As you should be already aware, Tales of Hearts will ship in Japan with two separate editions: a CG edition, and an Anime edition. True to their distinctions, the CG edition will feature realistic 3D CG movies (a first for the Tales of series) handled by Shirogumi, while the Anime edition will feature traditional animated movies by series staple 2D animation studio Production I.G. The content of the game will be 100% unchanged between the two versions other than the movies.
As a personal note, I've said this before, and I'll say it again: rendering realistic 3D models of Mutsumi Inomata's designs is a serious crime and should not be tolerated.
This week’s article brings us up to speed on the two latest editions to the playable cast, which I will break down for you below.
Innes Lorenz (24)
“Oh my! Referring to me as ‘a busty beauty’…? I get that a lot!”
A woman with incredible brute strength and a glamorous figure, Innes is the president of the Peaceful Days delivery service, and also the only employee. Due to her commanding presence, most are speechless to her smiling words and actions. For some reason, she treats the “Soma” that the Hearts siblings are searching for as a commodity.
Hisui Hearts (18)
“Just as fair warning, if you even touch my little sister, I’ll kill you!”
Kohak’s older borther, Hisui is fiercely dedicated to “protecting” his younger sister ever since he lost someone close to him when he was young. Despite his rough appearance and cold attitude, he is very stubborn at heart and carries a strong passion with him.
Most of you are likely familiar with the action heavy, high speed battle system commonly found in the Tales of series, so I won’t bore you with too many redundant details (like aerial combos and elemental weaknesses, which are found in many iterations of the series). The Famitsu article focuses on 2 new features in ToH’s battle system, namely the Emotion Gauge and the Combination Gauge.
The Emotion Gauge is the blue, rhombic meter positioned above the characters’ portraits in the battle scene. This gauge depletes as the character in question acts, and refills itself automatically while not attacking. The more full the gauge is, the more attacks and skills can be linked together, and the more damage they will inflict. As the gauge empties, the character’s attack power drops, but his or her defense increases. This gauge is apparently affected by how characters feel about one another, though we aren’t sure on the details at this point.
The Combination Gauge (the green meter located below the yellow bar beside the characters’ portraits), on the other hand, represents how much the characters trust one another, and fills as they support one another in battle. This gauge’s progress is apparently saved from battle to battle, and once filled, can be used to unleash a powerful combination attack known as a Connect Command. The Connect Command will apparently change depending on who is supporting who.
Tales of Hearts is the 11th main series entry into the Tales of library (would have been the 12th had Tales of the Tempest not been kicked out of the group), and the 3rd title to appear on the Nintendo DS. It will reportedly be available in Japan sometime this December. There is no word on whether or not it will be localized in North America or Europe.
Thanks to Gamekyo for the scans.
Happy Tales of Vesperia Day!
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