Gaijinworks - Working Designs 2.0
 

http://rpgamer.com/news/Q3-2006/080706a.html

The good Mister Ireland is making a new company that'll carry out its work much like Working Designs did. I'm sure there might be folks from it piling into this new company as well. The main difference it seems is Gaijinworks will span across multiple consoles.

Here's to hoping they'll translate largely passed-over games like the mother-company did.

*crosses fingers for Front Mission 5*
A man can dream T_T

Yea, when I read this I got very happy. I'm really hoping that one day we'll see Dragon Force 2 brought over. Or at least the Dragon Force port to PS2 that Japan received. *sigh* God I love that series.

Well they dig pretty deep. But the PS2 might not have much life left in it =( Since WD took their time on translations and what-not... But still, the PS3's price might work against the PS2's death. Most folks will end up waiting until some bigname games to blow the huge wade on a PS3 (ie: MGS4). The PS2 might still have a steady stream of games remaining, then.

Part of this multiple console stuff is to work around some asshattery in the companies. Arc the Lad collection would've been out, like, six months prior to its actual release, but Sony wanted it to be able to use analogs and some shit like that.

I believe they also stepped on their feet when it came to Growlanser 1. Sony shot them down because "oh, it's a PS1 game. No one plays those anymore."

They'll probably be able to port across systems and use that as a good excuse to dig back a little for instances like that.

So long as they don't wind up doing faggotry like running a bunch of shit on the xbox 360.

I'm a little edgy on this though. How do they plan to make *good* ports cross-systems? Big titles like Splinter Cell or Hitman can pull that off but I'm sure this'll be a small company at least starting off. If they want a sophisticated port job, there'll be big delays in releases. Or the ports will be shabby =/

Double Post:
I'll bet money that he is gonna do this so he can snag the Goemon game for the Wii. He kept trying to release some of the games but the fates always conspired. It's sad that Goemon is so ignored when it's such a fantastic series. Sony cockblocked them on the last time they tried releasing a Goemon game.

Edit - Mmh. I was misinterpretting it, as I thought more. Not porting per se, but they won't sell their soul to Sony like they did last time.

Yes, that would be absolute money, to be sure. We'll have to wait and see.

Working Designs didn't release their stuff here, but it sounds like they picked up lots of neat titles nobody else wanted to touch, this rebranded company should get to work on American releases of Simple 2000 games. GO GO GO, they already have English translations from Euro publishers. God knows they're never going to stop making them, the PS4 could be out and they'll still be making PS2 Simple games. Foreeeevveeer! Or they can just release some more RPG's. =x

Gaijinworks? Euch...that might be the worst name for a game-publishing company I've ever heard. Beyond that, two suggestions for Mr. Ireland, should he read this:

1. Stop mucking around with difficulty levels. You lose audience when you cater to the obsessively hardcore, and in this market a publisher needs to cast as large and inclusive a net as is possible.
2. Please please please please please consider Policenauts. Thank you.

You know what a lamer name is?

SQUARE. I mean come awhn.

Square are a bunch of cocks. I doubt they'd allow this company to do FM5 for them.

Emphasis on the word translate. Their "localization" escapades are what drove me to despise content altering in games completely.

I'm actually now wondering if they might do something good and release Oriental Blue or the original Magical Vacation stateside.

Hell, I have no complaints against their past works. I've heard that some folks are rubbed wrong by their localization and what-not.

I survived through the storyline altering crock-pot system that was the SNES. One or two games in particular had the storyline ENTIRELY axed, pract near... WD changes a lot of humor to things Americans would follow. The gags and humor sewn into their products are what make me love 'em.

If it wasn't for WD, we never would have even HEARD of Lunar or Dragon Force, I'm sure. Bear that in mind, good sir =I

This is good, I was wondering if they'd do something like this. Seems like a lot of companies have been reformed after they get shut down/bought out. Westwood, Origin, Bullfrog, Cavedog...and now Working Designs. As long as they keep the same quality of translation, it sounds good to me. They were probably the best localization team out there, not to mention their packaging was actually catchy.

They should put all of Working Design's past games on Xbox Live Arcade. Just think of being able to play Dragon Force, Lunar, Arc the Lad, Alundra, and Silhouette Mirage, ALL on the Xbox 360! Sounds like a win to me, they'd be stupid NOT to do it.

Except for the majority of hardcore RPG fans out there have avoided the 360 due to Microsoft's lack of a wide amount of good role playing games. They usually release one or two and that's it. I think you're just biased because you're pro-360. Stupid is a good word to use, but not in the way you did.

Silhouette Mirage and Alundra aren't very good games. Uh..WD, I see Atlus going the way they did. I don't see them lasting long.

I guess that puts me in the minority, as I own a 360 and love it. But hey, I'm sure there are countless more casual RPG players out there than hardcore ones, so who knows, maybe there would be an audience full of casual RPG players ripe for the picking on Live.

Maybe Vic's new company will be filled with management who emphasize good time management, so they will actually be able to meet internally set deadlines on a regular basis.

Double Post:
I thought Atlus was owned by Square now?

Except that "hardcore RPG fans" are not limited to liking ONLY that genre, and may actually get a console for other games (hard to swallow, I know). And I don't see why the current Xbox 360 owners wouldn't buy games just because they don't belong to a specific niche. I doubt many Xbox 360 owners are hardcore 2d fighting fans, but Street Fighter 2 seems to be selling pretty well.

And I think you're just biased because you're anti-360.

You do realise that certain jokes, humour or pop culture reference only works in a certain country(like Japan) and that a direct translation will have no effect to the target audience it is localising? A localised game isn't some anime fansub where you have translation notes that appear in the top of the screen, or a English manga where there are notes in the back of the book. Rather than take up space and spending a while trying to explain why that joke is so funny in Japanese or what that references, it makes more sense to make it into a new joke that the USA audience can understand, as long as they don't mess with the story , characters or plot, there's nothing wrong the localisation process. And from what I've heard about in the Lunar series, Working Designs has done a fine job localising the games.

As for the reason why certain anime dubs or fansubs are more faithful to the culture, its cause its A.) Fansubs are subtitles for the Japanese version of the show, and B) The dubs that do directly translate (like Excel Saga) are shows that take place in Japan, and alot of the visuals relfect that culture, and Excel Saga is an example of an anime with LOTS of references to the anime culture and past anime clasics, some that not many have even heard of, along with Japanese culture itself. Lunar or any other RPG does NOT usually take place in Japan, and any joke or reference can easily be changed without insulting the game and story.

Therefore, I hope this company will keep that spirit and do the same good job as WD did.

The second they bring out an interesting RPG, I'll buy one. Hell, I was going to buy one at launch date until I found out ShadowRun was being made into an FPS. That's unforgiveable.

What, wait, WHAT? There's a Shadowrun game coming out?

First person shooter? Fuck... Now I'm pissed.

Double Post:
Just read about it on Gamefaqs. That really curls my graw.

That was my exact fucking reaction. I was so pissed off. They were all "ShadowRun game!" and I went and hugged my SNES, and more importantly, my Genesis copy of ShadowRun, I was happy. I thought we'd finally have a new member of our little family. But no, they were like "It's the retard cousin! The FPS ShadowRun! haHA!" And then I got really fucking angry. Lewis Black angry. In summation, fuck the 360. I want a decent ShadowRun follow-up. And Shining Force III, the whole thing. And a new Shining Force TRPG. God I hate the game industry. "Hey, instead of continuing interesting, incredibly good series, let's make another Halo so frat boys can do something instead of studying!"

Dahahaha. Shining Force & Shadowrun are walking the same path now ;_; Madman behind the wheel!

Lol Gaijinworks, great name, good idea, will probably fail :D.