Tales of Rebirth, a tri-linear journey to acceptance
Developer: Namco Tales Studio - Team Destiny
Publisher: Namco
Directors: Akiyoshi Sarukawa (Ehrgeiz), Kiyoshi Nagai (Tales of Symphonia), Eiji Kikuchi (Telnet veteran who, alongside Gotanda, created the Tales franchise and ended up as a minority stakeholder in Namco Tales Studio until it was absorbed by the main company)
Scenario writer: Masaki Hiramatsu (Arc the Lad III, later on Tales of Symphonia DotNW, Tales of Berseria, Tales of Arise)
Soundtrack: Motoi Sakuraba
Character designer: Mutsumi Inomata (Surging Aura, Tales of Destiny, Tales of Eternia)
Combat designer: Tatsuro Udo
Genre: Action JRPG
Story progression: Linear, with a number of optional side events and mini games
Country: Japan
Platform: PS2, PSP
Release date: 16\12\2004 (PS2, Japan-only), 19\3\2008 (PSP, Japan-only)
Status: Played the PS2 version using Spekio’s script around late 2005, then completed the game using Life Bottle Productions’ English patch on 14\8\2025
Back in december 2004, the world of videogame RPGs was a very different place, where many franchises now considered as storied classics were still relatively fresh and had yet to see their narrative, ludic or artistic identity coalesce into what we currently associate with them.
This was true, for instance, for Namco’s Tales action-JRPG series which, back then, still hadn’t celebrated its first decade and yet had recently undergone a series of relevant changes, with its developer, Namco Tales Studio, being split into two different teams and Tales of Rebirth, its sixth entry and the focus of this retrospective, trying to keep the series’ original 2D style relevant after Tales of Symphonia had reintroduced the world to the franchise while switching to a 3D presentation and combat system.
A few years before, after Tales of Destiny 2’s PS2 release (not to be confused with Tales of Eternia’s PS1 North American release, renamed as Tales of Destiny II), Telenet’s storied Wolfteam, which had developed the Tales series since the days of Tales of Phantasia on Super Famicom, had transitioned to Namco-controlled Namco Tales Studio and split its development efforts into two separate teams, despite the company’s key figures still overseeing both, forming what will later be known as Team Symphonia (which had a majority of new staffers) and Team Destiny (featuring many veteran Tales developers), with both teams being ultimately reunited to develop Tales of Xillia later on and then merged with Namco when Namco Tales Studio ceased to exist in November 2011.
Roughly speaking, the games those teams ended up developing had a number of key differences which ended up polarizing part of the fanbase: Team Symphonia ended up producing 3D entries with special moves linked to TP consumption, Tales of Phantasia and Sakura Taisen’s Fujishima as character designer and its signature optional conversations, skits, being based on boxed portraits like in Phantasia PS1 and Eternia, while Team Destiny kept the series’ old identity alive by specializing in 2D games, with the late Inomata and her gorgeous watercolor shoujo-style art for their characters, a different, stamina or cooldown-based take on action economy in their combat system and larger, visual novel-like artworks for their skits, later extending those sensibilities to the 3D space with Tales of Graces f.
This contrast was immediately apparent with the teams’ first releases: with Tales of Symphonia introducing 3D to the Tales series and having by far the best production values in the franchise up to that point, quickly becoming the best selling Tales game in the West with its Game Cube release and one of that platforms’ stand-out titles, Tales of Rebirth had an uphill battle of sorts to fight when it was released on PS2 just one year later, in December 2004.
Not only was it almost completely developed in 2D, aside from its world map and a number of graphical assets, but it was also a fairly unconventional effort in a number of ways, choosing a more intimate take on some of the series’ traditional themes by mixing tragic love and the struggle with one’s identity to the ethnic strife already featured in Eternia and Symphonia itself.
While nowadays the videogame audience has mostly passed the phase of rejecting 2D games as outdated relics, a stance that has proved to be as short-sighted as many of us advocating for the coexistance of 2D and 3D art directions and gameplay knew even back then, when Rebirth was released rumors had its 2D presentation was one of the main reasons it, like Tales of Destiny 2 some years before and Destiny Remake later on, ended up not being released outside Japan, whether because of Sony Computer Entertainment of America’s anti-2D policy or because Namco itself felt the game would end up lessening the perception of their franchise if they ended up releasing it right after Symphonia.
Then again, despite a number of exceptions and inconsistencies that shows how SCEA could be more flexible depending on the companies, games and timeframe (like with Atlus USA’s PS1 output or NIS America’s PS2 one, for instance), the situation with its hostility to what they perceived as “cheap” 2D games is fairly well documented, with Konami having to threaten to skip publishing Metal Gear Solid in North America in order to get SCEA to approve Symphony of the Night’s Western PS1 release (which was as crazy as it sounds), Capcom allegedly doing the same with Resident Evil 2 in order to have SCEA greenlit Megaman 8, SNK beat’em ups still having their own issues in getting approved in 2004 or, in the JRPG space, Sony itself skipping Arc the Lad’s localization and forcing Working Designs to publish the whole PS1 trilogy in a single package, something that happened again soon after when Victor Ireland’s crew had to release Growlanser II and III in the same set instead of having separate SKUs, causing the closure of that company. Sometimes, even having collection releases with multiple titles wouldn’t necessary save you, given how SCEA refused to allow Sakura Taisen 1+2 on PSP, ultimately dooming that project.
Be it as it may, Tales of Rebirth ended up staying in Japan both when it was originally released on PS2 and also four years later, when Namco re-released it on PSP. Unfazed, the Tales fanbase, bolstered by the new blood who got to know the series thanks to Symphonia’s smashing success, took matters into its own hands, with Spekio producing an English script in 2005 that helped yours truly giving Rebirth a chance, Lanyn delivering an expanded version later on and a number of fans from different countries trying to work on a proper multi-language fantranslation patching effort around 2013, a project that unfortunately went nowhere but still likely inspired the awesome people at Life Bottle Productions, which finally delivered an incredibly polished English patch in December 2024, twenty years after its original debut.
Set in the kingdom of Callegia, Tales of Rebirth’s story, penned by Masaki Hiramatsu, follows the adventure of young Veigue, a stoic swordman awakened to the magical power of Ice after a cataclysmic event caused by the late king Ladras for unknown reasons. Being initially unable to control his powers, Veigue encases his childhood friend Claire into an ice pillar, and it’s only after one year of painful wait that two mysterious travellers help him turn her back to normal, only for a group of royal enforcers to immediatley kidnap the poor lady, kickstarting a long journey that will see Veigue and his friends discover the mysteries of their world.
On a narrative level, the allies that will join Veigue during his quest form a varied group that, despite a number of inner conflicts, is able to sinergize well in different contexts, from casual banter and hilarious skits to dramatic events and showdowns focused on each character’s own arc, with the skits, the series’ abovementioned optional conversations activated by pressing Select during the explorations, being absolutely vital for their characterization and for fleshing out Tales of Rebirth’s own setting and its main story events. Skits are quite plentiful, too, with the game having no qualms throwing a dozen new ones at the player after major plot developments, often providing a wide variety of tones depending on the involved characters, with young Fire user Mao and brash, idealistic Tytree consistently being two highlights throughout the game.
Compared with other Tales games, Rebirth is kinda unique because its own protagonist is so cold and reserved he doesn’t even try filling the shoes of shounen heroes like Tales of Phantasia’s Cless or Destiny’s Stahn, let alone Eternia’s Reid or Symphonia’s Lloyd, which means the rest of the cast has to compensate in a number of interesting ways, which again is a trait of Hiramatsu’s scenarios given how Tales of Arise’s Alphen, many years later, will also end up feeling a bit unconventional for the franchise’s standard. There’s also a dreamlike quality about Rebirth’s tone that sometimes make it seem much more akin to a repurposed Eastern legend, rather than the usual Tales shounen epic, a trait that is conveyed to the player since the very beginning through the game’s own melancholic opening, Good Night by Every Little Thing, which is still one of my favorites in this series twenty years after I first experienced it.
Speaking of recurring themes, Tales of Rebirth tackles one of the Tales franchise’s recurring plot devices in a rather novel way: since Tales of Phantasia, most entries in the series tried to depict the conflict between different worlds, with Tales of Eternia and its two opposite planets as one of the most obvious examples back then, a theme that was also central to the series’ latest Hiramatsu-penned outing, Tales of Arise.
With Rebirth, on the other hand, Hiramatsu choose to subvert this theme a bit by exploring the way two different peoples, the Huma (regular humans) and Gajuma (humans with a variety of beastlike features), coexist in the same world, including their differences and the way they can give way to segregation, racism and outright conflict between different communities, with each area of the world-spanning Callegian kingdom having its own unique situation in this regard.
Indeed, the variety of its locales is one of Rebirth’s strenghts: not only are its cities positively gorgeous, with their pre-rendered backdrops, 2D parallax background layers and wise use of 3D models making for some delicious vistas that have aged incredibly well and seem even more impressive now than twenty years ago, but many settlements also end up having a distinct social and cultural feel to them.
The kingdom’s capital, for instance, ends up being a sprawling, cosmopolitan city with an almost Victorian feeling, while a mountaintop holy city has males and females unable to talk with people of the opposite sex and, later on, various forms of segregation and prejudices influencing the way your own characters can interact with NPCs, often having to change the on-screen party member in order to be able to deal with shopkeepers or to have a proper conversation with people of different gender or ethnicities, making the player experience firsthand the layers of division and discrimination experienced by Callegia’s people while also providing interesting opportunities for player agency in a “show, don’t tell” way that is seldom featured in JRPGs trying to tackle social divisions.
Cities, including the inner areas of houses and shops, are also positively filled with interactive objects which the player can explore in order to glimpse interesting lore tidbits, making exploration a worthy pursuit for anyone invested in world building. Indeed, this trait ended up changing my own perception of Callegia during my second playthrough with Life Bottle’s patch, as a lot of its history gets referenced this way and ends up complementing nicely the main story, which sometimes can feel a bit lacking in this regard.
It isn’t surprising, then, that Tales of Rebirth also introduced to the series the so-called Discoveries found while exploring its 3D overworld map (which also features the only 3D rendition of the playable characters), a feature that will return in later Tales games like Tales of Graces f, the last game developed by Team Destiny, and Tales of Zestiria, which tried to convey a number of the unique traits fostered by that team despite being developed when Namco Tales Studio had long been absorbed by Namco.
Despite the kingdom of Callegia itself aiming to defuse the potential issues between its different communities and provide a sense of unity, having a Gajuma royal family supported by both ethnicities, including a Huma as the commander of the regular army and a mixed elite force, ultimately this won’t be enough to ward off the coming strife, and the way the game handles the nature of the ethnic struggle between the two different halves of the human race (as the game frames Humas and Gajumas) has been debated for a long time in the Tales fanbase due to the partially supernatural nature of the reciprocal hatred afflicting Humas and Gajumas in this world, which many felt as a tacky choice that partly sabotaged the story’s own themes later on.
While I had a similar impression while originally playing the game by perusing Spekio’s script, I must confess my second go with Rebirth made me rethink my previous take a bit, as the added conversations provide quite a bit of additional context that helps to reframe the world’s situation and its struggles, making it abundantly clear how the magically induced strife in Hiramatsu’s scenario is only a consequence of a pre-existing, simmering conflict that different entities ended up fostering for opposite reasons, which can indeed end up as a rather tired villain trope retooled for Rebirth’s themes but in no way means those issues weren’t originally there or that they were completely exogenous in nature. Even when the story brings those issues some closure, it also implies those struggles may resurface later on if humanity, be it Humas or Gajumas, lose its way yet again.
While obviously Hiramatsu wasn’t interested in providing a commentary about ethnogenesis or competing social identities, nor to pursue those themes’ real world analogues, it’s also interesting to consider how more grounded elements that can be sometimes classified as exogenous, like State-promoted lore, foundation myths or modern day propaganda can indeed foster tribalistic stances in a variety of ways among different cultures, with Rebirth indirectly exploring some of those issues in its own, admittedly simplistic, way.
As an aside, considering the outsized role played in Rebirth’s story by Callegian Queen Agarte and Claire, the abovementioned childhood friend of Veigue (including brief sections where both become controllable, introducing the “Side” system that will later return in a more fleshed-out form in Tales of Destiny Remake), one could argue the theme of racism is also meant to introduce a different subject, namely the issue of personal identity triggered by the conflict between one’s physical form, the way others react to it and their own temperament and character, which also takes a prominent role in the story’s second half where the relationship between body and souls is one of the major plot hooks to bring about character development and look at the game’s broader theme of acceptance from a more personal and intimate angle.
Then again, with Tales of Rebirth it’s the systems, rather than the story, that often take center stage: while Team Destiny’s combat planner, Tatsuro Udo, was still mostly unknown back when the game was released, with his popularity among series fans balooning later on with Destiny Remake and Graces f being widely acclaimed for their combat systems, it’s hard to argue against Rebirth being one of his most imaginative works as a battle designer, even in a series so ripe with extremely well made action-JRPG combat systems such as Tales.
While the series’ traditional Linear Motion Battle System, introduced by Tales of Phantasia back in 1995, had the party fight in instanced 2D, single-plane arenas against the enemies, a pattern that will be reworked in a number of ways over the decades and adapted to a 3D context starting with Tales of Symphonia, Rebirth provides no less than three different planes, or lanes, both characters and monsters can freely transition between, opening up a number of interesting defensive and offensive options, like evading encirclement or baiting mobs in order to use regular Artes as AoE attacks of sorts.
Of course, allowing characters to move in-depth in a 2D side-scrolling backdrop is nothing unusual, but the concept of different, separate lanes you transition to by jumping is a rarer, more nuanced design choice pioneered by titles like SNK’s Fatal Fury franchise (at least until Dominated Mind and Mark of the Wolves did away with that feature, even if the recent City of Wolves has a stage where it’s still available) or, later on, Fill In Cafe’s Panzer Bandit (1997) or, more notably, Treasure’s Guardian Heroes, a Saturn gem that managed to mix side-scrolling beat’em ups and action RPG traits in a remarkable way.
Other than bringing three-lane movements to its instanced 2D fights, Tales of Rebirth’s aptly named Three Linear Motion Battle System also introduces a number of features new to the series, like ditching the Magic Point-style TPs normally used to perform magics and direction-associated special moves (Artes), replaced by a cooldown system that makes it easier to explore different combos and attacks without the limit posed by resource management.
To balance this, Rebirth turns HPs into a more pressing concern compared with most other Tales games, since it doesn’t really feature healing spells (items are still there, thankfully, even if you can only bring a small number with you), linking HP recover to a variety of triggers that can be basically summed up by mastering the combat system itself, blocking or evading enemy attacks, using Artes to build combo strings and staying into the magic circle created by a number of spells. This interesting dichotomy between allowing free Artes usage while making HPs a much more important resource makes Rebirth’s fights tense, interesting affairs where even regular mobs can pose a challenge, especially while exploring long dungeons.
There’s yet another very relevant variable to consider, namely the Rush Gauge, which the player can freely raise or lower in-battle in order to make their character hit harder while also getting more damage or, if the Gauge is at minimum level, having a stronger defence and better HP recovery effects while being less powerful overall, and this isn’t even considering how maxing the Rush Gauge also puts a character into a special state where their attacks are temporarily unblockable.
On the other hand, the series’ signature super moves, which back then were still a relatively new feature, are handled in a rather bizarre way, since they are actually group efforts by couples of characters, triggered automatically after checking a number of parameters, one of which is linked to the enemy’s remaining HPs, meaning they will end up being random flashy finishers rather than a proper part of the combat system you can use to expand the characters’ combo potential.
Also, considering Tales of Graces f was basically the first Tales games where casters were truly fun to control, it’s no surprise Rebirth’s wizards, as powerful and versatile as they can get, aren’t as interesting to use as their martial counterparts, even if Mao’s hybrid toolset can make him viable for a number of different playstyles and Annie is basically mandatory due to her late game resurrection spell and her magic circles, ending up as a very powerful character for those into support roles.
Customization is also quite interesting, as it involves not just the possibility to power up and even combine different weapons and armors, unlocking a variety of hidden abilities, but also the chance to position Artes on the different vertices of each character’s Force Cube, the visual represenation of their inner magical powers. Each vertex has different properties, which can make Artes even more deadly, or provide them a self-healing effect, among plenty of others, meaning there’s some room to further customize each character’s moveset after selecting which four Artes to equip. Rebirth’s takes on Titles, the Tales’ series’ representation of character-specific traits earned during the story or through minigames, are less interesting, since unlocking costumes isn’t really a thing in a 2D game and Ttitles’ effects are cumulative, with the one you actually equip not having any particular effect.
While combat itself can get a bit too frequent since this is one of the last Tales games to use random encounters instead of the symbol enemies introduced by Tales of Symphonia and, in the 2D space, Tales of Destiny Remake, its challenging nature makes it a tense, enjoyable pursuit until the credits roll, not to mention how much of a visual spectacle it often ends up being: not only are character and enemy sprites beautifully drawn and well animated, with enemies also having an impressive variety and some unique takes on the series’ bestiary, but, with enemy parties getting larger later on, battles can become quite hectic and fast paced, giving them an almost arcade feel.
Then again, Tales of Rebirth has the good sense to skip random encounters during its puzzle sequences, which are something its dungeon design is heavily based upon, providing a number of challenges that end up putting each character’s elemental powers to good use.
While some of those puzzles can be intriguing, one feels Namco didn’t explore this design space as much as it could have, considering the vast majority of puzzles rely on a single character’s power instead of having the player use all of them by creating more complex and unique situations. In this regard, the different gimmicks linked with the party’s Force skills aren’t that different compared with the series’ traditional Sorcerer’s Ring, and one could argue Team Destiny’s puzzle design in Tales of Rebirth was actually much simpler compared with what Team Symphonia came up with for Tales of Symphonia’s dungeons. Aside from proper puzzles, the game also employs riddles forcing the player to input words in order to suggest the characters the proper solution to their woes, even if they’re mostly harmless and, from what I’ve been able to gather, some of them can actually be answered in multiple ways.
The game also features plenty of side contents, from the series’ trademark sub events, some of which are timed (though not to the degree later seen in Team Symphonia’s Tales of the Abyss and Tales of Vesperia), to a number of minigames like dodging rafts, serving as a restaurant waiter and the action-focused Dream Force unlocked later on, not to mention an optional dungeon, even if the overall package is still leaner compared with the series’ later outings, or with Symphonia’s staggering amount of contents just one year before.
Overall, back in 2004 just as twenty years later, Tales of Rebirth still feels like a fresh, experimental and nuanced take on the series’ original roots, albeit one doomed since the start due to Symphonia’s success dictating Namco Tales Studio’s priorities for the series’ future. While Tales of Rebirth ended up performing quite well in Japan, with more than 700k copies sold on PS2 and PSP according to Famitsu and Media Create sales data and good performances in other Asian markets like South Korea, where ironically it was published by the same Sony that likely denied it a chance in North America, the idea that the series could only grow by adopting a 3D presentation and combat system had already taken root, and a few years later Tales of the Abyss’ Free Run, allowing 3D movements in battle, will end up completing the transition started by Symphonia.
When the three-lanes system ended up resurfacing later on, with the Dimps-outsourced, ill-fated Tales of the Tempest on Nintendo DS, it ended up being implemented in a far less convincing way, and the overall quality of that entry was such that it ended up being removed from the series’ mainline canon back when Tales games were still divided between mothership and escort games, a distinction that has recently been lifted upgrading all non-crossover efforts to mainline status.
Then again, right after Tales of Rebirth, Team Destiny made a lasting name for itself in JRPG history with Tales of Destiny Remake, which ended up as a more traditional take on 2D combat compared with Rebirth’s three-lanes system, and some of their unique game design choice were actually able to compete with Team Symphonia in the 3D space when their own Tales of Graces f showed how Tatsuro Udo’s talent for rewarding and deep action RPG combat systems could transition quite well to three dimensions, earning him a place in the battle planning of most Tales games developed in the following years.
Still, Veigue’s quest is a great example of how internally diverse the Tales series actually is and how bold some of its systems could get, especially when Namco Tales Studio’s twin teams could develop the franchise’s core traits in wildly different ways while building on each other’s works. Given Rebirth’s quality and how well it aged in a number of ways, one can’t help but think that Namco missed a huge opportunity in ignoring it, alongside most of the series’ older entries, especially with the series currently being in a bizarre limbo of sorts despite Tales of Arise’s success, with no new entries being announced in the last four years and even the latest remasters focusing on PS3 entries like Tales of Graces f and Xillia.
Rebirth is one of my blind spots in the Tales series. Someday I'll give it a go!