One of the few JRPG franchises to have maintained a definitively Japanese flavour and successfully grown in scope outside of Japan is Namco Bandai’s ‘Tales of’ series. International releases have been patchy: the second game, Tales of Destiny, was the first to be released in the US and never made it to the EU, and Tales of Phantasia (the first in the series) didn’t see western release until a Game Boy Advance port in 2006. Despite this, Tales fans have rallied around these anime-styled fantasy excursions and now it’s more a question of when, rather than if, a new Tales game will be released abroad.
The latest entry to make its way westward is Tales of Xillia. Set across two worlds - one of spirits, one of technology – it follows Milla Maxwell and Jude Mathis as they cross realms and strive to save both from destruction. The Japanese release was timed to celebrate Tales’ 15th Anniversary, and was intended to be a landmark work for the series. “This was a big challenge for the teams,” Hideo Baba, Producer of the Tales series, told me. “We wanted to release something big.”
http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/07/talking-tales-of-xillia-with-hideo-baba
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