Tales of Destiny is a PS1 RPG originally released in Japan in December 1997. Although quietly loved by some fans, it has always been one of the more obscure role-playing games. Tales the games will never be released on modern consoles and its PS2 ports will only be released in Japan. No modern remake yet.
For years, fans speculated that there were a total of nine possible party members in the original game. Yesterday, almost 30 years after the original release, someone found a tenth.
Lilith Aileron, frying pan wielder and younger sister of protagonist Stahn, is officially and legitimately recruitable in the original. Tales of Destinyand it was only just now discovered. And I can’t stress enough how shit this find is.
For one thing, the person who found it, Azekura, has been around for a long time Tales fan and administrator of Majestic Fantasya Japanese Tales fan site. The recruitment process has since been corroborated by several other people on the English and Japanese versions of the game, and was also corroborated by one of the original developers posting on Twitter/X, who apologized because his recruitment (which is an extremely complicated process) apparently softlock the game in the original edition but can be recovered by upgrading to later versions. I am stunned.
PS版テイルズオブデスティニー(発売:1997/12/23)
リリスをバグではなく正式に仲間にできました！条件らしきものは以下にまとめています。https://t.co/1Uq9sb1U96
（サイトトップページ）https://t.co/Ias6vPGUp0 pic.twitter.com/WLcCIoSGV3
– 校倉 (@azekura) November 1, 2026
Why has this method never been found? Well some suggest it hascloser to the game’s launch, but was simply never well documented beyond mentions on forums that no one ever read again. Fans also know that Lilith was coded into the game as a playable character for a long time and have already added her to their parties with cheats. She was also known to be recruitable in the PS2 version. But in the original PS1 version, it was always assumed that it was removed at the last minute for some unknown reason, and no one has really followed up on it until now.
But probably the most obvious reason why no one has ever figured out Lilith’s recruitment requirements is that they seem pretty convoluted. As of this writing, the actual list of rules is not yet fully known. Azekura has documented what they think the requirements are, but it’s possible that some of them aren’t actually required and testers are currently working to determine which things are important and which aren’t. But generally speaking, it seems like you have to play through the 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’re not asked to do. There are other times where you need to speak with certain characters at certain times.
Finally, near the end of the game, you must purchase a specific item at a specific time and then talk to Lilith to recruit her. She joins the party at a pathetic level 6, which is terrible because by then the party will have reached a ridiculously high endgame level. Additionally, if you are using the original Japanese version of the game, it will lock completely after recruiting, with a necessary scene unable to be played. You must save before entering a town, shut down the game, then run it on the “BEST” version to continue.
Jun Toyoda, one of the game’s original producers, went out of his way to apologize on X for this. Via machine translation, he said, “It’s amazing that you managed to find a way to recruit Lilith as a mate.” FateVersion 1 of ended up with at least five major bugs remaining, including progress blockers, because we couldn’t allocate enough time for debugging. We were supposed to cut out Lilith’s features completely, but honestly, I’m really sorry.
凄いです。デVersion 1 of version 1 of version 1.1.行不能を含む重大バグが少なくとも５つ残ってしまいました. Product Description
— Jun Toyoda (@nuja) November 2, 2026
This all sounds like a fantastic playground rumor (seriously, read the list of alleged requirements!), like Mew under a truck in Pokémon or save Aerith in FF7, and that makes it ridiculously fun, even for people like me who have never gotten their hands on one Tales of Destiny. Congratulations to Azekura and everyone who worked to unearth and verify this ridiculous and very old secret and bring it back into the community’s view. Now, when will we get a modern remake of this game, Bandai Namco? Lilith waits.
Gn tech
