Tales of The Rays update: Van and Peony are now playable alongside a rerun of the .hack//G.U. event!

The latest chapter of Tales of The Rays: Last Cradle just released, bringing with it two characters from Tales of The Abyss: Van and Peony! Peony is especially a shock because this is the first time he's ever been playable. Also, the .hack//G.U. collab is rerunning. Read on to see how they look in-game!Tales of The Rays Last Cradle is currently up to Chapter 10. The new characters introduced are Van Grants and Emperor Peony Upala Malkuth IX from Tales of The Abyss. Complete Van and Peony's recruitment quests in the chapter to be able to add them to your party, as well as get their free Mirrage Arte and first skits each! Van brings with him the expected sword skills he taught Luke to fight with, while Peony fights using Martial Arts, something not shown in his original game!

As for current events, the .hack//G.U. collab from last year is rerunning! Collab characters and their artes and costumes are only available to acquire while their events are running, so if you missed them, now's the chance to get them. The two collab characters are Haseo  and Atoli. You'll recruit Haseo by playing through the event quests, while Atoli will only be recruited if once the Raid is collectively completed, if you've done nay of the raid quests.

Lastly a series of limited battles is running for the summer! A new quest will be added daily, but you have the duration of the event period to complete all of them. Complete them to get tokens that can be exchanged for nice rewards such as a free Mirrage Arte ticket!

Here's a chart of times to keep track of for these events. Make sure to get what you want from each event before the period ends! For those lost on what they much do for each, more detail will be given below. Arte and costume previews for the new characters will also be shown at the bottom of this article!

You can recruit Van and Peony by playing through the chapter on Normal Mode, or alternatively roll their Gacha exclusive Mirrage Arte or Master Arte in their Gacha banner, which will give you the character automatically. Note that if you get a character through the gacha, you'll still have to play their recruitment quest to get their Free Mirrage Arte and first skit.

Story Chapters are permanently available of course, but there are limited quests on debut of a new chapter that last for a month, hence the placement on the time chart. These limited quests get you useful items to enhance characters such as Nexus Shards, which let you increase the maximum level of a character. In order to complete every limited mission, you must clear the new story chapter on both Normal and Hard difficulties as well as use Van and Peony in 15 quests each (you may put them on the same team to make this faster) and level them up to level 60.

There's also a panel of missions for this story chapter! They don't usually do this, which could imply they expect a lot of newcomers. There's a lot of rewards from completing these and they're fairly easy to do. Note that you'll need to get some weapons for Van and Peony to increase their weapon level to 30, which may require rolling on the gacha or buying their weapons from the Turtlez Shop.

That's it for the story guide! Let's move on to the limited time events. In order to play the .hack event, you'll first need to play the Story quests from the event to unlock the raid.

The first quest, Vol 1. Awakening, will give you Haseo and his First Skit.

After you clear the 3 story quests (ending with Vol. 3 Awakening) you'll unlock the raid. Before you get into the details of the raid, it's highly suggested to do every difficulty of each fight at least once to get all the rewards.

When you're ready to farm the raid, touch the boss you want to fight and difficulty level you can consistently clear fast (under 15 seconds) using a team of characters that give the highest percentage multiplier for you. While more difficult quests give higher base score for the raid, they actually all give the same amount of points per AP, so don't feel obligated to play a higher difficulty more than once- getting the highest time and combo bonuses on a lower difficulty will actually give you more points than taking a long time fighting the highest difficulty and barely surviving.

You get rewards automatically for reaching point thresholds instead of having to get currency to buy from an event shop. So what score should you aim for? At least 160,000. At that level, you'll get all the nexus shards and event artes for both Haseo and Atoli. If you want to aim higher, which will probably require spending Dia or playing story/watching skits to refill AP, there are tickets that will let you select which 5* you want for the featured characters at 500,000; 1,500,000 and 2,000,000. Note that rewards cap out at 2,000,000 points, so don't farm any further than that.

Once the raid is completed, which requires contributions from every player collectively until the counter on the quest banner reaches 100%, All players who participated in the raid (even if they only did one quest!) will receive Atoli and first skit. If you want to get her before then, your best bet is the Gacha. In addition to regular banners, there's a Dia Step Up banner that guarantees Master and Mirrage Artes as you roll on it multiple times. If you want anything for Haseo and Atoli at all, it's highly suggested you go through these steps before spending on their regular banner.

Lastly, there's a set of Panel Missions on the home screen for the .hack event. Here's an image of how it looks, and a translation of what you must do for each part of the panel. There's a lot of potential rewards here, and a ticket for a guaranteed Mirrage Arte for the Gacha once completed!

Finally, here are the limited summer quests! They each cost 0 AP and have a really low difficulty, making it perfect for newcomers.

You may notice that even if you've done every quest, you don't get a complete indicator on the event banner. This is because new quests will be released daily for the duration of this event, so check back often for new quests to complete!

The rewards available are well worth it: right at the top of the event shop are tickets for a guaranteed Mirrage Arte and Master Arte, as well as a free Gacha ticket. Below those are every single swimsuit costume released for characters from every year the game's been running. If you like one of those costumes, consider buying it once you've gotten the tickets!

That's it for the event guides. They're fairly simple to play through even for new players. Now for the Arte and Costume previews for Peony and Van!

Costumes

【お知らせ】
こんにちは。運営です。
本日14時～本編4部第10章『再起の協奏』を配信しました。
夏を満喫するヴァン師匠とピオニー陛下をご紹介です。
また、お二人の水着衣装の設定画も公開させて頂きます。#ザレイズ pic.twitter.com/Ja4iLe5n7j

— 【公式】テイルズ オブ ザ レイズ (@talesof_therays) July 26, 2021

Though they come in the story, Van and Peony do have suitable wear for the summer. You can unlock these costumes by rolling their Gacha Mirrage Arte on their banner! Peony's bath robe matches with Jade's similar bathrobe. Van wears a wetsuit similar to Guy, though there's quite a few references on the design of his outfit, some more spoilerific than others. The developers thankfully graced us with the concept art for these costumes as well!

Van

【お知らせ】
こんばんは。運営です。
明日14時～公開の本編4部第10章『再起の協奏』で参戦するヴァン師匠を紹介です。
ヴァン師匠は原作技「閃空剣」で自身周囲の敵を蹂躙し、原作技の「光龍槍」で追い討ちする等、原作同様に隙のない剣技を駆使します。
師匠と書いてせんせいです。#ザレイズ pic.twitter.com/HWrjrYDugu

— 【公式】テイルズ オブ ザ レイズ (@talesof_therays) July 25, 2021

This tweet explains that Van fights using the same style as in Tales of The Abyss, which is also the style that he taught Luke. Shining Blade and Radiant Dragon are two examples of artes carried over from that game.

The way Van destroys the ground below the enemy may reference the fate of a certain town in Tales of The Abyss, and his combo on the enemy as they fall can bring the beginning of the opening for said game to mind.

Peony

【お知らせ】
こんばんは。運営です。
本編4部第10章『再起の協奏』で参戦するピオニー陛下を紹介です。
陛下は格闘術による近接戦闘が得意で浮かし技や空中派生する技もあり、空中地上問わず活躍します。
魔鏡技は飛燕連脚、双撞掌底破、イカスヒップの強烈にイカす組み合わせを披露です。#ザレイズ pic.twitter.com/hFKseU8F1l

— 【公式】テイルズ オブ ザ レイズ (@talesof_therays) July 25, 2021

The preview tweet explains that Peony fights using hand-to-hand combat and is especially skilled at launchers and aerial artes. His Mirrage Arte is a combo of Swallow Dance, Reaper's Toll and Hip Attack.

Here's his Mirrage Arte in motion! Astute Tales fans may recognize Hip Attack as one of Bruiser's artes from Tales of Destiny. More dedicated fans may have already known that Peony was a martial artist due to Tales of Fandom Vol. 2, which actually had a scene where Peony uses those attacks in this exact sequence. Basically, we finally get to see how that combo looks in motion rather than through a skit-like scene!

That's all for now. Between 2 events and a story chapter, there's certainly enough to keep a Rays player busy, but not overwhelmed. That said, it's not all for Rays news this month, as one more event is coming before the month ends: a new Rays of Festival! The theme this time appears to be "Sympathy". We're not sure what that means, but rest assured we'll keep you updated when more substantial information comes.

Tales of the Rays

Tales of the Rays is a Tales mobile game for the iOS and Android featuring characters designed by Hidenori Matsuraba and a new ADF-LMBS (Advanced Flick Linear Motion Battle System). The game tells the story of hero Ix Nieves and heroine Mileena Weiss in the world of Tir Na Nog. Characters from the previous Tales titles appear in this game. The game initially had an English version, but was short-lived and now currently runs exclusively in Japan.

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