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XSEED update on Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter

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B.K.

Member
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/10/1...d-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky-second-chapter/

All I can really do is assure you guys that progress is… slow, but existent. There’s still a mountain of work left to do, though, and we’re still on pretty shaky ground with this title," Tom Lipschultz, Localization Specialist, explained. "The first game hasn’t exactly turned out to be a top-seller for us so far (despite overwhelmingly positive feedback from fans), which means we really can’t justify prioritizing the second (especially given its insane length). But we’re not giving up! We still plan to move forward, slowly but surely, until the project either gets done or becomes completely and totally unfeasible – whichever comes first. If series fans want to hurry us along, they’ll need to convince more people to buy the first game so we can have more funding to hire more people to work on the second, and have bigger numbers to convince our investors that Trails 2 is worthy of being prioritized.

It doesn't sound good. At least I haven't finished the first game yet, so I won't be too disappointed if they cancel Second Chapter and Final Chapter.
 

Aeana

Member
As I said in the other thread, they really need to stop leading fans on. It is a bad thing to do.
It is especially funny because only a couple of weeks ago, they were saying the sales were good. I already knew they weren't which is why I thought it was so sad to see them putting on airs like that. Be honest with your fans from the start, XSEED, or you may find yourself without any.
 
I've already posted my extensive thoughts in the other topic, so I'll just quote them here:

What more could they ask for from an super niche series on the PSP in the US? This game already had a ton of things working against it's success in North America, but it's gone beyond expectations IMO due to the fact that it's an AMAZING game.

XSEED is a niche company that releases niche games. Thankfully, they do a really great job with their localizations and have built a loyal fan base and lots of buzz recently. But I really don't know what to think about what XSEED expects from their games. Their past comments about the sales of RGC were a bit ridiculous, but I thought we'd moved beyond that. Now I'm not so sure.

And I've seen a lot of support for this game online, with a large majority of people who liked the game suggesting it to others. I think the fans are doing a great job of supporting the series, but it's hard to keep the enthusiasm up with this Sword of Damocles constants hanging over SC.

Some positive reinforcement would do wonders. Even if it's not a huge hit, they should at least have some more faith in the series and know that it can turn into one of their flagship properties if they keep nurturing it. It's rare to have something that focuses so much on delivering a quality narrative experience, and for a company that primarily releases RPGs, they should be overjoyed to have access to the most exciting JRPG IP around (IMO) these days.

One positive thing though is that XSEED is really good about communicating with their fans online. I'm hoping that they'll keep the dialogue going and realize that we all want the series to be successful.

After seeing Retro Game Challenge and Half Minute Hero being dropped by XSEED, I'd be extremely disappointed if they drop this as well, especially since I really like the series.

Hopefully Tom can follow up on it here since he has an account.
 

B.K.

Member
boingball said:
Bummer, that does not sound good. I am still progressing slowly on the first game.

Might as well give up on it, at this point. There's no point in finishing the game on a cliffhanger that you'll never get resolution to.
 

Aeana

Member
Gunloc said:
I've already posted my extensive thoughts in the other topic, so I'll just quote them here:



After seeing Retro Game Challenge and Half Minute Hero being dropped by XSEED, I'd be extremely disappointed if they drop this as well, especially since I really like the series.

Hopefully Tom can follow up on it here since he has an account.
What are you looking for from Tom? More damage control like he has been posting that was contradicted by this news? Odds are anything he posts today will end up being empty words to placate everyone, and will also end up being invalidated in a couple of weeks just like everything else.

I know it sounds like I'm being negative, but considering how FC sold and the state of the PSP, XSEED can't feasibly release SC. I just don't want to see you guys led on further and crushed even harder. :(
 

iavi

Member
B.K. said:
Might as well give up on it, at this point. There's no point in finishing the game on a cliffhanger that you'll never get resolution to.

Lol, wtf is this? Just finish the first and chant a few mantras for the eventual release of the second chapter. It's still an experience to be had.
 
While it kinda sucks, I can understand where they're coming from. It's not like XSeed is operating with a ton of financial backing, I'd imagine it's one major disaster and it's over for them. I'm sure they'd love to release it, but as the saying goes, if it don't make dollas it don't make sense.

The game's $20 on PSN these days isn't it? If it is I'll pick it up, even if I don't think I'll have time to get around to it for awhile.
 

Brazil

Living in the shadow of Amaz
Aeana said:
What are you looking for from Tom? More damage control like he has been posting that was contradicted by this news? Odds are anything he posts today will end up being empty words to placate everyone, and will also end up being invalidated in a couple of weeks just like everything else.

I know it sounds like I'm being negative, but considering how FC sold and the state of the PSP, XSEED can't feasibly release SC. I just don't want to see you guys led on further and crushed even harder. :(
Well, maybe they could release it as a PSN-only game...
 

Takao

Banned
Which one is the one getting ported to Vita? The game after this?

Brazil said:
Well, maybe they could release it as a PSN-only game...

These games are incredibly beefy, the translation work would require a UMD run to be anything near profitable. This game in particular is a 2 UMD game, and apparently can't be put on PSN.
 

Eusis

Member
That's dependent on what they're doing with Type-0, because there's supposed to be frequent enough UMD juggling to make it impractical to play via PSN release, if not impossible if they didn't bother to let you save with each swap.
 

iavi

Member
Brazil said:
Well, maybe they could release it as a PSN-only game...

That's about the only real solution, and even then; Sony's been funny about letting 2 disc games onto the PSN. Squeenix was able to work some magic with type-0, but I really don't see Falcom/Xseed getting the same leeway.

e: beaten.
 

Rarutos

Member
I've been saddened by the state of the PSP in the West for a while now. It means so many great gems from Japan will never see a release in English. :(
 
B.K. said:
Might as well give up on it, at this point. There's no point in finishing the game on a cliffhanger that you'll never get resolution to.
The game is still definitely worth the play through just as a stand alone game. It resolves the main conflict of the first game, the cliffhanger is in reference to the something that hasn't really been explored that deeply yet.

Aeana said:
What are you looking for from Tom? More damage control like he has been posting that was contradicted by this news? Odds are anything he posts today will end up being empty words to placate everyone, and will also end up being invalidated in a couple of weeks just like everything else.

I know it sounds like I'm being negative, but considering how FC sold and the state of the PSP, XSEED can't feasibly release SC. I just don't want to see you guys led on further and crushed even harder. :(
Trying to stay positive might be naive on my part, but I'm tired of the constant disappointment from every company and feeling let down all the time. Until they flat out say the game isn't coming, I'm going to keep pushing for it.

But if they do drop it, XSEED has lost a supporter in me.

Learning Japanese really is the only reliable solution though, at least that way I can avoid all the disappointment.
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
I really hope we see this as I'm playing TitS still. Yes, still but I've been so busy with moving across the country that it's been hard to devote hard time to the game. I'm almost 30 hours in though and it's so good.
 
I think this is the first time i've seen GAF => GAF

Didnt even hit the bigger interwebs yet. I guess my comment about waiting for it to go on sale was a bit of a spark :(
 

Aeana

Member
DonMigs85 said:
Maybe some fans skilled in Japanese can volunteer somehow. Didn't they just buy a fan translation for Ys?
Fans were working on the first game for yeaaaars before XSEED picked it up. The games have a ton of text and the English fanbase is very small. Plus most of the people who are skilled enough to do such work are usually pretty busy. I'd love to help out, for instance, but I just do not have the time.
 
I wasn't sure if this deserved a new thread, but given the responses I guess it does!

Gunloc said:
Learning Japanese really is the only reliable solution though, at least that way I can avoid all the disappointment.

Yes! Join me and leave the uncertainties of localization behind!
 

Varion

Member
Miri said:
Lol, wtf is this? Just finish the first and chant a few mantras for the eventual release of the second chapter. It's still an experience to be had.
Absolutely agreed. Going "Oh noes, it's all over" and abandoning everything to do with the game over a comment like this is just silly. Keep playing and enjoying the game, deal with anything else if and when it comes. Someone mentioned Shining Force 3 in the other thread as an example of a game where not all of it was released, but I still loved what we got of that and played it over and over when I was a kid, even knowing that it ended on a cliffhanger.

DonMigs85 said:
Maybe some fans skilled in Japanese can volunteer somehow. Didn't they just buy a fan translation for Ys?
Sure, but that Ys translation was done years beforehand. As an unlikely what if: Say you get a bunch of skilled fan translators together on the game right now. Considering they wouldn't be getting paid for it and whatnot it would probably take them a year, a year and a half, two years to finish, then you'd have to have XSEED buy it or whatever, then do all the programming/editing stuff, based on Falcom's schedule for the former. The PSP market would be completely dead, and they'd just be putting out SC.

Wouldn't work.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Aeana said:
I know it sounds like I'm being negative, but considering how FC sold and the state of the PSP, XSEED can't feasibly release SC. I just don't want to see you guys led on further and crushed even harder. :(
Aeana, would you recommend importing SC and the 3rd at this point? (ie: are they that better than FC?)

I'm kind of feeling impatient at this point because I really like the series so far and I want to see what'll happen next. I even spoiled myself on the soundtrack. -_-
 

Aeana

Member
Dark Schala said:
Aeana, would you recommend importing SC and the 3rd at this point?

I'm kind of feeling impatient at this point because I really like the series so far and I want to see what'll happen next. I even spoiled myself on the soundtrack. -_-
If you can understand it, yes, certainly I would recommend it. Even if XSEED does get SC out, they will never release EVERY Kiseki game, so at some point you will have to play some games in Japanese if you want to keep going with the franchise.
 

Midou

Member
They should just use their translation for the first game on PC version, release on steam for $20, people seem to eat up indie japanese games on steam.
 
hosannainexcelsis said:
Yes! Join me and leave the uncertainties of localization behind!
It's always been my intent to learn the language, and I want to get started in the relatively near future, but it's gonna take a while before I'd feel comfortable playing such a text heavy series as this.

The main reason I play the games is for the story and I want to understand all of it, and from what I've heard this series takes a high level of understanding to read so it's going to be a while.

I'll be playing the games for sure, one way or the other, but I'd still really like the series to get a chance at an English presence. It's really great and I'm tired of the types of games I like fading to the background because they aren't the mainstream blockbusters that are apparently the only type of games localization companies are interested in currently. :/
 

Varion

Member
Dark Schala said:
Aeana, would you recommend importing SC and the 3rd at this point? (ie: are they that better than FC?)

I'm kind of feeling impatient at this point because I really like the series so far and I want to see what'll happen next. I even spoiled myself on the soundtrack. -_-
How much Japanese do you know? If it's enough to be able to read them, absolutely. If not, no, the series is far too dependent on its story and characters for you to get even half of what makes them great without knowing Japanese. If you do know Japanese it's an easy choice, you can catch up with the series, and much as I thought the editing job on XSEED's FC release was great I'm always going to be partial to the series in its original language. It's certainly not easy as far as import RPGs go though.

And yeah, I'd say SC is a lot better than FC. The gap between FC and 3rd is smaller, but personally I still prefer 3rd. For me at the moment it's:

Ao > SC > Zero > 3rd > FC
 

Foffy

Banned
Aeana said:
If you can understand it, yes, certainly I would recommend it. Even if XSEED does get SC out, they will never release EVERY Kiseki game, so at some point you will have to play some games in Japanese if you want to keep going with the franchise.

Or really really really hope we get some dedicated fan translations on the way. The problem with that is the games are known to have more text than Final Fantasy games, which are well known in taking a long time to translate officially.

At least we have a chance of getting the Ys IV remake..right?
 

Takao

Banned
Midou said:
They should just use their translation for the first game on PC version, release on steam for $20, people seem to eat up indie japanese games on steam.

Falcom isn't indie, lol. XSEED has said it the past, it isn't up to them to release PC versions, but rather Falcom, who's too busy not working on PC games right now.
 

Dark Schala

Eloquent Princess
Aeana said:
Even if XSEED does get SC out, they will never release EVERY Kiseki game, so at some point you will have to play some games in Japanese if you want to keep going with the franchise.
Yeah, that's my biggest fear--that all of them may not come out here no matter what XSEED does.

Something to budget for next year, I guess. Luckily, at least SC and The 3rd have budget versions now.

Varion said:
If you do know Japanese it's an easy choice, you can catch up with the series, and much as I thought the editing job on XSEED's FC release was great I'm always going to be partial to the series in its original language. It's certainly not easy as far as import RPGs go though.

And yeah, I'd say SC is a lot better than FC. The gap between FC and 3rd is smaller, but personally I still prefer 3rd. For me at the moment it's:

Ao > SC > Zero > 3rd > FC
I know enough Japanese to get by in games (written, physical novels I have issues with sometimes, but I like learning so it isn't that bad), yes, so I suppose importing is probably the best idea now.

Aha, is Ao no Kiseki really good, better than Zero no Kiseki? My friend's favourite happens to be Zero. Zero no Kiseki has my favourite soundtrack out of the four I've listened to. I haven't heard Ao's yet.
 

Eusis

Member
Takao said:
Falcom isn't indie, lol. XSEED has said it the past, it isn't up to them to release PC versions, but rather Falcom, who's too busy not working on PC games right now.
The best hope would probably be $30 versions anyway much like on PSP. Given the raw size of the games I think that's reasonable enough, it's not like Recettear by a long shot or anything.
 

Midou

Member
Takao said:
Falcom isn't indie, lol. XSEED has said it the past, it isn't up to them to release PC versions, but rather Falcom, who's too busy not working on PC games right now.

I know they aren't indie, but I mean with the success of titles like Recettear, which are to say, very japanese, I think there is money to be had here.
 

vall03

Member
If theres something XSEED made me realize, its that I need to get the PSN version of the game. Already had the Limited Edition, but I'm seriously going to get the PSN version just to show my support...

oh, if all else fails, Im going to allot half of 2012 in studying Japanese...
 
Gunloc said:
It's always been my intent to learn the language, and I want to get started in the relatively near future, but it's gonna take a while before I'd feel comfortable playing such a text heavy series as this.

The main reason I play the games is for the story and I want to understand all of it, and from what I've heard this series takes a high level of understanding to read so it's going to be a while.

Yeah, I've been studying Japanese on my own for about a year now, and even though I'm starting to become comfortable with it, something like Sora no Kiseki is still really difficult. I actually started SC up the other day and played through a bit of the opening cutscenes (
Estelle totally made me tear up as I recalled FC's ending - I'm such a softie!
). It's possible for me to get through them but sitting down, looking up the kanji I don't know, and deciphering each sentence is a serious time investment that I don't exactly have right now. Still, it gives me hope that it won't be too long before I'm actually able to play it.
 
hosannainexcelsis said:
Yeah, I've been studying Japanese on my own for about a year now, and even though I'm starting to become comfortable with it, something like Sora no Kiseki is still really difficult. I actually started SC up the other day and played through a bit of the opening cutscenes (
Estelle totally made me tear up as I recalled FC's ending - I'm such a softie!
). It's possible for me to get through them but sitting down, looking up the kanji I don't know, and deciphering each sentence is a serious time investment that I don't exactly have right now. Still, it gives me hope that it won't be too long before I'm actually able to play it.
Well, you're in a far better position than I am. I've done some very basic stuff and purchased a program to help but it's still very rudimentary. I'd actually like to get a tutor, but that requires time and money, things I don't have in excess currently.
 

Jigsaw

Banned
i did my part and bought it day 1

but didn't have the time to play it yet >_<'

blame falcom for not fixing the japanese version,couldn't they just budget re-release sc and fix the disc swapping somehow (ie let the players save before switching discs?from what i've read the problem for a psn release is that there is no option to swap discs via xmb while in-game)
 
Takao said:
Falcom isn't indie, lol. XSEED has said it the past, it isn't up to them to release PC versions, but rather Falcom, who's too busy not working on PC games right now.
Ys VII and Zero no Kiseki are getting PC ports though. Plus all the Falcom games already on PC (Trails in the Sky Trilogy, YS VI/OiF/Origin, Xanadu Next, etc). There's a goldmine of older stuff Xseed's not bothering with, and unlike PSP there's already a viable marketplace in place for it.
 

Aeana

Member
lunchwithyuzo said:
Ys VII and Zero no Kiseki are getting PC ports though. Plus all the Falcom games already on PC (Trails in the Sky Trilogy, YS VI/OiF/Origin, Xanadu Next, etc). There's a goldmine of older stuff Xseed's not bothering with, and unlike PSP there's already a viable marketplace in place for it.
Falcom didn't/isn't working on those PC ports, though. And also it apparently turns out that the Zero PC port is kinda buggy. Not a top quality effort, to be sure.
 

Varion

Member
Dark Schala said:
Yeah, that's my biggest fear--that all of them may not come out here no matter what XSEED does.

Something to budget for next year, I guess. Luckily, at least SC and The 3rd have budget versions now.


I know enough Japanese to get by in games (written, physical novels I have issues with sometimes, but I like learning so it isn't that bad), yes, so I suppose importing is probably the best idea now.

Aha, is Ao no Kiseki really good, better than Zero no Kiseki? My friend's favourite happens to be Zero. Zero no Kiseki has my favourite soundtrack out of the four I've listened to. I haven't heard Ao's yet.
Sounds like it'll be your best bet, yeah. I first played through the Sora trilogy after studying for about a year and half, though fortunately I played the PC versions and used a text hooker program to make looking up the kanji easier (extracts the currently active text box, feeds it into notepad then into Firefox so I could look anything I needed up on Rikaichan). Back then I wouldn't have gone anywhere near physical novels, hell, I still find them mentally exhausting. At least games are just dialogue and don't have loads of complex descriptive passages.

And yeah, it was a bit tough to choose between Zero and SC as they're both really amazing games in slightly different ways, but Ao definitely tops both of them for me. There's way more on the overarching plot than there was in Zero, the pacing in the first half is better than in the first half of SC, and the second half is just one awesomely memorable scene after another with so many twists that replaying Zero is going to be a very weird experience because Ao's changed my perspective on so much of it. Waiting for the next game is going to be painful. The whole 'each soundtrack is much better than the last' finally came to an end though (it had to eventually) - Ao's soundtrack is fantastic but I wouldn't say it tops Zero necessarily, they're about equal with Zero's stronger in some areas and Ao's stronger in others.
 

wyrdwad

XSEED Localization Specialist
"It is especially funny because only a couple of weeks ago, they were saying the sales were good."

No, *I* was. And I got a lot of flak from my coworkers for doing so. I've gotta be entirely honest, at the time when I commented on the game's success, I hadn't even seen sales figures for it AT ALL yet. I was going 100% by the vast quantity of positive reviews and overwhelming fan support it had been getting, and just kind of... let it get to my head, convincing myself that the game must have been a runaway success for us.

I was not intentionally misleading anyone, as I was thinking more in terms of the game's fan reception than its actual sales... but it definitely didn't come across that way, and I apologize if anyone got the wrong idea as a result.

My answer to Spencer's interview question about the series was pretty much my attempt at setting the record straight. And from now on, I'll be a bit more careful in what I say.

...Also, please stop losing hope! ;) The game's release may be on shaky ground, but it's far from dead. We want to release it just as much as you want us to, and we have no intention of giving it up without a fight.

If we have to let it go, then we have to let it go... but we're going to try very, very hard to make sure it never comes to that.
 
wyrdwad said:
"It is especially funny because only a couple of weeks ago, they were saying the sales were good."

No, *I* was. And I got a lot of flak from my coworkers for doing so. I've gotta be entirely honest, at the time when I commented on the game's success, I hadn't even seen sales figures for it AT ALL yet. I was going 100% by the vast quantity of positive reviews and overwhelming fan support it had been getting, and just kind of... let it get to my head, convincing myself that the game must have been a runaway success for us.

I was not intentionally misleading anyone, as I was thinking more in terms of the game's fan reception than its actual sales... but it definitely didn't come across that way, and I apologize if anyone got the wrong idea as a result.
So does that mean sales were poor? Or just around the same level as your other PSP titles? (I'm hoping the latter.)

I'm glad you've commented and I'm still hoping things are going to work out for the best. But I hope you know that the majority of fans really are doing the best we can to support the series.
 

Eusis

Member
I admittedly wouldn't be surprised to discover sales would've been pretty good had they been for a game with way, way less text, like Ys.

Man, I do hope at least the second game comes, even if the rest fail to come out. Sounds like we'd at least get a complete story then.
 
Gunloc said:
So does that mean sales were poor? Or just around the same level as your other PSP titles? (I'm hoping the latter.)

I'm glad you've commented and I'm still hoping things are going to work out for the best. But I hope you know that the majority of fans really are doing the best we can to support the series.

Agreed. From what was said, it didn't sound like a bomba (we need a MediaCreate International Edition so badly in this industry), but who knows in this era of Operation Rainfall.
 

Takao

Banned
SatelliteOfLove said:
Agreed. From what was said, it didn't sound like a bomba (we need a MediaCreate International Edition so badly in this industry), but who knows in this era of Operation Rainfall.

No we don't, sometimes ignorance is bliss.
 

x3r0123

Member
I already bought 2 copies of the game on day1 :(

wyrdwad said:
"It is especially funny because only a couple of weeks ago, they were saying the sales were good."

No, *I* was. And I got a lot of flak from my coworkers for doing so. I've gotta be entirely honest, at the time when I commented on the game's success, I hadn't even seen sales figures for it AT ALL yet. I was going 100% by the vast quantity of positive reviews and overwhelming fan support it had been getting, and just kind of... let it get to my head, convincing myself that the game must have been a runaway success for us.

I was not intentionally misleading anyone, as I was thinking more in terms of the game's fan reception than its actual sales... but it definitely didn't come across that way, and I apologize if anyone got the wrong idea as a result.

My answer to Spencer's interview question about the series was pretty much my attempt at setting the record straight. And from now on, I'll be a bit more careful in what I say.

...Also, please stop losing hope! ;) The game's release may be on shaky ground, but it's far from dead. We want to release it just as much as you want us to, and we have no intention of giving it up without a fight.

If we have to let it go, then we have to let it go... but we're going to try very, very hard to make sure it never comes to that.

I want to mention that not everyone in the forums are legit people. Some of them secretly pirate their games.

Nevertheless, I'll continue supporting you guys and hope that one day SC comes out
 
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