Nintendo DS Media | First Tales of Innocence Screens & Details

Following yesterday's revelation of two new 'Tales of' RPGs coming to Wii and Nintendo DS within the next year, more details and the first screens have now emerged. This first update focuses on the DS edition, Tales of Innocence. Starting off with the general comments from the conference, the series' Producer announced that following the the SNES, PSone and PlayStation 2, the Nintendo DS will now become the leading platform for future 'Tales of' RPGs because the Tales series is:

• A drama containing deep themes;
• One that has sounds and visuals that showcase anime FMV, theme songs and voice;
• Games that use the unique Linear Motion Battle System.

Clearly the fact that the out-sourced Tales of the Tempest (developed by Dimps and promised for release in the West...although still nothing has yet to be revealed) was able to sell nearly 200,000 copies after being critically mauled, whilst large-scale PSP remakes and even the new Tales of the World either did not or hardly beat that sales mark, has encouraged the company to give the DS another shot. This time the game is being worked on in-house by the Alpha Systems group that recently completed work on the highly-praised Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology for PSP, plus has done other games in that side-story series for GBA.

The game is being readied for a December 2007 release and will see the character designer from Tales of the Tempest, Inomata Mutsumi, return. The lead character is seemingly called Luca and will be voiced by Akiko Kimura, whilst the main supporting female will be Iria, voiced by Sasamoto Youko and the game comes accompanied by a full opening song once more, this time by popular artist KOKIA. The opening CG movie is once again to be done by Production IG (which will be showcased at September's Tokyo Games Show) and the in-game 'World Field' will be completely 3D. As for the battle system, it is being deemed as 'Dimension Stride LMB'. For those unaware, 'LMB' refers to the Linear Motion Battle style of fighting incorporated into each version of the Tales series, where players run backwards and forwards along one plane, attacking their foes by way of various button input commands from the player. This new approach to the LMB system is a mixture of the Flex Range LMB from the PS2's Tales of the Abyss and the PS2 Tales of Destiny Remake's Aerial LMB.

Tales of Innocence began development almost at the same time as the PSP's Radiant Mythology wrapped up, meaning it has been underway for quite a substantial amount of time and is certainly no rush-job. Apparently the lead character, Luca, is a resident of the peaceful Capital City of Regnam. He is the son of a merchant that has special powers, although he is not the only one with this gift and others like him have recently begun to appear in the town. His personality is said to be a bit different to the norm for a standard RPG and his role is meant to be switched with that of Iria, the heroine. To be honest, that premise sounds a little similar to Tales of the Tempest, but we will see when more is revealed in the coming months.

Finally, Akira Konishi of Bandai Namco will act as the Creative Producer and the Producer of Soulcalibur Legends is in charge of the battle system. We can expect to see the first promotional video appear on Japanese websites on 23rd July - so not long to wait! For now, though, be sure to check out the images in the media folder below - the game really is coming together very nicely indeed.

Stick around on Cubed3 for further updates...