C3 Exclusive Interview | Bandai Namco Talks Tales of Innocence on Nintendo DS

Hideo Baba-san, Producer of Tales of Innocence: It took about one year and nine months to complete. We are more than satisfied with the high-quality finished form, the features and the contents of this title. This is all because our team's uncompromised challenges to fully utilise the DS specifications to express our 'Tales of' series as much as we could.

C3: What was the reason for working with Alfa System for Innocence, instead of Dimps again, like with Tales of the Tempest?

HB: We think the most important factor when designating a developer is to know whether it retains staff members who deeply understand the world view and game contents of the 'Tales of' franchise. Alfa System has already had experiences in developing some of the Tales games, such as the 'Tales of the World' dungeon series [ that appeared on the Game Boy line of portables ] and 'Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology' on the PSP. In addition, they have a good understanding about the 'Tales of' series' system and its concepts. We had no doubt about the quality of their products, therefore, we asked Alfa System to develop this title.

C3: Innocence currently has the most attractive graphics of any DS game, plus far more high quality speech. What were some of the challenges faced by the team when trying to push the DS system so hard? Were any sacrifices made?

HB: Whenever we develop a game, we face many challenges. However, for this title, our project members had kept incredibly motivated during the whole development period, which led to the success of the title. Therefore, we don't have much to mention about 'sacrifices', but if technically allowed, we wanted to add more voice data. Since voice data takes up a large amount of memory, though, we couldn't include as much voice data as we wanted. However, we believe that what we have done with this title is still far greater than any other DS game and that users will enjoy the voice chatting amongst the characters.

C3: Have any major lessons been learned from the last Tales DS project that have made Innocence a better game? And how does Innocence make use of the Nintendo DS features, such as the dual-screen, touch input and Wi-Fi?

HB: We tried many things in the previous game, Tales of the Tempest, the first in the Tales series for DS, and obtained much knowledge and experience that we have taken advantage of whilst developing Tales of Innocence. We did our best and exercised our ingenuity in putting an abundant of voice data into it during the battles, as well as into the story wherever possible, making an exhilarating battle system, and setting online co-op play, and so on and so forth. We believe we did all we could do at this time. Also, taking advantage of the primary characteristics of the DS specifications, the wireless play for dungeons has really good playability and we believe all users find this feature enjoyable.

C3: People have previously shown concern about the AI of the computer-controlled members of your team in battles, stating the members do not in as intelligently as expected. How has this aspect been improved in Innocence?

HB: First, please let it be noted that this title has more kinds of "strategies" that users can create. The player uses AI by following a certain process; 1.) Select the primary commands for each character; 2.) Select the battle formation to decide which position you will start a battle; 3.) More blow-by-blow operation settings can be assigned by using the system called "Primary Command". As is seen in the process mentioned, it is possible to strategically designate many kinds of actions to AI.

C3: The battle system has been described as using the 'Dimensional Stride Linear Motion' approach. Can you describe how this differs from the standard Linear Battle Motion found in games like Phantasia?

HB: The battle system of this title is a completely new one that blends the Flex Range Linear Motion Battle System of 'Tales of the Abyss' and the Air Real Linear Motion Battle System of 'Tales of Destiny 2', which allows a player to move around the battle field freely and carry out combination attacks whilst in the air.

C3: How long is the main game and what extras can players expect to help extend the game?

HB: Our expected play time is 30-hours. However, players can enjoy it for longer, say around 60-hours, if they enjoy more quests in the game without getting bored.

C3: The Guild system is something new for the main series, but has been seen in the Tales of the World franchise. What made you decide to incorporate the feature into the main series for this game?

HB: We incorporated the Guild system, which was also in 'Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology', in order to add a fresh dimension to the playing value of the game. We believe that this title as an RPG should contain not only a great storyline to attract users but also entertainment elements as a "game".

C3: For those unaware, just what sort of effort has to go into translating a game such as Tales of Innocence with its massive script and large amount of speech?

HB: We know much about the difficulties in the localisation process as we always try to express the original Japanese words with the same meaning in other languages. The Japanese tend to use euphemistic phrases, but this isn't always the case in other languages. This is just an example and there are so many other difficulties in the localisation process, such as how there might be a chance that the in-game characters' appearances differ largely depending on the way a game is localised.

Moreover, in Japan, we cast the voice actors/actresses to match each character's personalities. Being a voice actor/actress is one of the hot occupations amongst young people here. However, in other territories where the situation is different, we have certain challenges to find actors/actresses as good as those in Japan. But we believe that so far we could cast very qualified actors/actresses in the Western versions of the Tales series.

C3: Tales of Symphonia: Knights of Ratatoskr has already been revealed for Wii. How far has this game progressed and do you have a release date in mind for it yet?

HB: It is scheduled to be released in Spring 2008 in Japan and currently under development. ToS was one of the most popular Tales series in European territories, so we would like you to stay tuned and look forward to it!

C3: Square Enix has already unveiled a new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles game for Nintendo's WiiWare service. Would you consider bringing any 'Tales of' games to this service - either a new version or perhaps even a remake of a classic Tales?

HB: It might be interesting! We don't have any specific plans at this point but if there is a big request from the market, the possibility might definitely arise.

C3: Considering Tales of Phantasia has been brought to both the PSone and GBA, will Bandai Namco still release the original SNES edition on Virtual Console? And if yes, with a translated script now available, does this increase the chances of it coming to the Western VC service as well?

HB: We don't deny the possibility of this happening, but so far we have no plans to do so.

C3: Finally, it has been mentioned in the past that the Tales Studio will be doing a non-Tales game at some point. Is this something that will still happen or have plans been cancelled?

HB: We always bear in mind multiple strategies as a part of our long-term view. We can't announce to you when and how it will be put into practice now, but we will try someday with the spirit of new challenge!