Just as Hideo Baba stated earlier this year, 2013 has been an exciting year for Tales of fans worldwide. The recent announcement of Tales of Zestria on the PlayStation 3 and its international release were the icing on the cake for an otherwise interesting year for the series.

Tales of Zestria is meant to be a throwback to the older titles, with an increased focus on fantasy and dragons. Yes, dragons!

Tales of Xillia, which saw its release in Japan in 2011, was finally released in North America, Australia, and Europe just this year. This is by no means the longest gap in localization the series has seen, and hopefully Zestria will not meet the same fate with the international release having been announced mid-development.

Among all of this is the release of Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, which is scheduled for a North American release on February 25, 2014. With all that has happened with the Tales of series this year and the news of Tales of Zestria seeing the light of day outside of Japan's shores, it looks like 2014 and 2015 will be good years for fans as well.

As if Tales of Xillia's Western release and the confirmation of Tales of Symphonia Chronicles being in the works (and seeing an international release) wasn't good enough, Namco Bandai has gone ahead and blown the mines of worldwide Tales fans by confirming the localization of Tales of Xillia 2.

Namco Bandai confirmed with Gematsu that the game will be making its way to North America and Europe in 2014. The new was further confirmed on the official Facebook for the series via a post from a seemingly very excited Namco Bandai employee.

This isn't the only recent piece of good news for Tales fans. A dual-language option was confirmed for Tales of Symphonia Chronicles last week as well.

Tales of Xillia will be making its way to North America and Europe next month, on August 6th and 9th respectively.

Series producer Hideo Baba did say 2013 would be an exciting year for Western fans of the series, and so far that claim has been true. 2013 has had the largest concentration of Western Tales-related announcements so far, and we are only a bit over halfway through the year. Will there be more in store? Baba, don't let me down!

The rumors of a PlayStation 3-bound HD remaster of Tales of Symphonia and its sequel Dawn of the New World gave many fans a mighty pitter-pattering in their heart region; but unfortunately, the rumors have turned out not to be true. Tales of series producer Hideo Baba has confirmed that no HD remaster is coming.

Speaking with JPGames.de, Baba put the rumors to rest, stating that the rumors did not start with Namco Bandai, and that Tales of Symphonia's 10th anniversary would more likely be celebrated with a "Tales of Cafe" or other event at NamcoCon.

"To be quite frank… I was at Expomanga in Spain last week and everyone was enjoying the event, and then I heard from fans “I heard rumors about a Tales of Symphonia Perfect Edition. Is that true?”. Actually, I was the one surprised by that! (laughs) That fan then said that it’s the 10th anniversary of Tales of Symphonia in Japan this year, and I just said that there might be something coming, as a celebration. But it will be more like a “Tales of Café” or an event at NamcoCon… but we actually have no plans yet, there are only ideas. We can’t really say anything before announcements are made and it’s always a bit surprising when people ask us about rumors like that. It would be best to just wait for new information [about Tales of Symphonia’s 10th anniversary]. Before we announce something, a rumor is just a rumor after all (laughs)."

You can read the entire interview with Hideo Baba over on JPGames.de, which is far more expansive than the quote above.

The quelling of this rumor may be disappointing to Tales of fans, but it's better to be let down gently than to have that glimmer of hope be brought up anytime someone brings up Tales of Symphonia. Rest in peace, hope. Tales of Xillia will make up for this deep, dark sadness.

Namco Bandai is holding a contest for Tales of fans to make a skit of their favorite characters and win some nice Tales of Xillia goodies and an autograph from series producer Hideo Baba.

So what does making a skit entail? Participants must draw their own artwork and write the corresponding text to go with each panel, to create a skit like those seen on the Tales of series. Participants can not use official art in the contest, nor can they use characters from Tales of Xillia in their submission. Characters from earlier Japan-only games seem to be permitted, however.

Each skit must have 5 panels or less, and each skit can have no more than 5 characters. Text per panel is capped at 400 characters. You can check out the rest of the rules on the contest's Facebook page under the "Rules" link.

Prizes

So what do you get for working your butt off in the contest? Five winners will be chosen at the end of the contest on June 28 and announced on July 1. Each lucky winner will receive:

• A copy of the standard edition of Tales of Xillia
• A Tales of Xillia cotton bag
• Tales of Xillia stickers
• Tales of Xillia magnets
• A Teepo steelcase
• An autograph from Hideo Baba

Fans in both North America and Europe can participate in this contest! Head over to the official Facebook page to get started by Liking the page and checking out the full rule list.

Could Tales of Symphonia be seeing an HD remake on the PlayStation 3? According to Spanish gaming and anime site Koi-Nya (Google Translate), Tales of series producer Hideo Baba dropped some hints at the game receiving a new coat of paint and a new home during an interview at Expomanga 2013.

Tales of Symphonia is heralded as the most popular game in the series, though its Gamecube-only Western release alienated most of the fanbase, who were primarily Sony console-native at the time.

The difficulty in trusting this rumor lies in the fact that Nintendo handled the localization of the Gamecube version of the game. In order to remake and localize Symphonia, Namco Bandai will be tasked with creating a new localization themselves.

While there has been no official confirmation on this rumor as of yet, Hideo Baba did mention that 2013 would be a "Tales-filled year" during the announcement for the Tales of Xillia release. We've not heard more news on the series yet this year, could it be possible this rumor is a hint at what's to come? Only time will tell, but here's to hoping this rumor (and a localization) is confirmed sometime in the near future.

Two pieces of Tales of news at once! This is almost as exciting as when Tales of Phantasia finally got officially localized -- except the Gameboy Advance version was less than stellar.

Series producer Hideo Baba made a guest post on the PlayStation blog, revealing the release window on Tales of Xillia and a PlayStation Network release for Tales of Graces f.

Tales of Xillia will be coming out this summer, though Baba did not mention an exact date. He totes the choice between two main characters (Jude and Millia), as it is the first time in the series players will be able to choose between two protagonists.

The Namco Bandai Facebook will be doing monthly Character Focus posts up to release, to give glimpses into this much-anticipated Tales of release. This month they had a focus on both Millia and Jude. We should be able to figure out which month Xillia will be seeing a release based on next month's Character Focus.

A bit of trivia: The original Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia had many of the same people on their development teams. Star Ocean: The Second Story was the first out of the two series to introduce the option to choose between protagonists (Rena and Claude). It was the only Star Ocean game to have this option. Tales of Xillia is the first Tales of game with this option, having been released 13 years later.

As for Graces f..

Tales of Graces f was released in the West last year on the PlayStation 3, but those of you who have yet to pick it up will have the chance to grab it on the PlayStation Network as of March 26. There will be two versions of the title available: Standard ($34.99) and Knight Edition ($54.99), which comes with 10 DLC items to use in-game.

Namco Bandai put their first Tales of Xillia Character Focus post on Facebook yesterday, chock-full of screenshots of Millia and Jude. Along with these localized screenshots are two battle videos featuring the two characters, one of which can be seen above and the other just below.

This is the first in a series of Character Focus posts, which will arrive on Facebook once a month. This one is careful to note that Jude will be renamed Jyde in the German release of the game for cultural reasons.

More about the game will be revealed at this year's Wondercon on March 29 in Anaheim, California. Tales of series producer Hideo Baba will be present to speak about Tales of Xillia and its release. Fans who take the time to cosplay as their favorite series characters will have the chance to participate in a group photo with Baba during the event. Get more information on the Tales of panel over on the Namco Bandai Facebook.

Check out some of the screenshots in this Character Focus below. Head on over to the official post to see more.