Thank you very much for writing us about Kizuna, we will definitely look into it.

In terms of how we work here, all the Marvelous titles such as Valhalla Knights 2, Little King's Story and Rune Factory: Frontier are co-published between Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games, while the non-Marvelous titles such as KORG DS-10, Populous DS and Retro Game Challenge are published soley by XSEED Games. Any additional games we look into would be published by XSEED Games.

Shiren 3 is a request that we've received before, but Shiren the Wanderer sold pretty poorly on the DS so it's very hard for us to justify bringing over the Wii version when we're likely to lose money on it.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and please keep them coming if more titles catch your interest.

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Appreciate the additional suggestions. Licensing from Capcom would be very difficult as their US branch handles all their publishing over here, but the Jawa game looks interesting; I wonder how that slipped by me before. It must have been under most people's radar. We'll look into it.

Thanks.

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Appreciate your concern, and pretty funny what you say now about Jawa because I got some members of the team together to watch some video of the game after reading your e-mail and the reaction here was definitely mixed. We usually won't try to license a game unless we're pretty close to unanimous on if the game is good or not so I can safely say that we will not be pursuing Jawa.

Thanks for your suggestion though, and keep them coming as you find more titles that catch your interest.

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Hero of legend said:

First, is his reply to my Kizuna and Shiren suggestion in full:



As for the MMV deal, it seems (at least for now), that they only co-publish MMV JP's games, but any games from other publishers will be brought over by XSEED alone. I should ask for clarification on whether MMV USA will bring any non-MMV games over or not after all.

Next, I ask them to bring over Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes for Wii and PS2, as well as Spike's JAWA for the Wii. His reply:



Big shame about Sengoku. :'(

After watching videos of JAWA on YouTube and regretting my suggestion, I replied back and advised them to not do it after all!

His reply, which is VERY interesting:



Funny, isn't Atlus bringing over really bad RPGs for the 360? Has their standards really gone down? I like how XSEED is taking extra care with their choices!

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Kuran said:

They did an excellent job bringing over Wild Arms XF, and thus delivered one of the best strategy games in recent years. .. yet nobody cares and IGN/Gamespot gave it the God Hand/Monster Hunter treatment, where the low score is directly proportional to the high difficulty/learning curve.

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shidoshi said:

Uhm, I cared, and gave it a very good review in Play. I thought it did a number of things that actually made the SRPG genre exciting again.

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Kuran said:

Can I read your review on the Play site in the future?

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Score: 8.5

If you're a strategy RPG fan, please don't let some of the other reviews for Wild Arms XF floating around out there scare you off. This is a game crafted and polished to a surprising degree, from the beautiful graphics and music to the distinct selection of character classes available to you. Then there are the battles themselves: each challenge is unique and different from one another, replacing the "battle fatigue" that crops up in many an SRPG with a sense of excitement to see what's next.

Sure, there are a few missteps–I can't say I'm in love with the Vitality Point idea in its current form–but no, a level of challenge that doesn't let you waltz through the game isn't one of them.

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Dascu said:

It's a pity JAWA turned out to "suck". I thought the game could've been a cool prehistoric Monster Hunter-clone with a neat art style.

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shidoshi said:

The review was very short, so here's it in its entirety:

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splattergnome said:

I really hope they change their mind on Siren 3 - it would be filling up a valuable niche on the Wii, and there is already a nice fan audience for the game from both the DS game and from Chocobo's Dungeon.

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Kuran said:

They did an excellent job bringing over Wild Arms XF, and thus delivered one of the best strategy games in recent years. .. yet nobody cares and IGN/Gamespot gave it the God Hand/Monster Hunter treatment, where the low score is directly proportional to the high difficulty/learning curve.

/rant

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Vorador said:

Interesting read. Thanks. Shame about Shiren the Wanderer, i guess roguelikes are far it's prime time in occident

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Die Squirrel Die said:

Isn't his point that there isn't a nice audience for the DS game?

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Shiren 3 is a request that we've received before, but Shiren the Wanderer sold pretty poorly on the DS so it's very hard for us to justify bringing over the Wii version when we're likely to lose money on it.

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grandjedi6 said:

or its just that Shiren is too obtuse for stupid morons with ugly faces and big, smelly butts who like to kiss their own butts

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Death_Born said:

That's probably just because of the freaky boxart:

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lo zaffo said:

In Europe Mystery Dungeon Shiren the Wanderer Ds is distributed by SEGA Europe. What does XSEED have to do with SEGA/Chun soft games like Shiren Ds or Shiren 3 Wii? Thanks.

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Night_Trekker said:

Fixed.

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grandjedi6 said:

well Sega surely isn't going to bring it over themselves



Well those "morons" make up oovr 99% of the market then. You must realize that for even Xseed to skip Shiren it must have epicly bombed. I doubt we'll ever see another Shiren game localized for a long long time.

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grandjedi6 said:

Well those "morons" make up oovr 99% of the market then. You must realize that for even Xseed to skip Shiren it must have epicly bombed. I doubt we'll ever see another Shiren game localized for a long long time.

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Thank you for the suggestion on Kimi No Yuusha, we'll keep an eye on it though SNK does still have a presence in the US and may partner with someone to bring it over directly themselves.

And yes, AQ Interactive of Japan does own a majority of our shares and is technically our parent company, but we do operate fairly independently of them at times. We will publish some of their titles such as Victorious Boxers: Revolution and KORG DS-10 Synthesizer, but they are also free to shop around their games for licensing as they did for Away and Blue Dragon Plus like you pointed out, as well as Vampire Rain: Altered Species and Docomodake to mention a couple more.

Regarding Shiren 3, I think Jimmy was just trying to be polite in that interview when he was asked about that title; he will be promptly tarred and feathered for giving you guys false hope.

And just saw your follow-up e-mail about Sorcery Blade, that's a title that someone else brought up to us recently as well. Too bad we don't know much about it yet, but let's see how it turns out. You asked if Kemco's ever brought over anything to North America before, but I think I remember them releasing some horrible Batman game a couple years ago. Not sure how active they still are over here though.

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Mejilan said:

Weren't Kemco responsible for the Shadowgate games? I miss those. *sighs*

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Shiren 3 is a request that we've received before, but Shiren the Wanderer sold pretty poorly on the DS so it's very hard for us to justify bringing over the Wii version when we're likely to lose money on it.

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Zihark said:

So its the end of September- XSEED/MMV still haven't announced the Wii game. Yeah, I realize its probably Muramasa-but still where's the PR?

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Will XSEED bring over these MMV games?

Hey again!

I'm sure Valhalla Knights: Eldar Saga is a given, but I just wanted to check.

What about Discipline for WiiWare?
No confirmation yet, but Marvelous Entertainment USA (MEU) will evaluate if it's a fit for the US market and then decide to bring it over or not. I don't know much about the game, but chances are good it will happen.

As well as No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle?
This title will definitely come to the US, the official publisher will be confirmed shortly.

I know Ubisoft brought over NMH, but Wii fans are not too fond of Ubisoft. Is XSEED trying to be able to bring the game over themselves?
Still not confirmed at this time, but Marvelous was pleased with Ubisoft on the first one so it wouldn't be a surprise if they handled the second one as well.

What about the Steel Princess for the DS?
No confirmation for the US at this time.

Are things looking good for Kizuna for the Wii yet?
This title is a hot topic of discussion among publishers so I'm sure it will come over to the US. Whether it's by MEU, XSEED or some other publisher is yet to be decided.

I know that's a lot of questions/suggestions, I'm sorry if I'm being a tad overwhelming.

I have some questions about what XSEED will do during their localizations.

Will each Wii game contain say the original Japanese language as an option?
That is entirely up to each development team. From XSEED's point of view, at the start of each localization project we ask if they can leave in the Japanese voice-overs and add any new features or stages for the US release. We love being able to leave the original Japanese voices in the game, but we usually don't push to leave in the Japanese text too hard.

Does/will XSEED have to make any edits or cuts from the games?
Off memory, we have yet to cut any content completely from a game. For example, Wild ARMs 5 for the PS2 had cross connectivity with Wild ARMs XF for the PSP to unlock additional bosses. Since that seemed like a chore to us and hard work for the fans to unlock additional content, the US version had those bosses unlocked from the beginning.

How about names of the characters? Does XSEED keep the Japanese names, or try to come up with an appropriate North American-friendly name?
Usually we will keep the Japanese names, but if it sounds close to a common English name then we make change it to that to make it more friendly for consumers. For example, a game like Muramasa: The Demon Blade which covers Japanese folklore will all be left as is, but if there's a Japanese name "Jyouji" in a modern setting then we may be tempted to spell it as "George."

Here's a biggie, what about theme songs that are sang in Japanese? Will XSEED translate the lyrics and have someone sing it in English, or replace the song entirely?
We always try to leave the original Japanese songs whenever possible. We know it's what the fans want, plus it's expensive and a hassle to re-record in English.

Are there any licensing problems when it comes to keeping the original Japanese music? The DBZ games and the Pokemon Anime seem to have problems with these specifically (at least the Pokemon Anime).
Yes, this happens quite often. It's why we couldn't use the original Japanese theme song in Wild ARMs 4.

What recording company does XSEED usually use when hiring English voice talent? Please don't say 4Kids. X_X
We use a variety of LA-based recording studios, and you can confirm which project used which recording studio by looking at the credits. 4Kids is based out of New York if I remember correctly so we couldn't use them very easily even if we wanted to.

And finally, what about pre-order items and such, like Rune Factory Frontier's CD and Turnip seeds?
Pre-order items are something we'll looking into for the future.

That's it from me for now.

Keep up the great work! LOTS of people are pulling for you guys and MMV!

Thanks for the kind words and support, and I hope at least some of my answers were helpful.
Ken @ XSEED Games

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TunaLover said:

couldn't xseed bring games from namco-bandai over here, i heard that big publishers manage its own titles and is unlikely other companies touch their games... its that so'

i really hope that sky crawlers, fragile, tecmo's fatal frame make its way to us/europe, its kinda ironic but big publishers almost don't care about worldwide releases of its niche games, i applaud xseed in that regard.

keep this thread bumped n.n

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jj984jj said:

Ew... stop using MEU, MMV USA sounds so much better.

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Thank you very much!

I have four more questions.

Gamespot "confirmed?" that you guys are bringing over NMH2 after all.

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6198879.html

Did they let something loose that they shouldn't, or are they incorrect?
This is incorrect, MMV has not confirmed the US publisher yet. We did help arrange the Gamespot interviews with Suda51 at TGS, the creator of NMH and NMH2, since the US publisher is yet to be confirmed so that's where the confusion probably started.

Second, as XSEED is localizing so many games for 2009 alone, I'm concerned if all this is both putting a lot of stress on XSEED and if the quality of the localizations could suffer as a result!
We definitely have our hands full right now and looks like well into 2009 too, but we'll do everything possible to make sure all our localized products are as good as possible. We're all gamers here and passionate about what we do, so it absolutely kills us when we see people mentioning bugs or poorly localized materials on message boards so we'll do everything in our power to avoid that.

Third, is MEU going to announce localizations of games from other publishers soon? If I may, I think Kizuna would be a fantastic first non-MMV game to bring over (as Shiren 3 seems far too unlikely sadly). But that's just my opinion... or is it?
I can't speak on MEU's behalf, but they are free to publish non-MMV games in the US if they choose to do so. I agree that Kizuna looks like it could be a fantastic offering if that were to happen (though we always save judgment until we get our hands on a playable).

Finally, will XSEED try their best to include 480p, 16:9, and Dolby Pro Logic II into games that didn't include them in the Japanese version?
Those kind of specifications are usually set at the very beginning of a new game project so we're usually limited to whatever the original Japanese game is programmed to be.

I hope XSEED is able to keep their localizations as high quality as possible for all of their games. Koei's Opoona for Wii left a bad taste in my mouth because of the lazy translations and typing in the game.
Ummm...no comment on other publishers' localization jobs. We know from experience that there's plenty of times when the US publisher is limited in what they can do localization-wise due to limitations from the team such as very tight English character limits, the development team wanting to keep certain English terminology even if it sounds weird to native speakers, the text constantly changing until the last second and increasing the chances of text bugs making it into the final build, etc. The cooperation and organization of the Japanese development team is just as important in the quality of the final localized product as the US publisher.

I have full confidence in XSEED, I believe you guys will come through!
Thanks for the support, we really appreciate it.

One last thing actually. MEU has only one person in the company right? What does MEU do with their games here? I'm a tad curious about that, as XSEED does all of the hard work right?
Wow, you know your stuff. Yes, MEU currently has only one person in the company and their office is downstairs from us in the same building. It's truly a team effort between MEU and XSEED to release MMV titles in the US together.

Anyway, thanks so much for answering all of my questions again, I truly appreciate it!
Not a problem, always happy to talk to gamers.
Ken @ XSEED Games

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I have two more suggestions.

Hudson's Otodamaster for DS.

And Bandai Namco's Dragon Tamer: Sound Spirit for the DS.

Both use the mic to create monsters.

Are these possible/easy to bring over? I'm actually wondering if the reason these aren't in NA, is because the games recognize Japanese words to create the monsters, and that it would take a long while to program the games to recognize English words?

Hey You, Pikachu! for the N64 was the same IIRC, it took two years for it to come to NA. Will it be the same for these two games or is it actually easier now that it was ten years ago?

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I am not familiar with the 2 games you listed, but as you guessed any kind of voice-recognition is extremely difficult to localize. I have never personally worked on one of these kinds of games, but I can only imagine how tough it must have been to localize a title like Seaman or Lifeline for the US, not to mention that the final end product is rarely appreciated as much as it should be.

I don't think we will pursue either of the games you listed, but please keep the suggestions coming if you have more.

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Thanks for the reply again!

Shame it's difficult, as those games really look interesting to the Pokemon crowd.

One thing I'd like to address.

I read the review of Valhalla Knights 2 at RPGamer.

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/other/psp/valknights2/reviews/valknights2strev1.html

And this sentence is of much concern:

- Poor translation with many typos.

Why is this so?

Is it by any chance because XSEED knew the game pretty much sucks so they didn't put their full effort into the game's translation?

PLEASE be most careful when localizing your future games! You already mentioned that it feels horrible to see these kind of criticisms of your company's games.

Why did this happen?

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Ah, Valhalla Knights 2 with its reported typos. Well, like I said before, the quality of localization is just as dependent on the development team as it is on the US publisher. If the dev team is unorganized, doesn't provide good QA (Quality Assurance) tools for the testers, or a host of other possible things that can make localization and QA very difficult for the US publisher, there will be problems in the end product.

I was not involved in VK2 so can't pinpoint what exactly the problem was, but I'm sure some of the above elements contributed in addition to resources being stretched thin internally as we have so many concurrent projects going on. I can assure you that we will do everything in our power to ensure that bugs do not slip through to the final release of our future titles.

Also keep in mind that the RPGamer reviewer absolutely hated the game so probably found a lot more faults than if he would have enjoyed it.

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