Newsflash: Working Designs Updates Their Site!

[Fe 26]

Give me a break. Lunar isn't War & Peace here, it's a shitty by-the-numbers RPG with fanservice anime that people for some reason or another loved on the Sega CD. Everything in Lunar, actually, suggests that type of humor fits in.

Some bit of it is fine in a game like this. Compared to the dry-as-dirt translations of so many 16-bit RPGs, I welcome it.

You make the baby jesus cry

I don't care about length though, nor do several others here. It's the "improvements" to the games they bring over that rub me the wrong way. Stuff like the save system for the PS1 Lunars were pretty useful. Things like fart jokes where their shouldn't be anything like that are not. They can shove that "quirky" humor right up their asses.

I take it you hate Robotech, right?

[gameoverDude]

JefmcC- I heard the sound of the nail being hammered when I read that post. Just look at companies like xS and Mastiff blowing past them- it's nothing like their TG16 era.

Working Designs should probably start getting ahold of some titles like XII Stag etc. that currently remain in Japan. If other companies can sell these for $15, so can WD. Shooters don't really need a lot of language translation.

As for WD's tampering with some games- RayStorm is not really THAT easy. I don't think the difficulty needed adjusting. (i.e. if you set any stage's difficulty to something below level 4, the game will go to Training Mode with a 4 stage limit. ). The score also doesn't reset if you credit feed, although this must clearly has something to do with the $10,000 contest that WD ran for it.

[Diff-chan]

Heh, well, if Working Designs isn't funny, that's a different matter entirely. I was just talking about their motivation behind trying to put teh funny in. ^_^

[taloony]

I take it you hate Robotech, right?

I've never watched it, ever.

[mollipen]

Perhaps quirky jokes in Japan just dont have the same punch as they would in English, so the translators can choose to, (A) leave it alone, and the humor that was present in the original is lost, or (B) write new jokes. Working Designs obviously chose (B), and I think I remember reading an interview with Vic where he said as much.

I wouldn't have a problem if it was just that. Vic states, without shame, that when they bring over their games, they take the original Japanese script, throw it away, and rewrite everything themselves. That's the problem I have with them. If Vic wants to pretend like he's a video game story writer, let him make his own game.

[Clash!]

Persoanly I would not put xS out there in the "blowing past" Working Designs. Considering they took Castle of Shikigami, threw out every single bit of story line and cutscenes as well as changing the name to "Mobile Light Force 2" (which one would assume was the sequal to MLF1, which is actually Gun Bird), and make the cover look like an 80's all female space age cop action flick. To me at least thats a lot worse than putting in a few fart jokes.

[Diff-chan]

shidoshi, your avatar is a damn nightmare. Your old one was fruity but at least it was tolerable.

If Vic wants to pretend like he's a video game story writer, let him make his own game.

I didnt realize the extent to which Working Designs changes the script. I thought they took a rough draft, saw which parts were culturally significant, beefed them up, maybe fixed some plot holes, shit like that. But throwing away the entire plot and dialogue and rewriting everything is ridiculous.

I also didnt even know Working Designs had such bad humor... seeing as I dont play the games.

I was just speaking in general regarding translations. It's meaningless to compare a translation to an original, especially if you dont know the original language.

[James]

DiffX- Your original impression is right. The only stuff that gets totally redone is the random townspeople, and minor characters can get an infusion of personality they otherwise wouldn't have had. I'm not saying people have to like how WD does it (I actually find a lot of their stuff very well done, obviously) but it's nothing like as extreme as Shidoshi says.

Really, if you can perk up the dialogue of somebody who'd otherwise be saying "Welcome to the town of Floopydoo" (or wherever) then why not? The story doesn't get changed at all though, barring any plot holes that can't be ignored.

James

[animegirl]

Give me a break. Lunar isn't War & Peace here, it's a shitty by-the-numbers RPG with fanservice anime that people for some reason or another loved on the Sega CD. Everything in Lunar, actually, suggests that type of humor fits in.

Some bit of it is fine in a game like this. Compared to the dry-as-dirt translations of so many 16-bit RPGs, I welcome it.

I really enjoyed the humor in both the Lunar games on Playstation. They really made the characters have personality and I cared about what happened to them. God forbid should a RPG have humor in it.

[sethsez]

I'll gladly accept the occasional stupid Clinton joke from a random townsperson if the main characters actually have personalities, which the Lunar characters did.