Interview | Bandai Namco Talks Tales of Symphonia on Nintendo Wii [news]

Another excellent interview Raz. I am glad that they are putting a lot of thought into ToS2, as well as listenting to fans to see what was popular in ToS and keeping it in ToS2. It's also good that they are not just implmenting motion controls every but just sparingly. It's a shame about ToI though.

Very much looking forward to this game.
Theres much good confirmations there.

Also, while I would prefer a proper overworld map I am very pleased with their honesty;

"At the same time, we were also limited by the production schedule."

Seriously, how many interviews have we heard the lamest of excuses for missing features?
I am glade they had the honesty just to tell us straight.
As long as the rest of the game is good, I dont mind.

I only hope the length and puzzles are as enjoyable as before.
ToS had a puzzle density much higher then most RPGs which is what made me like it so much.
I cant stand RPG's which are just running around fighting in different locations non-stop for the whole game.

I'm pleased Baba-san clarified the matter of the Tales of Abyss rumour...better than the usual 'no comment'.

I wonder just how well ToS: DotNW will do in Japan, since the Tales series has lately been underperforming over there in general. The Tales of Rebirth remake on PSP has bombed terribly in recent weeks and looks to be one of the lowest selling games in the franchise. Tales of Innocence, on the flip side, is nearly the biggest selling handheld edition to date...(and yet isn't bloody coming over! :roll

A very honest interview. Well done...
I like it a lot, that this 'salesman' talks so openly about the game and he says a lot of things I look forward to. I think this game will be great! And I like the artwork a lot, a great lot!
It's amazing, that they just took the characters from the opening-anime-intro and put it to ingame-graphics which show limitations of Wii, but are very well done. It makes you kind-of play the anime. Wonderful.

Is there a release date yet? And one for Europe?

Whereas Namco Hometek is bringing it to the US, we'll likely have to wait until Nintendo announces a European/Australian date since Bandai Namco doesn't have official distribution lines in PAL territories.

Good news that the whole crew from the original ToS will be returning in some form. Should keep fans happy!

To be honest, I just noticed they have changed the rendering style a bit.
The old ToS had subtly lines around the charecters didnt it?
Think I prefered that, but no biggy.

Darkflame said:

"At the same time, we were also limited by the production schedule."

Seriously, how many interviews have we heard the lamest of excuses for missing features?

We'll never hear them saying that crap about vesperia.

Darkflame said:
To be honest, I just noticed they have changed the rendering style a bit.
The old ToS had subtly lines around the charecters didnt it?
Think I prefered that, but no biggy.

Seriously, this game is half assed; stupid Namco

jesusraz said:
I'm pleased Baba-san clarified the matter of the Tales of Abyss rumour...better than the usual 'no comment'.

Not that they will, but at least know that we care a lot about it; rather than Abyss.

Abyss port would be a insult too; when they're doing their next big thing elsewhere, what are we? their "biggest hits" console that only gets pre-2005 "best of's"?

"That's also a lame excuse on Namco's behalf;"

Not really.
Its just being honest...they havnt enough time to put the feature in.

From that we can assume they should purhapes set more time/budget to the project, sure.

But its not like "We left it out for your benifit", which we get from a lot of developers being interviewed.
(advanced wars comes to mind)

"Most likely because they ported the Abyss engine for the flex range and all that rather than use and upgraded ToS GC engine."

Dont think so.
Using the GC engine would be the cheaper, faster option for them. Even an upgraded one.

Really, they can just smack the whole ToS source code, and start changing assets and scriptings straight away for the new game.
Adding the code for the elemental battles and such probably isnt more effort then porting the other engine to the Wii.

If they are on a restrictive budget this is the option they will probably be going for.

The look is probably some lame marketing reason (charecters looking with these preportions are more appealing), or maybe they just prefer it.

As I said, I dont really mind.
As long as the puzzles and humour is still there.
If the game is just, like lots of RPGs, a big charecter-battle loop, then I'll give it a miss.

Darkflame said:

Not really.
Its just being honest...they havnt enough time to put the feature in.

From that we can assume they should purhapes set more time/budget to the project, sure.

But its not like "We left it out for your benifit", which we get from a lot of developers being interviewed.
(advanced wars comes to mind)

At the same time, we were also limited by the production schedule. Overall, we felt that the new, more compact interface would allow the game to flow between story-telling and battles much smoother, creating a much better experience on for our players.

So they said the truth and then tried to mask it.

Darkflame said:

Dont think so.
Using the GC engine would be the cheaper, faster option for them. Even an upgraded one.

Really, they can just smack the whole ToS source code, and start changing assets and scriptings straight away for the new game.
Adding the code for the elemental battles and such probably isnt more effort then porting the other engine to the Wii.

Darkflame said:

If they are on a restrictive budget this is the option they will probably be going for.

If we lead, actually sell in japan and they don't use the excuse "it's for PS3 because we started development beforehand"... we are preferential, not X360 by a thousand miles.

We are getting the short end of the stick on this one, and we could be getting both and they weren't doing us a favor.

X360? that's a joke

Darkflame said:

As I said, I dont really mind.
As long as the puzzles and humour is still there.
If the game is just, like lots of RPGs, a big charecter-battle loop, then I'll give it a miss.

jesusraz said:

Tales of Innocence, on the flip side, is nearly the biggest selling handheld edition to date...(and yet isn't bloody coming over! :roll