Interview | Bandai Namco Talks Tales of Hearts on Nintendo DS

Hideo Baba, Producer of the Tales series: In this remake we kept the story's pace while changing some elements. We put a lot of effort into both systems and users were highly satisfied by the quality of the game and so were we. We were particularly happy with the combat system which is unique to the series, plus we were also particularly happy with the quality of the 2D graphics that, in my opinion, were among the best in the 'Tales of' series.

We have no plan to port Tales of Destiny to NDS right now. However, if there was a real demand for such a game, we would of course start considering this idea.

AR: After having so much success with the anime Tales games, what made you try a CG version this time? And what has been the consumer feedback about the CG version so far?

HB: After 13 years, using computer graphics instead of the usual anime cut-scenes was a new challenge for us. However, we will continue to use anime cut-scenes as this is important for us and also because this style has proved to be commercially successful until now. But, as in this present situation, we would like to try many different possibilities in order to keep challenging ourselves.

Of course, like I just said, we have absolutely no desire to completely remove the idea of 'Tales of = Anime', and will keep on using anime cut-scenes in the future. Every time something new is done, there are a lot people that are disapproving of it, yet at the same time we discovered some new things and we believe that this will really help the 'Tales of' series in the future.

We got some very mixed opinion regarding this move from our fans. Some people were saying that a 'Tales of' without the anime cut-scenes is not a real 'Tales of', whilst some others supported us in this new approach. There are obviously some pros and cons to this change, but in the end all these opinions will be useful for the future instalments of the series. Thanks to this art direction, to the opinions and impressions we received, we have understood some facts that we didn't understand before.

AR: What connections, if any, are there between Hearts and previous Tales games?

HB: The story in Tales of Hearts is an original one and has no direct link with the rest of the series. However, the theme of "Co-existence," which has always been present in the 'Tales of' games, still remains.

AR: How many game designers worked on Tales of Hearts? Was the story fleshed out before, during, or after the game concept or design documents were complete?

HB: We started to think about how to develop the story once the project had already commenced. We then began to think about the theme of the game, what kind of world we wanted to design, how the characters should be introduced into the story, how the story should develop, how it should reach its conclusion, and so on.

When all the features listed above and the characters were decided upon, we entered the stage where we wrote the actual plot of the story. But when it comes to the story aspect of any game it should be noted that we might have the need to change it around during any stage of development in order to achieve the best representation possible.

AR: The Tales of Hearts blog states the game was in development for more than two years and faced several problems with the DS hardware. Can you please share some of these experiences?

HB: One of the objectives of this game was to offer to fans the same game volume as the PS2 or GameCube games. Obviously there are limitations on the number of cut-scenes or amount of voice-work that can be included, so we had to struggle with those aspects.　As the game contains many pieces of voice recording, used during the cut-scene sequences, ensuring that everything could be squeezed in proved to be quite an arduous task. With these targets in mind, we had to discuss every new aspect of the game in-depth so that we could make best use of the DS and obtain the most out of the hardware. For example, during battles we had to think about the effects and how they should be rendered so that some intensity could be included, and to achieve this result we had to experiment a lot.

AR: What lessons were learned from Tales of the Tempest and Tales of Innocence that helped make Hearts a better game? Were there decisions or changes made to the game based on how fans reacted to the previous releases?

HB: Before starting working on a new game, we always try to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of the past instalments. Of course we always listen to the opinions and impressions of our fans and try to work hard in order to improve any elements that perhaps went wrong or could be improved upon so that we can increase the strength of our games.

The most important thing for us is to develop a game that has a very high quality and feels complete. On top of that, we listen to everybody's views to decide how to improve each system.

HB: This change has been decided in accordance to the story, the way the game's world is set up. Let's take the example of the Swordians in Tales Of Destiny. You do not have a battle system, then a weapons system on based on that, you have ideas that were born based on the characters and traits of each world. There are a lot of RPGs where when you reach a new town during your adventure, there will be weapons with better stats for sale compared to the last town. We believed that strengthening your weapons in a similar way to strengthening your character would be more fun for this game as it gives your weapon a feel importance as it travels with your character.

AR: Will there be extra content included in Hearts?

HB: Of course, there are a lot of extra features! We believe that a lot of extra content should be included to increase replayability as this is one of the key features that now defines the 'Tales of' series.

AR: In Hearts' credits it shows some "Team Destiny" members took a leading role in the game. Can we expect the other leads of "Team Destiny" to work on another game (like the announced Wii one)?

HB: We cannot disclose any information about upcoming games but we do have every intention of continuing the "Tales of" series…

AR: How did the designers handle the qualities of the DS? How were sprites designed with the DS' screen size in mind? And how were the battle flow and controls designed with the DS' buttons and touch screen in mind?

HB: How best to utilise the various DS features was something we looked at right from the start of development. An RPG is designed for the purpose of playing for many hours, therefore we had to think how to best balance out the touch-screen and button usage, eventually coming up with the current connect panel system for during battles. A trait of the 'Tales of' series is its real-time battle system, so to create a control system with no stress was our highest priority.

Also, to make it so that the touch-screen controls can easily be accessed using your thumb we made the panels on the lower screen larger than normal.

AR: Tempest and Innocence both used 3D battle systems, yet Hearts goes back to the traditional 2D approach. Does the 2D style still have a strong future, or will 3D be the way forward from now on?

HB: If you follow the history of the 'Tales of' series you will trace it back to the 2D game 'Tales of Phantasia'. This is where the 'Tales of' series began and subsequently evolved from. Following this, starting with 'Tales of Symphonia', we challenged ourselves to create a 3D version for the series. Now we intend to continue both the 2D 'Tales of' games and 3D 'Tales of' games as well. The 2D games' dot pictures provide ways of expressing ideas that 3D simply cannot do, and conversely 3D can convey things that 2D cannot - so both will be equally important in future versions of the game!

AR: Hearts is the first new 'Tales Studio' handheld game. Considering how popular handhelds are in Japan, will we see more original content from that team in the future on DS or PSP?

HB: I cannot comment specifically, but a large user base indicates a large variety within the audience, so we are always looking at new ways of creating a new game that expresses new ideas.

AR: On the ToH blog it states that with the "birth" of Hearts the team said they wanted to "bring Tales of Destiny Remake onto the DS platform". Can this comment be clarified, please?

HB: Out of all the 2D 'Tales of' games we believe 'Tales of Destiny' feels the most complete and so to try and make a 2D game of the highest calibre, we decided to set ourselves the target of making a game that feels equally as complete, if not more than that of 'Tales of Destiny'.

AR: The Tales of Abyss anime has been a great success in Japan so far. Are there plans to make a Tales of Hearts anime show eventually? Also, to take advantage of Abyss' popularity, would you ever consider either a remake of it on Wii, or even a sequel?

HB: At this current stage in time there are no plans for such an idea. However, there are many more elements of the game that we would like the challenge of adding in, so after considering the timing of projects, it may actually be a possibility!