Aug 2, 2010
The Tales series has had managed to build up a good sized fanbase over the years, but it has had a sporadic distribution. As a result, some titles have only been localised and released in the USA or Europe, while some titles never got localised. Therefore, it is a bit of a guessing game as to which, if any, of the newly announced Tales titles will actually get localised.
One of the titles is Tales of Graces F, an HD version of the Wii game of the same title which seems increasingly unlikely to get localised.
There is also Tales of the World Radiant Mythology 3 for the PSP, and is set to feature 80 characters from past games. Radiant Mythology 2 still unavailable outside Japan, but the first is availsable in the US and Europe. An unnamed PS3 game has a also been reported, and is set to be a darker game than those previously released. Out of all these titles, this mysterious PS3 titles seems the most likely to be localised.
It has actually surprised me to see new titles being developed at all as just over a month ago, it was reported that the Tales studio had accumulated a debt of 21 million dollars. It seems possible that Namco Bandai are now sticking to Japan only releases on titles where they are extremely well received. Tales of Vesperia sold out on the Xbox 360 when it was released in Japan, even though the console is a lot less popular the PS3 there. The main problem is that Namco Bandai are very protective over their IP’s, and seem to refuse any other companies the chance to publish their titles. Ubisoft have published two of the Tales PSP titles in Europe, but all the other titles have been released by Namco or Namco Bandai.
I see alot of requests for Tales of Graces on the Atlus, NISA and Rising Star Games forums begging for a localisation, so the fans for these titles are definitely there. It seems to me that the best way for the series to make money for Namco Bandai would be for them to distribute the games in Japan while letting another publisher localise and release the titles in the US and Europe. Sadly, I doubt they would ever do this. It makes me greatful I’m not a big fan of the series (only owning Tales of Eternia myself), but I would like to see newer titles get the respect they deserve for long term series fans.
Source: andriasang via Destructoid
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