And it does not even concern the North American release. We’re still talking about delays in Japan, which I once believed to be a blissful utopia of awesome, where anything was possible.

Unfortunately, that “anything” seems to include frequent delays of the next installment in Namco’s “Tales of…” series, Tales of the Tempest, which was originally scheduled for release in April. The date was pushed back to June, and has since been slated as “the end of 2006”.

This is unfortunate, because that indicates that it wont turn up in stores in North America until April of 2007 at the latest, depending on how close to the end one might consider “the end of 2006”.

I’ve been looking forward to this game, since there hasn’t been a decent “new” Tales release since Symphonia. Sure, Legendia was an honest effort but it stripped away a lot of the core gameplay elements inspired by Symphonia, leaving a bland and shriveled morsel that was detestable when consumed. While Phantasia has been a treat to play, it was not technically new but is - instead - a reworking of Namco’s original title.

And there are other titles in the “Tales of…” series, namely Tales of Rebirth and Tales of the Abyss, but these never made it stateside. And, since I have no patience to study and learn the Japanese language (both text and audio), I can only wait for Tales of the Tempest which has had a North American release alluded to.

Oh well. I’ve got a massive list of games to beat anyway.