テイルズオブリバース (Tales of Rebirth) REVIEW

Tales of Rebirth is the 6th game in the "Tales of" series which released on December 16th, 2004. The game was only released in Japan and sadly was never translated. For those who don't know, the Tales series is a series of anime inspired RPG games that play quite differently than your average RPG. When Namco first released Tales of Phantasia on the SNES they took a different approach on how an RPG can be played. In the Tales series, like many other RPG games you traverse a world map, visit towns explore dungeons, engage in battles against all sorts of creatures, get deeply involved in the story, and continuously upgrade your character or characters. What makes the Tales series so different than your average RPG is the way battles are carried out. Battles are real time, and are very fast paced. Rather than selecting which attacks you want to use then watch as your characters execute them you instead control every action of your character as if you were playing an strategic beat em up.


*GAMEPLAY

Tales of Rebirth is one of the most enjoyable Tales game I've played so far. Battles are fast paced, and require the player to pay attention to the battle and not just mash O to victory. In battle (battles occur at random) every character has the ability to block with the square button, use normal attacks with the O button, and use special attacks ("Force") with the X button. You will learn new "force" attacks as you play through the game and can assign up to four "force" attacks to each character at a time. Pressing any direction plus the X button will execute the "force" attack assigned to that specific button, pressing  the X button by itself will execute a random "force" that you've assigned to your character. The world map in Tales of Rebirth isn't very astonishing, it's not bad but it's not exactly great. Some areas just feel rather plain. When on the world map the game changes from it's original 2D sprites to 3D character models and backgrounds.

                          Just imagine going from this to the blocky looking characters seen
                          In Tales of Legendia every time you leave town.

 *STORY

 Tales of Rebirth has an interesting fairy tale like story. Veigue (The silver hair main character wielding a sword) Force goes out of control, Veigue just so happens to be around Claire his childhood friend when this happens. Veigue freezes Claire in ice for over a year, then once Claire is finally free, she gets abducted and taken away from Veigue once again. Veigue immediately goes on a journey to rescue Claire and finds out that Claire isn't the only girl who has been taken away, and that other girls from around the country are also being kidnapped. The queen who happens to be a "Gajuma" (A "Gajuma" is a beast like creature, stronger than your average "Huma" or human but essentially the same) is looking for a "Huma" girl more beautiful than herself to switch bodies with to gain attention from a "Huma" she's known since childhood.

*MUSIC
The music in Tales of Rebirth is probably some of  さくらばもといの(Motoi Sakuraba's) best work. I still think Motoi Sakuraba's best soundtrack is the soundtrack for Tales of Vesperia, but the soundtrack for Tales of Rebirth is a close second. Every song just fits the mood perfectly, moments of intense action, moments of sorrow, mysterious moments, and even playful silly moments. Every song is a great piece of work and does not fall short from Motoi Sakuraba's previous and current work.

*OVERVIEW
Tales of Rebirth is a great game it's my second favorite in the series that I've played so far, it's a real shame that this game did not receive any translation in any form. I personally think that this game would have sold better than Tales of Symphonia did if it was to receive an English translation. The graphics and art style are great, the music is amazing, sound effects are superb, and the overall game play is challenging and very enjoyable. There was not a single moment in this fifty hour adventure that I grew tired of playing this game. In fact I already have plans to play through this game a second time. I highly recommend this game to anyone who is looking for a new game to play on their PS2. It's affordable and you get much more content than your money is worth.





I hope everyone enjoyed and found this review helpful in making their decision to purchase the game. If so, then look forward to my next review of テイルズオブデステニー 2 (Tales of Destiny 2).