Late last month Namco Bandai's Japanese branch revealed a series of new Tales games, one of which being Tales of Graces f, a PS3 port of the original Wii version which includes a plethora of new additions and updates. After a small number of fans posted on Namco Games, the branch of the company responsible for causal mobile and PC releases, the company posted the following response on their wall:

Firstly, thank you all for your excitement around the series. We also love the series here at Namco of America and are working with our Japan counterparts to determine if we'll see US releases for these games. Unfortunately, we don't currently have any plans to bring Tales of Graces to the US. If this changes, we'll let you know as soon as we can!

For those who follow the series and the company, Namco Bandai has normally disregarded fan responses to the Tales series, so to have the company acknowledge the fans, let alone comment on talking to their Japanese branch, which has control over what titles the North American branch can and cannot publish, was a welcome sign indeed. Shortly after this announcement, a petition on PlayStation.Blog Share for Sony to help localize both the PS3 and PSP Tales titles was posted, along with a plethora of wall posts on the Facebook wall which totaled over 300 in just a few days time.

Obviously Namco noticed this surge in activity and posted a follow-up wall post stating the following:

To all Tales fans! We are ecstatic to see all of your responses. Thanks for your loyalty and passion towards the game. Unfortunately we do not have any plans to localize the series at this time. We'll be sure to let you know if there are any changes to the plans. Thanks again for your support.

While the above comment sounds very similar to Namco Bandai's previous comment, there were a few key differences. Unlike before, there was no mention of working with the main Japanese branch of the company and "Tales of Graces" was changed to "series", which would signify that Tales of Graces and any other recent and upcoming Tales game localizations were currently in the works. While many fans didn't initially notice the slight change in wording, simply posting the statement sparked outrage with over 60 replies, many of which were negative. After only being up for about an hour, Namco suddenly removed the post and occasionally has been deleting fan wall posting without any explanation, even when some of the deleted postings have been very civil and thoughtful.

As we stated on our Twitter account earlier this week, this article isn't just meant to recap the events that have occurred, but is meant to show both sides of the story, as each side has their own different, but equal and valid points.

While Namco Bandai in the past had passed on specific titles such as Tales of the Tempest due to its lack of quality and Tales of Rebirth due to its massive departure from previous Western releases such as Tales of Symphonia, the events concerning Tales of Vesperia was what truly sparked most of the outrage that is on display today.

When the company announced that the previously Xbox 360-only Tales of Vesperia would be ported to the PS3 with numerous new additions, such as the new playable character Patty Fleur, Flynn Scifo being playable for most of the game instead of being a one-time usable character and a plethora of new dungeons and Mystic Artes, it annoyed many existing owners who saw the Xbox 360 version as a "beta". But what truly set off the fans was when it become aware that they had removed many of the extras before the original game's release, as Patty Fleur and many of the new skills already existed in some form in the original version's code, as development was reported to have started on the PS3 version very shortly after the Xbox 360 version's release in August 2008.

One fan argument for why Namco Bandai hasn't released the enhanced port in the west is that "90% of the voice work is done". Due to the inclusion of Patty Fleur and Flynn Scifo being playable in the party, many of the game's cutscenes, skits, etc. were modified at least somewhat slightly, which would require re-recording the lines. This doesn't even include the new text that would need to be translated and the time involved to make sure the new translations match the previous ones in quality. Staff-wise this could easily amount to close or equal to the staff on the original title, even with the game being a port.

To add to this issue, in the West almost all ports of existing games sell less than the original version or just nearly the same, as was stated by a PR representative for the company at this year's Comic-Con. With Tales of Vesperia selling just enough to meet Namco Bandai's quota of 100,000-125,000 copies, having a closely identical cost for a port that likely would sell less than 100k doesn't make much sense financially.

However, the recently announced Tales of Graces f for the PS3 doesn't have this problem. The original Wii version, which was plagued by a release just a week before Final Fantasy XIII in Japan and numerous post-game bugs which forced a recall of the game, was never sold outside Japan. Unlike Tales of Vesperia, which many games already know of, Tales of Graces is a relatively unknown entry that only die-hard fans are aware of. Unlike previous "Team Destiny"-style titles which featured non-Symphonia style graphics and gameplay systems, Tales of Graces is fully 3D and is very close to the existing battle system, save the CC system replacing TP. Namco Bandai could easily release the title as simply "Tales of Graces" in the West and no one would be the wiser. The PS3 is also know for its RPGs lately, with games such as Final Fantasy and Star Ocean, unlike before when the Xbox 360 was the king of RPGs, which attributed to Eternal Sonata PS3's terrible sales.

The next part of the article, which will be posted tomorrow, will talk about what both sides can do to help release more Tales games in the West, but for now those fans who are want to let Namco Bandai know their opinions have the following options:

- Vote on this or this petition on Sony's PlayStation.Blog Share website.

- Post a wall post on Namco Games's official Facebook page (be sure to be polite when you do so as overly negative posts only hurt things).

- Fill out this fan survey, the results of which will be sent to Namco Bandai sometime in the near future.

- Send a tweet to @NamcoGames or @namcobandai using the hashtag #TalesFansUnite (as before, please be polite).

- There are publicly listed phone numbers for the company which can be called. They are expecting fan calls now so it is very likely you will get a automated response or a canned response from one of their representatives.