20 years after its release in Japan, one of the best JRPGs in the Tales of series has finally been translated thanks to fans

Bandai Namco's Tales of [insert dramatic third word here] series has been going on for almost three decades, spread across 17 mainline games, but despite how regularly these JRPGs release worldwide, there are still some parts of its history that have never been translated or properly localized outside of Japan.

Tales of Rebirth first came out on the PS2 in 2004 in Japan - later re-released on the PSP in 2008 - though neither version has ever gotten an official English localization, despite how popular the series has become globally in recent times. Rebirth follows the same action-slashing traditions as the rest of the series, this time in a world rife with worsening racial tensions and political conflict, obviously making it a point of fascination with the series' fans abroad. 

At least some fans decided to take matters into their own hands, however, as a fanmade English translation patch has just been released for the PS2 version. The translation is still technically in beta, but it's the closest we've gotten to playing the cult classic in English in two decades. You can check it out on GitHub.

Hope for official localization - not just in English - is stronger than ever, though. Bandai Namco are remastering Tale of Graces f next month, but the publisher has assured that it has plans to remaster more games from the series' history "fairly consistently" and "as much as possible" to preserve some of those lesser-known games on modern consoles and PC.

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