@jasonmaiviaLet me preface this by saying that I agree with every last thing that you're saying (and I'm still especially bitter about never getting Tales of Hearts), but I wanted to interject with one thing about Graces Wii.
It sucks to hear, and I'm not going to say that it's not, but the truth is that the Wii version actually
wasn't good enough to be brought over, to put it in the blunt terms you used. There was a litany of reasons why the Wii version couldn't be localized. First of all, the original release was apparently a buggy mess, and due to the Wii's inability to distribute game patches, Namco only got a chance to fix it when they ported it to the PS3. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what prompted the port in the first place, to be honest.
Second, unlike a game such as Rune Factory: Tides of Destiny, where the game was the same on both platforms with the exception of graphics, Graces F contained a whole new epilogue that, from what I read, is half the length of the main campaign, à la Persona 3 FES. (I should mention I bought the game mere days ago and won't get to play it for at least two weeks, although given my backlog it'll probably be much longer, which is why I'm not speaking from experience.) Now, bugs notwithstanding, NB could have released the Wii version here alongside the PS3 version without the PS3-exclusive epilogue, but that would've prompted a huge outcry from those complaining that the Wii version was an incomplete product. Of course, that's fairly ironic since we live in an age of yearly franchises with minimal updates and games receiving huge amounts of DLC that sometimes even features the "true ending," but that's gaming hypocrisy for you. To avoid such complaints, their only option would have been to port Graces F
back to Wii, which would probably have been the first time in history something like that has happened, but there are a couple reasons why this wouldn't have been feasible.
For starters, there's converting HD graphics to a lesser system. Ever notice how games made for all three current-gen systems often have a different developer for the Wii version? That's usually because porting a PS360 game to Wii is too difficult, unlike porting a Wii game to PS360, so they just have a lesser team try to recreate it concurrently. Then there's the issue of space; Tales of Graces was apparently a pretty large Wii game, although I don't know the exact numbers, which is actually kind of funny considering recent news looking at Wii game sizes. Obviously this wouldn't be a problem when porting it to the PS3, because it would have moved from Wii optical disc (which is mostly similar to a DVD) to Blu-ray disc. Putting all the content of a Blu-ray disc on a DVD, however, would be almost impossible. Graces F's epilogue presumably took advantage of the PS3 hardware, from the obvious added space to the superior processing power, so the only way they could have put the epilogue on Wii would have been by putting it on a second disc. Not only would this have been much more costly, I don't even think there have been any double-disc Wii games released during the system's life. The only other alternative they would have had at this point would have been to rebuild the epilogue on Wii hardware from scratch, but that would have been a foolish investment when looked at from ANY perspective, to say nothing of the fact that there's no way they'd reconvene the Japanese development team for such a project. Remaking their own remake (!) that they worked on a mere year-and-a-half prior solely for an American audience? Never gonna happen. They could have outsourced, but I think we can all agree it's best that didn't happen.
As much as I hate to say it, Namco was totally justified by not giving us the Wii version; it only could have ended badly. It's not as though they didn't give us the game at all, and when they did give it to us, they gave us the best version possible, so there really isn't an issue unless you're a Wii-only Tales fan. (Not that one couldn't easily counter that argument by saying that the Wii exclusively got the sequel to fan-favorite Symphonia; "take that PS3 fanboys," one could say.) Obviously, this doesn't excuse the huge number of other Tales games that never left Japanese shores, but in the case of Graces Wii, there was a legitimate reason for it. Think of it this way: when Tales of Phantasia was finally released in America on the GBA, there was no reason to release the (ultimately) inferior Super NES and PlayStation versions alongside it as alternatives. The two situations aren't directly comparable, true, but you get my point.
by robometal cowboy » 30 Apr 2012 00:28 
