Tales of RPGs Are Growing In The West Says Bandai Namco

At Bandai Namco’s Global Gamer’s Day event, Siliconera spoke with product manager Dennis Lee about the reception of the Tales of series of RPGs in the West. Namco have begun to bring these games over fairly regularly now, and have committed to trying to grow the franchise in the West. Lee said this was entirely because of communication with the series’ fans.

[miyamoto]

very good news!

PlayStation & Nintendo the champions of JRPGs

[NewMonday]

Namco should do a world wide release of the games in the future.

[Magicite]

Tales are one of my most favourite JRPG franchies.
Namco Bandai rocks and is a promising Japanese game developer/publisher.

[AceBlazer13]

And I'm happy for it.I'm pissed I didn't know about the series sooner. Best part of Tales games are that the combat is always fun. You don't get annoyed by encounters.

Hope the series gets bigger and I hope I see a PS4 Tales game soon.

[Godmars290]

Siliconera are moving - to new servers - show the article's not showing up.

As far as subject though, has all to do with how starved RPG fans have become on consoles. How somehow the likes of Bandai thought that the genre wasn't good enough, because they tried supporting the 360 over the PS3, and most of the fan base didn't take the bait. Especially in Japan after Bandai themselves turned early tales of releases into beta versions.

Would like to see the genre improve in terms of mechanics for the PS4, show up on the XB1, but really, like with 7th gen releases they're just going to be PS2 with improved graphics. Realtime.

[Inception]

I checked the link and it still works

About next gen Tales, Tales series never focused on graphic. If you think they will change it into more realistic style like FF or The Witcher than i'll suggest you to forget it. Because they already tried with Tales of Hearts on NDS. There's two version of Hearts, one with realistic 3D CG like FF and the other is 2D anime. The result is 2D anime sold more than the CG version.

And i don't think Bamco will try another Tales for Xbox. They already tried with Vesperia for 360 and it doesn't sell well even in japan. The only platform they will release the next Tales are PS3, PS4, WiiU, 3DS, Vita, and mobile.

[dcj0524]

FF has a nice balance of being realistic and anime-ish graphically Imo.

[plmkoh]

What planet are Bandai Namco living on, there has always been demand for 'Tales of' titles but people can't buy them if they don't localise them.

Well at least, they are now turning things around and realising, better late then never. Certainly can't say the same about SEGA whom are too busy crying over milk not yet spilt.

[Inception]

I think the main problem began when Namco wanted to localized Tales of Eternia but they must changed the title to Destiny 2, because Eternia name already licensed by Mattel. The side effect is Namco not localize the real Destiny 2 because they already localized Eternia as Destiny 2.

Since than, Namco not so hot on localizing Tales because they don't want to meet another case like Eternia.

But i think that problem already solved. Right now, before making a new Tales, Namco always registered tons of new names so they don't meet case like Eternia again.

Also, they trying to shorten the gap between japan and english released. So, now it's our turn to support their games ^^

[plmkoh]

Well Eternia/Destiny/Phantasia those games were from an age where I can understand why a company would not think about localisation.

But nowadays, with the internet/social media/videos/digital downloads it's perfectly acceptable for new audiences to be exposed to games from different regions. There is truly no excuse for not localising something as there are many ways to deliver games.

But yeah Bandai Namco have been a bit better finally releasing the games. All they need now is to put in dual-audio and it's perfect.

[Paul85]

I love tales games glad the west is getting more jrpgs!

[Sharius]

the downfall of final fantasy put me closer to tales series

[kreate]

this!

[Snookies12]

Same, never played the Tales games until Graces F. Had to find something to cure my need for an amazing JRPG. Though what I thought would be a temporary fix, turned into a permanent solution. Although the Ys games do that very well too, just not on console.

[MegaRay]

I used to ignore must RPG (except KH since its an action RPG) to play platform games.
But Since the platform genre died, I begin to give tales of a chance and it didnt disappoint really

[Relientk77]

Great to hear. Keep the RPGs coming Bandai Namco

[Hicken]

Took em long enough to realize something we all already knew.

[Inception]

Well better late than never :)

[DiscoKid]

Then localize the PS3 version of Vesperia.

[Snookies12]

I agree, I'd love that. I had a 360, but didn't know how great the Tales games were until it'd broken on me later on down the road. So, I missed out on trying it unfortunately.

[LAWSON72]

After playing Xillia I will be picking up all the others on PS3 and 360 (Vespiria needs to come to PS3) when I get the chance and will probably get Xillia 2 and Zestiria at launch

[ZeroX9876]

Keep those titles coming and I'll buy every one of them! :)

[SoulSercher620]

Bring em all over and we'll buy them.

[DEATHxTHExKIDx]

I beat Vesperia just last week and bought Xillia this week. Vesperia is probably my favorite in the series so far. And honestly ppl should appreciate theres even an option to play Vesperia anyway for awhile we were'nt getting any Tales games at all.

[DiscoKid]

There's always an option.

[Clogmaster]

You're welcome.

[SweetDangos]

The tales series quality wise is just going the route of final fantasy. It used to be amazing back in the day but now it feels generic. The last really outstanding game was symphonia and that was 10 years ago.

[DiscoKid]

I thought after Vesperia it started getting generic.

[Inception]

Nope. It's not going to FF route. Bamco always true to the roots if it come to Tales series. Unlike SE who keep's changing FF and leave their roots in every iteration. Tales, YS, Legend of Heroes, SMT/Persona, and Disgaea are the only JRPG that still amazing and stay true to their roots.

And i love Symphonia, but no offense because in terms of story i think Destiny, Abyss, and Xillia stomped it.