Saturn
News
Vic Ireland Speaks!!
(May 9th)
The Direct Q and A from Ultra Game Players Palace Chat.
Victor Ireland is on the stage.
Randy@UGP is on the stage.
Moderator: Let's try it once more
Moderator: Pepe says: "HELLO VICTOR!!!!"
Victor Ireland: hi all!
Randy@UGP: Working Designs translates foreign titles for the US market,
amongst other nifty things.
Randy@UGP: So, what's the latest with WD?
Victor Ireland: we're really, REALLY busy tending the RPG business as well
as getting SPAZ off the ground.
Victor Ireland: We will have 6-10 titles out this year.
Victor Ireland: (between the two labels)
Victor Ireland: GA
Randy@UGP: Can you give us any clues as to what they'll be?
Randy@UGP: Personal request from Jason Montes: bring over Digital Dance
Mix. :)
Victor Ireland: Well, we've got the announced stuff:Albert Odyssey, Rayearth,
and LUNAR:Silver Star Story for the Saturn...
Victor Ireland: Raystorm under the SPAZ label for Playstation...
Victor Ireland: and our good friends at SEGA were kind enough to announce
SEGA AGES to the world FOR us (for Saturn)
Randy@UGP: Note: the moderator is experiencing technical difficulties.
We'll be asking the audience Q's in a sec/
Victor Ireland: That's 5 announced.
Victor Ireland: We have two to 3 more to announce very shortly for Saturn
and 1 or 2 for PS this year.
Moderator: Andre says: "Any word on Magic Knight Rayearth?"
Victor Ireland: Rayearth has about 80-90 of the text in place, and the
recording process is started....
Moderator: MasterC says: "Is Spat making any games for Saturn as well as
playstation?"
Victor Ireland: That title has been a bit of a pain to get right, since
we had to halt development on the project for almost 2 years to get to
use the original Japanese names instead of lame ones TMS and Kodansha wanted.
(Rayearth)
Moderator: Rudo says: "Is John Truitt (Ghaleon) making voices for Rayearth?"
Victor Ireland: SEGA Ages contains Space Harrier, Outrun, and Afterburner
II on 1 CD for $39 for Saturn.
Victor Ireland: It's due out mid-late june.
Moderator: ?Trunks says: "we all know what working designs does but what
we wanna know is why does it take so long!?!?!"
Victor Ireland: That will be a SPAZ title.
Victor Ireland: John will be involved in MKRE. :)
Moderator: we'll let Vic catch up on these questions
Victor Ireland: IF we just ported titles, we could do it a lot faster,
but we generally try to improve them and/or fight over details to make
the best possible product. Case in point (2 examples):
On Rayearth, we were told, after the contract was signed, that we
could not use the original names for the characters (main ones being Hikaru,
Umi, and Fuu), but had to use the crappy ones TMS created for the crappy
US dub (Luce, Marine, and Anemone).
We would NOT do that.
Moderator: you tell em, Vic
Victor Ireland: So, we fought for nearly 2 years, with development halted,
to get our way. To give in would be to compromise the product.
Victor Ireland: A look at the TMS US dub they can not sell to syndication,
and you see how BAD their writing and names are for that version.
Moderator: Zapf says: "Have you considered a port of Grandia?"
Victor Ireland: Second, on Albert, for example, the load times were TERRIBLE
on the Japanese version, like 10 seconds in and another 7-10 coming out
of battle.
We chose to rip the system apart and rewrite critical stuff on the
system to get those loads down. They now stand at 4-6 in and 4-5
out.
A big improvement, but one that costs TIME.
We will not RUSH a product to make a date. Period.
Moderator: ID© says: "your saturn support is greatly appreciated vic."
Victor Ireland: we have a good relationship with Game Arts. However,
Mr. Miyaji will not license Grandia to anyone until the game is closer
to release (which stands at October for Japan, right now).
Victor Ireland: No one has Grandia in the bag, but SoA and WD are basically
the finalists.
Moderator: 10 more minutes... keep the questions coming
Victor Ireland: Of course, we're pretty confident. :)
Moderator: MasterC says: "What is status of Lunar:the Silvar Story?"
Victor Ireland: LUNAR:SSS is also underway. One thing a lot of people
don't know is that the US will be getting LUNAR:Complete in the US, which
is not even out in Japan yet.
It is an updated version of LUNAR:SSS that was released last Winter.
It has full-screen animations and some extra stuff.
Randy@UGP: Any plans for Thunderforce 5?
Victor Ireland: The game requires the MPEG card in Japan.
Victor Ireland: but, sine that's not out in the US, we'll shoot for almost
full-screen, without the card.
Moderator: Pepe says: "Is there a release date yet for Lunar:SSS?
(Spiffy Rei av Randy!)"
Victor Ireland: TF5 will be connected to some of our upcoming announcements.
I'm not saying TF5 will BE the announcement, but it will be related. :)
Victor Ireland: We talk in generalities about releases, but it looks like
LUNAR:SSS is September-ish.
Moderator: Zapf says: "Are there any titles out in the US that you think
deserve to have had a better translation?"
Victor Ireland: Whew. Too many to list. Definitely Mystaria/Blazing
Heroes. I think the crack was affecting the translator's job performance.
Moderator: Rudo says: "Were you succesful in trying to replace some of
the songs by those in the Sega CD version or are you still fighting for
that (please say yes)?"
Victor Ireland: All the FF's have fallen short, IMO. The text does
not have the emotional impact to match the visuals.
Victor Ireland: We're not really Fighting on the music issue, just, um,
discussing... :)
Moderator: remember kids... he's not advocatin the use of illegal narcotics
;)
Victor Ireland: We've already remixed 4 and returned them.
Victor Ireland: Time will tell if we can leave them in.
Victor Ireland: Um, returned them to the proper place in the game, that
is.
Moderator: Zapf says: "What is the hardest part about translating a game?
(Keeping the emotion in the language, things that don't translate into
english well, etc?)"
Victor Ireland: the hardest part is details like so and so is the son of
so and so, who's from so and so, etc And...
Victor Ireland: finding interesting for boring townspeople to say all the
time.
Moderator: i'm daryl.. and this my brother daryl
Moderator: Rudo says: "Have you guys patched things up with Gamefan or
is the fighting still going on?"
Victor Ireland: the Japanese townspeople are INCREDIBLY generic.
We replace almost aLL their text.
Victor Ireland: Rudo...are you from Gamefan? :)
Moderator: Rudo says: "no"
Victor Ireland: funny timing.
Moderator: I don't believe him... kill the mole
Victor Ireland: We are on the mend after almost two years.
Victor Ireland: We're getting our apology.
Randy@UGP: Question from SaturnWorld: Fire Pro Wrestling? :)
Moderator: Andre says: "Oh, that's good to know Vic, I did'nt like the
fact that you and GF were fighting"
Victor Ireland: FPR is not in our genre, but we have a great relationship
personally with Human (the publishers) from the Vasteel days.
Victor Ireland: We've recommended the title to SoA.
Moderator: Zapf says: "What influenced you to include all the 'extras'
with your games (color manuals, nice CD's, foil-printed casing, etc?)"
Victor Ireland: We'll keep beating them until the do it.
Victor Ireland: It KILLS WCW.
Victor Ireland: The extras are all the stuff I want when I buy games.
Almost no one cares about that at the publisher level. It costs us
plenty, but it ends up with a product I personally would BUY.
I don't publish crap I wouldn't buy.
Moderator: you tell him vic
Moderator: Zapf says: "The gaming industry needs more of you."
Victor Ireland: Game Fan has been cut off from all PR and review copies
of games for almost 2 years, BTW.
Randy@UGP: That's about all the time we have. Thanks for coming everyone!
Randy@UGP: And thanks to Vic!
Victor Ireland: That's why Dragon Force and Iron Storm weren't even mentioned
in GF awards, though they were the best of their genre in '96 and won awards
elsewhere.
Victor Ireland: Why thank you, Zapf.
Randy@UGP left the stage.
Victor Ireland left the stage.
After the Q and A session he went to a public Chat room and
answered some Questions... I was one of the Lucky ones to get a chance...
Heres a summary...
1: Rad Mobile from Spaz?
No... Wouldn't be worth the Translation costs...
2: Samari Showdown RPG? Yes... But Sega will
translate and publish it.
3: Phantasy Star Collection from Working Designs?
Possibility... But NOT remote... It would take too long to fix Sega's Poor
translation...
4: Opinions on Grandia. Amazing!!!
No polygon seams to be seen. It's Beautiful... Can't say enough good
things about it...
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