Colourful Japanese role-playing game Tales of Zestiria hits stores today, following the adventures of Sorey the Shepherd as he enlists the help of magical beings called Sepharims to help him reunite his war-torn world and save the land from destruction. It's a title which is also a bit of a landmark for the series, as it marks the 20th year of the Tales of games coming to the West - and it's the first Tales game on PC too.
That moment when your friend catches you reading Fifty Shades of Grey...
So, as a way of saying thanks to the fans over the years, Bandai Namco have a trio of Tales of Zestiria goodies up for grabs - for free. There's some new super fancy uber moves for the main characters, exclusive Playstation themes for both the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, and the main attraction of the bundle, a whole new chapter exploring team member Alisha's story during her time away from the team.
While freebies are never bad, Bandai Namco seemingly want you to work for it a little, and in order to get your grubby paws on the downloads, you'll have to go through their website first - or, specifically, their rewards programme, the Bandai Namco VIP Corner. Also, make sure you get in there pretty quick as the free stuff is only up for grabs for about a month, with the Alisha's Story add-on reverting to paid for come the 18th November.
In order to get started, head over to http://bnent.eu/TOZDLC, which will forward you on to the Tales of specific area of the rewards catalogue. You should see both the Tales of Zestiria "Mystic Artes and Playstation Themes" and "Alisha's Story Additional Chapter" at the top of the list - and indeed clicking on them will take you to the buy page - but it's probably easier if you login, via the tiny yellow button at the top right of the screen first. Should you not already have an account, you can create one, also via the login button, but this time clicking on the 'Create new Account' button towards the bottom of the subsequent page. Much like the now defunct Club Nintendo, each Bandai Namco game you buy comes with a unique code which earns you a number of points, which you can then exchange for cuddly Mr Drippys, art books and exclusive costumes (and a Tales of Symphonia comic book we're GUTTED we missed out on). So make sure you register your Tales of Zestiria game with them (the code can be found on the back of the extra slip of paper that came with your game's instruction manual) at some point to start earning!
Note the Tales of Symphonia book TAUNTING YOU
After logging in, it'll probably boot you back to the home page of the site, so simply click on the http://bnent.eu/TOZDLC link again to get taken back to the Tales of page. Then click on each of the two Tales of Zestiria packs, and on the following page click on the big friendly 'I need it!' button to be taken to the shopping cart page. It'll ask you to 'Confirm your shipping address', by which it means email address by typing it in again and clicking 'I confirm', then 'I confirm' again - at which point Pac-Man will tell you your gift is on it's way. Now repeat that for the other pack (via http://bnent.eu/TOZDLC once more) and you're almost done!
Now you need to head over to whatever email address you entered, and load up the emails from 'Contact Bandai Namco Games', each of which will have a code enclosed that you can redeem on both the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4. So, boot up your console, head over to the Playstation Store and redeem the codes - for the uninitiated, the 'Redeem Codes' can be found towards the bottom of the list on the left. You'll need to install Alisha's story separately from your games list once it's downloaded on PS3, and you may find you need to activate the Mystic Artes via the in-game inventory (ditto for any pre-order costumes you may have got too). After that, all that's left is the small matter of saving the world from disaster!
