In yesterday's live stream, we get to hype ourselves up for the upcoming Tales of Series 25th Anniversary, among other things.
Yesterday, Bandai Namco Japan held a live stream titled "Tales of Strategic Meeting - Road to 25th Anniversary!" starring Onosaka Masaya (Zelos Wilder), Katsuyuki Konishi (Lloyd Irving) and Tales Producer Yusuke Tomizawa. Among the major things announced during the event was the reveal of a new logo for the Tales of Series in its entirety and the upcoming Tales of Series 25th Anniversary:
The 25th Anniversary of the Tales of Series will be on December 15th of this year, which also coincides with the 25th anniversary since Tales of Phantasia was first released for the SNES. Some of you may find the logos above familiar. Bandai Namco has recently filed the "Tales of Series" and the book logo above as separate trademarks in Europe (1, 2). Safe to say, whatever they have planned for the series' 25th anniversary, it may be big.
In addition to the new logos, they also discussed exactly how the games have been categorized up until now. As years went on, the games, which were pioneered by the "Mothership" titles or the major titles, as we know them, were made separate from the slightly more minor, "Escort" titles that more often than not featured a plethora of Tales characters from other titles. Eventually, in the gaining popularity of mobile games especially in Japan, another category was added - "Mobile". Shown in the diagram above, titles like Tales of Phantasia and Tales of Destiny fall under Mothership, while Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World and the Tales of the World games (pictured: Radiant Mythology) fall under Escorts. Games that were released specifically for mobile platforms, such as Tales of Link and Tales of the Rays, fall under Mobile.
This is the latest list of categories we've been following thus far, but it has led to a few moments of confusion. Some games, such as Dawn of the New World and Tales of the Tempest, fall under Escort despite having at least a few original characters. We also see comparisons between Escort title Dawn of the New World and Mothership title Tales of Xillia 2, which pretty much have the same premise (a direct sequel featuring the old characters and a few new main characters) but have differing categories.
Hence, the proposed new game categories they wish to follow show a more simple distinction - "Original" for, well, games with original characters, and "Crossover", which features characters from the different games. With the new category, titles such as Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World (and I guess Tales of the Tempest?) now fall under Original, while titles such as Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology, Tales of the Rays and I'm guessing Tales of Link, fall under Crossover regardless of what platform they were released for.
You can watch the entire stream below:
What do you think of this new change? Does it make things easier or more complicated for you?
