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Namco Bandai's Latest Takes the Series In A Slightly New Direction.

Many Tales fans feared that we would never see Tales of Graces on U.S. soil. It has been three years since the Japanese Wii release and two years since the release of the enhanced PS3 port, Tales of Graces f. Though it looked unlikely, Namco Bandai announced last year that we in the U.S. would officially be getting Tales of Graces f and that we would be getting the best possible version of the game. Tales of Graces f may not be on the radar of many gamers, but people interested in the JRPG genre should definitely look out for this.

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A decent port of a great game.

Tales of the Abyss tells the story of Luke fon Fabre, a boy who lives a sheltered life due to a kidnapping incident that he was the victim of as a child. After losing all of his childhood memories, he becomes a snobby and ignorant young adult. During a training exercise with his master, Van, a mysterious female attacker accidentally causes an event known as “Hyperresonance” which sends both Luke and his attacker to the other side of the country. Luke then learns about the conspiracies, wars and other events that were going on outside of the walls that he had been bound by. These events change Luke, and everyone that he travels with.

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The company had strong sales in Japan to make up for poor international numbers.

Namco Bandai has announced that its quarterly profits have increased by 48%. This is due to a 17% increase in Japan and despite a 27% decrease in the US and a 5% decrease in Europe. The period in question is from the beginning of October to the end of December 2011.

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Re-discover the meaning of birth, this time in 3D.

In 2006, fans of the Tales series were starving for more. Coming off of the surprising success of Tales of Symphonia for the Nintendo Gamecube were not one, but two titles in the same year. The first, Tales of Legendia went largely ignored for its odd art style and lackluster presentation. The second title was Tales of the Abyss, which seemed like more of the natural progression of what Symphonia had achieved earlier.

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Seems like the soul still burns with this latest installment in the Soul series.

It’s been four years since the last SoulCalibur was released and a lot has changed. The fighting genre has seen a revival and the market is a lot more crowded than before. So when the sixth installment was announced in May 2011, fans of the series knew that business as usual would no longer be enough. The new SoulCalibur V would have to make substantial changes in order to differentiate itself from the other big titles in the fighting genre as well as evolve from its previous iterations in the series.

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