First of all, I would like to stress that I am all for as many (good) import games as possible seeing release on the Virtual Console.  There has never been a better opportunity for companies to bring games to regions in which they had not previously been available.

However, the latest batch of imports sets an unhealthy precedent, particularly with DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure.  Not a single character of the original Japanese has been translated for the North American release.  Not the menus, not the item explanations, not the conversations.  Nothing.

Granted, the game is relatively easy to grasp and play without needing to have any understanding of the Japanese language.  Still, it would be nice to know what exactly is going on, what specific powers certain items grant to you, what your overall purpose is, et cetera.  There is part of a cut-scene early on in which you run into two different Bombermen, one white and one black, and apparently have to choose between them for some reason.  Upon choosing (in my case) the black one, a short scene ensues that appears to have some sort of humorous value.  But I can't understand a word of it!

Otherwise the game looks and sounds great, but I hope that this does not become the norm for import releases.  If they're going to charge a premium for these titles (in fact, especially if they are going to do so), there should be some kind of minimum translation requirement in place (menus and basic information at the very least).  I doubt it will be very long before most people are generally discouraged from purchasing these import titles at all without any kind of translation standard in place.

I guess no one else shares in my outrage. Fine, then. Don't be surprised when the import games stop coming because no one wants to buy completely untranslated games.

Jerks.

I don't understand why it's selling at an "import" price when they didn't do a damn thing to localize it.

@ClaudeLv250:

Right. That's exactly my point. It seems to be a case of "well, we don't have any English games prepped for this week... let's just throw in a Japanese release that's already been tested. English translation? Bah, people will pay the premium cost and they'll LIKE it".

I am not amused.

Agree with you, ridiculous. What's sadder is that certain games will be not even worth buying due to this, such as if they were to bring over Seiken Densetsu 3 without a translation, a game I would buy instantly if it were on VC with a translation.

Scandalous

Duh.  Don't buy it. 

If companies realize that untranslated games don't sell they'll realize they have to translate them to make a profit.

It's already too late for that.  It's not as though a disclaimer exists stating that there has been no translation effort whatsoever.  The only other import purchase that I had made was of Sin & Punishment, which did have some translation work done to it.  The thing that I wonder is if this was Nintendo's call or Hudson Soft's?  In either case, I still believe there should be a minimum standard for Japanese import titles being released in North America.

@elprincipe:

Yes, I would almost certainly pay a 4x premium for a fully-translated Seiken Densetsu 3, perhaps even more.  I'm crazy like that.  :)