Following on from the recently released PS3 exclusive Tales of Zestiria, Bandai Namco are keen to update the Tales series and bring it onto next-gen hardware. As such they have announced Tales of Berseria for PS4 and PS3.
The game will also be a first for the series, as it will feature a female protagonist. Called Velvet she appears to be a pirate and will also be voiced by the fan favorite Rina Satou.
In addition to this the character design will again be penned by Mutsumi Inomata so that should at least appease most Tales fans, especially as she has defined the visual style of these games since Tales of Destiny.
While there is no word of a release date for the game, it’s interesting to see that Bandai Namco are beginning to produce more games for consoles like the PS4.
The Tales games have never been huge sellers either but their development budgets have never required it. They fit nicely at the mid-range of game budgets, though in this case Berseria might be at the upper end of that.
As well as this announcement, Bandai Namco also revealed a Tales series art exhibit. The exhibit will celebrate the 20th anniversary of the franchise and will be held at the Akihabara UDX building in Tokyo from August 7th to 23rd.
With a new Persona game on the way and Star Ocean getting a new entry too, it’s nice to see that Japanese role-playing games are still alive and well. It wasn’t that long ago when much of the Western press was claiming them to be dead, it’s fairly obvious now that that was rather presumptuous.
What with the Western release of Zestiria expected later this year, it’s clear Bandai Namco are keen to keep some momentum with the Tales series and Berseria looks like a step in the right direction.
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