying two new Tales titles

TOKYO--This week, Namco revealed on its official Web site that it will be making two major announcements next Monday regarding its Tales series. However, the announcement's subject was leaked in early copies of the weekly Jump magazine, which was not supposed to hit newsstands until the beginning of next week.

According to Jump, one of the announcements scheduled by Namco is a new RPG titled Tales of Rebirth for the PlayStation 2, featuring Tales of Destiny artist Mutsumi Inomata as the main illustrator. The main character in Tales of Rebirth will be a young, white-haired swordsman named Vague Ryungbelle, who is has been left emotionally scarred by a past trauma. Vague’s story will take place in a world called Callegeia, where two races named the Huma and Gajema co-exist. While screenshots seem to hint that the game is rendered in anime-style 3D, no information on its battle and other systems have been revealed.

Namco's second announcement is its upcoming port of Tales of Symphonia to the PS2; previously, the RPG had been exclusive to the GameCube. The article said the game would come with some changes from its Nintendo-only forebear, but no specific details were revealed as of press time. Currently, both games are planned for release in Japan only.