2012 A Test for Tales Fans

Want Xillia for PS3 and Innocence-R for Vita? Then put your money where your mouth is by buying Tales of the Abyss 3D and Tales of Graces f. Heath of Game Revolution explains Namco Bandai's shady localization history, but points out that things aren't always as bad as they seem.

[stormeagle6]

You didn't need to tell me. I'm all over Tales of Graces.

[Relientk77]

Me too dude, I cannot wait to get it next year

[dbjj12088]

I can't wait for Tales of the Abyss. Loving RPGs on portables lately.

[Relientk77]

I really want Tales of Graces F and Xillia. I will be buying Graces F when it comes out, and hopefully they will announce Tales of Xillia for the U.S. too.

[Jirachi]

I was planning on buying both anyways.

[Chrono]

Indeed. If they don't sell well, Namco will keep the Tales series in Japan only.

[Infernostew]

What I don't understand is why thy don't used money generated from Japanese sales into western localization. Xillia sold over 600k copies. How is it that they are not using all that money they made off the game towards localization?

[Chrono]

Who said they don't have money? The localization costs a lot, especially the costs of voice actors, but the games don't sell well in the west.

[Infernostew]

Geez, you sound like you're on Namco's payroll. What I don't get is that Atlus and NIS can localize all these niche Jrpgs (and other games for that matter) with English voice acting and they do well with what they target for. Especially with NIS who release every one of their RPGs. I hate when people say that Tales games don't do well in the west because that doesn't come down to the audience, Namco's 100% to blame for that one. Their biggest mistakes with the Tales series has been that they don't advertise their games and then they release them during the time of a huge release (Abyss was released a weeks difference than FF12). They also have been recently choosing poor platform choices for their games (Vesperia on 360, Wii tales titles) when their target fan base is on Sony platforms. So yeah....

[Chrono]

Namco representatives have been asked many times about why not bring more Tales games to the west, and they blamed it on the sales. They'd rather invest in something that sells more. NIS is a much smaller company compared to Namco, Namco always has millions waiting to be invested. You can look for the interviews in the Tales fansites or forums.

[BigWoopMagazine]

I've never played these "Tales" games... I get the distinct impression I should go check them out.

[Vgameman]

You really should if you enjoy JRPGs. They're pretty amazing, in my opinion.

[TruthbeTold]

Challenge accepted. However, this is a test for Namco as well. If what they release are inferior versios to the Japanese one like we usually get, they shouldn't expect much. I love Tales games, but I'm beyond frustrated with knowing that in Japan they get more characters, quests, boss battles, outfits, Colosseum options etc. If they go cheap, gamers won't buy in the numbers that they want. Plain and simple. Gamers don't like to feel like second class citizens.