Lunar Silver Star Story (PS)

[zmeston]

It really is unfortunate that the game was rereleased after the original proclamations stated it would not be produced anymore. I'm still having trouble believing that, in this day and age, months after the initial release of the game, there was still even *mild* demand. The modern gaming industry seems to move a lot faster than it did in the eighties. I still can't believe that many of these "fan edition" discs were sold, and that really makes me wonder how much profit was made by Working Designs in the process.

I wasn't entirely surprised by the demand, as Lunar: SSSC was/is/will be Working Designs' best-selling game, with roughly a quarter-million units sold through. Also, there were quite a few gamers who simply couldn't afford the premium-priced original release, although I doubt they would've been pleased with the Fan Edition.

These days the company seems to be making less announcements and releasing less completed games than in past years (and, as an effect, finally sparing us ludicrous release dates!). Even Victor has gotten very quiet with the fans who hang out at the forum at their website. It really makes me believe something is up.

I've ranted about WD's downward spiral in many previous threads, but here's the jist of my blatherings: 1) All the Japanese developers and publishers WD used to work with have gone under or merged with larger companies. 2) WD is being outbid for localization rights by Ubi Soft, Activision, Eidos, and other massive American publishers. 3) Victor has settled down, grown soft, and lost touch with his fans. 4) Victor has alienated virtually everyone in the industry, including game journalists and, more perilously, his corporate overlords at Sony, who won't let him release Goemon (too old/ugly) and are forcing him to bundle Growlanser 2 and 3 (also old/ugly). Victor doesn't post much on the WD board because he's too busy scrambling to keep his company afloat.

In any event, your writing on the PS port of Lunar is nothing short of inspiring, and despite all the jaded feelings, I'm damned happy you worked on it. Let's not let the rerelease spoil what is, essentially, a fantastic game!

Inspiring? Nah, I was just fortunate enough to help localize a great RPG with wonderful characters. I guarantee more people read and were amused by my SSSC (and EBC) scripts than every review and guide I've written put together, which is both wonderful and terribly depressing.

Some hardcore RPG fans would argue that I screwed up SSSC with my excessive Americanization of the dialogue, and in my feeble defense, I tried very hard to limit my pop-culture references to catchphrases that wouldn't slap you upside the head if you didn't know them, as opposed to Victor's blatant referencing of Wheaties, Shannen Doherty, et cetera.

-- Z.

[zmeston]

And zmeston, you must realize that one day you'll have to tell us about your sordid falling-out with Working Designs. Or at least include it in your memoirs.

The first time I tried to write about my WD stint, Victor's lawyer-weasel threatened to sue me -- but that was just a few months after I'd left, when the wounds were still fresh. We're at well over two years now, and I would imagine Victor's too busy avoiding insolvency to worry about the rantings of a former employee. What do you say, Joe -- need another digitpress.com columnist? Heh.

-- Z.

[Captain Wrong]

Some hardcore RPG fans would argue that I screwed up SSSC with my excessive Americanization of the dialogue, and in my feeble defense, I tried very hard to limit my pop-culture references to catchphrases that wouldn't slap you upside the head if you didn't know them, as opposed to Victor's blatant referencing of Wheaties, Shannen Doherty, et cetera.

-- Z.

I know I've mentioned it before, but the dialogue in Lunar:SSSC was what really got me into the game. I liked the fact that there was humor and it didn't take itself so damn serious. It still stands as the only RPG I like, and that's a large part of why I like it. (Hmm...maybe one of these days I'll have to finish Lunar 2.)

[maxlords]

Well, we're damn glad to have you on DP, Zach! I know I'd met you on Usenet before you made it over here (during a public flamewar with Vic I believe) and I've always had a lot of respect both for the work you've done and because you're one of the few industry guys I know that really speaks his mind about stuff...it's rare these days! I think everyone is afraid they'll lose their jobs or something.

Personally, I've always enjoyed the light-hearted translations in the Lunars. I thought they were quite well done. I enjoyed a lot of the WD ports for that same reason (Albert Odyssey, Arc, Popful Mail, Alundra). Which WD games did you work on localizing anyway? I know you were there for quite a while, but were you there for Exile 1 and 2 and Vasteel?

And the demand for Lunar never surprised me. Neither did the "fan edition" rerelease....the series (as with several Game Arts localizations) are cult favorites in the US. RPGers want them...WD collectors want them...and the originals DID come out fairly expensive. So the repress wasn't a big shock. The two things I WAS sad about though, were the sudden cancellation of the Lunar PC project and the lack of the elusive Alex punching puppet so I could have fights with my Ghaleon puppet

Oh....Zach.....do you think this is the beginning of the end for WD? Being that Ubi and Atlus have been snaking the games Vic wanted to port left and right, how's he gonna get titles? Seems like he's gonna have more and more trouble getting the rights for stuff to port if the bigger (and overall more serious) companies are porting everything themselves. I'm sure he's thrilled to have lost PS2 Arc for example....

[hezeuschrist]

I thoroughly enjoyed SSSC and the Strategy Guide, and I have since picked up bothe EBC with the massive 300+ page guide, and I intend to enjoy that as well.

Very few game guides can get me to read them for entertainment reasons as opposed to actually finding info on the game. Both Lunar guides and the guide for Earthbound are the only ones to do so so far.

[zmeston]

You guys are much too kind! I need to get involved in another system-wars thread and remind you what a jerk I am. Heh.

Well, we're damn glad to have you on DP, Zach! I know I'd met you on Usenet before you made it over here (during a public flamewar with Vic I believe) and I've always had a lot of respect both for the work you've done and because you're one of the few industry guys I know that really speaks his mind about stuff...it's rare these days! I think everyone is afraid they'll lose their jobs or something.

Well, the days of my "Bold (But Not Brash) Website" are long gone, for two reasons: I was writing that stuff from a hateful and self-destructive place, and I was burning -- no, NUKING all my bridges. I'm much better now, and many people have forgiven me for my stupidity, but others haven't, and never will. It's bad enough being a reviewer-weasel and alienating developers with my negative write-ups (as in Joe's wonderful/horrible CGExpo anecdote).

Which WD games did you work on localizing anyway? I know you were there for quite a while, but were you there for Exile 1 and 2 and Vasteel?

I wasn't at WD during the TurboGrafx era, although I wrote a bunch of WD strategy guides during the Sega CD era. I met Victor through Andy Eddy at VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, for which both Victor and I wrote in the early '90s.

I worked on probably a dozen WD games in various capacities, but was the lead writer-weasel on a half-dozen: both PS Lunars, Alundra, Albert Odyssey, Vanguard Bandits, and Magic Knight Rayearth. The Alundra and Albert scripts were written on a freelance basis, and the others when I was a salaried employee.

The two things I WAS sad about though, were the sudden cancellation of the Lunar PC project and the lack of the elusive Alex punching puppet so I could have fights with my Ghaleon puppet

Lunar PC was buggy as hell, terminally obsolete (even in 2000, when it was originally announced, the PC market was 3D-crazed), and doomed from the start; Victor postponed the announcement of its cancellation until he could pair it up with some good news -- in this case, the Fan Edition, since the cancellation of Lunar PC "has put us in a situation where fans of the game have no way to get it. Hence, the limited run."

Victor has all of the half-dozen Alex puppet protos in his possession, although I destroyed one or two in vigorous lunchtime brawls with the many Ghaleon puppet protos scattered about my cubicle.

One Asian manufacturer even misunderstood our puppet request and sent us an adorable Ghaleon "Beanie Baby," a one-of-a-kind item also in Victor's possession. It's a multi-thousand-dollar plushie, since we'd already wired an initial payment to the company, and the BB was the only item we ever received from them.

Oh....Zach.....do you think this is the beginning of the end for WD? Being that Ubi and Atlus have been snaking the games Vic wanted to port left and right, how's he gonna get titles? Seems like he's gonna have more and more trouble getting the rights for stuff to port if the bigger (and overall more serious) companies are porting everything themselves. I'm sure he's thrilled to have lost PS2 Arc for example....

Yep, Victor's in a very tough situation right now. At one point during the peak of Lunar's popularity, Eidos offered him something in the range of $10 million for the company, and I'm sure that he wishes he'd sold out to The (English)man.

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits is a Wiffle bat to Victor's crotch. He pleaded with Sony for three years to obtain the rights, spent another two years localizing and promoting the series, and was "rewarded" for his efforts by having Sony keep the PS2 version to themselves and build upon the popularity base that Victor financially and physically broke himself to establish.

On top of that, Sony has screwed Victor by repeatedly rejecting his attempts to publish Goemon and Growlanser 2/3. WD missed E3 this year for the first time ever because it had nothing to show, and couldn't afford a booth anyway.

Unfortunately for Victor, since he's publicly slammed Microsoft, and can't afford to produce GameCube titles (since third-party GCN titles don't sell and there's nothing to localize) or GBA titles (since he can't afford the up-front investment and there's nothing to localize), he's stuck with Sony.

My crackpot theory is that for Victor to survive, he needs to morph WD into a budget company and start grabbing some of the many hundreds of decent and good games in the Japanese PlayStation/PS one library. He could purchase North American rights for next to nothing (Vanguard Bandits only cost $50K, although that game admittedly did zero business in Japan), and even quick-and-dirty WD localizations would be exponentially better than the hideous efforts of XS Games, Agetec, and Natsume. He could even continue to release full-price PS2 games, presuming Sony ever allows him to do so. But I'm sure he'd liquidate the company before he'd swallow his pride and go from the absurd excess of the Lunar and Arc packaging to $10 games with black-and-white manuals.

-- Z.

[BenT]

The main problem with your scenario is that there's no such thing as a quick and dirty WD translation. :)

[Needle]

It's realy too bad that this is happening to Working Designs, who was, for the longest time, the only game company who was listening to fans when other companies were still struggling with poor translations. I suppose the first observation that things might be getting rough for WD was when the industry got smart to the importance of a good translation (the first company that comes to mind is Atlus). Suddenly, WD's niche began to cave in.

The packaging scheme was always cool, although admittedly overboard by the end. I enjoyed the bound, color manuals and stickers are always great too. The other stuff just stays tucked away in the CD case.

WD worked for the fans in their good years, and for that, anyways, I'm grateful. There's a lot of quality stuff in their catalog of games!

Z - Thanks for the insight, as always.

[hezeuschrist]

My current goals are to own all PSX Squaresoft games, and all PSX Working Designs games/guides. The bigass hardcover guides rule.

[zmeston]

The main problem with your scenario is that there's no such thing as a quick and dirty WD translation.

Heh! Very good point. Victor can do dirty, having never met a double entendre he didn't like, but not quick.

-- Z.

[maxlords]

I wasn't at WD during the TurboGrafx era, although I wrote a bunch of WD strategy guides during the Sega CD era. I met Victor through Andy Eddy at VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, for which both Victor and I wrote in the early '90s.

I worked on probably a dozen WD games in various capacities, but was the lead writer-weasel on a half-dozen: both PS Lunars, Alundra, Albert Odyssey, Vanguard Bandits, and Magic Knight Rayearth. The Alundra and Albert scripts were written on a freelance basis, and the others when I was a salaried employee.

So you did Albert Odyssey and Alundra too....two of my absolute favorites! The only downside of Albert Odyssey (with it's disturbing "Stop molesting my chickens" quote!)....2 hour boss battles! Augh! Alundra was IMO, one of WDs best localizations....due to the fact that it was minimally humorous by WD standards and VERY dark. I loved that.

Lunar PC was buggy as hell, terminally obsolete (even in 2000, when it was originally announced, the PC market was 3D-crazed), and doomed from the start; Victor postponed the announcement of its cancellation until he could pair it up with some good news -- in this case, the Fan Edition, since the cancellation of Lunar PC "has put us in a situation where fans of the game have no way to get it. Hence, the limited run."

Victor has all of the half-dozen Alex puppet protos in his possession, although I destroyed one or two in vigorous lunchtime brawls with the many Ghaleon puppet protos scattered about my cubicle.

*SOB!!!* You had the fun I always wanted to have with those! Sooooooooo jealous! I'd slay to get one of those....

On top of that, Sony has screwed Victor by repeatedly rejecting his attempts to publish Goemon and Growlanser 2/3. WD missed E3 this year for the first time ever because it had nothing to show, and couldn't afford a booth anyway. -- Z.

Intriguing. Are Growlancer 2/3 any good? They looked kinda interesting, so I'd be a bit sad if they didn't get ported here. I knew that Sony was giving WD the runaround with Goemon cause they don't want it here, but not with the Growlancers. That kinda surprises me.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to WD if/when Growlancer 2 and 3 get finished. I don't know what's going to be left for them to localize other than ports of Saturn and PSX shooters....which would be cool...I'd like to see them go back to the Spaz stuff, but I don't see it being profitable for them...it's too small of a cult market. Very interesting times indeed.

[kainemaxwell]

Growlancer's up in the air? geez...shame too. WD was one the few companies tha tlistened to their fans...

[Nature Boy]

The only good thing about the Fan Edition was that the omitted making-of video meant no one else would have to suffer through my retarded cameo appearance at the end.

This confuses me somewhat. Thanks to the links I've determined that I have "Set 3" of the Fan Art edition. But I *do* have the Making of Video (and Soundtrack) as well. Did they release some of the Fan Art edition with the video and some without? Or am I missing something here.

I have to admit, although I knew LSSSC was popular, I *never* thought it'd spawn a 30+ post thread. I was just wondering what the difference in the DP guide was (if any)

For the record, I'm kinda glad for the re-releases. I might've paid a little less than what a recent PS2/GC/Xbox game would go for used, but I still paid *way* less than the original would've set me back. And as much as I'm a collector, I'm a *gamer* and I'm happy I can finally see this game for myself.

[zmeston]

The only good thing about the Fan Edition was that the omitted making-of video meant no one else would have to suffer through my retarded cameo appearance at the end.

This confuses me somewhat. Thanks to the links I've determined that I have "Set 3" of the Fan Art edition. But I *do* have the Making of Video (and Soundtrack) as well. Did they release some of the Fan Art edition with the video and some without? Or am I missing something here.

Well, now I'm confused, too. Heh. Do you have a hardcover manual?

-- Z.

[Nature Boy]

Well, now I'm confused, too. Heh. Do you have a hardcover manual?

No I do not. But that doesn't really prove anything either way - I bought my copy used, and obviously not all used games come with instructions (normally I insist on it but in this case I decided just the game was good enough).

If the Fan Art set absolutely did not come with the bonus discs then maybe somebody did a swap at some point on me here (i.e. took the fan discs out of it's package and put it into his, and gave the regular discs back to the original owner). The art definitely matches set #3 from that link you provided.

[zmeston]

So you did Albert Odyssey and Alundra too....two of my absolute favorites! The only downside of Albert Odyssey (with it's disturbing "Stop molesting my chickens" quote!)....2 hour boss battles! Augh! Alundra was IMO, one of WDs best localizations....due to the fact that it was minimally humorous by WD standards and VERY dark. I loved that.

I love Alundra, too, and think it was the best dramatic writing I've ever done. My natural instincts, at least back then, were to go for the joke whenever possible, but I managed to fight them. Heck, even the surfer-dude character, Bonaire (my WD hint-line pseudonym), has a few dramatic moments. (Victor inserted a left-field joke about "gettting head" in a sequence when one character jumps off another's head, but it's not a mortal wound.) I was shocked when someone mentioned Alundra in this forum's "worst games ever" thread -- it's a really HARD game, yes, but it's also a really GOOD game.

*SOB!!!* You had the fun I always wanted to have with those! Sooooooooo jealous! I'd slay to get one of those....

I imagine you'll be able to pick up an Alex puppet proto during WD'e inevitable asset sale on eBay. Heh.

Intriguing. Are Growlancer 2/3 any good? They looked kinda interesting, so I'd be a bit sad if they didn't get ported here. I knew that Sony was giving WD the runaround with Goemon cause they don't want it here, but not with the Growlancers. That kinda surprises me.

They're decent, not great; even Victor only goes so far as to claim that the games are "a solid 7 out of 10," which is hardly a ringing endorsement. Atlus, which did both games in Japan, passed on them for Stateside release, and Victor made an(other) enemy by going around Atlus USA to acquire them.

The Growlanser issues, as with the Goemon issues, aren't ENTIRELY technical; part of it is that Victor is dealing with new people at Sony, people who don't like him as did his previous contacts. As in every other business, it's not what you do, but who you know -- and without his friends on the inside, Victor is struggling.

It'll be interesting to see what happens to WD if/when Growlancer 2 and 3 get finished. I don't know what's going to be left for them to localize other than ports of Saturn and PSX shooters....which would be cool...I'd like to see them go back to the Spaz stuff, but I don't see it being profitable for them...it's too small of a cult market. Very interesting times indeed.

Growlanser 2 is done, but GL3 is still under way; I would imagine Victor will kill himself to make sure the GL2/3 bundle ships in the 4th quarter, although 2002 proved beyond doubt that just because you ship a game at Christmastime doesn't mean it's going to sell.

-- Z.

[Six Switch]

The only good thing about the Fan Edition was that the omitted making-of video meant no one else would have to suffer through my retarded cameo appearance at the end.

-- Z.

Where are you in the end?

[zmeston]

The only good thing about the Fan Edition was that the omitted making-of video meant no one else would have to suffer through my retarded cameo appearance at the end.

-- Z.

Where are you in the end?

I'm on-screen for about five seconds, and I believe my name pops up in the corner. I don't recall what I said, or if I said anything, but it wasn't much. I get much more screen time on the Lunar 2 making-of CD, where my wretched voice and bare face (thank God I've since grown a goatee -- women and children don't burst into tears at the sight of me anymore) can inflict massive pain upon RPG fans. Watch for my retarded fictional example of Japanese jokes that don't translate into English, and my mispronounciation of Lucia's name as "Lu-CHI-a."

-- Z.

[Needle]

Since this thread has been so masterfully hijacked, I have a simple question.

How much of Bonaire in the Japanese version of Alundra is a true reflection of the Bonaire written into the American version? Is the japanese Bonaire a surfer dude too? Or did you just write him that way cuz, well, he sorta look like one?

[zmeston]

Since this thread has been so masterfully hijacked, I have a simple question.

How much of Bonaire in the Japanese version of Alundra is a true reflection of the Bonaire written into the American version? Is the japanese Bonaire a surfer dude too? Or did you just write him that way cuz, well, he sorta look like one?

I really need to stay away from the Lunar threads, but it's obviously very hard for me to resist. I hijacked the last one, too. Is it wrong to milk my WD experience for everything it's worth? Heh.

Bonaire's dialogue was most definitely not surfer-dude in the Japanese version of Alundra, but all the Bonaire-related plot points in both versions are the same. You're not missing any story beats or character development in the U.S. localization, I promise. If anything, Bonaire is much more memorable in the U.S. version because of his stoner dialect.

And, yes, I (re)wrote Bonaire that way 'cause he looks like a surfer dude, and felt I could get away with it because his village was located near the ocean. What seaside village doesn't have a resident surfer? Chalk that particular creative decision up to foolish youth, as I was 24 or 25 when I wrote that localization.

-- Z.