If you're a fan of Japanese role-playing games, you might have heard of the Tales of series (especially if you hang around these parts). A colourful anime-inspired set of games, with more than a helping of personality and humour, they're unfortunately a tad on the niche side over in the West, overshadowed by the likes of Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest. Yet back in their native Japan, it can be hard to truly grasp quite how popular the games are - in fact, they're such a phenomenon, they even hold a 'Tales of Festival' every year to celebrate the series with cosplay, concerts and even stage shows, where the games' voice actors act out fan-favourite scenes from the games to screaming crowds of female fans.
Held at the Yokohama arena in Tokyo, this year marked the eighth Tales of Festival.
One of the major reasons for the festival's existence is to give Bandai Namco a chance to announce new games and details, direct to it's fans. So, with the 2015 Tales of Festival having concluded a few days ago, the inevitable news has finally filtered it's way out of Japan - in the form of a brand new game, Tales of Berseria, coming to Japan at a currently unspecified date sometime in the future. But, as it's intended to tie in with the Tales of series' 20th Anniversary celebrations, which are currently ongoing, it may be pretty soon.
This time round, the game will feature a 'lone female protagonist', named Velvet, and will release on both the Playstation 3 and Playstation 4 - perhaps a side-effect of the comparatively low take-up the 'next generation' consoles have had over there. Precisely what they mean when they say 'lone female protagonist' is a little unclear however, as every game so far has had you amass a fairly sizeable party of seven or eight individuals pretty early on - so even if she starts out alone, we sincerely doubt she'll stay that way for long. However, previous protagonists have nearly always had a co-pilot who sticks with them from the beginning, through thick and thin - which may make Velvet a bit of a lone wolf, although with details pretty much non-existent, we know nothing of her back story or anything else.
The Tales of Berseria main character, Velvet, looking suitably brooding.
Producer Hideo Baba has mentioned on several occasions how there's been an increasing interest in the series from women in recent years - a shift which prompted them to introduce the option of a female protagonist in Tales of Xillia, although subsequent games Tales of Xillia 2 and the upcoming Tales of Zestiria have since abandoned that. Personally, we couldn't give two hoots as to the sex of the main character, as long as they're the usual likeable, if at times a little goofy, personalities - we're in it for the characters and story, not what they're packing in their trousers.
As big time Tales of fans, the prospect of a new game has us hyped already - even if we're still waiting on the release of the previous game, Tales of Zestiria, which is due out sometime this year (we hope!). As for Tales of Berseria, we imagine more details will come out in the coming weeks, what with industry trade show E3 a mere five days away - and the Tokyo Games Show following in September. So make sure you keep checking back!
