THE LIBRARY
Collector guides, cover censuses, and edition answers, documented issue by issue. Every page answers one specific question, completely.
TALES
20 shelves
The History of the Tales Series
The history of the Tales series: from Wolf Team’s 1995 Super Famicom original Tales of Phantasia to seventeen mothership titles, the escort lines, and the 30th…
Every Tales Mothership Title, in Order
All seventeen Tales mothership titles in release order, 1995 to 2021, with original platforms and Japanese and North American release dates side by side.
The Tales Games That Never Left Japan
The Tales mothership titles that never received a Western release: Destiny 2, Rebirth, Innocence, the Destiny remake, and what eventually crossed over.
How the Linear Motion Battle System Grew Up
The evolution of the Linear Motion Battle System across the Tales series: Phantasia’s 2D line, Symphonia’s 3D, the Abyss free run, Graces’ style shift, and Arise.
What Are Tales Skits?
What Tales skits are, where they began in Tales of Destiny (1997), why the early English releases cut them, and how they became the series’ character engine.
Motoi Sakuraba and the Sound of Tales
Motoi Sakuraba’s role as the Tales series composer from 1995, his partnership with Shinji Tamura, and Go Shiina’s contrasting orchestral voice from Legendia onward.
Fujishima and Inomata: The Two Hands of Tales
Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomata, the two character designers who alternated across the Tales mothership titles, their Xillia team-up, and the bench that…
How ufotable Changed the Tales Opening
ufotable’s work on the Tales series: the Symphonia OVA, the Xillia opening with Ayumi Hamasaki’s “progress,” and the openings that became events of their own.
Tales of Eternia: The Game America Called Destiny II
Tales of Eternia (2000): the two-world PS1 mothership title North America received as Tales of Destiny II, its PSP port, 2001 anime, and 2026 remaster.
Tales of Vesperia and the Version the West Waited a Decade For
Tales of Vesperia (2008) and its Japan-only expanded PlayStation 3 version of 2009: Patty Fleur, full voice acting, and the 2019 Definitive Edition.
Tales of Xillia: Two Heroes, Two Designers
Tales of Xillia (2011), the 15th-anniversary mothership title with two protagonists by Kosuke Fujishima and Mutsumi Inomata, and its sequel Xillia 2.
Tales of Berseria: The Prequel That Outshone Its Sequel
Tales of Berseria (2016), Velvet Crowe’s revenge story set a thousand years before Tales of Zestiria in the same world, and its 2026 remaster.
Tales of Arise: The Reboot That Worked
Tales of Arise (2021): the worldwide relaunch of the Tales series, its record first week, Best RPG award, and the Beyond the Dawn expansion.
Escort Titles: The Other Half of Tales
The Tales escort titles explained: Narikiri Dungeon, Radiant Mythology, Tales of VS., Twin Brave, the Fandom discs, and Dawn of the New World.
Tales on Screen: The Anime Adaptations
The Tales anime adaptations in order: Eternia (2001), Phantasia OVA, Symphonia OVA by ufotable, the Abyss series, The First Strike, and Zestiria the X.
The Mobile Era: Link, Asteria, Rays, and the Shutdowns
The Tales mobile games documented: Tales of Link, Asteria, The Rays, Crestoria and Luminaria, with launch and shutdown dates, and the offline afterlife of Rays.
Tales of Festival: The Fandom That Fills an Arena
Tales of Festival, the annual fan event held since 2008: voice-actor stage shows at Yokohama Arena, the series’ announcement stage, and its fan culture.
Japanese vs English Tales Box Art
Japanese and English Tales box art compared: the verified Tales of Symphonia GameCube pair, the Destiny II naming swap, and the modern convergence on shared art.
Which Japanese Tales Releases Are Actually Different Games?
The Japanese Tales releases that differ meaningfully from their Western counterparts: Vesperia PS3, the Destiny remake, Symphonia PS2, Graces f, Hearts R.
The Remastered Project: Tales at Thirty
Bandai Namco’s Tales Remastered Project documented: Graces f, Xillia, Berseria and Eternia remasters, the classics-first policy, and the new title in development.
TERRANIGMA
16 shelves
The Box Art of Terranigma
The box art of Terranigma and Tenchi Sozo: the European cover Nintendo published in 1996, Tatsuo Hashimoto and the painted Japanese box, and Kamui Fujiwara, the…
Who Is Kamui Fujiwara?
Who is Kamui Fujiwara? The manga artist of Dragon Quest: Emblem of Roto who designed Terranigma's characters, backed the 2021 fan petition to revive the game,…
Are Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma a Trilogy?
Are Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia, and Terranigma really a trilogy? The fan names, Gaia Trilogy and Heaven and Earth Trilogy, against Enix USA's own producer,…
How Does Terranigma Resurrect the World?
How does Terranigma resurrect the world? Stage by stage: five towers for five continents, then plants, birds, wind, animals, and mankind, then the growth of…
What Happens at the End of Terranigma?
What happens at the end of Terranigma? The Dark Gaia twist, Ark's rebirth, Elle's sacrifice, the fall of Crysta, and the knock on the door in the epilogue. Full…
What Happened to Quintet?
What happened to Quintet? The ActRaiser studio founded in 1989 by Ys veterans Tomoyoshi Miyazaki and Masaya Hashimoto: the silent years after 2002, the closed…
What Is ActRaiser Renaissance?
What is ActRaiser Renaissance? Square Enix's 2021 remake of Quintet's 1990 god game: what it keeps, the tower defense siege quests it adds, the new land of…
Is ActRaiser a City Builder or an Action Game?
Is ActRaiser a city builder or an action game? Both, in alternation, and the join is the point: a god who fights as a statue, builds as an angel, and whose power…
How Does Soul Blazer Rebuild the World?
How does Soul Blazer rebuild the world? One monster lair at a time: every lair sealed returns a soul, a mayor, a dog, a dolphin, a talking tulip, and the towns…
Why Does Illusion of Gaia Visit Real Places?
Why does Illusion of Gaia visit real places? Will's journey runs through the Incan ruins, the Nazca Lines, Angkor Wat, the Great Wall of China, and the Egyptian…
The Music of Terranigma
The music of Terranigma: Miyoko Kobayashi and Masanori Hikichi's score, the Tenchi Sozo Creative Soundtracks album of 1995, Yuzo Koshiro's uncredited laboratory…
What Strategy Guides Does Terranigma Have?
What strategy guides does Terranigma have? Enix's official Japanese guide book and world atlas, the Club Nintendo guide packed into the German and French big…
Terranigma Redux and the Fan Patches
Terranigma Redux and the fan patches: how fans fixed the PAL game's wide spaced font with the 8x16 patch, converted it to NTSC, restored Ark's blue hair, added…
The Terranigma Books: Manga, Novels, and Atlas
The Terranigma books: Enix's official guide and world atlas, the Saori Kumi novel, the Logout Bunko novelization by Norio Nakai, the Fujiwara gamebook, the…
Collecting Terranigma: Boxes, Big Boxes, and Prices
Collecting Terranigma: the PAL standard box and the German and French big boxes, Tenchi Sozo from Japan, reproduction cartridges to avoid, and the price record…
Terranigma Returns: The 2027 Re-Release
Terranigma returns on January 14, 2027: Clear River Games and Square Enix bring the 1995 Quintet RPG to Switch, Switch 2, PS4, PS5, Xbox, and PC, with Arranged…
THE BOX ART
4 shelves
Why is Kirby angry on American box art?
Determination, per Nintendo's own localizers, plus the year America got a white Kirby.
Why is the original Mega Man box art so bad?
Ordered by morning, drawn in six hours by an artist who had never seen the game.
Why does the American Ico box art look nothing like the game?
America shipped first, before Ueda's painting existed. The packagers had a few screenshots and a deadline.
Why did Dragon Quest lose its Akira Toriyama art in America?
The 1989 box sold a Western fantasy novel instead. The art came home in 2005.
THE HEROIC LEGEND OF ARSLAN
15 shelves
The history of The Heroic Legend of Arslan
The full Arslan chronology: Yoshiki Tanaka’s novels (1986–2017, sixteen volumes), two manga, the 1991–95 films and OVAs, the 2015 anime, and the games.
The Arslan Novel Gallery
All sixteen Heroic Legend of Arslan novels documented volume by volume: the ten Kadokawa volumes with Yoshitaka Amano covers (1986–1999) and the six Kobunsha…
Who is Yoshiki Tanaka?
Yoshiki Tanaka, the novelist behind The Heroic Legend of Arslan and Legend of the Galactic Heroes: the thirty-one-year Arslan run, his detached style, and how…
Who is Yoshitaka Amano?
Yoshitaka Amano and Arslan: the Final Fantasy artist painted the first ten Kadokawa novel covers (1986–1999) and the 1991 art book Tenma no Yume. What his covers…
Why do Arslan’s covers change halfway?
Arslan’s cover artist changes because its publisher did: Amano painted Kadokawa’s ten volumes (1986–1999); Shinobu Tanno illustrated Kobunsha’s reissues and new…
How was the 1991 Arslan anime made?
The 1991–95 Arslan films and OVAs: two theatrical films (1991–92) and four OVA episodes (1993–95), Sachiko Kamimura’s designs, five novels adapted, and a story…
Who is Sachiko Kamimura?
Sachiko Kamimura, character designer of the 1991–95 Arslan films and OVAs, also the designer behind City Hunter’s and Black Jack’s TV faces, and how she…
What was the first Arslan manga?
Chisato Nakamura’s Arslan manga (Asuka Fantasy DX, 1991–1996, thirteen volumes): the shōjo adaptation that caught up with the novels and had to invent its own…
How did Hiromu Arakawa remake Arslan?
Hiromu Arakawa’s Arslan manga: launched July 9, 2013 in Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine, twenty-five volumes by October 2026, faithful to Tanaka’s novels and drawn in…
How was the 2015 Arslan anime made?
The 2015 Arslan TV anime: Liden Films and Sanzigen, director Noriyuki Abe, twenty-five episodes plus Dust Storm Dance (2016), adapting Arakawa’s manga and the…
What Arslan video games are there?
The Arslan games, verified: Sega’s Japan-only Mega-CD tactical RPG (1993), Koei Tecmo’s Arslan: The Warriors of Legend (2015–16), and the 2017–18 smartphone game.
How can you collect Arslan in English?
Collecting Arslan in English: Arakawa’s manga from Kodansha USA (2014– ), the out-of-print Central Park Media anime discs, the Warriors game, and the novels,…
Is The Heroic Legend of Arslan finished?
Which Arslan is finished: the novels (yes, volume 16, December 2017), the manga (still running toward its final arc), and both anime (no, five and six novels…
Arslan and Legend of the Galactic Heroes
Tanaka’s two epics compared: Legend of the Galactic Heroes among the stars and Arslan in a Persian mirror-world, the same detached voice, the same politics,…
What is Pars, the kingdom in Arslan?
Pars explained: Tanaka’s amalgam of a thousand years of Persia, drawn from the Amir Arsalan epic and the Shahnama, Ecbatana, Lusitania, the Sixteen Generals,…
THE MACHINES
4 shelves
Why did the Super Famicom and the American SNES look completely different?
Lance Barr's verdict on the Japanese shell: too soft, no edge, a bag of bread.
Why are the confirm and cancel buttons swapped on Japanese PlayStations?
They are not swapped in Japan. Circle means yes there. The West flipped them, and the PS5 settled it.
Why was the PC Engine called the TurboGrafx-16 in America?
NEC's own testing: Americans heard 'PC Engine' and pictured a personal computer.
Why was the Mega Drive called the Genesis in America?
A trademark stood in the way, so Sega's American arm named it for a new beginning.