Fighting games featuring characters from various Japanese role-playing games within a series are so vogue these days. Even better than being in fashion, though, it means I can blast Lloyd with lighting from space.

Arche from Tales of Phantasia kind of reminds me of Pikachu from Super Smash Bros. what with her ability to call down lighting. The other combatants in these Tales of VS gameplay vids — Asch, Cless, Chester and Caius — also look cool. But when it comes to fighting games, I like my characters cheap and airborne.

Come to think of it, I never played Tales of Phantasia, so I’m not yet acquainted with Arche and her airborne powers of awesome. In 1993, I had the misfortune of receiving Final Fantasy Mystic Quest as a birthday present and in my house we weren’t allowed to buy a new video game until we’d beaten the last one. So, yeah, still hadn’t beaten it by ‘95 and therefore missed out on the flagship Tales game.

Japanese Arche Klaine Gameplay [GameTrailers]

Tales of VS. (versus — all caps) is Namco Bandai’s PSP fighter, populated with characters from its Tales franchise.

You know, kinda like what Square Enix did with Final Fantasy and PSP action game DISSIDA.

Tales of VS. features 35 characters from Tales that range from titles like Tales of the Abyss to Tales of Vesperia. The game will be released in Japan this August.

Somebody likes to wear white, Stan loses to Cless and Japan’s deep-seated obsession with pirates somehow ties into space and kabobs.

That’s about all we can tell from this slew of Tales screens Namco Bandai reportedly released today. There’s a batch each for the upcoming Tales of Graces on the Wii, Tales of VS on the PSP and the PS3 release of Tales of Vesperia.

If your Japanese is better than mine (and it probably is, so don’t be shy), you might be able to tell more about Patty the Pirate based on her dialog and attack text. The best I can make out is one of her attacks and I’m not even 100% on that because I highly doubt a Tales character would say something like “Little Big Shiv.”

A Hodgepodge of Tales Screens [Siliconera]

Today, at a press conference in Tokyo, Namco Bandai announced an action title that brings together 35 characters from the 13 Tales of games. Characters from each title exist in the same game universe.

This new title, which is for the PSP, is Tales of VS. It will be out this summer in Japan. The game is supposedly like Square Enix’s DISSIDIA PSP title, complete with 3D battle scenes.

This confirms what we dug up last month: registered trademarks for Tales of Graces and Tales of VS..

PSP 『テイルズオブバーサス』、 2009 年夏発売 [Famitsu]

The latest weekly issue of Japan’s Jump Magazine contains a veritable flood of Tales of news from Namco Bandai, announcing Tales of VS, Tales of Graces, and Tales of Vesperia for the PlayStation 3.

The big news here for PlayStation 3 fans is the announcement of the previously Xbox 360 exclusive Tales of Vesperia for the PS3, bringing one of the better Tales tales told in years to the Sony platform. Along with the Vesperia news, we also see the official announcement of Tales of VS, a fighting game for the PSP along the same lines as Dissidia: Final Fantasy. and Tales of Graces for the Wii, the first original Wii game in the Tales series, two game names that McWhertor discovered earlier last month using his magical trademark-sniffing powers.

Check out the link before for more scans of pretty anime characters doing action role-playing things.

Tales of Vesperia for PS3 Announced, Along with Tales of Graces Wii, and Tales of VS PSP [Kombo - Thanks Walter]

You keep buyin’ ‘em, Namco Bandai’s Tales Studio is gonna keep makin’ ‘em. The Tales Of series of role-playing games, that is. The publisher of said series has registered trademarks for two new entries.

Expect both Tales Of Graces and Tales Of Vs. to appear on a console or portable gaming system within the next year, two potential new titles in the series. Namco Bandai shipped five Tales Of SKUs in Japan last year, just two of them made it to the West.

The publisher went on a Tales trademarking spree not too long ago in Japan, filing for marks on Tales Of Floweria and Tales Of Unitia, among others. We’d expect to see just random strings of alphanumerics at some point in the next decade, Tales Of A8xzZLKx9, for example. The dictionary is only so long.

Namco Bandai also has new outstanding trademarks for Muscle March and Broken Destiny, if those sound familiar. They don’t to me.

Tales Of Vs. and Tales of Graces [USPTO]