New Tales of Zestiria Scans - More on Martran, The Real Map System and an Interview With Baba-san

This month's issue of Famitsu magazine will be featuring more information on Martran, Alicia's battle instructor, more on the game's newly introduced Real Map System, and an interview with Baba-san.

Famitsu features an 8-page spread for Tales of Zestiria this month. Much of it though is a recap on what we know on the introduced characters so far, with more detail on what was revealed recently from Jump.

Martran ( ?????, marutoran)
Height: 172cm
Voiced by: Mami Koyama
"From here on out, please be Alicia's strength. Even just as a friend, I don't mind."
- A female knight from the Highland Kingdom dubbed as the "Blue Valkyrie." Her fame reaches even the enemy Empire of Lowlance. Aside from holding two posts as a knight instructor and an army adviser, she has also been training Alicia on how to wield a spear ever since she was still very young. Martran has been the only sole support Alicia has within the Kingdom, and as such treats her with much respect and admiration. She holds the prestige of a knight, the strictness in herself, as well as her kindness toward Alicia.

No mention of who designed her, but from the art, it seems to be... Okumura or Iwamoto? Not sure on that, though. And no mention if she's playable or not.

Another character was also introduced, though this one seems to be just a key character or an NPC.

Bartolo ( ????, barutoro)
Voiced by: Yutaka Nakano
- The Highland Kingdom's head minister and the head of its bureaucracy. Since the Kingdom's real power these days is with its bureaucracy, he can be considered the very substance of its leadership.

As introduced in our last post, Tales of Zestiria will be featuring a Real Map System. This feature lets the player enter battle right away once encountering the enemy symbol/model on the field map. No transitions in-between battles anymore, and the background terrain even stays the same. Again, battle can be affected depending on the terrain conditions. Basically, it's a seamless transition between on field walking and into battle.

Like we mentioned last post, an added feature includes Map Actions on the field, which are various gimmicks that can be done to help you through fields. This feature apparently makes use of the Divine's powers. Above shows Slay burning something, which may be Lyla's power. One of them shown in Jump allows you to break through boulders and such, while the other, when timed right when an enemy is near, grants a barrier on the character against the enemy.

And again, another additional feature on the field is that the accompanying characters of the leader character (i.e. the character you're controlling on field) will also be walking with you. You can talk to them from time to time, too, if you choose to do so. Only little info has been released so far about this, but in the interview with Baba-san (see below), it seems he mentions that there is mainly one accompanying character? And it can be the others, too, and not just Alicia.

Above shows some screenshots of animated cutscenes from the game, courtesy of ufotable. It also again mentions that the theme song artist for Zestiria will be Superfly, but no mention of the actual song was given.

The other pages contain a recap on what we know on the characters so far. At present, Zabida is still not shown as playable. There's also an interview with Tales Series Producer Hideo Baba spread through the pages, and here are some main points of interest in the interview:

• It might take more time to finish the game despite all the information that's being released.
• Ufotable is almost done with the animated cutscenes in-game. They'll be working on the opening movie next. It'll take some time for them to work on the animated special. The anime special will focus on the beginning of the game, when Slay, Alicia and Mikulio set out on their journey.
• There is tremendous trust between Slay and Mikulio, and at the same time, great rivalry. They are basically best of friends with rivalry tendencies.
• Baba-san particularly likes the quarrels between Edna and Mikulio. Speaking of the two, their ages are far apart. Edna is much older than Mikulio, and Mikulio, being only almost the same age as Slay, is quite young when considering the age of the Divine. Edna even calls him "Mikulio boy." They have longer life spans, apparently.
• Lyla is apparently burdened with some sort of "pledge." It has a special rule she personally imposes, and though she can overcome it by her own power, it'll have grave repercussions. The contents of the rule is a secret. Whenever the others ask her, she acts weird about it. It's connected to her past.
• Lyla loves topics about youth, friendship and passion. It might be because she's lived a long life already.
• The color white for the Divine is that of nobility or those of great importance, like those who have a mission to fulfill.
• Slay is definitely the "Priest" that the legends talk of. His main drive for his journey is to see the humans and the Divine working in harmony. However, throughout the journey, he'll have to face the darkness of humans, as well.
• The accompanying character on the field isn't always Alicia. It can be the others, too.

Thanks to @ExeForce87 for the scans!