Mutsumi Inomata
"Hearts" began development in the winter of 2006, while debugging was being performed on the PlayStation 2 remake of "Tales of Destiny", though active development did not begin until spring the following year. The production was headed by Hideo Baba, producing his first original "Tales" game, and the development team was made up of members from both "Team Symphonia" (the team behind 3D entries in the series) and "Team Destiny" (responsible for 2D titles). Multiple development assets were borrowed from the "Destiny" remake for use in "Hearts". The earliest form of the game was as a DS remake of "Destiny". The game's characteristic genre name, a recurring feature of the series in Japan, was , which represented the core theme of people's hearts meeting and uniting to overcome difficulties in their lives. The characters were designed by regular "Tales" series designer Mutsumi Inomata. Inomata worked on the designs while she was also working on character designs for "Tales of Innocence", and found it hard working on both titles at once. The characters' names were inspired by various ores and gemstones. More conventional names were repeatedly suggested and rejected.