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WD rises from the ashes (sort of)
- Thread starter pancakesandsex
- Start date
I never said the translation was bad (although I'm sure many more knowledgable of the Japanese versions can argue that point). I said the writing was bad. "Topical" humor that dates itself almost immedietly is not a substitute for being a good or witty writer, especially when said humor is completely out of place in the game.
ManaByte
Gold Member
LegatoB said:I resisted the urge to use almost that exact choice of words. I'm pleased that another was not so tactful!
A serious question to Vic - what exactly is it your company is going to do to seperate itself from the pack? If your plan is to basically be Working Designs, Part 2, with more emphasis placed on the pointless pack-in extras, badly written localization and hiring the worst voice actors you can possibly find, what exactly makes you think this is going to be any more succesful than it was during this past console generation? Given that it's been shown that you will continue to pursue the release of games despite SCEA indicating that they will never, ever allow you to release them, over a period of years, and even when the game you wish to release is really not very good and your fight ends up eventually running your company into the ground, what makes you believe anyone is going to support your newest venture? Have you perhaps learned when to pick your battles? Does anyone actually take you seriously anymore outside of a few die-hards on Internet message boards?
Wow, that's actually quite an attack. Almost sounds bitter, like WD personally wronged Legato in some way.
Shouta
Member
LegatoB said:
No, you said bad localization which entails translation. You can hate on the jokes as much as you want but arguing that because you don't like the jokes, their localization as a whole is bad is pretty stupid. If you don't like the jokes, say that their humor was stupid but don't go about saying it's their localization because you're just asking for someone that does look past it to jump on you.
Christopher
Member
Vic protip. Get games that don't suck.
After Lunar I was interested in what else you guys had to pick up ...sadly not even your team could polish some of those games. I'd be interested if you guys picked up a big name title.
After Lunar I was interested in what else you guys had to pick up ...sadly not even your team could polish some of those games. I'd be interested if you guys picked up a big name title.
Shouta said:
As you said, localization entails the entire process. The fact that their writing/editing is arguably poor and bundled with the fact that they often change game balance tweaks for the worse - would be more than enough for someone to state they offered less than stellar localization. Whether you agree or not is besides the point.
WD did do some good work in the 90s when they were the only company that actually cared about proper localization (the actual quality of the localizations are debatable, but the effort was good) and hence they had no competition. Now with every dick and jane wanting in on the localization scene with XSEED here and Aksys there trying to break into the market, I really do wonder if Vic's efforts have much relevance anymore.
More competition means harder profits, and also higher bids for games of value from Japan. Just think about it for a moment, in the past 3 years what Japanese game that WOULD be profitable in the US and WOULD be approved by SCEA has NOT been brought over. Yup, that about sums it up. Good luck with Gaijinworks, but at this point it just looks like another company wanting to get back into an overcrowded market.
Christopher
Member
A adapation is not the same as a localization...it just doesn't work you purists, it doesn't go play your games in japanese and read the subtitles. Vic your adaption of Lunar SSS and EB were brilliant.
Howard Alan Treesong
Member
duckroll said:
If Vic can licence EDF2 or EDFX, then I will take back every bad thing I've ever said about Working Designs. Not that I've said any.
Propagandhim
Banned
Christopher said:
Agreed at the risk of being called a "fanboy". Never in an RPG have I wanted to talk to all the townspeople several times just to see what they say, like I have in Lunar. Good stuff.
Shouta
Member
duckroll said:As you said, localization entails the entire process. The fact that their writing/editing is arguably poor and bundled with the fact that they often change game balance tweaks for the worse - would be more than enough for someone to state they offered less than stellar localization. Whether you agree or not is besides the point.
Hey, if you want to bust their chops on game tweaks, be my guest. I'm just saying that saying their humor ruined the localization is plain stupid. Although, in Legato's specific instance, he's talking about the script which I don't agree with.
duckroll said:
I think Vic's efforts are still pretty relevant personally. As someone said earlier (I think it may have been Vic), these companies are in it just to make money while WD has always been profit and doing it for fans and themselves. We don't have a company like that now and that's sort of a sad thing. It's always good to have a company with a face and a purpose in an industry that's all about money most of the time.
I do agree with you that it's crowded market now though and hopefully Vic and Gaijinworks will set themselves apart from everyone else. Then again, it wouldn't be too difficult to do that with your competition being folks like XSEED. =P
Low blow on XSEED! :lol
Honestly though, I don't see XSEED, Aksys, Mastiff (lol) or any of these sudden startups being a threat so to speak, but they just make the market more crowded. The real competition will be from Atlus. Atlus USA today is definitely not the Atlus that WD was compared to back in the PS1 generation.
Also, I feel that the market on a whole has changed such that pretty much every big RPG has a pretty solid localization these days (except when it's Namco Hometek haha) so the overall standard has gone up. It'll be nice if Gaijinworks (ugh... hate... name
) takes all of this into account and surprises everyone, but honestly I'm just not too excited at the moment considering what WD did in the last few years before dying. 
Christopher
Member
LegatoB said:
We're talking about Working Designs. I never played Devil Kings nor was I interested in it, but going in without prior knowledge of the Japanese version I'm pretty sure I'll have an unpartial opinion to it.
Shouta
Member
duckroll said:
It's true though! :lol
duckroll said:
You're right, the real competition is Atlus. Even if it isn't the same company now, they still have the same tendencies. Totally hit or miss games and sometimes really poor localization efforts (Stella Deus anyone?).
duckroll said:Also, I feel that the market on a whole has changed such that pretty much every big RPG has a pretty solid localization these days (except when it's Namco Hometek haha) so the overall standard has gone up. It'll be nice if Gaijinworks (ugh... hate... name
My only real worry with GW will be a little bit of the humor issue (which has gotten immensely better ever since Lunar but still could use a little work) and voice acting. WD's scripts still remain top-notch compared to even the best works from current companies so I'm not too worried about it. Growlanser was especially good considering I thought it ended up being better than the original scripts for it.
Shouta said:
Despite what you say, I found that the constant stream of terrible jokes in Albert Odessey and Lunar 2 (SegaCD version) made the characters impossible to take seriously. Worse, it made it impossible for them to come off as being actual characters as opposed to a stage for hack-writer to crack terrible puns.
You CAN have humor in games (and localizations) without resorting to crap like that (see: Phoenix Wright).
Also, all the grammar mistakes and typos in many of their early games (particularly Dragon Force) also say 'hi'.
Shouta
Member
alske said:
Oh god, Albert Odyssey Gaiden. That's by far WD's worst work if I were to grade them all. Too many bad jokes, all the time. Then again, the game wasn't good to begin with (it's a ****ing blight on the two very good Albert Odyssey games on the SNES) and the original script was...well I think you could've found more water in the desert.
Christopher
Member
I think it says something when I tried to talk to almost every NPC in Lunar and Lunar II...that's a first in any RPG ever. I mean these characters had so much personality and presence to them. A simple text translation will never do any game any justice and probably takes the heart away as well.
ZeromusMog
Member
MoxManiac said:At least XSEED released their games when they said they would
"Delays are temporary, mediocrity is forever."
Then again, I didn't get a PS1 until after Lunar came out because I bought the PS1 and Lunar the same day, so maybe I'm not one to talk :lol
ZeromusMog
Member
Wait, is Goemon what I think it is, that weirdo blue cat?
Oh god the thought of that thing spewing out Bush jokes makes me want to buy 10, and I'm not joking!
Oh god the thought of that thing spewing out Bush jokes makes me want to buy 10, and I'm not joking!
Tyrone Slothrop
Banned
this is all pretty pathetic
ZeromusMog
Member
Shard said:
Dammit! Way to ruin my dreams with your piddling FACTS!
I just looked it up though and ah, it's the Legend of the Mystical Ninja guy. Now it aaaaaaal makes sense.
And now I am dissapointed because thinking of a quirky game like LotMN done by Working Designs sounds totally awesome and now I am depressed that it never came to be.
Whimsical Phil
Ninja School will help you
ZeromusMog said:
Goemon
Doraemon
At the risk of making this thread even MORE bloated, here'ssome of why and how on Albert Odyssey. I picked it up because the person who did the art was the same as LUNAR (Kubooka-san). The game was *okay*, but I was planning on reworking some stuff and getting additional art assets by working with Kubooka. UNfortunately, turns out he hated the project and was embarrassed to have been associated with it, so he didn't want to do any more on it. Oops.
And if you thought the jokes in the shipped game were too copious, you should have seen the first draft! That was around the time I was trying to spread out the writing duties, and the person I gave that project to completely overdosed the game on jokes. I thinned them out (maybe keeping 30% of the comedy) in the editing/rewriting phase, but it's still very jokey, even for my personal taste. Game Informer liked it, though - called it the funniest RPG ever or something like that.
Christopher said:
It does work... when it's done properly. The goal of localization should be to preserve the spirit of the original as closely as possible while still rendering it accessible to a foreign audience. That means if a character has serious dialogue in the Japanese version of a game, you keep their dialogue serious in the translation, rather than throwing in some jokes to 'improve on' it. Likewise, certain cultural references might be a problem with the intended audience, try to find something analogous that they'd understand, or failing that, come up with something that at least conveys the intended feeling of the original. Same things with jokes and puns - if they aren't funny in translation, then the job should be to pen lines in English that evoke the same general feeling. Looking at the literal translation of the script as a jumping-off point for some kind of 'free adaptation' that plays fast and loose with the dialogue and tone may result in a game that some people would find entertaining, but that doesn't make it a good localization job.
Shouta
Member
vireland said:
I can't blame him for it. In concept, the game was a good idea but the execution of it was just dreadful all the way through. I do admit though, the art was quite nice and probably the best part of the game.
vireland said:And if you thought the jokes in the shipped game were too copious, you should have seen the first draft! That was around the time I was trying to spread out the writing duties, and the person I gave that project to completely overdosed the game on jokes. I thinned them out (maybe keeping 30% of the comedy) in the editing/rewriting phase, but it's still very jokey, even for my personal taste. Game Informer liked it, though - called it the funniest RPG ever or something like that.
Wow, I wanna see this first draft script but I'm also scared to. :lol
pancakesandsex
Member
All i ask is for 2 things vic
1. keep your changes to any in game systems optional, like an arrange mode if you will, so we can play it as originally intended (sillhouette mirage comes to mind)
just find a away to do it without removing anything
2. ditch the low brow / childish humor unless the game actually calls for it. playing growlanser 2 and hearing some of hans' combat lines made me groan every time, it was almost embarassing to play with the sound on sometimes. thankfullly hugh is much more tolerable in 3, thank GOD you didnt give him a "southern" accent (as that type of accent is often localized)
1. keep your changes to any in game systems optional, like an arrange mode if you will, so we can play it as originally intended (sillhouette mirage comes to mind)
just find a away to do it without removing anything
2. ditch the low brow / childish humor unless the game actually calls for it. playing growlanser 2 and hearing some of hans' combat lines made me groan every time, it was almost embarassing to play with the sound on sometimes. thankfullly hugh is much more tolerable in 3, thank GOD you didnt give him a "southern" accent (as that type of accent is often localized)
DarknessTear
Banned
I won't be gentle if any game is dumbed down in any way for a younger audience.
Christopher
Member
Vic erm ... here's a small request try to push for a traditional Lunar 3 with the same designers and everythign who made the first 2...hell I don't even care if they are crappy sprites still, until then I can still look at my hardcover book insert that says Lunar 3 is coming .
ugh Dragon Song was awful.
.ugh Dragon Song was awful.
ZeromusMog
Member
Tellaerin said:
Not to be rude, but who made you the expert on what a good localization is? (This is NeoGAF so you may ACTUALLY be an expert so in that case, by all means!
) But seriously, the Lunar game itself was... okay at best. It had its charms but as far as the battle system, game mechanics, and basic story goes... it's a pretty generic chosen-kid-saves-the-world kind of story and with a straight up translation, absolutely nothing to write home about.The REASON Lunar stands out as one of my top ten favorite games of all time is what the Working Designs crew did to it. I am not the first in this thread to say it was the only RPG I ever actually went around talking to every townsperson in the game twice (or more) to see what they had to say. I never skipped the opening movie, it was so well done (how many video games can anyone say THAT about?!). The game has spawned in-jokes that, nearly a decade later, are still alive today among my friends and I.
I DARE you to play that terrible abortion of a Lunar game for the DS for five minutes and tell me straight-faced that it is better than the WD version. The dialogue made want to drill a hole in my head, the story was uninspiring, and well to be honest maybe it got better but seriously after about 5-10 minutes I was glad I was giving it a whirl at the Game Crazy instead of actually spending money on it.
I'm sure many of you purists prefer more literal translations that are closer to matching every nuance of the game, but well, I don't. I even have a basic grasp of many items of Japanese culture and can get where a translated game is coming from more often than most people, but it doesn't really make the game more enjoyable for it. Culture affects everything down to the motivations behind charachter actions that can be major plot points in the story--this is one of the many reasons localization is so difficult. As such I'm not sure why people are considering WD completely rewriting minor charachters a BAD thing; it sounds like it improved the game quite a bit and I'm glad they did it.
My point is this: for you purists out there there are plenty of thinly-translated games that are plenty Japaneseu out there for you to play, and that's fine. Others of us prefer a more complete reworking of the game, and that's fine too. I believe there's room for both, and I do feel something is missing from the market since Sony kicked WD's projects to the curb, and I really hope that Victor's new project does well, as I hope to see another Lunar-style game this generation.
Also if you're still here Victor: please consider the Wii virtual console, if it's as accessable as it sounds! Even I'm considering starting a development studio with some of my friends at the cost of entry I've heard thrown around. It might be worth considering as a way to keep things afloat for the larger projects!