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Ar Tonelico 2 - NISA brings us back to the dark age of localization?

Arde5643

Member
PataHikari said:
And how'd they mess of AT1?
Piss-poor amateur hour translation and god-awful voice acting where most people just opted to use the JP voices as soon as they heard the English voices.

Luckily, no fatal game bug like AT2.
 

rykomatsu

Member
Arde5643 said:
and god-awful voice acting where most people just opted to use the JP voices as soon as they heard the English voices.

The JPN voice acting was pretty...shoddy to begin with too...
 
Arde5643 said:
Piss-poor amateur hour translation and god-awful voice acting where most people just opted to use the JP voices as soon as they heard the English voices.

Luckily, no fatal game bug like AT2.
There was a fatal glitch in AT 1 though. You could basically skip past a scene in Misha's scenario and then you would be unable to complete the game.

There were glitches in Atelier Iris 1 and 2 as well, although they weren't as bad as the one in AT 2.
 
PataHikari said:
No I'm paying attention to all of them instead of these two recent mess ups. I'm not saying they didn't screw up on Raphsody or AT2, I'm saying this dosn't make the company suck all of a sudden.

And how'd they mess of AT1?

that mess up is very recent and thats reason enough to be extra careful. if you consider the facts of 2009, those flaws become even more apparent. its better to be cautious in this matter from now on.
 

MotherFan

Member
Schopenhauer said:
There was a fatal glitch in AT 1 though. You could basically skip past a scene in Misha's scenario and then you would be unable to complete the game.

There were glitches in Atelier Iris 1 and 2 as well, although they weren't as bad as the one in AT 2.

What's the one in Atelier Iris 2? I'm playing that atm. (no spoiler please)
 
MotherFan said:
What's the one in Atelier Iris 2? I'm playing that atm. (no spoiler please)
Getting a black screen after beating the final boss. I encountered this one, but it isn't an issue if you are using the Jp voice track.
 

MotherFan

Member
Schopenhauer said:
Getting a black screen after beating the final boss. I encountered this one, but it isn't an issue if you are using the Jp voice track.

Ah, so you can't watch the ending unless you have the Jp voices on? I'll remember to change them when that happens. Thanks :)
 

Arde5643

Member
Hi Pata, so what's that about only one misstep of NISA and suddenly everyone jumping on them? :lol :lol



PS: I wonder if there's a way to let Gust know to have a different US publisher next time for their game because if they continue to stay with NISA, there's a good chance their next titles might not reach their usual expectation of US releases.
I think a lot of people are starting to get wary of NISA products so they probably will wait for a full review of the localization job first before purchasing.
 
PataHikari said:
Why is it that good things pass by without notice, but one mess up and it's never forgotten...

Because it's not their job to "try hard" or some nonsense, it's their job to turn out a quality product that's worth the money people paid for it. Based on the combination of the game-breaking bug and the execrable translation, the American edition of AT2 isn't worth a single dollar whether it's the best RPG on PS2 or not.


Durante said:
DKnight, the randomness of that conversation is mostly due to Cynthias' character.

It really isn't, though. The whole scene is full of basic English problems that have nothing to do with correctly characterizing the crazy chick. She repeatedly refers to "earth" instead of "the earth." Croix's response "...add the recipe" is totally incomprehensible given the context of what's been said to him already in the scene. Sentences use "it" as a hanging reference in a way that's standard in Japanese but sounds wrong in English. "You didn't need to involve ecology into weapons too" is complete Engrish.

The whole thing shows no evidence of even having been examined by an English-speaking editor. It's not quite on the level of something like Star Ocean 2, but it's close.
 

Durante

Member
charlequin said:
Croix's response "...add the recipe" is totally incomprehensible given the context of what's been said to him already in the scene.
But see, that's her shtick: she tells Croix an incomprehensible story and then suddenly produces a new recipe based on it -- he just pre-empts her in that case.
Your other points are about the bad quality of the translation (it's almost a transliteration really) and I agree. What I said was that "the randomness of that conversation is mostly due to Cynthias' character.".

charlequin said:
The whole thing shows no evidence of even having been examined by an English-speaking editor.
That part is certainly true, and it's the same for all text that's not an essential part of the main story arc.
By the way, it's also obvious in many secondary dialogues that some/most of them were translated without knowledge of the in-game context or even adequate information about the overall story and especially the setting of the game. It almost seems like someone was given a bunch of lines and told "translate this".
 

Zihark

Member
Schopenhauer said:
Getting a black screen after beating the final boss. I encountered this one, but it isn't an issue if you are using the Jp voice track.
That happen to me, so stupid-i said beep this and put the game away-was mediocre anyways.
 

TimeKillr

Member
Durante said:
By the way, it's also obvious in many secondary dialogues that some/most of them were translated without knowledge of the in-game context or even adequate information about the overall story and especially the setting of the game. It almost seems like someone was given a bunch of lines and told "translate this".

You've never worked in game development, have you? :lol

Every single time one of my projects had to be localized, it was exactly this.

"Take these lines of text and translate them."

We all speak french over here and the english to french translation is just HORRIBLE to the point where we were scared for other languages we can't read.
 

TheCardPlayer

Likes to have "friends" around to "play cards" with
I remember the French box for Wind Waker

''Recieve help in battle''

...

''Trouvez de l'aide en bouteille''
 

Volcynika

Member
Joule said:
What happened in this particular localization?

They directly translated the website from the JP version, which mentioned bonus content, but it turned out that the bonus content had been left out from the NA version, there was only JP voice acting (no English), and some areas had freezing issues.

(I think that's how it was, might be slightly off though).
 

RevenantKioku

PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
Wonder what it means that this actually makes me interested in the game?
Not that I've bought an English language version of a game in years, but there is something charming and old timey about awful translations with game breaking bugs.
 
Ah, I don't know how I missed this topic.

To reiterate what many people have already said, NISA screwed up big time, and they were already on thin ice with their fans after the Rhapsody disaster. And the utter lack of any concern on their part is just a slap to the face.

Ar tonelico II had potential to be one of their biggest break-out hits and they slapped together one of their worst localization efforts to date. The poor localization and the removal of massive amounts of voice acting is beyond ridiculous. And when the issue of the massive glitch was discovered, they took two weeks to even address it and when they finally did they released a form email filled with misinformation and a extremely half hearted apology.

I don't understand what this company is thinking. Do they really think fans will still around just to get shoddy products over and over? The games they release are not mainstream faire so I don't know why they would think they can play so fast and loose with their fanbase. (Not that any company, big or small, should do that.)

I was so excited to play ATII and now I feel depressed every time I think about it. I finally decided to buy a Japanese copy and I'm strongly leaning towards waiting until I have a strong grasp on the language before I play the game so my first experience with it isn't this mess.

And to think, I was one of NISA's biggest supporters, and I would still be willing to invest my faith in them again if they would make an effort to fix these mistakes. But as it stands now, they are still giving their customers the cold shoulder. I'm going to be extremely wary of any of their future games and do my research before giving them anymore of my money.

Arde5643 said:
PS: I wonder if there's a way to let Gust know to have a different US publisher next time for their game because if they continue to stay with NISA, there's a good chance their next titles might not reach their usual expectation of US releases.
I think a lot of people are starting to get wary of NISA products so they probably will wait for a full review of the localization job first before purchasing.
This. What is it going to take before Gust gets fed up? Or are they even aware of this?

If Atlus or XSEED would take over Gust's games from now on I would be over the moon. Unless NISA can start giving their other games besides Disgaea the attention they deserve.
 
^^^First Nintendo for not localizing their games period now NIS for their horrid localizations.

It's like the essence of their awesomeness were completely sucked out of them and transferred directly to Atlus and XSEED.

Anyway in this day in age where companies like Capcom or Atlus tweak their localizations to even fit Japaense pop-culture references and apply them to the nearest identical Western neighbor (see modern Persona series or Apollo Justice) this is just flat out inexcusable.

While I wasn't planning to buy the game, I have thought about it at times as it seemed as the first Gust game to get it "right" from talks and seemed like one of the high quality twilight and beyond JRPG's to hit the PS2 that was preceded by Persona 3, Odin Sphere, and Persona 4 (similar to the PS1's Vagrant Story, Valkyrie Profile, Persona 2, and Legend of Dragoon). Real sad that the company forgot that it was 2009 and not 1992.
 

Stage On

Member
You know I don't know if I should be happy or sad that I can't give Nisa my money on this.

They cut the shippments on it so bad that it's next to impossible to get it in Canada my preorder even got screwed over because of this!

So yah not only do they need to step up their localization more would it hurt them to actually print more copies of the bloody game itself? Even Atlus isn't this bad for crying out loud
 
The only issue I recall XSEED having is the beastiary snafu in Wild Arms 4. (Though, I don't think it was ever explained why those two rabbit enemies were removed...)

Besides that, I'm not aware of any other major issues in any of their games. Plus, they are very upfront with their fans and take people's suggestions and concerns seriously.
 
Looks like someone reviewed this for anime news network.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the-x-button/2009-02-11

ANN said:
When it was released in Japan, Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica had the dubious privilege of inspiring a new term in supremely pathetic otaku culture. When it comes to anime, manga, and games aimed at desperate Japanese nerds, female character archetypes are known by twee little nicknames. A “yandere” is a girl who's sweet at first and then violently insane, while a “tsundere” is a girl who's initially rude and spiteful but later melts like a big-eyed stick of butter in the arms of some bland audience-insertion hero. Cloche, the haughty blonde part of Ar tonelico II's love triangle, was quickly classified as a tsundere, but when they came to the other heroine, Luca Trulyworth, the arbiters of Japan's otaku tastes had to invent a new classification. So they dubbed her a “dorodere,” an outwardly cheerful girl who hides all sorts of nasty emotional scars.

That's the sort of game Ar tonelico II is. It's a long, loud reading from the gospel of moe culture, commanding easily wiled nerds to gorge themselves on cutesy anime-girl excess at every turn. There's an RPG underneath it all, and it's not a bad RPG. It's just slathered in syrupy bait for lonesome geeks.

Like its predecessor, Ar tonelico II explores a stretch of the world known as Ar Ciel, where floating islands support small colonies of humans and an artificial, all-female, all-attractive race known as Reyvateils. In one corner of the globe, a faction of the Grand Bell church skips ahead in the standard RPG plot and declares open war against the land's patron goddess. Croix Bartel, a young knight from the Grand Bell ranks, finds himself guarding the church's snobbish Reyvateil figurehead, Lady Cloche Leythal Pastalia, with the reluctant help of his bubbly, would-be Reyvateil girlfriend, Luca Trulyworth. Their inevitable romantic entanglements are quickly surrounded by church conspiracies, revolutionaries, divine punishment, and a virus that's turning Reyvateils into insane killing machines.

There's a convoluted plot at work in Ar tonelico II, but the designers are careful to build it around the heroines. After five hours of flirting banter and left-field plot twists, Croix must choose a woman and, with her, a side in the coming war. Cloche's high-society upbringing has left her persnickety but also isolated and miserable, while Luca is an outwardly cheerful psychic therapist who's carrying a metric ton of issues and ulterior motives just below the surface. For those players who dislike both women, a third Reyvateil love interest appears later in the game, with her own bizarre problems and ties to the first Ar tonelico.

Croix gets to know the Reyvateil leads through both face-to-face conversations and psychic dives into their Cosmospheres, layered abstractions of their mental states. Once submerged in a Reyvateil's inner world, Croix trots from one board-game point to another, exploring dialogue trees and discussions akin to those of a visual novel. Each Reyvateil's insecurities play out differently, but the game often decides to stroke well-worn fantasies by putting on symbolic schoolgirl dramas, superhero stories, and other genre standards.

Ar tonelico II is still an RPG, of course, and diving into a Cosmosphere unlocks new songs for Reyvateils to use in the game's surprisingly detailed combat. Each battle finds two of the party's melee fighters shielding a pair of Reyvateils, who sing to unleash various magical attacks. The warriors strike at foes by using various combinations of the directional pad and buttons, and each attack boosts a Reyvateil's power. When enemies hit, the front-line characters protect the Reyvateil singers with timed button-taps almost closer to a music-based game. This is all accompanied by constant chatter, with a typical battle finding Cloche intoning “It's OVERFLOWING from inside!” while Luca squeaks “I feel it…STRONGER!” and Croix blasts an enemy into space, shouting “Maximum PENETRATION!” It's well past innuendo.

After the possibly intentional comedy of the voices wears off, the battle system reveals an impressive little equation. Within each limited turn, the player must sync up attacks for combos and pay attention to the graph that indicates the Reyvateils' preferences, all so they'll throw out more powerful spells. It's a complex engine for what's essentially a puffball moe-moe game, and Gust pulls it off with minimal frustration. Enemy encounters are nicely spaced out and most of the levels are simple, easily mapped affairs, making almost every battle a short, enjoyable test. A test filled with orgiastic moans and screams, that is.

When not wandering though dungeons, towns, and the fragile mindscapes of Cloche and Luca, Croix finds many other pursuits steeped in saccharine atmosphere. Reyvateils can gain levels, abilities, and better sync-ratios by taking crystal-infused baths together. Friendly shopkeepers, all of them female, let Croix and his harem create new weapons, items, and bath accessories during cooking scenes (and neither Luca nor Cloche can cook well! Isn't that fucking hilarious?). There's also a host of infected young Reyvateils that, once defeated in battle, can be rehabilitated through Luca's Dive Therapy and used to empower party members. It all fits together quite conveniently.

As with most lower-level RPGs that lack Square Enix budgets, Ar tonelico II sports clean but fairly simple backgrounds and large 2-D character sprites, with rare video clips popping up during key scenes. Most of Gust's budget likely went into the soundtrack, an impressive mixture of everything from sitar-tinged themes to oppressive techno-choral numbers (though I could do without the creepy-little-kid whispers of “Ar tonelio” popping up everywhere). While the Reyvateils seldom sing in combat, there are more than a few actual songs used during the story, and all of them were left untranslated. The rest of the game has both Japanese and English voice tracks, though NIS cut many voiced lines for the U.S. version. A number of characters are now mute, and some of the game's most memorable dramatic scenes don't have any vocal accompaniment. It doesn't help that typos and awkward lines are strewn throughout the dialogue, along with the rare untranslated text. It's a sloppy localization by modern standards, and it's smoothed over only when the player can hear the capable voice cast, featuring Kate Higgins as Cloche and Laura Bailey as Luca.

Ar tonelico II's inventive battles and unique diversions make it all the more unpleasant when the game joins the same cutesy-sexy horror show that supplies too much of today's anime industry. Luca and Cloche are conventional leads, but those who dive in deep enough will uncover younger and less innocuous characters, including a line of Reyvateil girls with doll-like faces and prominent cleavage. There's also Croix's adopted little sister, Cocona, who dresses like a child prostitute and should appeal to players barred from living within three miles of any school. She's also presented as a potential future girlfriend for Croix. Eww.

Few of Ar tonelico II's ideas make it through undamaged. Wandering a character's subconscious is a promising move for a game, suggesting an RPG-ish Psychonauts or a dialogue-driven Persona 4, but the Cosmosphere quests in Ar tonelico II rarely hit clever moments. They're mostly predictable allegories or bathetic purges, and clearing stages of a Reyvateil's psyche unlocks an increasingly risqué line of outfits for them to wear in combat.

Setting aside all of the suggestive noise, Ar tonelico II doesn't survive as a RPG. It offers a creative world and some potentially interesting details, but they're unraveled by weak writing and abundant clichés. From the floating continents to the wars against deities, nearly every concept in Ar tonelico II is half-formed, resulting in plenty of big, allegedly dramatic twists that carry little to no weight or explanation.

The characters suffer much the same. For example, Croix and Luca at first seem refreshingly unique for an RPG couple; they're already together at the game's outset, but their carefree affections are soon tested as ugly secrets come to light. In a better story, they'd repeatedly confront the truth of their relationship and decide if it was worth saving. Yet Ar tonelico II just puts them through largely facile reconciliation and a jumble of metaphysical bullshit that quickly collapses under its own jargon. For all of the game's barely veiled sexual winking, none of the actual relationships gets beyond inane, rushed, and childish concepts of romance.

One more problem emerges in the game's final round. Due to a memory issue, the third-to-last boss freezes the game unless she's defeated within three complete turns, forcing players to concoct all sorts of cheap strategies to defeat her. It's one of the most embarrassing console-game bugs in a long time, and it shows little sign of being fixed.

There are traces of a great RPG within Ar tonelico II, but it demands too high a tolerance for modern anime pandering. Get over that, and you might revel in the kinetic battle system and the novel veins of character growth. You might also look past the fumbled story and nauseating otaku fetishes. Yet the game may best be left to the truly devoted fans, the ones who will buy Luca model kits and use “dorodere” in future conversations. With so many more accomplished RPGs on the market, there's little reason to try Ar tonelico II unless you plan to lap up every bit of its fake-girlfriend fantasy.

The reviewer is pretty spot on about the games issues both in terms of localization and excessive subculture pandering. Only real points of contention I have are I think the game can be enjoyable in spite of the "issues" (non technical), and he's completely exaggerating the battle dialog stuff, which is actually kinda tongue in cheek versus the rest of the examples given which are just straight up pandering.

Bolded for my personal enjoyment.
 

Arde5643

Member
pancakesandsex said:
Looks like someone reviewed this for anime news network.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the-x-button/2009-02-11



The reviewer is pretty spot on about the games issues both in terms of localization and excessive subculture pandering. Only real points of contention I have are I think the game can be enjoyable in spite of the "issues" (non technical), and he's completely exaggerating the battle dialog stuff, which is actually kinda tongue in cheek versus the rest of the examples given which are just straight up pandering.
Holy shiznit is that one very elitist and snobbish pretentious attitude I've seen in a review.

Just from reading that review, I wanna sock the reviewer and feed his glasses up his throat.
 
Arde5643 said:
Holy shiznit is that one very elitist and snobbish pretentious attitude I've seen in a review.

Just from reading that review, I wanna sock the reviewer and feed his glasses up his throat.

I wanna shake his or her hand.
 

MotherFan

Member
pancakesandsex said:
Looks like someone reviewed this for anime news network.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the-x-button/2009-02-11



The reviewer is pretty spot on about the games issues both in terms of localization and excessive subculture pandering. Only real points of contention I have are I think the game can be enjoyable in spite of the "issues" (non technical), and he's completely exaggerating the battle dialog stuff, which is actually kinda tongue in cheek versus the rest of the examples given which are just straight up pandering.

Bolded for my personal enjoyment.

Review is spot on, especially about the plot and moe crap. I like the battle system but all the perversion convinced me not to buy it. Game could of been tons better.
 
Grr, the Wii Opera browser just deleted my lengthy post! :(

Whatever. Basically what I said:

Anime news network reviewer says you have to put up with too much modern anime pandering. :lol

Hymmnos is a real language within these games. The songs and lyrics, sung in both hymmnos and Japanese, are important to the overall story.

NISA messed up. Opening and most of ending are unvoiced. Cosmosphere voices should've kicked the bucket instead. That said, the few voice acting scenes were done pretty well.

Game crashing bug is on an optional boss fight near the end. The final battle has no freezing issues.

Game is still great. The text isn't entirely Engrish. Very understandable and good in some parts.

Now to cry over all that lame detail that's now lost. No more big posts on the Wii from me.
 

Volcynika

Member
Spirit Icana said:
Game crashing bug is on an optional boss fight near the end. The final battle has no freezing issues.

Actually, the freezing bug happens on a *required* fight near the end, as well as the subsequent fights (which are optional) to unlock bonus stuff. (I beat the game just last week, so I know I'm right. :p )
 

Ramune

Member
*Sigh* This is so heart breaking. Here's Ar Tonelico II, which I gladly pre-ordered a few days after it was announced, because after falling in love with the first game (even played it on my MGS4 PS3 with no problems), I was going to push this higher up on my priority list (even passing Persona 3 FES and Persona 4 on my backlog), just to dive into this delicious sequel.

...Only to hear that it was delayed to January, which bummed me a bit, but to fix bugs or "tighten the graphics" I'll let it slide. Then I hear everyones experiences, and I don't know. I just don't want to play it now. It completely sucked the anticipation I once had for the game. Especially when NISA treats it as a "game difficulty". Yeah, the final boss is so evil that if you don't beat it fast enough, it'll freeze your PS2 completely. Not to mention not letting PS3 heroes storm the castle by putting up a barrier of entry. I would gladly PAY for a replacement disk and I'm sure I'm not the only one. We want companies like NISA to succeed, but not when they do shoddy work such as this. I even pay extra for the special edition, but for what? Extra work that should have been applied to the game itself? I don't think I have to worry about the upcoming Prinny game, but what of games like X-Edge or Mana Khemia 2?
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
pancakesandsex said:
Looks like someone reviewed this for anime news network.

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/the-x-button/2009-02-11

The reviewer is pretty spot on about the games issues both in terms of localization and excessive subculture pandering. Only real points of contention I have are I think the game can be enjoyable in spite of the "issues" (non technical), and he's completely exaggerating the battle dialog stuff, which is actually kinda tongue in cheek versus the rest of the examples given which are just straight up pandering.

Bolded for my personal enjoyment.

I agree with the entire review, especially on the terrible "innuendo" and the pandering to the moe market which severely limited the sales of the game.

I felt that Ar Tolenico II was a good game, but all my RPG-loving female friends that embraced Valkyria balked at the idea of buying this game when I showed it to them.
 

shaowebb

Member
Well I hate to admit it but yeah these glitches suck.
However I oddly enough proudly admit I will buy every single GUST team game no matter who localizes it.

I own Atelier Iris 1,2&3/Mana Khemia/Ar Tonelico 1&2

I will also buy Mana Khemia 2 when it hits shelves and any of the other older Atelier games they made if they localize them.

Im just in love with the story telling, non-bland characters with cute character models and the whole create an item thing.

But...lets list some glitches I've put up with to enjoy these games.
Atelier Iris:Eternal Mana
-If you do not have all the music and sfx turned all the way down in options after you beat the last boss of the game you do NOT get a chance to save after the credits. The game locks. You NEED to be able to save in order to unlock an extra dungeon and to get
Arlin back
in order to make all the items in the game to see all the last funny character moments with the NPC's at the shops where you make the last items.

Atelier Iris 2:The Azoth of Destiny

-If you do not make the Flay Hammer before the end of Chapter 20 you wont have a move that a character uses in a cut scene moment and the game will freeze. It an item nearly impossible to miss but laziness will get your game frozen here.
-Odd misc freezes in areas near end of game. I began frequent saving to avoid problems.

Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm

-the only glitches I have even HEARD of apparently are from folks using AR MAX to hack.
All was well with this one.

Mana Khemia:Alchemists of Al Revis

-All is well :D

Ar Tonelico:Melody of Elemia
- Due to a glitch, Secret Cards #063 and #078, can't be acquired during
normal game play, making it impossible to complete the Secret Cards
collection.
-If you acquire the Soleil stone after the first cut scene instead of going back to watch the second one as well your game can freeze. Ha! Got that one out without spoiling anything.
 

rykomatsu

Member
Hcoregamer00 said:
I agree with the entire review, especially on the terrible "innuendo" and the pandering to the moe market which severely limited the sales of the game.

Dunno how the innuendos were translated but there wasn't much of it...12 lines...of which 3 were from 1 scene (install scene) out of the whole game...couldn't have been THAT bad...
 

zoku88

Member
Hcoregamer00 said:
I agree with the entire review, especially on the terrible "innuendo" and the pandering to the moe market which severely limited the sales of the game.

I felt that Ar Tolenico II was a good game, but all my RPG-loving female friends that embraced Valkyria balked at the idea of buying this game when I showed it to them.
That's just knowing your audience, though. They made the game with a specific set of gamers and targetting them well. I mean, it's not really the type of game that needs to sell that much...
 

rykomatsu

Member
zoku88 said:
That's just knowing your audience, though. They made the game with a specific set of gamers and targetting them well. I mean, it's not really the type of game that needs to sell that much...

and in the process, while anecdotal evidence only, the music seems to have sucked in quite a bit of gamers who would have also otherwise passed on it. Quite a few posts on 2ch and other blogs mentioning that they bought the hymnos albums then decided to buy the game :p
 

Arde5643

Member
I pretty much enjoyed the game because I felt the innuendos and absurd moe pandering were hilarious.

Something like "I've got a gag manga in my RPG!" :D
 

Hcoregamer00

The 'H' stands for hentai.
Arde5643 said:
I pretty much enjoyed the game because I felt the innuendos and absurd moe pandering were hilarious.

Something like "I've got a gag manga in my RPG!" :D

I agree :D

It made the game unintentionally hilarious.
 

Mr Nash

square pies = communism
Should get johntv to send some of his people over there to crack some skulls, and show them how localization is done.
 
shaowebb said:
But...lets list some glitches I've put up with to enjoy these games.
Atelier Iris:Eternal Mana
-If you do not have all the music and sfx turned all the way down in options after you beat the last boss of the game you do NOT get a chance to save after the credits. The game locks. You NEED to be able to save in order to unlock an extra dungeon and to get
Arlin back
in order to make all the items in the game to see all the last funny character moments with the NPC's at the shops where you make the last items.

Atelier Iris 2:The Azoth of Destiny

-If you do not make the Flay Hammer before the end of Chapter 20 you wont have a move that a character uses in a cut scene moment and the game will freeze. It an item nearly impossible to miss but laziness will get your game frozen here.
-Odd misc freezes in areas near end of game. I began frequent saving to avoid problems.

Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm

-the only glitches I have even HEARD of apparently are from folks using AR MAX to hack.
All was well with this one.

Mana Khemia:Alchemists of Al Revis

-All is well :D

Ar Tonelico:Melody of Elemia
- Due to a glitch, Secret Cards #063 and #078, can't be acquired during
normal game play, making it impossible to complete the Secret Cards
collection.
-If you acquire the Soleil stone after the first cut scene instead of going back to watch the second one as well your game can freeze. Ha! Got that one out without spoiling anything.


Wow, oh wow.
 

MotherFan

Member
shaowebb said:
Well I hate to admit it but yeah these glitches suck.
However I oddly enough proudly admit I will buy every single GUST team game no matter who localizes it.

I own Atelier Iris 1,2&3/Mana Khemia/Ar Tonelico 1&2

I will also buy Mana Khemia 2 when it hits shelves and any of the other older Atelier games they made if they localize them.

Im just in love with the story telling, non-bland characters with cute character models and the whole create an item thing.

But...lets list some glitches I've put up with to enjoy these games.
Atelier Iris:Eternal Mana
-If you do not have all the music and sfx turned all the way down in options after you beat the last boss of the game you do NOT get a chance to save after the credits. The game locks. You NEED to be able to save in order to unlock an extra dungeon and to get
Arlin back
in order to make all the items in the game to see all the last funny character moments with the NPC's at the shops where you make the last items.

Atelier Iris 2:The Azoth of Destiny

-If you do not make the Flay Hammer before the end of Chapter 20 you wont have a move that a character uses in a cut scene moment and the game will freeze. It an item nearly impossible to miss but laziness will get your game frozen here.
-Odd misc freezes in areas near end of game. I began frequent saving to avoid problems.

Atelier Iris 3: Grand Phantasm

-the only glitches I have even HEARD of apparently are from folks using AR MAX to hack.
All was well with this one.

Mana Khemia:Alchemists of Al Revis

-All is well :D

Ar Tonelico:Melody of Elemia
- Due to a glitch, Secret Cards #063 and #078, can't be acquired during
normal game play, making it impossible to complete the Secret Cards
collection.
-If you acquire the Soleil stone after the first cut scene instead of going back to watch the second one as well your game can freeze. Ha! Got that one out without spoiling anything.

Mana Khemia and Atelier Iris games are alot of fun. I'm on AI 2 atm, gonna make sure I make that hammer when I get to the point I need to. More heads up are a good thing.
 
Volcynika said:
Actually, the freezing bug happens on a *required* fight near the end, as well as the subsequent fights (which are optional) to unlock bonus stuff. (I beat the game just last week, so I know I'm right. :p )

Well, I beat the game before you did and the optional fight was all that killed my system.

I'm guessing the required fight with [Raki?] froze your game too? I have heard about that happening with some gamefaqs users. I remember that fight being tough. I'm sure I went over six turns. I'm playing the game again so I'll see if luck strikes again.
 

Volcynika

Member
Spirit Icana said:
Well, I beat the game before you did and the optional fight was all that killed my system.

I'm guessing the required fight with [Raki?] froze your game too? I have heard about that happening with some gamefaqs users. I remember that fight being tough. I'm sure I went over six turns. I'm playing the game again so I'll see if luck strikes again.

The
Raki story fight
froze my game. I beat it the first try before freezing, but went back to see it for myself on an earlier save, and sure enough, it froze.
 
Volcynika said:
The
Raki story fight
froze my game. I beat it the first try before freezing, but went back to see it for myself on an earlier save, and sure enough, it froze.

Interesting.

No excuse for this NISA.
 

BluWacky

Member
pancakesandsex said:
It's not ONE mistake. It's an entire game. THIS is one mistake, THIS is not.

Without wishing to open a can of worms here, I think both of those are pretty poor for entirely different reasons.

For one, I don't think I've ever played a localised game which has accidentally left in Japanese text like that Persona clip, especially corrupted text like that. I'm sure the rest of the package is top notch, but it's a bit of a strange mistake to make - especially given the nature of scripts in most games where they're easily broken into chunks that can be monitored for project progression I'd have thought.

The Ar Tonelico screens are just mindboggling, though (for some reason I've never actually played a NISA RPG, not even Disgaea, so I have no prior experience with their translations). Without wishing to be naive about these things, I would have thought that usually either the translator takes multiple passes on their text or there's someone else editing it or at least proof reading it - and having someone do that can't take THAT long to iron out those sorts of mistakes. It's hardly game-breaking like the other bugs mentioned, but it's really quite shit.
 
shaowebb said:
Mana Khemia:Alchemists of Al Revis
-All is well :D
Actually, Mana Khemia has quite a large glitch during the bonus dungeon. If you fight any random encounters on floor 47 and on, any time you attack an enemy the game will freeze. Your only option to get around this is to avoid random battles with items and/or run away from fights after using a certain skill that makes it possible.

Hopefully this will be fixed in the PSP version, but who knows. :/
 
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