Tales of Vesperia, a fan-favorite of Bandai Namco’s Tales series, may be getting a remaster just in time for its 10th anniversary. While the Tales series has never enjoyed the recognition of JRPG series like Final Fantasy, it has a rabid and growing fanbase. As Japanese games continue their return to the same level of popularity, they enjoyed in the SNES and PlayStation days (and beyond) remasters like this can bring the game to a new audience.
Unfortunately, we don’t even know if the Tales of Vesperia remaster will make it to the West, or if it even exists at all. All we have to go on is a website found by video game website Gematsu. This password-protected website, registered on a domain owned by Bandai Namco, has a URL (http://tov10th.tales-ch.jp/) that obviously points to a remaster of Tales of Vesperia.
There are some visible signs that this domain is referring to Tales of Vesperia. For one, it’s the only Tales game that starts with the letter “V.” If that wasn’t convincing enough, it will indeed be the tenth anniversary (as stated above) of Tales of Vesperia‘s release in Japan. Who knows, it might even come bundled with the anime movie as well.
Oddly enough, we’ve only ever gotten the “inferior” Xbox 360 version of Vesperia in the West. A year after it’s release on the 360, a PS3 version was released in Japan with full voice acting, new characters, and new playable characters. Rumor has it that either a Western Xbox-exclusivity contract of lack of enthusiasm from audiences outside of Japan prevented the port from ever making it here.
Hopefully, we’ll get a chance to see a remaster of Vesperia. The Tales series is fantastic, and going back, they’ve aged a lot better than their contemporaries have. We likely won’t have long to find out as if there will be an announcement it will be at E3 this week.
