Trivia / Tales of Zestiria

• Character Outlives Actor: Miyu Matsuki, who voiced Lailah, succumbed to lymphoma in October 2015. Thus, Noriko Shitaya replaced her for the anime.
• Christmas Rushed: The game was rushed to meet the series 20th anniversary, which lead to issues with the gameplay and story.
• Creator Killer: This game marked the beginning of the end for producer Hideo Baba's career. He was met with negative feedback from players due to the overall quality of the game, and rumors spread of him altering the game to allow Rose's voice actress Mikako Komatsu to be involved in the game so he could flirt with her. He was initially Kicked Upstairs into a new Creative Director role within Namco Bandai, then quit only around a year and half after Zestiria came out before he joined Square Enix only to leave that company as well with no games under his belt. Since then, he has yet to do any documented work of any kind in the industry.
• Dawson Casting: Initially averted with Michael Johnston, who was 18 — the same age as Mikleo — when he first auditioned for the game.
• Dueling Games: The PC version with the PC port of Mugen Souls, both being Japanese RPGs released close to each other on PC (and both being Polished Ports).
• Dummied Out:
  • In the first dungeon, unused text and audio has Sorey comment that the area is freezing and ask if Mikleo feels cold, to which Mikleo will say he feels just fine.
  • In the cutscene where Mikleo and Sorey leave Elysia, audio and text exists for the narrator mentioning "it was in the year 1000 of the Glenwood Continent", but this line is cut in the actual game.
  • While the party is watching the Camlann Earthen Historia, unused audio of Michael talking down the villagers from retaliating against the Rolance army can be found in the game's data.
  • Unused Japanese cutscene text and audio during the Camlann Earthen Historia event implies that the reason the human Mikleo was fatally burned was because a Hyland soldier threw him into the fire.
• Lying Creator:
  • According to Word of God, Alisha's departure was always planned but kept secret to preserve the plot twist. The scenario designer, the director, and her character designer all stated in various interviews that the story was always planned with her exit in mind. However, initial trailers showed Alisha in areas where she never appears in the game proper, such as fighting alongside Dezel in Pendrago, which strongly suggests she was at least meant to be in the party much longer than she eventually was.
  • In response to the whole Alisha controversy, Word of God stated that the characters were advertised based on in order of when they joined the party, which was why Alisha appeared heavily during promotional material at first but started appearing less over time as the game neared release. However, the original trailers in Japan initially showed the order as: Sorey, Alisha, Mikleo, Edna, Lailah, Dezel, Zaveid, and Rose, which doesn't match the in game order the characters join: Sorey, Mikleo, Alisha, Lailah, Edna, Rose/Dezel, and Zaveid. Even if accounting for when they first appear in the story, Rose's introduction is before Lailah is introduced, which doesn't match the order the developers said was intended.
  • When Rose was first revealed, she was described as a "playable accompanying character", which according to them meant she was a Guest-Star Party Member. In game, once Rose joins the party, she remains in it for the rest of the game except for a single bit later where Alisha joins for a small section.
• Milestone Celebration: The 15th Mothership Title for the 20th Anniversary.
• Newbie Boom: Being the first mothership Tales title released for PC brought in a number of fans who'd never played the series' console-exclusive titles before.
• No Export for You: The PC version (which features both English and Japanese voicework) is available for sale in all regions except Japan.
• The Other Darrin:
  • Lunarre and Maltran are voiced by Austin Tindle and Rachel Robinson in the dub of the anime.
  • Aaron Dismuke filled in as Mikleo in episode 9 of the anime.
  • Due to a vocal chord hemmorage forcing Robbie Daymond to be unable to speak for about a month, Bryce Papenbrook took his place as Sorey during a portion of season 2.
  • In the anime,Artorius Collbrande is voiced by David Wald rather then his regular VA Ray Chase
  • After Miyu Matsuki's death, Noriko Shitaya took over as Lailah's voice actress for all subsequent appearances, starting with the anime.
• Playing Against Type: Christine Marie Cabanos, a voice actress known for her high-pitched voice and often typecast into Nice Girl and/or Token Mini-Moe, voices Symonne, a villain.
• Pre-Order Bonus: Steam gave some free DLC to those who pre-ordered the game, with more bonuses being added the more copies were pre-ordered. The highest milestone (which was reached) was a free copy of the then-upcoming PC port of Tales of Symphonia.
• Role Reprise:
  • Takehito Koyasu/Kirk Thornton and Kana Hanazawa/Cassandra Lee Morris reprise their roles as Jade and Sophie, respectively.
  • All of the main cast reprised their roles for the English dub of the anime, though Michael Johnston is credited as Philip Lamont.
  • The Tales of Berseria dub cast returned as well for their appearances with one exception.
• Troubled Production: The game's development was negatively impact by a number of factors, many of which were directly related to it's status as an anniversary title. For specifics:
  • The Seraphim being Invisible to Normals presented problems for the writing team, as they had to find a way to make the Seraphim fleshed out, but only a handful of characters could hear or see them. This also effected the setting as well, as the team had trouble trying to convey the seriousness of the Lord of Calamity when few people could comment on it. The team expressed concern this limited the appeal of the party members as a result.
  • The choice was made to stick to the Playstation 3 over the Playstation 4 because the team was hesitant to use the new systems of the Playstation 4. This limited the game because of the aging PlayStation 3 hardware, which was made worse by the team needing to make a new engine. The choice on top of all that to do real time battle transition made the team struggle with finishing it, on account of a lack of experience.
  • The team was hit by staff shortages around the time the game was developed. Combined with all the previous explained issues, it meant the team was working on a new title, engine, and mechanics without a full team to support them. Not helping was that the game had to be released in time for the series 20th anniversary, meaning the team couldn't delay the game either.
  • Comments by the voice actors, and the trailers release order point to Rose seemingly being added to the game only a year before release. The Japanese voice actors (sans Rose's) confirmed they were suddenly called in to voice more lines a year after their initial recordings, and the writing team apparently had to go through some serious rewrites around the same time in order to fit Rose into the story. This caused the final product to have pacing and story issues as a result.
• Word of Saint Paul: Chris Niosi (Dezel) did a podcast along with Michael Johnston (Mikleo), Kira Buckland (Edna), and Xander Mobus (Sergei Strelka). Among interesting behind-the-scenes stories, Niosi remarks that Dezel has a thing for Rose and Johnston then remarks that Mikleo has a thing for Sorey.

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