This time we're covering not only the preview, but also information from the producer's letter and the schedule for this month. Let's hear it for October!
Bandai Namco's Youtube Channel has graciously provided us with October's PV surprisingly early in the month. Let's check it out!
In addition to the preview, there's also the Producer's Letter for this month, which you can view here. The info from both will be mixed in below!
The first thing shown in the preview video is the introduction of two new characters. We're immediately greeted with Tytree Crow from Tales of Rebirth and Chelsea Torn from Tales of Destiny! They're the final party members to be added from their respective games, so this is long awaited. The returning characters to be featured this time are Nanaly and Alvin. The event is an Autumn Hunting Event, which makes it fitting that the featured characters use bows and guns. While this event mixes characters from multiple Tales games, the producer's letter mentions that there have been requests for more events focusing on one game at a time. They promise those will happen more frequently once the remaining party members have been added in!
Next up is a bigger surprise than an early PV: the Star Ocean Anamnesis Collaboration Event will rerun. We're still hot off the heels of the .hack event, so we didn't expect another collaboration so soon, even if it's a rerun. It's perfect for anyone who missed the event the first time, or didn't quite get what they want. Star Ocean Anamnesis will also be rerunning the Phantasia event on their side at the same time, so this month is a treat for players of both games. Despite being shown afterwards in the preview, this event will be the first in october, running before the Autumn Hunting Event. Also, the collaboration Mirrage Arte select ticket that the .hack event introduced will be available here as well!
The last event shown in this preview is our 9th set of Spirit Gears. The lucky three characters this time are Pasca Kanonno with a Wind Spirit Gear, Kanonno Earhart with an Ice Spirit Gear and finally Kanonno Grassvalley with an Earth Spirit Gear. We also get to see a little bit of Pasca's Spirit Gear Mirrage Arte animation! We only get a glimpse of their spirit gear designs but one cool detail is that each Kanonno gets two glowing gloves instead of a single glowing arm, similarly to Lloyd. This is because they wield their weapons two-handed and so don't have a single "sword hand" to turn into the spirit's color! The producer's letter mentions that this is the first time Blue Anima will get their own Spirit Gear. They apologize for the unbalanced distribution of Spirit Gears between animas and promise more for Blue Anima in the future!
That's it for event news. But not it for news this month! The Preview ends by giving us a time and date for the next Livestream: October 11th, 19:00 JST. This will give us new information and perhaps a second PV for Tales of The Rays Last Cradle, the fourth arc for Rays. Arc 3 ended in August, so hopefully arc 4 starts this month. If not we'll probably know when it will start on the livestream. What we do know however is that these aren't the only characters coming in this month. The stream will show the remaining characters for October. One can speculate that they might refer to characters shown in the reveal trailer for Arc 4, such as Jay, Heldalf or Artorius...
The rest of the news today comes entirely from the Producer's Letter. It starts off by talking about the stream on Sunday, which will cover not only Arc 4 news, but also version 4.0.0. As a result the producer's letter instead skips ahead to talk about version 4.1.0, the release date of which is currently unannounced. The Master/Disciple system that would make up for the inability to use other characters' weapons following the equipment overhaul has been delayed to version 4.1.0 due to added features. However, the ability to turn artes on and off for AI will be included in version 4.0.
The next bit talks about the Rays festival event. You might recall the Rays Festival to be a voting event to decide which pairs of characters get a Crossover Mirrage Arte. We've only had one so far and while the next one hasn't been announced yet, they decided it wouldn't work exactly like the first one. The dev team took a lot of requests and feedback regarding the event and will use it to change how the voting and battle portion of the event will work going forward. More details will be given next month, but if you want an idea of how it worked before, you can check our article from when it was running here.
Lastly the Producer's Letter asks us about September and takes the opportunity to thank everyone at Cyberconnect 2 for the .hack collaboration event. They mention the improvement of Ix' overray mechanic is coming in Arc 4 and promise that all the remaining party members will be introduced from November to the 4th anniversary. They're excited to give us a surprise every month. They've been able to deliver on enjoyable content every month since the game's release, so we have no doubt they'll continue.
Finally, here's the overall schedule. Be sure to refer back here if you're confused. Oddly enough the Star Ocean event isn't listed in the schedule picture, but make no mistake it's definitely coming this month.
| Tales of The Rays October Events | Release Period |
| Tales of The Rays Last Cradle Livestream | October 11th, 19:00 JST |
| Star Ocean Anamnesis Collaboration Event Rerun | Early October |
| Autumn Hunting Event | Mid October |
| Kanonno Spirit Gear Event | Late October |
That's it for news today! Keep an eye out however because the livestream is coming in less than a week, and that will give us more information on what's coming this month as well as what's in store for this game's future. Otherwise, be sure to keep up with our articles here and through updates on our social media or join us on our discord to stay up to date. One last reminder: the Miracle Boss Challenge is still running from now until the 25th, so there's still time to take the challenge and reap the rewards to get stronger, especially for new players. You can check back on our article for that event here. And with that, we'll see you soon!
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.
