You may have noticed there's been a lull since our last post on Tales Union. Due to a number of behind-the-scenes stuff regarding GamingUnion.net and other IRL matters I was unable to post headlines up. That's finished for the most part so normal posting should resume again, but before that we'll be doing a quick roundup of the news that broke since our last posting.

According to Namco Bandai the R in the title means "re-imagining", not remake like some had previously thought. Tales of Innocence R will include a revised game theme, a new battle system and a new gameplay system alongside a new opening movie.

The scan to the left reveals that Kohak and Hisui Hearts from Tales of Hearts will be the game's team cameo battle opponents (with Milla Maxwell from Tales of Xillia being previously revealed as the singles cameo battle opponent). Two more Mystic Arte cut-ins, this time coming from some of the game's antagonists, are also visible in the scan along with DLC attachments for Sony's two cat mascots Toro and Kuro. Finally the scan reveals that extra costumes can be unlocked once the player plays through the game a second time.

In other DLC news, Namco Bandai has revealed that school-themed DLC costumes will be released on February 2 for a discounted ¥250 until March 31 when it goes back up to ¥300. They wil be accompanied by ¥100 DLC attachments which effectively give the game's characters "bed head" hair as if they just woke up.



What will interest most people, however, is the images that leaked online shortly after the game's release. In the pre-order bonus skit for the game, characters from Tales of Hearts and Tales of the Tempest remarked about how they wanted their own remake in the vein of Tales of Innocence R.

As can be seen in the above screenshots there's an image from the game's ending which hints at another R-style remake. But images from the game's post-game dungeon appears to indicate that this may be a remake of either Tales of Hearts and/or Tales of the Tempest as artwork from both games can be found in it. There's no official word from Namco Bandai acknowledging any remake so it's not clear yet if this was their purpose behind the images or if they were just cameos.

Finally we also have a new system video which can be seen at the bottom of this headline.

Tales of Innocence R was released on January 26, 2012 in Japan for the PlayStation Vita. No word on a North American or European localization has currently been announced.