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This localization publisher has gone missing for over three years. What happened to Gaijinworks?
- Thread starter Shizuka
- Start date
She redid the songs when XSeed localized the PSP game. She was the only returning cast member.
I Completely agree, I would love all of the Growlanser games to get re-releases and for more people to play them. Growlanser 2 is such a fun and short game, and Growlanser IV is amazing (but completely hindered by the fact that the game loads voice acting for spells but then doesn't play them due to budget reasons). III is pretty good as well, but V isn't.
It is absolutely a shame that Growlanser I got released on PS1 and not translated, and then we had another shot when it released on PSP and STILL didn't get a translation.
I Don't think Atlus would do that again if another re-release happened, but Career Soft has been gone a long time.
EDIT: I am REALLY holding out hope for Arc the lad on PS+, the first two games are amazing and I wish everyone could play them.
if only for them to reach the final boss of Arc 2 and despair
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To be perfectly honest, I was shocked Atlus did a localization for Growlanser IV so late into the PSP's lifecycle. Thankful it happened though. 1 is considered a classic in Japan, so even if they did an anniversary re-release, I'd be hopeful they'd do a localization of 1 at least.
I beat 5 for the first time a couple of years ago and yeah, the game is really, really flawed but I still enjoyed it a bit and look forward to the fan translation of 6's completion (patch is out, just really broken last I tried it).
Careersoft nowadays are a part of R&D1 making Shin Megami Tensei mainline games (SMT5, previously they made the Devil Survivor series and some of them worked on Tokyo Mirage Sessions and Radiant Historia). The series creator/director is the manager of R&D1 now, so I'd imagine if he wanted some sort of anniversary re-release to happen he could make it happen. Fingers crossed!
Yeah, same, given how burned they seemingly were over V (which hilariously ties into the topic of this thread), it seemed like they'd never try it again. That said, at that point in the PSP's lifespan, I wonder if they just figured it was worth trying since a lot of publishers were throwing things at the wall towards the end.
I'm just sitting here with my CE copy just sitting in my closet in a box. I really should take it out and play it.
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It's a shame that Bandai Namco mostly cares about anime games.
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Another one that Gaijinworks could publish but won't:
And this one that no one bothered years ago:
www.gematsu.com
And this one that no one bothered years ago:
Class of Heroes: Anniversary Edition announced for Switch
Acquire is bringing its dungeon RPG series Class of Heroes to Switch with Class of Heroes: Anniversary Edition, the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu reveals. It will launch on April 26 in Japan for 2…
www.gematsu.com
Another one that Gaijinworks could publish but won't:
And this one that no one bothered years ago:
Class of Heroes: Anniversary Edition announced for Switch
Acquire is bringing its dungeon RPG series Class of Heroes to Switch with Class of Heroes: Anniversary Edition, the latest issue of Weekly Famitsu reveals. It will launch on April 26 in Japan for 2…
While absolutely gaijinworks should find a way to make the CoH2 remaster happen, I thought CoH1 was localized by Atlus?
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I think Vic would try to release COH1 remaster if the company was still around, even without Atlus localization.
Probably, atlus sure isn't likely to do anything or relicense that one game
He can't ignore this thread forever. There's at least a dozen of us!
I love your good taste. Arc the Lad I and II are some of my favorite RPGs. And I'm in the middle of my first replay of Growlanser Generations on my Steam Deck. I still have my original Working Design games with all the goodies and shit.
CareerSoft was basically absorbed into Atlus R&D1. Their staff ended up in the core teams who did Devil Survivor 1-2, Radiant Historia, Tokyo Mirage Seessions and coming up Soul Hackers 2.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4bp-swEWIw
In relation to the topic: Just watched this episode of Game Sack and he sent in comments on the cancelled localizations of Konami's Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero (PS2) and Hudson Soft's Far East of Eden: Ziria (Xbox 360).
Oh nice! Always great to have some commentary from him. I'll definitely watch.
It's unlikely the PC Engine games were ever seriously considered, and the RPG audience for Apocalypse on the Saturn likely wasn't there either. The only one that ever could've been feasible would've been the PSP port of Apocalypse, and it's a shame that one never happened. It's easily the most understandable to a non-Japanese audience and the continuity between the other games is minimal.
Namida wasn't very good and even the Xbox 360 remake of Ziria was just nostalgia bait for the Japanese audience that wouldn't have resonated over here at all.
Still wild that Working Designs basically died for Goemon PS2. I never played the work-in-progress English version but the original Japanese release was *extremely* rough, even for a launch era PS2 title. I don't think it's any real mystery why Sony would've turned it down especially coming so late into the system's life.
The good news that came out of this is that it seems Joe Redifer has a line to Victor, and that he's very much alive and is sharing his story with select folks. Seems like he's just keeping a low profile. I think it was also Joe that mentioned the reason the Lunar games weren't included on the Genesis Mini 2 is because Sega lowballed Vic with an offer that he felt was unacceptable. I know that story was also shared recently.
So, positive news!
So, positive news!
I heard this same reason given when the genesis mini 2 was launching. It confused me then and it confused me now. He's saying the offer was unacceptable, but the only alternative to that offer is having $0 for letting his games just sit there with no further re-release. So I'd think that some money would be better than nothing. If there were some other competing offer I could see it being unacceptable but it doesn't really make sense to me in this case.
The thing I take from this is Vic doesn't NEED the money at the moment, and he thinks that future revenue from his translations of the Lunar titles are worth more than what Sega wanted to pay at the time.
it sucks for me personally though, the inclusion of the Lunar titles would have made this an instant buy as opposed to the skip it has been for me. Frustrating in all regards.
I mean, we don't know what his situation is. WD and Gaijinworks seem to both get screwed by the console manufacturers, from the stories we've been hearing lately. They giveth, they taketh away. It doesn't seem like Vic ever got the respect from them professionally, and I can totally see his side if he wants to be compensated as a show of respect for the work he and his team created and the legacy they've left on the people who still hold their translations in high standard. I don't think discounting his legacy would be in his best interests, both professionally and financially.
I'm of mixed feelings about that.
Sega absolutely fucked around with them on Rayearth. Sony undeniably put unreasonable caveats on some of WD's releases (at least for Arc and Growlanser...but they were all things Vic could have dodged by just moving on to other projects. Not being able to release Tengai Makyou on 360 because of the eshop limit that went away later anyway sucked, but it had to be something they should have known ahead of time andhe had other options then too. Vic probably screwed WD over more overall by being so damn picky about what they localized, even though they had plenty of options. What worked for them in the early 90s when they were one of the few boutique localizers wasn't going to fly in the 2000s when there were more like them that quite frankly put out dramatically better work and in a timely manner.
Also, while I get that he should be compensated for his work on the older Lunar games, but by stonewalling things like this, I feel he's creating a situation where Gung Ho is either going to just end not touching them or make new versions to cut out Vic entirely (which technically is already true for Lunar 1 anyway). At some point, taking the money would have been the smart long term decision.
Sega absolutely fucked around with them on Rayearth. Sony undeniably put unreasonable caveats on some of WD's releases (at least for Arc and Growlanser...but they were all things Vic could have dodged by just moving on to other projects. Not being able to release Tengai Makyou on 360 because of the eshop limit that went away later anyway sucked, but it had to be something they should have known ahead of time andhe had other options then too. Vic probably screwed WD over more overall by being so damn picky about what they localized, even though they had plenty of options. What worked for them in the early 90s when they were one of the few boutique localizers wasn't going to fly in the 2000s when there were more like them that quite frankly put out dramatically better work and in a timely manner.
Also, while I get that he should be compensated for his work on the older Lunar games, but by stonewalling things like this, I feel he's creating a situation where Gung Ho is either going to just end not touching them or make new versions to cut out Vic entirely (which technically is already true for Lunar 1 anyway). At some point, taking the money would have been the smart long term decision.
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Oh yeah, the only other realistic possibilities were probably Apocalypse PSP and Manjimaru DS. I remember Vic saying he wasn't interested in Apocalypse Saturn way back, and WD was probably the only shot that game had.
Manjimaru on the Gamecube might have also been a viable option and would probably have given that franchise a western following given how virtually every GC jrpg had a following, aside from maybe Evolution.
Namida was also going to be on GC originally. I wonder if in a situation where that released if it could've gotten that Symphonia-ish western bump?
If things havent changed in 2 years, then it's not either or... it's both.
Yeah. I don't know what Sega offered them but the Genesis Mini 2 is a limited release product where they already need to pay a bunch of other companies that did more than translate games. It really sucks that this opportunity was missed for Sega CD Lunar re-releases and I'm inclined to blame Victor more than Sega here.
It kind of bothers me how much ownership he flexes over the games, even if he did have a large role in their international recognition.
I was replaying Eternal Blue on the SCD not that long ago and I had forgotten that Vic credits himself twice in the opening credit sequence before the people who made the game get acknowledged
Agreed on all points. Growlanser also screwed them over since those particular entries weren't even very good - the only selling points for them was the artwork and that just wasn't enough to justify spending $90 on a limited edition package. If they were games like the Nippon Ichi titles that got good word of mouth, then it could've worked, but both critical and user reviews were tepid. They could've just....chosen different games to localize. But again, like you said, pickings were probably getting slim by this point and the company likely would've gone under eventually.
There's very little market internationally for Sega CD games, and it's unlikely there will ever be another opportunity after the Genesis Mini 2. If Lunar gets resurrected, it'll likely be one of the later ports, and there's little hope for Popful Mail. And there's nothing he can do at all with just the scripts without working with Sega or Gung Ho. Not to beat a dead horse, but his decision to pass based on being "lowballed" is consistent with someone whose business acumen sunk his company for a Goemon game almost no one liked.
The conspiratorial part of me honestly wonders if maybe Vic also just didn't want the SCD versions back out there because WD's work on them has a loooooooot of problems that people would not be willing to overlook now. I suppose at some point, the reputation hit wouldn't be worth the money.
I can't imagine that his localizations would be that valued anyway, they're very, very 90s. Would have been perfect for the Mini 2 as it's a time capsule of that era, but otherwise who really wants to play that compared to a retranslation?
Either way the Mini 2 probably was made as a passion project and not to make a lot of money. Somehow they managed to get all of the anime licenses for the Japanese version and even the Genesis version had some real obscure titles from defunct publishers but English Lunar is the only notable absence. Obviously I have no inside knowledge but I would guess that the games that they did get in understood that it was more for historical preservation and accepted the numbers that Sega gave them, and any publisher that tried to play hardball just got cut since it wasn't worth it. Wouldn't surprise me if the number Vic floated would have heavily cut into the slim profit margin (I wonder if his number was higher than what GungHo accepted for the game itself to be in it), and with the low production number they knew that it'll probably sell out with or without English Lunar. It's a case where everyone loses.
Either way the Mini 2 probably was made as a passion project and not to make a lot of money. Somehow they managed to get all of the anime licenses for the Japanese version and even the Genesis version had some real obscure titles from defunct publishers but English Lunar is the only notable absence. Obviously I have no inside knowledge but I would guess that the games that they did get in understood that it was more for historical preservation and accepted the numbers that Sega gave them, and any publisher that tried to play hardball just got cut since it wasn't worth it. Wouldn't surprise me if the number Vic floated would have heavily cut into the slim profit margin (I wonder if his number was higher than what GungHo accepted for the game itself to be in it), and with the low production number they knew that it'll probably sell out with or without English Lunar. It's a case where everyone loses.
I get that what he was offered he might have interpreted it as a low ball. But this would be a low ball that's some sort of personal standard he holds the game to. When there are no other offers it's not a low ball in the financial sense because the alternative is $0. I hope people are right here that he has some plan to release these in the future and expects more money from that rather than just feeling personally rejected by the offer and having no other plan.
Problem with him having plans is that he still needs to work with Gung Ho on it. They have options to do it without him. He can't do it without them. Him pulling stunts like this runs the risk of alienating them from wanting to work with him.
Honestly I'd prefer if they did an HD release without him and do a translation without some of the liberties WD took on the games and make them more accurate to the original script.
Considering that GungHo has re-released Lunar a few times and used the new translation even on the iOS version which was based on the PSX one, I wouldn't be surprised if that bridge was long burned already. The issue is that the SCD version is very different from Complete so you can't just copy and paste the script for an English version, and it's probably not worth all of the effort it would take to change it for the Mini release.
His comments on Goemon sound kind of insane. You either pass Sony's initial concept approval or you don't. I don't know if he just started working on the game after failing concept approval, hoping Sony would change their mind and clear them for release. I shipped multiple PS2 games and I can't see how you'd get yourself into a situation where someone could just cancel your game. Maybe someone can explain this to me better, I only worked at big publishers.