[QUOTE="wackoss"][QUOTE="Panzer_Zwei"]
In my opinion Working Designs were overrated. They worked in a very convulted way, and that's why they went under. They took too long to release games, charged too much for games that were old already, and did many deluxe editions for games that didn't deserved it. Also, most people think that their localizations were good simply because the games were in English, but in reality they used to mess up with the original game script, which is something no localization should do. The player was basically reading Working Designs and not the original authors.
Panzer_Zwei
I'm not defending Working Designs (honestly I've never played any of their games) but you have to understand localization does involve "localizing" it i.e. sometimes you have to change the script in order for it to make sense in another market. A japanese joke that may have been written in the game may not make any sense if it was literally translated to English. They seemed to cater to gamers who had the money to spend on their extravagant bundles. Atlus seems to be trying to fill their role now that Working Designs is gone. Except Atlus will try and sneak in reprints when no one's looking and somehow people still think that their copy of Digital Devil Saga, etc. is worth something.That only applies to references another country wouldn't understand. However, Working Designs altered the script in order to make it more amusing.Wikipedia explains this better:
"Working Designs would also become known for their tendency to interject humor (sometimes crass) into their translations where none had existed within the original Japanese release. The jokes were usually Americanized and would often break the fourth wall with pop culture references and modern slang. Working Designs was particularly fond of referencing This Is Spinal Tap; their old company slogan, visible on some SegaCD releases, was "Our games go to 11!", and several games' translations subtly reference the film. This drew criticism from players believing the implied humor made the localization seem unnatural."
As you can see that is not simply localizing a product, that's going out of the way to basically put their own stuff in the game, which became rather annoying, because games were plagued with this.
Atlus and Working Designs are also very different actually. Atlus is a game developer, whereas Working Designs just localized already developed games. Furthermore, Working Designs tried to sell games that were already old in Japan at full retail price in the West. Something that Sony of America/Europe had a strong policy against. They actually tried to sell Growlanser Generations as separated games, and at full retail price, something to which Sony said no. And they tried to do this again withBouken Jidai Katsugeki: Goemon, which was already on its second players hits run in Japan. And when Sony said no again, that was basically the end of the company.
As usual, you are the one who completely puts a new perspective onto many gaming issues:PBTW, do you think they were working on a Far East of Eden Ziria localisation? I heard the original PCE game was quite good
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