Despite receiving a very impressive 35 / 40 score from Famitsu magazine and selling nearly 230,000 units in Japan so far, thus beating the total of previous RPG Tales of the Tempest, Bandai Namco has gone on record to confirm that Tales of Innocence on Nintendo DS will not be receiving a release in any Western territory.

In an interview with UK website Cubed³ that will be published later in the week, the Brand Manager for the ‘Tales of’ role-playing game series clarified whether or not the eagerly anticipated Tales of Innocence would be coming to the US, Europe or Australia. Considering Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World on Wii and Tales of Vesperia on Xbox 360 are set to head over to North America later this year, it was thought that the second Nintendo DS edition of Bandai Namco’s flagship RPG series would definitely make it over. Unfortunately it just is not the case:

“I’m sorry to say that there are currently no plans at this point.”
- Hideo Baba-san, Brand Manager of the Tales series.

Whilst Ubisoft has recently negotiated contracts with Bandai Namco to bring Tales of Eternia and Tales of the World: Radiant Mythology to Western territories on the PlayStation Portable, it has to be presumed that Nintendo will get first refusal over the prospect of Innocence on DS in Europe, just as it did with Tales of Phantasia on the Game Boy Advance and Tales of Symphonia on the GameCube. So if the game is to ever make it over, then Nintendo will no doubt be the ones to push the deal through. For the moment, though, the game simply is not going to be translated, so fans sat waiting will just have to hope that the current fan-translation project steps up a gear instead, or simply import and play using a special online guide in order to fully understand what is going on.

Stay tuned to Nintendic for any further developments…