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Khuutra on 12 February 2009
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Kenryoku_Maxis said:
Words Of Wisdom said:
Kenryoku_Maxis said:

They can increase the advertising all they want, but if people are getting an altered product with cheesy accents, altered names and even portions of the game missing, what's the point?  People aren't stupid, they aren't going to get all ecstatic over an inferior product.  The game might sell more copies, but it won't gain a long term fanbase.  That takes actual effort and quality control.  Something it seems only the actual producers of the series seem to be able to have a handle over in their native country.

Does SE actually remove parts of the game from western releases?  Last I heard they were still adding new things to western releases (then reselling them in Japan at a marked up rate later).

Last I heard the corny accents aren't coming.  On a somewhat related yet unreleated note, the sad part about the accents thing is that most people probably don't even recognize Japanese accents too well so they get uppity when western releases have accents.  Can you tell the difference between Tokyo native and an Osaka native for example?

They removed a lot from Dragon Quest IV.  Things like the Party Chat feature, a couple scenes from the game (puff puff) and altering the story.  With little logical reason for it, other than possibly wanting to make the game appeal to a more 'casual' audiance.  I really have given up trying to understand the logic behind localizations for Square-Enix.  It almost seems they change things just for the sake of changing it.

And they haven't given an American release for a Dragon Quest game original content since DQVIII.  And all that included was added voices (which weren't in the original game) and an orchestrated score.  All the other improvements to the game come from the original Japanese games.  What we in America get is just alterations or cuts. 

For Dragon Quest V however, early reports are claiming that they are altering (and possibly removing) portions of the script again.  As well as changing names and giving certain characters accents, which has been confirmed.

I have been made aware that one of the primary reasons is that every Western copy of DQIV (American and European) has the code for every single Western language version inside of it, with certain switches flipped to make it so that a given language displays. This is just what I hear.

It's not arbitrary - it's just laziness, or possibly cost-cutting.

And no, most people who play it (like me) don't care all that much.

People who would pick it up if Nintendo pushes it as hard as they pushed Pokemon wouldn't care, either.