One of the latest Tales games to come from Namco Bandai, Tales of Hearts now has a confirmed release date in Japan, along with pricing info, more screenshots, and info on Preorder bonuses by way of Amazon Japan. Originally announced for Winter 2008, Tales of Hearts will now be releasing in Japan on December 11, 2008, and both versions (animated and CG) will retail for 6650 yen. For the preorder bonuses, the Animation version will get a "dramatic DVD", while the CG version will have a "visual and original soundtrack DVD".

Tales of Hearts takes place in a world with two moons, one black and one white, with rumors and myths such as that of the Sleeping beauty in the rose forest, of demons that eat away your dreams and of the black moon falling from the sky. In recent years demons known as Zerom have come into existence which feed off the dreams of humans. By doing so they rot away the human soul, the human heart, known as "Spiria" and cause them to fall into a grave, uncurable illness. To fight against these Zerom beings, there is a maze, created by the power of human hearts, known as the Spell Maze. Within this maze lie mystical weapons, known as Soma, and only they can fend off these Zerom and cure the uncurable disease. Tales of Hearts will feature the CNAR-LMBS battle system, which is an extension of the AR-LMBS battle system used in Tales of Destiny remake, which has a focus on aerial combat.

No release date or talk of localization has been announced for Tales of Hearts outside Japan. The official site can be found here. You can check out the rest of the screenshots over at the source.

Akira_EX via gpara.com »