Collection essentials #507: Tales of Rebirth (PS2)

Just because Tales of Symphonia was in full 3D and on the GameCube doesn’t necessarily mean that such trends would be the entire future of Tales. Indeed, the next entry would be another PS2 exclusive, and be another one with mostly 2D graphics.

Tales of Rebirth tells a story that is largely about racism. This topic had been touched upon a bit in the previous entry, Symphonia, but they decided to take it to another level this time. The game features two primary races, the “Human” (which are basically normal humans) and the “Gajuma” (who are like humanoid anthropomorphized versions of various animals). Sometimes Huma and Gajuma get along, but there are various times and places where this has not been the case.

The game starts with an anime cutscene portraying the death of a king, who in his final moments unleashes a power which causes various Huma in the world to gain the power of “Force”, which…actually, come to think of it, sort of does resemble “The Force” from Star Wars a little bit. Although Force in this game typically manifests in a more specific ability, such as the main character Veigue who has ice powers. At the start of the game, Veigue’s ice Force goes out of control upon awakening, and he accidentally freezes his best friend, a girl named Claire. A Gajuma named Eugene and a Human named Mao help him to free Claire, but shortly afterward Claire is taken away by a royal army searching for beautiful Huma girls, giving the motivation for our heroes to set off for adventure. Since this is spoiler-free, that’s all I can really say, but trust me when I say the topic of racism and tense race relations plays a big role.

Tales of Rebirth is a more serious Tales game than normal. The Tales games often include humorous characters and all kinds of silly frivolous moments and jokes which are lots of fun. Rebirth certainly does have its lighthearted moments and occasional humor, but it’s toned down quite a bit, which leads me to think that the developers really wanted to tell more of a serious story with an anti-racism message. And I think they pulled that off very well.

As per usual, Tales of Rebirth’s battles feature real-time combat. But they did something fundamentally different with it this time that wasn’t done before nor since. Though the game is 2D, battles take place across three parallel “planes” which characters can freely move between. You can strike an enemy in front of you on the same plane with a basic attack, but if they’re on the plane above or below, they won’t be in front of you and thus you’ll have to move up or down to wherever they’re at to whack them. Although there are some techniques, particularly magic spells, that can impact multiple planes at once. Because of this plane system, jumping is removed, so this really feels much different than regular Tales combat. There are some other notable mechanics at work as well, such as a “heat-up” system where your characters will deal more damage the more they fight, but that also means they TAKE more damage, so if you’re concerned about damage then you can spend a few seconds to “cool down” away from the action.

I have played through Tales of Rebirth twice. It was another one of the games I sought out soon after acquiring a Japanese PS2, and I beat it sometime in the late 2000s in my older teen years, using a translation guide from Gamefaqs which provided the main story script in English (but sadly not the skits). The second time was quite recently, as less than a year ago the game received a full fan-made English patch on its 20th anniversary, and I just had to dig right in.

I liked Tales of Rebirth a lot back in the day, and I was happy to find that the game lived up to my memories upon the second playthrough as an adult. The story isn’t perfect, but is consistently interesting and entertaining in how it deals with topics of racism. Eugene stood out to me as a particularly great and well-written character. He is a panther Gajuma and therefore is often on the receiving end of prejudice, but realizes that the best way to combat it usually is not by reacting with anger and force in his particular circumstances, and I greatly enjoyed seeing that unfold throughout the course of the game. 

There’s also one particular animated cutscene midway through the game that is well-known among fans which is incredibly well-done and touching, and it’s one of my favorite RPG cutscenes of all-time. Revealing the details would involve spoilers, so I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to say about it.

It’s a real shame that Tales of Rebirth didn’t get an English localization even after the success of Symphonia back in the day, nor has it received any kind of modern remake or remaster. But the fan translation is a tremendous gift, and I highly encourage any of you who might be curious to try it out, especially if you’re a fan of the series. It’s an outstanding entry in a great series, and a no-doubt essential in my collection.