Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Creators Talk Translation & Commentary (Sample)

Asalam aleikoum how's it going. Bandai Namco published on December 15, 2025, a "Creators Talk" video for the Tales of Series' 30th anniversary. The first game of the series, Tales of Phantasia, was released on that day in 1995.

Back in 2020, Bandai Namco published a similar creator talk video for the 25th anniversary. Official English subs were published after a few months IIRC. This 30th anniversary talk should get an official translation at some point as well.

As such, instead of a simply offering a translation, I tried to include as many comments and analysis as possible to make this worthwhile. This is only a sample though, and the full article (6500 words) is available for tier 2 subs on Ko-fi.

This was a prerecorded talk show, so it felt at times even more artificial than the usual Japanese live stream. It also felt a bit weird at certain moments, like if Bamco higher-ups told the devs to sugarcoat history, most notably regarding Xillia and Zestiria. We already know Zestiria's development in particular must have been chaotic seeing how badly the game initially ran in its original Japanese PS3 version, or the fact that producer Baba Hideo left his role and the company altogether after the game's release.

I'm not that big of a Tales of nerd compared to stuff like Super Robot Wars or Pretty Rhythm, so I haven't read/translated that many interviews of the developers in the past. As such, sometimes I'm not really sure which of the anecdotes they shared on the talk show were brand new and which were already mentioned in past interviews. I think the most interesting parts were regarding who wrote Patty's backstory, confirmation that Xillia 1&2 should have been a single game, how they cast the seiyuu, the battle systems talk, and the questions from overseas fans.

I remember there are some details in the 25th anniversary talk show I only noticed thanks to one of my favorite French streamers, Bejito, pointing them out. He's the most knowledgeable person in france when it comes to Tales of, Falcom, and Monolith Soft.

Bejito most notably did a really good video retracing the developments of Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean 1, recheking/retranslating sources instead of reading some wikis. You should check out his Twitch streams if you speak french. I don't really interact with Tales of fans besides hanging out on his streams. I also recommend Rin Kiri's channel.

Anyway, in the Japanese talk show, Tomizawa also shared a few comments regarding remasters. His comments were slightly different from the English message video. I already translated that in a separate article.

“We Wish To Localize Tales Of Games That Never Left Japan.” Tales of Producer Teases More Remasters on 30th Anniversary Talk Show

We translated a part of the Tales of 30th anniversary talk show with series general producer Tomizawa Yusuke.

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Like I said in that article, I sadly don't expect anything, maybe Abyss at best since there's Luke on the 30th anniversary key visual. I don't think Bandai Namco actually care about Tales of that much nowadays. And it was a shock to see the Tales of Phantasia PS1 fan-translated footage in that English 30th anniversary video. (The video was reuploaded later to remove the footage.)

It's a really cool idea for a video, visiting the studios and meeting the JP staff, etc. But when you think about how that footage could end up in the video, things are really grim. This means no one in Bandai Namco Japan double-checked the video enough to notice. When usually, Japanese companies are really stuck up about this kind of stuff. (and sadly, sometimes even Japanese otaku are stuck up too, defending game companies like if it's their mom).

It could also be that the video's editor at Bandai Namco America didn't know it's not official. But if they're young it's not like I can blame them for assuming that surely the remake of the first game in the series must have been released officially in English.

Anyway.

Intro

The talk show was MCed by games journalist Kushida Namuko, who was also the MC for the 25th anniversary talk show. Coincidentally December 15 is her birthday.

The 25th anniversary creator talk focused on the first game of the series like Phantasia, Eternia, and the origins of the series, with some of the original developers as guests.

So this time, the talk show focused on the latest games of the series, Xillia 1&2, Zestiria, Berseria, Arise, with the recent directors and developers of the series as guests. Most of them played the early games like Phantasia as teenagers and joined the development team in the early 2000s.

The talks show focused on several themes: writing stories, making characters, seiyuu casting, battle systems, OSTs, answering questions from non-japanese fans gathered beforehand.

The guests each introduced themselves by sharing their recent roles on the series, and their favorite Artes.

General producer Tomizawa. Introducing himself, Tomizawa thanked the fans for their support. He also mentioned how he rewatched the 25th talk show right before this recording. He shouted out the "legends" who originally developed the Tales of series and how it was an honor to interview them 5 years ago. His favorite Arte is Shishisenkou (I hate calling it "Beast").

Anabuki Kenji. Xillia battle director, Xillia 2 director, Arise DLC dungeon director. His favorite Arte/Magic is Yuuri's Ghost Wolf.

Iwamoto Minoru. Art director and one of the character designers on Zestiria, Berseria. Sole chara designer on Arise, Arise DLC. Favorite Arte is Tiger Blade.

Tanaka Yoshimasa. He mentioned that December 15 is also his birthday. He was lead game designer on Xillia, director on Berseria, development producer on Arise. Favorite Arte is Loni's Cyclone Shot.

Uematsu Hiroki. UI Sound game designer for all games from Xillia 1 to Berseria. Sound Coordinator on Arise. Favorite Arte is Rapido's Gale Dog.

Kagawa Hirokazu. Battle programmer on Graces, Vesperia, Berseria. Director on Arise. Favorite Arte / Magic is Blue Earth.

Theme 1 - Story

Did Xillia's story come first, or its "double protagonists" concept come first?

Xillia was initially planned by the Hearts team, who was later joined by the Vesperia team. They didn't plan to have two protagonists at first. But pretty early on, Bandai Namco Games producers at the time ordered them to do it, in order to make something truly original for the 15th anniversary of the series.

Anabuki said that he was on the Vesperia team, and when he joined the Xillia team as battle director, the double protags concept was already decided, so he tried his best to include some cool systems and Artes that would feature Milla and Jude together.

(So the story came first. I assume they were already done drafting the story when adding the double protag concept. That's why the game barely changes whether you pick Milla or Jude. So it kinda feels weird hearing them talk about the double protags thing with such praise lol. It felt so bad when the Xillia 1 remaster trailer tried to sell the protag choice as a huge thing lol.)

When did you decide to make Xillia 2?

Tanaka said that he can't go into details, but it was decided mid-development when making Xillia 1. He mentioned there were a lot of "circumstances" back then. And while Xillia 1 ultimately only released on PS3, they were thinking mid-development about what to do sales strategy-wise, if they should try releasing it on Xbox and/or Wii too. That's around when they decided to do a sequel.

Anabuki said they thought about making two games Xillia quite early, and he remembers excitedly thinking "we'll get to work on a Xillia 2 too" when working on 1. He was also wondering how the development team would change from Xillia 1 to 2, feeling both excited and anxious. To show his enthusiasm and make sure he's the battle director on 2 too, he tried negotiating directly with the higher-ups at the time, and thanks to that he ended up getting an even bigger position and became Xillia 2's director.

Anabuki also explained it can be difficult to make a sequel. How the world of Xillia was made specifically to tell Xillia 1's story, so making a sequel fit inside it required a lot of work. That's why they decided to go for "what if" scenarios instead, with stuff like "what if Alvin and Presa's romance worked out".

(They're pretty much admitting that Xillia 1 and 2 are the same game that got split in two due to development issues. They knew right away Xillia 1 would feel lackluster compared to the past of the series. They knew they had to do another game to make it a complete experience).

That's all for the sample. Full article on Ko-fi.