Never underestimate the fanbase of a popular video game franchise. Even though PS3 owners are rightfully disappointed that Namco has no plans to release English versions of Tales of Vesperia or Tales of Graces, a group of them have banded together to fully translate the Japanese versions of the epic story-based games.
The team consists of five of the most die-hard Tales fans, each well versed in Japanese and English. Beginning in June, they are now done with "much of the initial translation" of Tales of Graces.
Translations for Vesperia will begin when Graces is finished. It's quite a tall order, especially considering these games have more than 100,000 lines of dialogue that need to be converted into English.
Tales of Vesperia was released for the Xbox 360 in the US, but a special edition version for the PS3, with several hours of bonus content, came out in Japan. Namco has express zero interest in releasing that version stateside. Tales of Graces, meanwhile, was a Wii game that was released in Japan in 2009, and then remade for the PS3 in 2010. Neither version was ever localized for the English market.
So, here's the rub. You'll need to be able to download an illegal patch in order to play the games in English, which means you'll have to mod your PS3. And you'll still also need a Japanese copy of the game, which costs around $70 - $80 from an importing website.
It sure sounds like a whole lot of work just for the opportunity to be able to run through a game that wasn't deemed profitable enough to be released here. But then again, that's why video game fanatics are the best fanatics of them all.
[Source:Ripten]
Jan 3, 2011
