TALES OF GRACES NEWS

Do Not Expect New Tales of At GamesCom

If you keep up with the latest comings and goings in the gaming world, you likely know of GamesCom, which will take place in Cologne, Germany from August 19-23rd. Namco Bandai has already revealed part of the slew of games that they will be showing, such as Tekken 6, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, and Katamari Forever.

Namco Bandai also hinted at "major exclusive new announcements" in the press release, which has had some theorizing Tales of Vesperia on the PlayStation 3 being announced for release outside of Japan, or the localization of Tales of VS. and/or Tales of Graces. As much as gamers might want to hear these games being announced at GamesCom, there are numerous reasons that make this unlikely to happen.

First and foremost, GamesCom is a European-centric convention, which is the reason why Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World is being featured (since the game is due to be released later this year in Europe), even though the game was released elsewhere in the world last year. If Namco Bandai was to reveal new Tales of titles being localized, they would have press events taking place in both North America and Europe, not just Europe.

The PlayStation 3 port of Tales of Vesperia includes numerous extras not found in the Xbox 360 version of the game, such as full voice-overs for all of the scenes (the Xbox 360 version was voiceless for some of the less important scenes), a brand-new character being added into the game (Patty Fleur) and one of the barely-playable characters being playable for a longer period of time (Flynn Scifo), and numerous new Artes, costumes, and dungeons. Considering the fact that the Xbox 360 version was just released in Europe this June, announcing the upgraded version less than two months after the game's release would almost likely kill sales and would hurt the series, not to mention the reputation of the company for screwing over the customers who bought the "older" version.

This logic also applies in a sense to Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World. Most who are delved in the series know that the game is an "escort" title, which isn't held to exactly the same standards as a "mothership" title (like Tales of Vesperia). Revealing the localization of Tales of Graces (a mothership title) would deter sales of Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, when the company is adding new extras not found in the North American version to entice Wii owners who have waited almost a full year for the game.

All of the Tales of games since Tales of Symphonia on the Nintendo GameCube have been revealed for localization in a low-key way, such as on IGN, or in magazines. Those looking for English Tales of news should look to those sources instead of piling their hopes on a European press conference that has almost no chance of fulfilling their hopes.

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