Yesterday, Gematsu reported the news that Bandai Namco registered four new trademarks, including “Tales of the Best.”
Tales of the Best? What in the world could that be?
First, we have to accept that it might be nothing. Bandai Namco seems to enjoy trademarking lots of Tales names and then only using a few. When Tales of Berseria was trademarked, two other trademarks accompanied it: Orfellia and Alestia.
Back in 2013, they trademarked eleven different Tales names: Zestoria, Creales, Castora, Link, Jin, Ansis, Zestiria, Zestias, Bibliotheca, Memories, and Favorite.
(Are we seeing how Bandai Namco comes up with Tales names? Do they trademark all their ideas just in case?)
From those eleven, two (Tales of Link and Tales of Bibliotheca) became Japan-exclusive mobile games, and one (Tales of Zestiria, which I’ve been LPing) became a mothership title.
So Tales of the Best might be the next Tales of Orfellia or Tales of Favorite, unused forever.
If it isn’t, though, what could it be? Several theories have been suggested:
- Another mobile game
- A crossover that includes the “best” characters from multiple Tales games
- A fighting game, like the Japan-only Tales of VS.
- A collection of popular Tales games bundled for a new system, such as the PS4, Xbox One, or PC
- A collection of previously-unlocalized Tales games brought West for the first time
And of course, fans half-jokingly suggest a remake of their favorite game, because it’s the best Tales of.
I tried hard, but even though I managed it for the last batch of trademarks, I can’t think of a way Tales of the Best could be my Tales pipe dream, a Tales of Symphonia prequel.
I mean, unless it’s Tales of the Best Heroes Ever and the characters are now allowed to name their own games. But that would be silly. With that option out of the way, I hope it’s a collection of unlocalized or rare Tales games.
What do you think Tales of the Best is? What do you want it to be? Let me know in the comments.
Sounds like Tales of Favo(u)rite.
Yeah, it does. And while “Tales of the Best” is a silly name, it sounds better to me.