Tales of Destiny Fans Find a Secret 10th Party Member After Nearly 30 Years

Fans of the PS1 RPG Tales of Destiny have found a way to recruit a tenth party member, nearly 30 years after the game's Japanese release in December 1997. Lilith Aileron, the frying-pan-wielding younger sister of protagonist Stahn, can legitimately join the party in the original version, but only through a convoluted chain of conditions that a Tales fansite administrator documented on November 1. One of the game's original producers has since confirmed the find and apologized for what it does to the game.

A find nobody expected

Tales of Destiny has long been one of the more obscure entries in the series. It never reached modern consoles, its PS2 ports came out only in Japan, and there is no modern remake. For years, the community assumed the original game had nine recruitable characters.

The discovery came from Azekura, a longtime Tales fan and administrator of Majestic Fantasian, a Japanese Tales fansite. Azekura laid out the recruitment process on X, along with a page on the site collecting the conditions. Other players have since reproduced it on both the English and Japanese versions of the game.

Fans already knew that Lilith was coded into the game as a playable character. They had added her to their parties with cheats, and she is recruitable in the PS2 version. In the PS1 original, the working assumption was that she had been cut late in development. Some players now suggest the method surfaced closer to launch, but only in forum posts that were never well documented.

What it takes to get her

The full list of requirements is still not settled. Azekura recorded what they believe is necessary, and testers are now working out which conditions actually matter. In general, you have to play the whole game without taking items out of people's houses and without being "scolded" by party members for going the wrong way or doing things you were not asked to do. Some moments also require you to talk to specific characters at specific times.

Near the end of the game, you must buy a particular item at a particular time, then speak to Lilith. She joins at level 6, which is a rough spot when the rest of your party is far into endgame territory.

There is also a technical catch. On the original Japanese release, recruiting her softlocks the game because a necessary scene never plays. The workaround is to save before entering a town, shut the game down, and continue on the "BEST" version of the game.

The developer weighs in

Jun Toyoda, one of the game's original producers, apologized on X. Translated, his post reads: "It's amazing that you managed to find a way to recruit Lilith as a companion. Destiny's Ver.1 ended up with at least five major bugs remaining, including progression blockers, because we couldn't allocate enough time for debugging. We were supposed to cut Lilith's features altogether, but honestly, I'm really sorry."

That fits the pattern of a feature that was meant to be removed but left enough of itself behind that a determined player could trigger it. Toyoda's note also suggests the softlock is only one of several bugs in the first release.

Why it resonates

The requirements read like a playground rumor: don't take items from houses, avoid getting scolded, buy the right thing at the right moment. It sits alongside legends such as Mew under the truck in Pokémon or saving Aerith in Final Fantasy VII, except this one turned out to be real and has a developer's confirmation behind it.

Whether Bandai Namco takes the hint is another matter. A remake of Tales of Destiny has not been announced, and a character who has waited three decades for her moment would make a fine reason for one.