Namco has revealed some new system and story-related information about its PlayStation 2 title Tales of Rebirth. A new system which the development team at Tales Studio will introduce in the series' second PlayStation 2 installment is called Enhance. This new feature will allow players to upgrade their weapons. To make use of this nifty feature however, one first needs to save so-called EPs or Enhance Points. After winning a battle, the earned EPs can then used to upgrade your weaponry. Enhance can only be performed a certain number of times and the higher the level of this upgrade, the higher the amount of required EPs. Weapons might also possess so-called latent features, such as double damage or protection against status attacks. Following the repeated use of enhance, those latent features will awake. During battle, this feature will then occur at a certain probability. The features of a weapon strengthen by the Enhance function can also be transferred to other weapons.

Several new characters have been revealed as well. Ladras Lindblum is the 60-year old Gajuma king of the kingdom of Galgia. For unknown reasons the wise king weakens and after his mysterious death, chaos breaks out in the kingdom. Since then people refer to this day as The Day of Ladras' Fall. Until the day of his death, the old king has pondered the fate of his remaining blood relative and beloved daughter Agate. Agate's closest friend and adviser is Zilva Madigan, who plays an important role in the kingdom and is unofficially referred to as "princess" due to her close ties with the imperial family. Milhaust Selkirk is only 28 years old, but already the higest ranking officer of Galegia's regular armed forces. In order to establish the rule of the new queen he is busy, moving around in Galegia.

Tales of Rebirth will be released in Japan on December 16th for 6,800 yen ($62.24 US). Fans who pre-order the game will be treated to a Special DVD, containing footage from Tokyo Game Show 2004, artwork, interviews with the voice actors of the two main characters and producer Akira Yoshizumi, as well as a mini soundtrack.

• GameWatch