This is a game I bought AGES ago to bridge the completion gap of Tales games I'd finished (it was the singular one separating Tales of Symphonia from the others that I'd finished). It was also very importantly another Tales game that was never localized, which made it extra interesting for me to dive into. Taking advantage of my current Tales binge session, I finally sat down and played this through to the end, and wound up with a much more positive opinion on it than the other three times I'd bounced off of it quite so hard XP. Now this is a PSP game, but it's very much a port of the PS2 version via all the info I can find about it online. The only real differences are graphical accommodations for the wide-screen PSP as well as a few new skits. It took me around 42 hours to play through the Japanese version of the game on my PSTV.

Tales of Rebirth follows the story of Veigue, a sullen young man who accidentally froze his childhood friend solid a year ago during a mysterious event known as Ladras' Sunset, when many such powers suddenly awakened in people across the land. He's one day approached by a mysterious pair, Mao and Eugene, who use their own Force powers (no relation to Star Wars, which in this game's defense calls "The Force" something else in Japanese) to help free his friend only for her to be taken away just as quickly by a squad of the royal army. Thus begins Veigue & Co's journey to first solve the mystery as to why the crown is abducting young girls as well and eventually to save the world.

Now it's very not obvious from that plot intro, but this is a story just as much about Tales' usual character-focused narratives as it is about race. The world of Tales of Rebirth is populated by Hyuma (effectively humans) and Gajuma (effectively beast folk), and the emerging racial tension between the two groups is a major through-line of the story and its themes, particularly after the first act ends. Now for a JRPG from 2004, I think this game gets most of its stuff right. It isn't overly optimistic in its portrayals of race relations and how rifts can be healed, and the nuance with which it handles the character's own personal struggles and prejudices is done in a way I found agreeable and realistic. While the story is indeed about race, it's also just as much about themes of personal identity and self-reflection as much as it is about examining one's cultural assumptions and prejudices.

Where the race stuff (in a way) holds up less well are in trying to map anything about the game's internal setting to real-life equivalents. There really isn't anything systemic about the racism in Tales of Rebirth that is in any way analogous to the world we live in. Now while that can certainly be seen as a failing of the narrative, it came off to me as much more of a deliberate choice. Writing fantasy stories as analogies for real-life racism comes with all sorts of new, weird complications that often bring in tons of contradictions, and this story seems to have been very specifically crafted with that in mind. Hyuma and Gajuma could be seen at first as an allegory for colonizing nations vs. colonized ones, but too much of the setting doesn't match up to that for those to really make any sense as a framing device. Hyuma and Gajuma exist on relatively equal ground as the story begins and progresses, the spoilery origins of their prejudice don't make sense when mapped onto real-world causes (and I would argue are obviously not meant to), and the ruling family of the kingdom are Gajuma, to only name a few of the scads of details about Tales of Rebirth that make it difficult to draw direct real-world parallels to.

This game's story is more of a tale designed to get the audience to examine the racial biases and discrimination in their own lives and to take personal or community action beyond that, rather than a story that explicitly gives views on how the real world should/could be changed. While I think (or at the very least, would like to hope) the conversation on race has since moved on from more personal flaw-focused topics, I think Tales of Rebirth still manages to provide interesting and engaging (if not original) characters and scenarios that feel earnest in how they're crafted and portrayed.The characters are well written and charming, and the pacing of the story is also well done. It's far from the best that the series would do, but it's definitely well on the road to where it would soon get to with entries like Vesperia. Granted, I think it was more for money and marketing reasons that this game was never localized (they had just put a lot of cash into Tales of Symphonia's localization, and they probably wanted to push the series in the West as a 3D one rather than a 2D one), but given the difficulty in making quality stories about race at all, let alone how difficult that kind of thing is to localize, I think it was a blessing in disguise that this game never got localized back in the mid-2000's ^^;

Mechanically, Tales of Rebirth is a bit of a complicated game compared to a lot of the other 2D Tales games, of which this was one of the last (coming out right after Symphonia, the first 3D entry in the series). It has the same Linear Battle system that the other 2D Tales games use for its combat, but instead of just one 2D plane between you and your opponent, you have three planes you can toggle through (very much like how Little Big Planet would eventually do it). You also don't have an MP system in this game, instead having artes that charge up over time to both be more powerful and be able to be immediately chained together as to not break your combo.

This has several consequences on battle. First, there aren't really healing spells, per se, so post-battle auto cooking and healing items are super important for keeping a healthy party, as mid-battle combo-based healing is a difficult and unreliable way to heal (not to mention one I never really understood at all XP). Secondly, it also means it's really easy to get caught in a pincer between enemies or let enemies sneak back to your casters if you aren't careful, so very aggressive, melee-heavy parties and play styles are highly rewarded. This is also definitely one of the harder Tales games I've played, as most of the non-MP system ones have been, and that's partly because of the lack of healing spells but also because battles can just get so chaotic if you let things get out of control. It's definitely not my favorite mechanically, but I found it fun and an enjoyable challenge.

The presentation is really pretty. A PSP game blown up on a TV via the PSTV is certainly gonna look a bit grainy at times, but that doesn't stop the pre-rendered backgrounds in cities and dungeons from looking damn good. The final dungeon in particular has some really beautiful scenes in its town and final areas. The 3D on the overworld doesn't exactly impress, but it looks as nice as it needs to. The voice acting is excellent, and the music is also very nice, as would be expected from a Tales game of the time.

Verdict: Recommended. It's definitely not the most engrossing JRPG I've ever played, and it's certainly not my new favorite Tales game, but I enjoyed my time with Tales of Rebirth. It's not a game I'd say it's a tragedy for that it never got a localization or a fan translation, but if you find yourself playing it and you're a fan of what Tales usually brings to the table, there's a lot to enjoy here for sure~.