Setting out to rescue Claire, Veigue and those who join him becomes entangled in escalating racial conflicts consuming the land.

The scenario, written by Hiramatsu Masaki, dealt extensively with issues of coexistence between races and ethnic conflicts.

Tales of Rebirth is an action role-playing game with player characters rendered as two-dimensional sprites on three-dimensional backgrounds.

[2][7] After battles, characters earn Enhancement Points (EP), which can be used to strengthen equipped armor, weapons and accessories, instead of using Gald (the in-game currency) as with previous Tales titles.

[8] Tales of Rebirth is set in a world where humans (called Huma) and beast people (Gajuma) coexist in relative peace.

The world's magical power is called Force, which manifests in various people as control over an element or aspect of the physical laws.

In ancient times, after a war sparked when Huma attempted to enslave Gajuma, both races joined forces to found the kingdom of Karegia.

An unspecified time before the events of the game, Geyorkias, the ruler of a spirit race called the Sacred Beasts, sought to destroy the Huma as their dark emotions were fueling a primordial destructive force known as Yuris: the other Sacred Beasts put a stop to Geyorkias' plan by sealing him away, then acting to nullify Yuris' threat.

The story opens with the death of Karegia's king, Ladras Lindblum, poisoned by the royal adviser Zilva Madigan: during his final moments, he releases his power into the world, causing many humans to become possessed by Force, including Veigue, Annie and Tytree.

Veigue heads out with Eugene and Mao to rescue Claire, eventually joining forces with Annie, Tytree and Hilda.

Upon reaching the royal capital of Balka, the group find Agarte using her Force of the Moon to resurrect Geyorkias in the belief that the spirit will save her kingdom from the chaos consuming it, having been prompted by Zilva.

To quell the violence, the group decide to summon the other Sacred Beasts in the hope of purging Geyorkias' hatred from the land.

In the aftermath, Agarte reveals that she originally captured Claire so she could switch bodies and realize her love for her bodyguard Milhaust, as relations between Huma and Gajama are taboo.

Veigue begins to have difficulty in dealing with Claire's condition, and his cold attitude causes her to leave with Milhaust.

As the continuing negative feelings of Karegia's population are starting to damage the world, the group decide to revive Geyorkias again and bring him round to their way of thinking.

The growing positive emotions of the people of Karegia as the racial disputes fade give them the strength to destroy Yuris' core.

Agarte then recovers her Force, returns herself and Claire to their original bodies, and summons the Sacred Beasts to destroy Yuris.

The effort costs Agarte her life, and she leaves Karegia in Milhaust's charge and reveals her love for him before dying.

[12] Mutsumi Inomata, a noted anime artist who had previously worked on Tales of Destiny, returned to design the main characters for Rebirth.

[1] She worked closely with Yoshizumi to create the designs, with each being representative of the characters' backgrounds and experiences: for instance, Veigue's clothing was made navy blue to emphasize his unsociable demeanor.

[13] Prior to the main script writing stage, Yoshizumi conceived the basic set-up and story for the game.

[20] The PlayStation Portable port of the game, which featured graphical adjustments for the platform's widescreen, was announced in July 2007.

[23] Neither the original nor the port of Rebirth has received an English localization, making it one of three mainline Tales titles to not have come to the west.

Andrew Alfonso of IGN, reporting on the TGS 2004 demo, called the battle system "very fun", and was generally impressed with the visual style with the exception of the world map.

It was released as a limited pre-order addition, and contained voice actor interviews and stage videos from Jump Festa 2008.