Lunar Threads

I'm a little confused as to his name being everywhere. He signs stuff, his name is in the credits more then once, he just generally gets a lot of attention.
Yes, the games were well localized. But did he do THAT much? Like damn, he didn't make the games all by himself. And sometimes something about programming or a change in story line comes up, and he says "we." Did he directly influence the progress of the development? Like he was in Japan with the staff, helping them make the game? Kudos to Working Designs. Thank you. As far as I know, WD was responsible for: Localizing. Granted that entails things like the big one: translation, and encoding all the new text. That has to be a pain in the ass.

What about Grandia? That game is very similar (even by Gamearts) but WD didn't do that one. Someone else did. And it was fine. I have no idea who translated that, because it didn't say more then once, and if I wanted to know, the information is available on the internet somewhere.

So while I'm not narking Mr. Ireland and the team, I don't really understand. Help? 0_o


EDIT: Took out an extra word.

My opinion on this is that Vic took what was a run of the mill JRPG and turned it into something that Japanese people imported cause it was of a higher quality then what they originally released.

I've played enough bad JRPGs on the PS2 to know that you can have a good game get completely ruined by a bad localization team. Some examples that come to mind are Lunar DS and Lunar SSH.

Unfortunately I never played Grandia.

I do know there are differences between the Japanese versions and English Versions of Lunar. I don't remember all of it. Kizer i think knows a lot about that.

Translation and localization involve a whole lot of work. On the translation end of things, it's difficult writing, as Kizyr and anyone who has tried translation can tell you. A translator has to put a statement into another language in such a way that it makes sense, carries a certain tone, and sounds colloquial. This is why good translations of works like Beowulf, Dante's Divine Comedy and The Tale of Genji are so contentious, and why translations of more minor works sometimes are poor or don't happen at all.

Then it also involves a lot of programming, both in order to format the text in the game right and in order to balance the gameplay. Tons of text goes into RPGs too, from every mundane dialog to item names and menu choices. He also had to direct voice acting as well as the syncing of audio to video. Localization also has a lot to do with the designs of advertisements, game inserts, and other things. Also, those have to actually be made, whether in-house or contracted out. There's more, which someone who actually worked there could actually answer.

And of course he had to negotiate with GameArts in order to get the rights to localize the game. There were frequent back-and-forths, though I don't know about them in detail. Assuming that he knew certain details about Lunar 3 as he said, it was a two-way exchange.

Summarily, it's not really fair to reduce localization to two items and imply they don't do much, since any one of those two things is a big job, and more goes on under the hood, so to speak. Victor Ireland probably didn't have his finger in every pie, but he directed the action.

I do think we should be very grateful to Vic and his team for what they provided us. His team went way above and beyond what most localization groups do, and at the time, the quality of localization far surpassed anything out there, especially for JRPGs. I do think that they went a little overboard with the Working Designs branding since there's still confusion to this day over who actually made the game, and I think GameArts deserves to be recognized as much as Working Designs does. However, it's hard to fault them when they put so much care into the localization.

Aaron wrote:... you can have a good game get completely ruined by a bad localization team. Some examples that come to mind are ... Lunar SSH.

It really perturbs me whenever I see you post this. I get that you didn't like the Silver Star Harmony localization because it wasn't an exact reproduction of the original or whatever, but XSEED is not a bad localization team. Far from it, in fact. They communicate with their fans, they're passionate, they generally get well-known voice actors rather than budget ones (even if you don't like them), they've helped tons of English fanbases that would've otherwise been neglected (Ys, Legend of Heroes, Wild ARMs, Lunar, etc.), they communicate well with their Japanese counterparts (heck, they got us new cutscene music for SSH), and they follow through in a timely manner. Constructive criticism would be one thing, but to completely trash a team that approaches everything they do with care for the fanbase and respect for the source material is ridiculous.

I do need to say that I'm sorry if the title came out wrong; I didn't mean it in the nasty sense of the word, only that there's very few other terms for what I meant.
But I'm happy to hear the thoughtful responses to my post.

Lunar Eclipse wrote:I do think we should be very grateful to Vic and his team for what they provided us. His team went way above and beyond what most localization groups do, and at the time, the quality of localization far surpassed anything out there, especially for JRPGs. I do think that they went a little overboard with the Working Designs branding since there's still confusion to this day over who actually made the game, and I think GameArts deserves to be recognized as much as Working Designs does. However, it's hard to fault them when they put so much care into the localization.

Aaron wrote:... you can have a good game get completely ruined by a bad localization team. Some examples that come to mind are ... Lunar SSH.

It really perturbs me whenever I see you post this. I get that you didn't like the Silver Star Harmony localization because it wasn't an exact reproduction of the original or whatever, but XSEED is not a bad localization team. Far from it, in fact. They communicate with their fans, they're passionate, they generally get well-known voice actors rather than budget ones (even if you don't like them), they've helped tons of English fanbases that would've otherwise been neglected (Ys, Legend of Heroes, Wild ARMs, Lunar, etc.), they communicate well with their Japanese counterparts (heck, they got us new cutscene music for SSH), and they follow through in a timely manner. Constructive criticism would be one thing, but to completely trash a team that approaches everything they do with care for the fanbase and respect for the source material is ridiculous.

If I can't stand how they write and it interferes with me enjoying the games they've worked on then they're a bad localization team. It's not just Lunar. I've tried a few of their other games, I can't stand it.

Granted, connecting with their clients is cool. But its nothing Working Designs or Aksys has never done. Its common now, every major game company has boards for people to talk to someone in the biz.

^The script's in large part identical to the PS1 version and the voice acting compares favorably to other dub jobs these days. I don't see what's so awful.

But as to the original topic, I wouldn't be here if not for Vic, and it's hard to find dialog that sounds as natural as what you find in WD games even today.

Shiva Indis wrote:^The script's in large part identical to the PS1 version and the voice acting compares favorably to other dub jobs these days. I don't see what's so awful.

I'd second that. Not only would I not be here, but it's almost certain LunarNET wouldn't either.

Shiva Indis wrote:^The script's in large part identical to the PS1 version and the voice acting compares favorably to other dub jobs these days.

This. They got the rights to the WD script and reused a good deal of it while updating what needed updating. Much of it is exactly the same as what Working Designs gave us. I'd honestly have preferred more change, but they wanted to cater to new and old fans alike, which I think is an admirable goal.

Aaron wrote:If I can't stand how they write and it interferes with me enjoying the games they've worked on then they're a bad localization team. It's not just Lunar. I've tried a few of their other games, I can't stand it.

I'm honestly baffled by your completely irrational disdain for XSEED. Even assuming you don't like their writing, SSH isn't their writing, generally speaking. I can't help but feel that you'd senselessly attack any company other than Working Designs that deigns to touch the Lunar legacy, which doesn't bode well for your continued enjoyment of the series.

Shiva Indis wrote:^The script's in large part identical to the PS1 version and the voice acting compares favorably to other dub jobs these days. I don't see what's so awful.

With the significant exception of Nall (in the US version). That's the only dark spot. The rest of the voice acting was ok. KF

^That, I'll agree with. Too reminiscent of the annoying mascots of many an '80s cartoon. Snarf snarf. I do like the boyishness of XSeed's effort (which I felt WD's sorely lacked,) but it hit too many other wrong notes.