I know the topic has changed but...
MrPopo wrote:Well, there's two sides to it. On the one hand, Working Designs was bringing over a lot of interesting games we would not have received otherwise. On the other hand, they were extremely liberal with the localization and might even mess with the gameplay balance. Personally, I think Atlus has been doing a phenominal job of releasing interesting Japanese titles while still maintaining a translation that is as close as possible to the original. Sometimes they change stuff to better suit a western audience but not nearly to the degree that WD did.
WD seems to be better as an example to other companies (what TO do and what NOT to do) than for their releases. Yes, people will buy RPGs, yes adding "omake" is cool and people love limited editions; no, adding tired juvenile humor doesn't really make the translation better, no, it's not a good idea to tweak the difficulty when localizing a game. I'm actually surprised WD didn't learn from their mistakes with Exile II that "adjusting" a game's difficulty is a bad idea.
I honestly don't think WD would be looked at too fondly today if there were tons of other companies localizing RPGs and shmups at the same time they were. They didn't always pick the best games to localize (the third Albert Odyssey game, for instance) or do the best job localizing the script (again, the third Albert Odyssey game). They ruined a couple of games by fixing gameplay that wasn't broken. They took forever to release certain titles, released in-demand games in limited quantities and at a high price point (Arc the Lad Collection, I'm lookin' at you)...
I don't hate WD but I'd be lying if I said I liked every (or even most of) their releases. In part, especially in the early years, I think they just localized games that weren't worth the effort. But then I honestly don't understand the cult of Lunar, either, so maybe it comes down to taste. (I was thinking more of the side-scrolling action-RPGs when I said the games "weren't worth the effort," because if I'd played Lunar on the Sega CD back in the day I'd likely have been blown away).
