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Namco chases Tales to North America for Wii, Xbox 360
Namco's Tales RPG series is a lot like the bus -- if you miss one, just wait a moment and another will be around shortly. The series, which got its start back in 1995 with Tales of Phantasia for the SNES, is now set to get two new entries as Namco Bandai announced plans to localize both Tales of Vesperia (pictured) for the Xbox 360 and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World for the Wii later this year. While Vesperia was first announced during Tokyo's Jump Festa event last December, the game's console destination had been something of a question mark until now. The game, which marks the franchise's first entry on Microsoft's console, will feature character designs by series stalwart Kosuke Fujishima of Oh My Goddess! and Gungrave fame, and promises "significant additions" to the series' action-heavy combat, a facet that has been Tale's defining feature since hit met points. For those with a taste for nostalgia, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World will take place two years after the GameCube original, whisking Wii owners away on a journey wrought with discovery, old friends, and what we're sure will be plenty of waggle. There's also talk of being able to "recruit" more than 200 different monsters, no doubt pleasing those harboring an incessant need to "catch 'em all." %Gallery-17070% %Gallery-17071%
Tales of Vesperia Xbox 360 exclusive, for now
There are very few franchises in the role-playing genre that have maintained a top level of quality throughout it's lifespan, the Tales series is one of them. Widely regarded as one of the finest second-tier role-playing games (here in the West), the Tales series dates back to the Super Famicom so a new installment was to be expected. Namco Bandi recently revealed Tales of Vesperia, the latest in the franchise, is exclusive to the Xbox 360 - for now. The tenth in the series hitting the X360 echoes a strong backing for the western-made console by Namco Bandai, who have previously released Beautiful Katamari, Ace Combat 6 and Eternal Sonata on the Microsoft platform. While the title is currently an Xbox 360 exclusive everyone, including the game's director Yoshito Higuchi, expects the title to find it's way onto the PlayStation 3 eventually. During an interview with Play Magazine Higuchi was very direct when asked if the title would ever breathe life on Sony's platform. "Yes, I won't deny the possibility," Higuchi told Play. "But we're not thinking about it yet-there are so many other things to concentrate on first." [Thanks, Steve. Via Deeko]
The Tales of Vesperia trailer, destination console unknown
First unveiled at Jump Festa last week, Tales of Vesperia is the latest entry in Namco's long running "Tales" series. Following up on that announcement, the above trailer was released today but, since our Japanese is pretty rusty (read: non-existent), we'll concentrate on what we did notice: there's no console listed. While they're not naming a destination console for the title – the last three were released for PS2 – the meta tags on the official site originally listed "Xbox 360." Though they've since removed that reference, we suspect we could be seeing a cross-platform Tales game. [Thanks, Torin]
First trailer for Tales of Vesperia
2008 may mark the entrance of more JRPG's into the PS3's library -- this trailer is the first for the newest Namco Bandai Tales game, given the name of Vesperia. Either their character designs are getting lazy, or many of these characters look familiar to us. Since we can't understand Japanese, we'd like to assume the game relates to previous games. Perhaps even Radiant Mythology. Still, it's a decent looking game and we'd love to see more RPGs hit. Unfortunately, Namco Bandai hasn't confirmed which system it's going to be on. Namco Bandai once hinted at a PS3 RPG -- could this be it? Check out this new trailer, and see some new images here.
