[Spirit Macardi]

If you don't know about the Tales series, it's a long-running franchise of action RPGs published by Namco that dates back to the late SNES days. They're generally known for their bright, colorful graphics, fantastic English dubs, and stories that viciously deconstruct common RPG cliches and tropes.

As for how it relates to Klonoa, well the people at Tales Studio are actually huge fans of the little guy and have tossed him cameos and references left and right. Presea gets a costume of him in Tales of Symphonia (and there's a statue of him in Symphonia 2), he's a summon in the original Tales of Hearts and in Keroro RPG, Mieu in Tales of the Abyss might as well be named "Mini King of Sorrow" and one of the villains gets turned into a Nahatomb look-alike, and Tales of Vesperia not only has a music box that plays the Breezegale theme, but the character Karol gets a Klonoa costume and is even voiced by Kumiko Watanabe in the Japanese version.

And now it seems he may be getting another, although one that's actually integral to the plot rather than an extra.

Recently announced was a new Tales of the World game for 3DS, which are essentially non-canon crossover titles. In this one though, the story takes place in a dream world, and the heroes from the past games are summoned to it from the waking world by a pair of dream guardians who can take on smaller forms to help. Right away this sounds like the lost plot to Klonoa 3, but it gets even more overt: the name of one of these new guardian characters is "Nahato," a.k.a. the same name used by everyone's favorite four-eyed nightmare in Klonoa Heroes.

Could this be connected in some way? Is this how Nahato transformed from a hero to the ultimate villain? Might Klonoa himself make a cameo in playable form? Will this game even get localized (probably not ;_;)? For the time though, I'm certainly hyped! And if Klonoa himself does end up having a presence in the story, it could give the little guy a big popularity boost due to Tales' massive fanbase in Japan and its constantly expanding presence here in the west.

[RollingMeowcat]

I'm not familiar with the Tales series, and I only had seen other ones played it before. I was used to play other JRPGs like the Valkyrie Profile and Persona series. However, I heard people at Tales Studio are different from ones who established it, which means the original team had been gone. Does that matter?

Appearance of the name "Nahato"? I think that's just a cameo. Didn't the creators behind the Klonoa series say you can just imagine plots by yourself?

Actually, Klonoa have been famous in Japan already. Although he's not as famous as some behemoth-class games like PKMN.

[Tails' Fake Rings]

Appearance of the name "Nahato"? I think that's just a cameo. Didn't the creators behind Klonoa series say you can just imagine plots by yourself?

Nahato is the name of the legendary hero and possessor of the Star Medal, but fell into nightmares prior to the events of Legend of the Star Medal, becoming Nahatomb.

It might just be coincidence, but if not, it'd be interesting how this works out.

[RollingMeowcat]

Nahato is the name of the legendary hero and possessor of the Star Medal, but fell into nightmares prior to the events of Legend of the Star Medal, becoming Nahatomb.

It might just be coincidence, but if not, it'd be interesting how this works out.

It's not a mere coincidence to me. However, I think only some elements of Klonoa's stories will be borrowed and blended into this new crossover game besides names. Like telling the player it's a dream world so everyone from different worlds can gather together. This is a game of the Tales series after all; it's therefore likely that there will be no more things or objects related to Klonoa.

To cut the long story short : just making cameo appearances (as they did before).
Another thing :  For now all Klonoa's released games leave players free to imagine their own endings/theories thus you don't have to be too serious about the new game.

[Spirit Macardi]

However, I heard people at Tales Studio are different from ones who established it, which means the original team had been gone. Does that matter?

It's pretty much been the same group from at least Symphonia onwards (which is when the cameos first started happening). The only truly big shake-up I can think of was after the first game where several people split off from Tales Studio to form Tri-Ace.

[RollingMeowcat]

It's pretty much been the same group from at least Symphonia onwards (which is when the cameos first started happening). The only truly big shake-up I can think of was after the first game where several people split off from Tales Studio to form Tri-Ace.

No wonder some people say the Tales series have something in common with the Valkyrie Profile series. Because Tri-Ace, a subsidiary of SquareEnix, was formed by ex-members of Tales Studio! And Valkyrie Profile was made by them. Interesting, isn't it?

Hmm... that's off-topic.

[Spirit Macardi]

It's pretty much been the same group from at least Symphonia onwards (which is when the cameos first started happening). The only truly big shake-up I can think of was after the first game where several people split off from Tales Studio to form Tri-Ace.

No wonder some people say the Tales series have something in common with the Valkyrie Profile series. Because Tri-Ace, a subsidiary of SquareEnix, was formed by ex-members of Tales Studio! And Valkyrie Profile was made by them. Interesting, isn't it?

Hmm... that's off-topic.

It's also why the Star Ocean games play so similarly to Tales.

And then some people from Tri-Ace split off and formed Tri-Crescendo, who went back to working with Namco again x3

[the_darai]

It's pretty much been the same group from at least Symphonia onwards (which is when the cameos first started happening). The only truly big shake-up I can think of was after the first game where several people split off from Tales Studio to form Tri-Ace.

No wonder some people say the Tales series have something in common with the Valkyrie Profile series. Because Tri-Ace, a subsidiary of SquareEnix, was formed by ex-members of Tales Studio! And Valkyrie Profile was made by them. Interesting, isn't it?

Hmm... that's off-topic.

It's also why the Star Ocean games play so similarly to Tales.

And then some people from Tri-Ace split off and formed Tri-Crescendo, who went back to working with Namco again x3

It all comes full circle. Seems like a lot of studios from their former companies (mostly Square for some reason) like to trade talent around each other. Then they make some really awesome games.