This preview includes interview quotes that have been edited for clarity.
The Tales of Series 30th Anniversary Remastered Project, or more commonly referred to as the Tales of Remastered Project, was an initiative launched by Bandai Namco in 2024 to bring the games from its classic Tales of JRPG franchise to the modern age. To date, three titles in the series have been modernised for current-gen consoles – Tales of Graces (2009), Tales of Xillia (2011), and Tales of Berseria (2016).
These projects aren’t just simple graphical upscales either, as each also comes with additional quality-of-life (QoL) features to make them more accessible to the modern gaming audience. Tales of Graces f Remastered, for example, the first of the remastered projects released on 17 January 2025, added objective waypoints, a staple feature of modern games that was intentionally left out in the title’s initial release, so players have a choice between guided and full exploration.
With 17 mainline entries in the franchise, this set of three remasters doesn’t even scratch the surface, not to mention that these current projects are all relatively recent 3D titles. All this is about to change, however, with Tales of Eternia Remastered – the enhanced version of the franchise’s third mainline title, originally released in 2000 for the PlayStation and later in 2006 for the PSP – marking the Tales of Remastered Project’s oldest game to date and also its first 2D title to receive the glow-up.
With the original title initially selling almost 900,000 copies worldwide, and even inspiring a 13-episode anime loosely based on the game’s plot, the 26-year-old title is long overdue for a modern refresh. Following a brief 30-minute hands-on with an early build of the game at Bandai Namco Entertainment’s pre-Tokyo Game Show event at its Tokyo headquarters, it was clear that the Tales of Remastered Project team is continuing its mission to improve accessibility, adding a host of new features to the game to make it easier for new players to jump in, while also not forcing them upon franchise veterans eager to relive the adventure.
The gameplay demo took place in Undine Stream, home of the titular Undine, the Greater Craymel (spirits that are physical manifestations of elements) of water. As main protagonist Reid Hershel and his party of Keele Zeibel, Farah Oersted, and Meredy, players journey on a quest to prevent a cataclysmic event known as the Grand Fall, encountering and making pacts with the Greater Craymel of each element along the way.
At first glance, the remaster seems not all that different from the original game, at least from a graphical standpoint, with only slight upscaling done to make the game more presentable on bigger screens, especially since the original was built for a much older console and handheld systems. The game also offers a system to swap between the original and remaster’s graphics, and even then the differences were hardly noticeable.
Of course, this didn’t mean that the graphical remastering process was a breeze for the team, noted producer Shuhei Tamakoshi during a post-preview Q&A session, where he revealed how the team faced a different set of troubles when trying to bring the oldest title in the franchise yet to modern consoles.
“It’s easier and harder, in some perspectives,” explains Tamakoshi. “The migration from the original PS1 and PSP versions wasn’t too hard, but because this is the oldest title so far, the difficulty came from the way the original game was programmed, alongside other factors like poor data preservation.”
The magic, then, lies in gameplay systems over visual flair. Off the bat, the team has once again added an objective marker to guide players on their quest, one which purists can choose to disable if they wish. That’s just one of the many changes added to the remaster out of a staggering 46 changes and updates, including minor tweaks like subtitle displays during battles or mini-games, to modern staples like an auto-save system or colour deficiency settings.
While the session was not long enough to experience everything new added to the remaster, it did provide ample opportunity to try out its two topline features – Boost Function and High-Speed Auto Mode. These fundamentally change how the game is played and help new players or those embarking on their subsequent playthroughs get through combat faster and easier, so they can focus on enjoying its narrative.
Boost Function, as its name suggests, offers players optional boosts to various gameplay factors. Accessed via the options menu, this mode provides several toggleable settings, most of which can be adjusted at any time, with effects ranging from increasing currency and experience points received (both up to four times the base amount), the ability to reduce or completely eliminate random enemy encounters, or increasing damage dealt by up to five times.
Of course, setting all these to their max values does mean breaking the game altogether, as players would then be able to breeze through enemies without any trouble. Due to this, the Boost Function seems targeted at either newer players unfamiliar with the game’s side-scrolling real-time combat, or advanced players who are speedrunning the title. Conversely, there’s also the option to completely disable currency and experience gain, offering diehard fans the ultimate challenge.
Along the same vein, there are also additions to Auto mode, a feature available in the original game that was designed to let players clear battles faster. By switching modes in the settings from manual to auto, the AI completely takes over during battles, pressing forward and pulling off attack combos and special skills automatically depending on the combination preset by the player.
In Tales of Eternia Remastered, Auto Mode has received a new feature that allows players to increase the speed of battles by a significant amount with the press of a button, meaning that, provided they are sufficiently levelled and equipped, players can conclude battles in mere seconds instead of sitting and waiting for the whole process to play out. This way, the system is designed to help players grind for levels against random enemy encounters at a much faster rate, reducing the downtime of the game.
Having 46 new features or additions in the game might seem like the team has just copied and pasted the improvements from the previous remasters, but this wasn’t the case. Once again, due to Tales of Eternia being the oldest title to get the enhanced treatment so far, the team had to decide which features, and how many of them, were best to include.
“We had a lot of discussions surrounding which QoL features would be appropriate for Tales of Eternia Remastered,” explains Tamakoshi. “We already had experience making remastered titles from the previous games in the Tales of franchise, but this one, especially, was very old, so if we just applied the same features as the other titles, it may not work as well for modern players.”
“Of course, there’s still something nostalgic and fun about having to discover things yourself,” he adds. “So we thought that if we provided too much, it may degrade the experience, so that’s why the new features are purely optional, and can be turned on or off depending on player preference.”
Like the enhanced games that came before, the major new additions to Tales of Eternia Remastered are designed to be used by players as they see fit. Newcomers and series veterans alike can adjust the various settings offered to suit their playstyle, or leave them unchanged for the original experience. At the end of the day, it’s all entirely up to them, and that’s why the Tales of Remastered Project has continued to resonate with fans, and this latest entry is looking to continue that positive trend.
Tales of Eternia Remastered will launch on 15 October 2026 for the PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2, with a PC release following one day later.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
Si Jia
