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I want to play Lunar, but Working Designs translations keep stopping me.
- Thread starter Valcrist
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I think a B&BH quote can work in final fantasy if it's just a one-off quote, rather than a direct reference by name (ala the Clinton joke in Lunar)
It's like the difference between FF Dawn of Souls having a Homestar Runner/Trogdor reference by having an NPC say "Trespassers will be Burninated" and FF4 GBA having Cid say "Goons" and "Something Awful" in the same sentence. One is a little silly reference that doesn't intrude on the overall setting, while the other a bit too on the nose (though I'd argue the something awful joke in FF4 is itself still handled a little better than "Call me Clinton and I'd be president).
Yeah the issue isn't that there are references, it's that there are so darn many of them and they aren't funny. You're left with the impression (accurate or no) that the source material was discarded entirely, and that naturally makes folks worry what they're missing. I used to feel pretty grumpy about this but have softened on it as I got older, in part because (imo) these games are not really all that noteworthy outside of the zeitgeist of being into Japanese shit in the 90s.
The hamburger thing is silly (and keeps happening everywhere for whatever reason, japanese food does exist outside japan and its quite popular ya know) but i wouldnt consider reworking references to japanese theatre and translating incredibly intricated kanji puns as "cultural whitewashing", it simply doesn't work translating it straight up, and this is what localization is supposed to be for - adapting material from other works into a way that the original idea of it can remain true, but others can also be able to understand it. Though i can't comment further than that since i don't know much about the original script so who knows.
I would disagree, and say that references can work fine in any game, so long as they're handled well. Your example of the Ace Attorney is a good example, because I agree that it's silly that people have issue with those localizations, which I think are great. Not only do the localizations create a clear and coherent world, but they're fitting with the tone of the originals as well. FF6 has plenty of Star Wars references, which fit the tone of the game and don't break immersion. So many people mischaracterize criticism of Working Designs by saying that it's just people salty at the existence of references, so I think it's important to point out that there were examples of games of the era that integrated pop culture references and did so well.
It didn't! (it's near the end) :) Sadly the old JIS Japanese encoding that I used in it is completely messed up, probably also because of decades of GameFAQs moving hosts, so it's pretty much unusable.
Puns that rely on things like technicalities of the Japanese language won't translate well, but there's a difference between localizing the series as set in Japan with Japanese characters amid Japanese culture, food, and entertainment, and then there's being some game where Americans with American names live in some bizarre take on Los Angeles with a system of courts and trials that doesn't resemble the American courtroom at all.
Because it's a parody of Japanese courts.
I learned that for sure, what I posted above and seeing a Clinton reference in Lunar had me like "okay, maybe i should look into Working Designs as a company"
Some of these WD examples are horrendous, particularly the ones with racism/sexism included.
I did remember the 4th-wall breaking humor, but didn't catch any of that (or maybe just don't remember it--it's been years).
What I DO remember is that WD translations definitely felt significantly more lively than even many games released now. I can leave the pop-culture crap (and definitely the racism) but I notice the vast majority of RPG conversation in the modern era is a complete snoozefest. I don't think I've clicked dispassionately through as many windows of who-gives-a-damn dialogue as I have in the past 10 years or so.
I did remember the 4th-wall breaking humor, but didn't catch any of that (or maybe just don't remember it--it's been years).
What I DO remember is that WD translations definitely felt significantly more lively than even many games released now. I can leave the pop-culture crap (and definitely the racism) but I notice the vast majority of RPG conversation in the modern era is a complete snoozefest. I don't think I've clicked dispassionately through as many windows of who-gives-a-damn dialogue as I have in the past 10 years or so.
I have a much bigger problem with Working Designs butchering a game's balance with their "localizations". Silhouette Mirage is especially bad.
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Yeah, this is the main point for me. I get that people either assume or know that the original dialogue just isn't important... but how the hell do I know that? I'm not there to look at some bad jokes put in the game rather than an accurate translation. It's cool that they use proper grammar and all, but they could have done that plus did localization that wasn't so hard to sit through.
Overall a lot of these posts that are calling Lunar dialogue boring unless they had the WD changes... I guess that means the games must have some pretty bad story.
The Lunar games are mostly memorable and special because of the dialogue that WD translated. It's one of the few RPGs in the 90s where it was interesting to talk to people in towns and every character had a ton of personality that sounded believable. The dialogue has always been the main reason to play them
Also the best version is PS1 because there's a lot more of the character dialogue
Also the best version is PS1 because there's a lot more of the character dialogue
I don't recognize it as a B&BH reference now, but granted I never watched that. Is it just the "heh heh"?
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If this is how people feel for the most part, then I guess that sort of confirms that the Lunar games aren't exactly good. They're just special because of WD's dialogue translations. I can probably safely skip them and play better things. If I can play Suikoden II with its absolutely horrible translation and shed tears still, then I assume Lunar just doesn't have that kind of power as you all seem to say.
It was kind of a recurring joke on the show. Definitely not reaching.
So it looks like GungHo owns the rights to Lunar IP now???
They released the Grandia 1/2 stuff on Switch right?
Incredible to me that they are holding hostage one of my favorite series ever. Like, can we get a re-release of Lunar 1+2 original Sega CD amd Lunar 1 PS1??!?! How about freaking Lunar 3?? The world and lore is ripe for another game in the series and honestly to this day there isn't another series like Lunar. So cmon GungHo do something!!
They released the Grandia 1/2 stuff on Switch right?
Incredible to me that they are holding hostage one of my favorite series ever. Like, can we get a re-release of Lunar 1+2 original Sega CD amd Lunar 1 PS1??!?! How about freaking Lunar 3?? The world and lore is ripe for another game in the series and honestly to this day there isn't another series like Lunar. So cmon GungHo do something!!
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The creator of the Lunar and Grandia series has been dead for a while. Maybe they don't want to touch it. Not sure.
Not for NPCs making pop culture references but for how much personality everyone had all the time. That still makes it very special among JRPGs today but especially in the 90s. It was actually fun to talk to people in towns. That's so rare. But maybe it's not for you, yeah.
I'd easily take a drier, true-to-the-Japanese script over NPCs making "funny" jokes about domestic abuse or the Clinton administration.
So with the creator gone they could still make a new game if they wanted to right? I just hope someday we see Lunar again. I own a Sega CD and PS1 mostly for these games I would just like to see the series get some love :)
Lunar is good. Great cast of characters, amazing soundtrack, strong sense of adventure, and proto-Grandia combat. And at the time, Lunar:EB had a really big budget with its anime cutscenes and voice acting.
They own the rights, but they don't necessarily have the interest or personnel to make a new Lunar.
Correcting myself the last new Lunar was Dragon Song, made by the team that did the Lunar 1&2 remakes.
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This is definitely the wrong takeaway. The charm is there, despite the Working Designs-ness of it all. The Lunar games are remembered so fondly because they're simple, straightforward stories conveyed through solid world building and interesting characters. It has a heart and sincerity that not a lot of games do anymore.
I think it's up in the air whether or not these games would've come to the West without WD. The Sega CD games are almost certainly a no, but in the glut of JRPGs coming after FF7 it wouldn't be inconceivable for Atlus or someone else to have acquired the rights. WD is basically the only company at the time that dubbed songs, and the only other PSOne RPG with vocal tracks that comes to mind is Rhapsody, which left the songs in Japanese. Another company might've cut the vocals from the openings, like Tales of Destiny, but the PSOne version added Luna's Boat Song, so who knows how that would've been handled.
It actually wasn't. Dragon Song was made by the team who did the Lunar remakes, not the original games themselves.
Ohhhh...they made Dragon Song :/ lol
Well I hope we see something from the series in the future whatever that may be.
What was the domestic abuse jokes? I don't remember. I'd take Clinton references over "This guy are sick." translations
I love the Lunar games, but let's be real, they don't have the actual parts of Grandia combat that people actually like.
Also I'd honestly argue that the original Lunar 1 had a pretty terrible combat system before it was remade.
The Ike and Tina joke screencapped from Rayearth in this thread.
I agree with this, at least for EB which is way above the norm for the the 16-bit era. The central well-developed cast, the plot pacing, the dramatic moments, the varied cities and townsfolk, engaging dialogue, great boss fights, and amazing soundtrack put EB IMO on the same level as the best of the era. The production values of EB is totally out of line with what the US was getting at the time, and even if you widen the view to games that stayed in Japan there were few good comparisons.
Most of the best of the RPGs of the 16-bit era were on SNES/SF, but PS4 and EB are the standouts of the MD/Genesis bunch.
(I think one could easily argue that Lunar 1 on Sega CD is just slow and ugly, and that much of the series reputation rides on the much better EB)
I have extremely fond memories of Lunar and Vay on Sega CD. There are problems with Vay and problems with Lunar, but they were some of the most engaging RPGs I played in the pre-3d era. I don't think WD's approach stands the test of time, but I think it's unfair to reduce their legacy to the admittedly offensive instances on display. You can condemn the racism offensive stuff *and* recognize their influence. They translated a bunch of great games that we may never have received otherwise. That they could have done a better job, is sort of beside the point.
The colorful translations of Lunar and Vay were a huge step up from the mostly dry, dingy grey translations I played previous to them.
I love FF7 too, but I can still recognize and decry the racism of Barret's localization.
There are a few patches that unworking-designs the gameplay changes, at least.
Edit: I didn't realize this didn't remove the translations; I was pretty sure they did, but maybe I'm thinking of a different patch.
Edit: I didn't realize this didn't remove the translations; I was pretty sure they did, but maybe I'm thinking of a different patch.
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An Atlus localized Lunar probably would have been worse than what we got. Atlus didn't really come into their own as a localizer until the PS2 era. Persona 1 was notoriously bad and their other PS1 localizations weren't great.
I really hate when translators want to be directors of what they are translating. In case of Lunar it's even worse, it's not only changes in text (what for me would be really problematic already) but in gameplay too.
I really dislike Woolseyisms too. It's a shame because this era of games, JRPGs from the 90's are my favorite games but almost all of them had really bad localizations. Maybe I eventually learn japanese to play these games to get a more pure, original vision of the work.
One of my biggest problems with FFXIV is that the translator want to be a rockstar. It's jarring the ridiculous pop references in almost every fucking sidequest in the game.
I really dislike Woolseyisms too. It's a shame because this era of games, JRPGs from the 90's are my favorite games but almost all of them had really bad localizations. Maybe I eventually learn japanese to play these games to get a more pure, original vision of the work.
One of my biggest problems with FFXIV is that the translator want to be a rockstar. It's jarring the ridiculous pop references in almost every fucking sidequest in the game.
I'll recognize WD for bringing over titles that other companies of the era didn't, but that's all the credit they're really due when they sabotage their own localizations as they did.
Other localizations of the era were definitely a mixed bag at the very best, but WD proved "colorful" doesn't always mean "good".
I don't think this is true. Persona 1 was an aberration, and their PSOne titles were well localized, by and large. Tail Concerto and Rhapsody hold up today, but even things like Tactics Ogre and Brigandine were high quality at the time. They had one bad translation on the platform.
I disagree. Their work on Tactics Ogre was good (good enough in fact that fan translators just used Atlus's script in the SNES game instead of retranslating it like that crowd otherwise would). I also recall Kartia and Persona 2 being solid. Also not PS1 but of that era, Ogre Battle 64 holds up very well too, aside from a dialog box of untranslated text. I've also never heard any complaints about Brigadine
Persona 1 was an unfortunate mistake, but not one they regularly made.
I forgot that Atlus did the ps1 Tactics Ogre. That was a decent job. Very different in tone though. I don't remember much about Rhapsody other than that the musical bits were pretty cringey.
In the context of SNES games I feel like it's monumentally unfair to decry Woosleism when you have to take into account the size, budget and time limitation of what they were doing.
Heck if we're talking FFVI in particular, the "Recovery spring" line has me scratching my head as to what this is a reference to and the B&BH ref is so transparent you actually have to explain it to even recognize it's here.
It even went so far that you have a "translation" patch that is claiming to be more acurate but is full of profanaties for no reason and is actually an even worse translation.
Ideally all games would be localized like FFXII or Tactics Ogre : Let us Cling Together but that's not reasonable.
Heck if we're talking FFVI in particular, the "Recovery spring" line has me scratching my head as to what this is a reference to and the B&BH ref is so transparent you actually have to explain it to even recognize it's here.
It even went so far that you have a "translation" patch that is claiming to be more acurate but is full of profanaties for no reason and is actually an even worse translation.
Ideally all games would be localized like FFXII or Tactics Ogre : Let us Cling Together but that's not reasonable.
I think this is a good take. Pre-internet, in-jokes and nods to 'obscure' media were very rare in the midwest USA. I've only ever played Lunar 2 and loved it. I don't remember much of it but I'm sure as a 10-year-old I was loving any pop culture references they made simply because there was not any community for me to feel a part of at school or on TV. The fact that a "japanese" game was making a joke about something I also loved was a crazy thing.
edit: I want to clarify that I would probably not enjoy these references today, they were a product of their time and aged like milk. Also, as RomanticHeroX and others have pointed out, WD committed the worst offense with their tweaking of gameplay mechanics. Pretty gross.
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The quality holds up today, and is famous for a joke about direct translations. These localizations were coming at the same time as the Lunar games.
The real kicker is that a *lot* of people find Working Designs localization *charming*.I grew up on JRPGs. My parents would never buy me games though, I had to rent them. I never once saw either of the Lunar games in a rental store, so I didn't grow up on Working Designs translations. Fast forward to now, when I finally have some of the games... Lunar, Lunar 2, Albert Odyssey.. I really can't play them because the translations annoy me severely. At the time, Working Designs was proud of spicing up that dry dialogue... but all I see is pop culture references thrown in haphazardly. Does directly quoting a tootsie roll pop commercial instead of putting in what the NPC actually said help build the lore of the world of Lunar? Naw, not really. It's not funny, it's not interesting. It's less interesting than dry dialogue to me. Albert Odyssey is another example of just... pure suffering trying to read. Dear god.
Imagine finding the equivalent of "wrryyyyyyyyy desu desu top kek this is sparta!" charming.
Also, as bad as the Americanization of Persona 1 was and as unfortunate that the hidden story path being dummies out was, the actual writing in the Persona 1 localization is....fine.
I can honestly even forgive them for missing the hidden story path. They clearly were trying to get it included and ran out of time and money. Not everyone has the fortune to be able to fart around and frequently delay localizations that end up still having problems.
I can honestly even forgive them for missing the hidden story path. They clearly were trying to get it included and ran out of time and money. Not everyone has the fortune to be able to fart around and frequently delay localizations that end up still having problems.
all the working design memers likely migrated to NIS America who does similar pop/internet culture heavy translations for some of their stuff