Tales of Wii: 10th Main Game, 2 Years in Development

With Jump Festa 2009 currently underway over in Japan, new details have emerged on the Tales series from Bandai Namco. First up is news that Hideo Baba has referred to the new Tales on Wii as being "Tales of Ten" during a special stage event. His meaning behind this is that next year's Wii Tales RPG will be the tenth mainline game made by the WolfTeam/Tales Studio. For those interested, that would be:

1.) Tales of Phantasia (SNES)
2.) Tales of Destiny (PSone)
3.) Tales of Eternia (PSone)
4.) Tales of Destiny 2 (PS2)
5.) Tales of Symphonia (GC)
6.) Tales of Rebirth (PS2)
7.) Tales of the Abyss (PS2)
8.) Tales of Vesperia (360)
9.) Tales of Hearts (NDS)
10.) Tales of ... (Wii)

The likes of Tales of Innocence (NDS) and Tales of Legendia (PS2) are also 'mothership' titles, but not by the Tales Studio.

In addition to this, it was revealed that this Wii RPG has been in development for nearly two years and is inspired by Medieval Europe. The voice work recordings are nearly complete, the team is trying to take a new presentation approach for the overworld field and the battle animations are to be really detailled, with plenty of stylish pauses (for sheathing the lead character's sword, for example). More details will be unveiled in Spring 2009.

Finally, Baba-san said that he is hoping to make an anime TV show based upon Tales of Hearts and it was jokingly commented on that it should be just like in the game - spread across two screens!