Phantasia doesn't really count on those... Phantasia for the PSX was released as a remake since from what I recall, the PSX was the most powerful console when it came out.. SNES and PSX aren't really on the same generation...
And WTF?
Jade from Tales of the Abyss
Caius from Tales of the Tempest
Xing from Tales of Hearts
Rita from Tales of Vesperia
From what I understood, it's not part of the main story, more like bonus characters, I know that several Tales games get cameo chars, but never saw these many and never saw them joining the party... Oh well, it seems pretty awesome, if this game gets released in english, I will buy the Vita.
(As long as a console has games I like, I couldn't care less about the rest really...)