Tales of Hearts R Gets A “Day One Edition” In Europe

Hearts R seems to be very good, the scenario writer is Yamamoto, the one who also worked on Xillia 2’s story, and the battle system has its own traits thanks to the counter system and the huge importance of air combos. Apparently it’s as long as the console Tales games, and it’s also the last Tales game with a traditional overworld map, if you like that.

If Hearts R is successful, hopefully we could get Innocence R too, which is graphically worse since it was released earlier but has its own interesting traits and apparently is a huge improvement over the original Innocence in pretty much every way (they completely remade each dungeon, changed the battle system, added two new characters and changed the story events, and so on).

It isn’t really so bad, among those games we got Vesperia (aside from Patty, the Judith and Repede costumes are fully enjoyable by those who played the original release), Symphonia DotNW and Graces f and Tempest has been fantranslated.

That was probably the only way that could make the localization of such a big Vita game feasible for Namco, considering they also have to price it lower than a PS3 game despite it apparently being just as long. The only thing that will change if we don’t support Hearts R is that we likely won’t get anymore handheld Tales localizations, and that would be a shame considering Innocence R is still being considered depending on Hearts R’s sales (not to mention Reve Unitia, even if that’s on 3DS).

Personally, I will buy it day one not only because it seems to be a great game, but also to show Namco they did the right thing by listening to the fans’ requests in #jrpgvita, unlike other publishers.

…………
Yep. -_-

I didn’t really expect them to go EFIGS with such a niche release, but it seems like they’re trying their best to make Tales popular in every European market.

Again, this isn’t a special edition, this is the regular version
everyone who preorders a first print copy will get. The price is also
that of a regular game. The concept is the same as the Day One editions rather than Limited editions.

vita is region free BUT it has an unfriendly account system. so if you order a retail game of an other region (like a US game with a EU account) you will be able to play the game, but you won’t be able to have dlc for that game (because the game need dlc from the game region, and you cannot dl other region psn dlc on your EU account).

so unless you change your account (on your vita) you will loose the dlc. and the accessories aren’t in the box, you have a code, to participate in a draw (so you will most likely have nothing…..).

Actually, Europeans pay more for their games because of currency values, so Namco can probably budget the extra contents for European releases a little better, not to mention Europe has lots of different retail chains, and that could make exclusive preorder bonus more relevant. For instance, an European copy would cost you 39.99 EU in most stores, which translates to 50$ even before shipping, while US customers can buy it for 39.99$. Even then, the US got a better limited edition for the last Tales games, so it isn’t like Europe is always in the best situation. That market didn’t even get most Tales games before Graces, too.

Also, remember they decided to localize this game after the fans requested it a lot on #jrpgvita, despite Namco not being sure they could recover localization costs since the game is as long as the console entries and yet has to cope with Vita’s smaller base. Not dubbing it was probably the only way a localization could be feasible (other games on Vita did the same thing), and boycotting it just means they will be wary to listen to fans request and won’t localize Innocence R, whose translation depends on Hearts R’s sales.