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Official - Rune Factory 4 coming out on Dec. 11 in Europe (eShop, 29.99/24.99£)
- Thread starter L~A
- Start date
Zevenberge
Member
Move over, Smash Bros and Bayonetta. I have my GOTY.
Like I said in the other thread, I am happy that it is officially releasing now. I don't know what was on behind the scenes, but I want to believe they did everything they could to ensure a PAL release.
Like I said in the other thread, I am happy that it is officially releasing now. I don't know what was on behind the scenes, but I want to believe they did everything they could to ensure a PAL release.
Sammy Samusu
Member
Year of the 3DS.
They already explained that. Because of Neverland co. going bankrupt, they didn't have any programmer familiar enough with the game code to modify it for EU release. I guess they first decided it wouldn't be worth it (money and time-wise) to have a EU release after all, and which is why it was cancelled in the first place.
Then they realised it was probably a bad idea all along, and decided to try and get the game working on EU systems anyway, but it took them a while without the main programmer on board.
At least, that' the official story, but XSEED is pretty great for localisation (The Last Story and Pandora's Tower in NA, it was thanks to them), so I don't really have any reason to doubt them.
Orniletter
Banned
So many great 3DS games in such a short time.
My wallet can't .
Edit: Funny that XSEED publishes it here instead of Marvelous Europe.
My wallet can't .
Edit: Funny that XSEED publishes it here instead of Marvelous Europe.
Zevenberge
Member
Yes, and this is what I want to believe. I mean, they can hardly publicly admit that they wanted to skip Europe and then decided to put an intern on the European localization late August (if that were true).
Anyway, if Europe wants to get mad at someone, they should get mad at Nintendo for their region locking. Without that policy, Marvelous could simply print US cartridges and ship them in a European box.
Well, that's not surprising... it's digital-only. No real reason to go through Marvelous Europe as you don't need to have some offices in Europe to publish on the eShop. And XSEED is really familiar with the game, much more than Marvelous Europe. No idea who did stuff code-wise, but it probably went through XSEED.
Really happy with this, price is reasonable enough too.
Gotta say I've never played a Rune Factory game properly (I do have a few lying around though) but I always loved Harvest Moon and I'm big into JRPGs so I'm sure I'll love the series. And I've indeed heard great things about this entry in particular so this looks like it'll be a fantastic way to start.
Gotta say I've never played a Rune Factory game properly (I do have a few lying around though) but I always loved Harvest Moon and I'm big into JRPGs so I'm sure I'll love the series. And I've indeed heard great things about this entry in particular so this looks like it'll be a fantastic way to start.
This seems like a bit of a made-up story, implying that the original engineers behind were incompetent. Even some of the most junior level engineers are able to jump into a project mid-way or after completion and overhaul it the only barriers being documentation, commenting of code, file structure, usage of third party libraries, and the standard by which the code was written.
The more likely scenario is related to financials and release timing.
Orniletter
Banned
Aquamarine
Member
RIP Neverland Co., Ltd.
1993-2013
Great news for European gamers, though. It's a wonderful game.
1993-2013
Great news for European gamers, though. It's a wonderful game.
I haven't paid much attention to the game yet and I only played Rune Factory Frontier so far.
Is 4 better/worse? Or compared to the entire Rune Factory series, where would it rank?
I'm kinda tired of this old argument because things aren't that simple. To most European fans, region locking is hardly the biggest problem. It's more the lack of a proper localisation.
Is 4 better/worse? Or compared to the entire Rune Factory series, where would it rank?
I'm kinda tired of this old argument because things aren't that simple. To most European fans, region locking is hardly the biggest problem. It's more the lack of a proper localisation.
Orniletter
Banned
Thats not how it works.
Pegi and USK ratings, the digital manual ( France demands that there has to be a fully translated french manual ) etc.
It is more work than you make it sound.
Zevenberge
Member
Does this imply that the American games suffer from a bad localization in general?
Assuming you do not imply that, then there must be something that is considered "good" when applied to America, but "bad" when applied to Europe. The only thing that I can think of is the language diversity here. Here, we have English, Dutch, French, German, Spanish, Italian, ..., while in the US there is only English. However, for the people who are fluid in English (>90% in non-native English countries), there is no barrier to play an American game. On European television, we are confronted enough with American culture to appreciate the American-specific localizations. Therefore, not being able to straight-up play US games in PAL consoles is the biggest problem here. I don't think anyone in Europe wants to wait half a year or more, just so the localization team can change every hamburger to Flemish fries.
If I'm wrong here, please enlighten me which aspect of localization should be improved for Europe.
Neither of those consist of editing the ROM that is printed on the cartridge. My point still stands
It's not France that requires that (it's not Québec
), it's Nintendo. They require that eShop page + manual be translated in all 5 major EU languages.Games themselves can be in pretty much any language though.
Hot Coldman
Banned
Ha! Last thing I heard about this was not good at all. Amazing news.
Wish it was a little cheaper, but eh, what can you do.
Wish it was a little cheaper, but eh, what can you do.
Starwolf_UK
Member
The fact that Nintendo France PR person was talking about translating SMTIV implies that Nintendo can translate the operations guide for you.
I've heard rumors of publishers just google translating these though...which almost seems like a sure fire way to fail a lotcheck.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Tell that to Spain, France and Italy.
No, a translation to PAL 5 is the absolute minimum this games require, and non of them are getting them because they are brought by american companies, that while they work great with the american market, they always think translations are not requied and then are surprised why this games dont sell well in this countries (when funnily they have probably the biggest markets of manga and anime outside of Japan).
Not everyone in my country had the luck to learn english properly (foreign education is a big problem in public schools, and not something that can be fixed in a day, and the majority of people can't afford private foreign language schools). No ifs, ands or buts here, and I dont really give a shit if you as an outsider think we need to get more things not dubbed to our language, thank good we usually have good voice actors doing great jobs here, and tough luck not having them in your country or thinking everything is better with subs (or maybe you are form UK and don't even give a fuck of getting things in american english, understandable of course, because if I lived there I would think the same).
And as you can see I understand english perfectly, my parents worked really hard to put me on a private english school, and I will always be grateful for that opportunity. But if im paying 30-50 freaking euros for a game, of course I want it localised to my language.
And i'm saying this as someone who reads a ton in english and watches lots of series with subs, but that's because they let me choose.
I know lots of people who would love to play these games, but they can't, the majority of these unlocalised games are very text heavy, so they are totally out of bounds for them. They love anime and manga, they love this types of games, but you have to understand they are not going to pay what these companies ask for them in europe, and these games, when physical, come in small numbers and rarely se a price drop.
I'm sorry if this comes as a harsh response, but i'm tired of the same "why doesn't your country learn more english" argument (and i'm not saying this is you, but most of them try to sound with an air of superiority when saying it). As I explained, is not that easy.
It wasn't a PR person... it's was pretty much the big boss.
And he wasn't talking about the manual, he was talking about the game itself.
And sadly, yeah, many companies use Google Translate for the eShop text.
No.
Those companies don't have Multi-5 for one good reason: it's way, way too costly. Period. There's no mystery, no conspiracy, no europhobia.
Games like Rune Factory or Persona Q are niche games, and they got huge amount of text. Not just dialogues, but also menus, item descriptions, and more. Do you know how much it'd cost to translate that in all 5 languages?
To give you an example : take Another Code R (Visual Novel). For that, Nintendo had a total of 15 translators (for all 5 euro languages). That alone cost a loooot of money. But that's not all. They had roughly 60 testers total just for the EU localisation.
Can you really imagine small companies like XSEED or Atlus spending so much on localisation? They'd go bankrupt faster than you could gather enough signatures for an online petition.
That's the sad truth of niche game localisation. No Multi 5 > less sales in Europe. Less sales in Europe > less chance of localisation. It's a vicious circle that's only going to get worse as time go on.
In other words, EU fans have to get used to English-only releases. It's far from ideal, but that's the reality of the market.
besides the language barrier that has already been discussed, I'll just enlighten you about the bolded parts.
Is the US localisation bad? quality wise? no, It's not. Content wise? well... depends if you are a purist and prefer your games to be as close to the vision of the guy who made it, or if you are ok with stupid shit like Los Angeles Japan. American localisations undeniably suffer from some sort of cultural cleansing. It went down considerably over the last years as niche games started catering more towards their niche instead of trying to catch an audience that wasn't there in the first place. But there is still a huge disconnect between how Japanese stuff is handled by American localisation teams vs. how it is handled by European ones. And I'd rather have the unaltered product instead of the "America fuck yeah edition".
in short: European players have no problem with consuming American culture, but why should they settle for an arguably inferior product?
Oh the pricing was announced, and it's between SMTIV and PQ.
Quoting myself from the other thread:
I guess I'll have to buy it around xmas then.
Quoting myself from the other thread:
I guess I'll have to buy it around xmas then.
This game is pretty great if you can get past (or like) the art style of everyone looking like a ten year old anime child. So much stuff to do, and you can mostly play it at your own pace. Not sure if I like RF4 more or less than Fantasy Life. I do know I played both way more than I was expecting to when I bought them. Glad this is finally getting to Europe.
E_Darkness
Member
I bought a big enough SD card so I could get both SMTIV and Rune Factory 4. I'm just really glad I'll be able to play it. I was kind of hoping for something closer to SMTIV's price but I can't say no to £25. Still cheaper than it would've been at full price. But I won't get it straight away.
Skyfireblaze
Member
Well even if I have no time to play it I will buy it just for supporting everybody involved. I was super bummed when the EU version was cancelled and XSeed seemingly did everything they could to still bring it over so they deserve the support
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Again, they think it doesn't work, they never demonstrated it does. We are talking about translating, not dubbing. When even indies (and I know about this because I work as one) can do pal 5 without much of a problem, the "it's too expensive" excuse doesnt work for me, because it's a lie.
This is the problem of letting USA distributors handle european "localisations", of course there is no europhobia (and I dont know why you thought mystery and conspiracy was what I was thinking when I said that), they just don't give a fuck, and prefer sell 3 copies without a loss because they just have to make it work in PAL machines (if it is a 3DS game) or just dump the rom in the online store, than trying to build a real market that I assure you it exists.
You know why this games are niche in the US? Because theres no real "anime" games market there and it only works because of the huge amount of people living there makes it easier to turn a profit without doing much. There's a big anime market in spain, france and italy (where, surprise, games that do get localised, like one piece and dragon ball, do better than in america). In these 3 countries they would not be as niche as in america.
Games like Persona would do great here, but they just dont want to risk it.
They release a game here, more expensive than the american version, and without a PAL5 translation and the majority of the time without even physical option, just a 40 euros rom dump in the store, and they are FUCKING surprised they dont sell well in Europe? Give me a brake.
About the example you gave with Nintendo and another code. You know you can do the same thing with less (MUCH less) people no? Every Nintendo game uses roughly the same amount of translators and testers, be a mario kart or an another code.
Another example, what about all this small european PC distributors that have been doing PAL5 since the 90's with graphic adventures (like your example) and other types of games. Do you think they are making a loss? The answer is no.
Maybe we need real small european distibutors like america has with xseed, so they do not need to make the poor "localisation" jobs they do when they bring them to europe.
SpaceDrake
Member
Well guess what, you can believe it (the losing Neverland's programmer thing) because it's 100% true and I heard it from other first-party sources. They never wanted to skip Europe. That's ridiculous. They've been busting their asses trying to make this work for, like, more than a year.
Also Hatsuu hasn't been an intern for years. Also don't use intern as an insult either way.
In addition to the post prior to mine, the region locking makes no difference, because there are still tons of things to do to release a game in Europe. Which is outlined in detail in this post.
Samurai_Heart
Member
So anyone making an OT for Europe?
Skyfireblaze
Member
Where are all the people at, it's still releasing today, right? D:
Samurai_Heart
Member
Still an hour or 2 till eShop updates and seems there's no OT, someone could probably just copy the NA OT or just post there and call it a day.
Pennywise83
Banned
I got a review code; the game is quite nice to look at (jRPGs from PS1-era feeling), and plays pretty much as a RF game... which is what I was expecting. Story seems quite heavy this time, and I'm sure there are a lot of new options I haven't explored yet (I'm just a few hours in).
KojiKnight
Member
Easily one of my favorite 3DS games, anyone on the fence for this game should just pick it up. Definitely worth it.
Skyfireblaze
Member
Well I would make a Copy OT if mods and the person who made it in the first place are okay with it, that much I can do but the last time I wanted to make a OT on my own... lets not talk about that
Samurai_Heart
Member
Can send them a PM and give credits at the bottom it's what I did for the SMT4 EU OT, edited parts to make it more relevant to EU release.Well I would make a Copy OT if mods and the person who made it in the first place are okay with it, that much I can do but the last time I wanted to make a OT on my own... lets not talk about that
As of posting should be 2 mins till eShop update unless daylight saving screwed with my perceived update time.
Bomber Bob
Banned
but can you marry the final boss?