Working Designs: Gamer Goodyboxes

[WulfeLuer]

After giving in to the Dork Side yet again, I nabbed an Arc The Lad boxset for the PS1. After going through everything, I realized just how much stuff was in there. I've gotten Working Designs-published games before, and I knew of the glorious tradition of WD tossing in all sorts of things going from the cool (Arc the Lad memory card case, soundtracks soundtracks soundtracks) to the interesting but weird (the Lunar 2 pendant, Growlanser's watch) to the would-be-kickass-if-collectors-weren't-scared-to-open-them-and-use-them (playing cards, stickers). I know that this is at least partially responsible for WD slow financial demise; making all this stuff could not be cheap, especially with a relatively niche market.

I just want to know, what started all this? Feelies of one kind or another have been around forever, but something of this scale and this consistency is just over the top (this is NOT a complaint, I love all the goodies). And did anybody else out there use their powers for awesome like this, before or since? Not just a 'special edition' with a soundtrack CD or an artbook (though those are great too), I mean consistent releases with lots of/extra nifty swag.

[celerystalker]

In most Working Designs manuals, the final page or so usually contained translation/localization notes, explaining changes made to pacing, making jokes work culturally, having english teachers check the grammar, etc. They discuss tgese special editions at length in some, and Victor Ireland wanted to offer the US the sort of special editions that Japanese folks had enjoyed for years.

Beyond that, they also produced tons of mail-in goodies like pins, posters, post cards, etc., which were intended to mimic Japan as well. I remember ads for the Lunar games having jokes in the fine print about enjoying seeing their games fetch high prices on ebay. Additionally, they were one of the first US publishers to offer lots of disc art variants. There are several versions of Dragon Force, Magic Knight Rayearth... the Lunar stuff is especially nutty. I have a buddy who owns all seven Sega CD disc variants, as well as their fan art edition of Lunar for PS1.

It was really an attempt to offer products with a different quality standard in the west. They got a lot of backlash at times for choices such as screwing up the difficulty in Exile: Wicked Phenomenon and completely re-writing jokes in Albert Odyssey, but stuff like the Elemental Gearbolt Assassin's Case, their high-end guide books, and porting niche genres in the early '90s like Vasteel, Popful Mail, Vay, etc. definitely caught them a strong fan base. Don't forget their Spaz label, with which they brought over twitch action games like Thunderforce V, Silhouette Mirage, RayStorm, etc.

They were a rare company that went after a vision not unlike Limited Run Games today, but with an intense focus on translating the experience of Japanese special editions and games that were of high quality, but other publishers wouldn't touch due to limited appeal in the US. Real commitment to a goal. Some of it turned out badly, like the dog shit cover art of Cosmic Fantasy 2 or the crap challenge in Exile: Wicked Phenomenon, and given that most games had things like sticker pages in the manuals, finding truly complete copies of games with those or the registration cards can be tricky, especially with all of the offers for posters and such. You have to admire how different they were in their time, though, and we likely wouldn't have gotten the kinds of special editions that are so common today without their efforts.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, despite their claims of doing something nobody in the industry had ever thought of before, I think they were just ripping off the limited editions Japan was already getting, and US computer games had been including interesting extras going back to the 80s. WD definitely went overboard sometimes, though, which wasn't really justified for many of the games, in my opinion, as a lot were B-tier. If you really want to see excessive, check out the contents and price tag for the "Wonderful Edition" of Summon Night 6 that's due to be released (whenever the endless delays comes to an end) by Gaijinworks, which is Working Designs 2.0 in all but name. It's all the more ridiculous considering the game got a so-so response from Summon Night fans in Japan, and the US barely has any Summon Night fans, considering all we've gotten previously was SN5 and some spin-offs. I think an excessive LE makes a lot more sense if it's for a popular series with an established fanbase that would want merch based on what they love. But in this kind of scenario, I think it's mostly selling to collectors who have little familiarity with SN and little intention to actually use and enjoy the merch. Though I say all this despite ordering one myself, haha.

I don't really have any complaints with the quality of the goods in WD releases, though most anything besides art books and soundtracks is probably going to be a useless trinket to me. I just wish the quality of their localizations matched the quality of the bonus merch, since it's the game itself that really matters. The cringy dubbing, throw the baby out with the bathwater scripts, unfunny and/or offensive jokes, and code fiddling that broke the gameplay may have flown in the 90s, when the alternatives were usually Engrish localizations or no localization at all, but even now as Gaijinworks, they're localizing just the same and have become a laughingstock among other professional localizers. You know it's bad when like 90% of the reaction to Summon Night 6's dub (which is dub-only; no option to play with Japanese voices) is like "oh god, this is almost as bad as Chaos Wars", yet Gaijinworks is still puffing out their chests over the "quality" of the dub and hyping up the post-credits dub outtakes (when the in-game voice acting sounds like outtakes, haha).

[eskobar]

I really loved Working Designs back in the day ... but when I learned a bit of Japanese I noticed how much they FUCKED with the scripts in the localization process. They didn't respect the source material and that made me lower them from my gaming haven to the earth.

Still love the packaging, specially the Lunar series; I used the pendant and really loved the hard cover manuals. They FUCKED Silhouette Mirage, the original version is much better.

[celerystalker]

Yeah, despite their claims of doing something nobody in the industry had ever thought of before, I think they were just ripping off the limited editions Japan was already getting, and US computer games had been including interesting extras going back to the 80s. WD definitely went overboard sometimes, though, which wasn't really justified for many of the games, in my opinion, as a lot were B-tier. If you really want to see excessive, check out the contents and price tag for the "Wonderful Edition" of Summon Night 6 that's due to be released (whenever the endless delays comes to an end) by Gaijinworks, which is Working Designs 2.0 in all but name. It's all the more ridiculous considering the game got a so-so response from Summon Night fans in Japan, and the US barely has any Summon Night fans, considering all we've gotten previously was SN5 and some spin-offs. I think an excessive LE makes a lot more sense if it's for a popular series with an established fanbase that would want merch based on what they love. But in this kind of scenario, I think it's mostly selling to collectors who have little familiarity with SN and little intention to actually use and enjoy the merch. Though I say all this despite ordering one myself, haha.

I don't really have any complaints with the quality of the goods in WD releases, though most anything besides art books and soundtracks is probably going to be a useless trinket to me. I just wish the quality of their localizations matched the quality of the bonus merch, since it's the game itself that really matters. The cringy dubbing, throw the baby out with the bathwater scripts, unfunny and/or offensive jokes, and code fiddling that broke the gameplay may have flown in the 90s, when the alternatives were usually Engrish localizations or no localization at all, but even now as Gaijinworks, they're localizing just the same and have become a laughingstock among other professional localizers. You know it's bad when like 90% of the reaction to Summon Night 6's dub (which is dub-only; no option to play with Japanese voices) is like "oh god, this is almost as bad as Chaos Wars", yet Gaijinworks is still puffing out their chests over the "quality" of the dub and hyping up the post-credits dub outtakes (when the in-game voice acting sounds like outtakes, haha).

Yeah, if Working Designs was doing today what they did back then, it wouldn't work at all. It's hard not to cringe at some of the stuff they did with the translation in Dragon Force with the quotes and names, but nobody else was gonna bring us Dragon Force back then. Honestly, I think the Arc the Lad games are awful, and Vay, Vasteel, and Iron Storm aren't my cup of tea... but they were porting Daisenryaku long before anyone else.

I like Working Designs quite a bit overall, but today, most everyone springs for quality translations, tons of games get limited special editions, and fucking with action game difficulty was always dumb. They, to me, represent a time when people who were really into games were craving something more, with not just beautiful packaging, but anime influences and colorful RPGs. They, along with Atlus, really pioneered bringing over nice, very Japanese console games without westernizing all of the art, even if WD did just murder some translations.

Also, I think I hate some of those translations less than most folks. Trying to adapt the spirit of culturally different humor with re-written jokes more obvious to the new audience is a great concept, even if some of it aged poorly or just never worked. Earthbound certainly did that more deftly, but I can appreciate it in its timeframe

[AdamAnt316]

The concept of add-in goodies with media probably goes back to vinyl albums in the '60s. I'm not sure if they go farther back than that, but the Beatles have to have been one of the pioneers, including a sheet of cut-outs in with Sgt Pepper, and a variety of photos with the White Album. Various albums included a poster or a couple of photos, but the one which seems to have really gone all-out was Pink Floyd with Dark Side of the Moon, including a variety of posters and stickers.

Getting back to the topic of games with feelies, the best example for add-in goodies has to be Infocom. The first Zork releases didn't come with much of anything, but their later games like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Hollywood Hijinx came with all sorts of feelies like a faux tabloid, a "Don't Panic!" button, a palm tree swizzle stick, and a 'microscopic space fleet' (perhaps the most frightening plastic bag in the galaxy!). Of course, Infocom went out of business fairly early on, though it may be due more to Activision's botched acquisition of the company than all of the feelies.
-Adam

[lendelin]

Some of you are too harsh with Working Designs. It is certainly true that the standards we have today for translations and localizations are different, they got professionalized on every level, and we are getting used to the flood of special editions of all kind.

But you have to consider the times in which Working Designs tried to do something different. It was the second half of the 90s, ten years before we were glad when we got decent manuals and in color! The times of 'All your base are belong to us' were not far behind us, and the guide business was in its infancy. Most guides were still in black and white around 1994, and only the best games got a printed strategy guide, if at all. (Final Fantasy II, SNES, got none after the first FF got a Nintendo Power guide) Special editions were unknown for consoles games (not for PC games, though, they already had some (sometimes even crazy) bonus content).

The humor was different back then, and noone demanded faithfulness and preserving games for eternity and research purposes back then. The criticism of WD is justified, but the strong points of this compnay and what they did outweigh by far the justified criticism.

Like in Japan already done for some time, WD gave us special editions and guides which were truly new in America and Europe. Japan had well written and detailed guides for RPGs because RPGs were huge best sellers unlike in Europe and in America. WD demonstrated that there is a market for manuals in high quality in elaborate special edtions, and that there is a market in particular for well written and detailed game guides, even hardcover guides, a novelty in the days.

Unlike Limited Run (!), WD used a normal salesmodel and by all profit orientation localized games we probably wouldn't have gotten in the US. (The difficulty WD and Victor Ireland had with Sony about Growlanser Generations unfortunately proves it.) WD did some pioneering work and deserve a lot of credit, Limited Run run by two slick guys with their 'special' salesmodel does not because other companies do it much better and in a more honest way. WD did indeed pioneering work, LR certainly does not.

About Qs of the OP: I can't name a company which consistently (!) did before or after WD these kind of elaborate special editions for games.

Doublejump books certainly produced from 2003 to 2009 game guides in the tradition of the WD guides. I liked them a lot, in particular the guides for Disgaea 2 and 3 and SMT Nocturne are highlights of these game guides.

Nowadays I gave up completely on special editions. It is a sad state of affairs. I always wanted complete RPG collections (with all variants and special editions) for the PS1, PS2, PS3 and PS4. (Why the Playstation consoles? All the PS consoles are or were dominant in the RPG genre)

To get complete collections for the PS1 and PS2 wasn't very difficult and it was very affordable, you got some special editions really cheap if you were patient, let it be WDs Growlanser Generations or SMT Digital Devil Saga which I got in a ToysRUs sale for ten bucks. The PS3 is already more difficult, I still need around 15 more special edtions although I have already more than 35 (!). The PS4 is even worse.

The reasons for the terrible state of Special editions for collectors? It got out of hand. They are a) too many, b) way to pricey, and c) hardly drop in price because of ebay scalping. That's why I gave up on them for this console generation. Every third game by NIS is nowadays a special edition, sometimes one game has even TWO special editions with slightly different content and packaging. The PS3 has three to four times more special editions than the PS2. Even worse is the PS4; and the prices skyrocketed, going very often around $100 and much more with big figurines noone needs and are shamelessly overpriced.

In short, today we have the early WD special editions on steroids not so much content-wise but certainly when it comes to prices. I hope the market will cool down and these ridiculous amount of special editions and their prices will dramatically decrease. Too many special editions make them very common.

[celerystalker]

I made the LRG comparison based on two things. One, they both had very clear visions and goals in their approaches, and two, Working Designs literally threatened that you could buy their stuff at launch and enjoy the goodies or they would laugh at you when you had to over pay on ebay.

I really loved Working Designs, though, and own the vast majority of their catalog.

[Aussie2B]

Trying to adapt the spirit of culturally different humor with re-written jokes more obvious to the new audience is a great concept, even if some of it aged poorly or just never worked. Earthbound certainly did that more deftly, but I can appreciate it in its timeframe

I'm fully in favor of replacing Japanese jokes and idioms and such, ones that would never make sense or come off properly in English, with English lines that are in the same spirit, but the problem with the humor in Working Designs (and Gaijinworks) localizations is that it was often inserted where it never existed in the first place. They'd heavily rewrite scripts for no particular reason, totally changing the mood and characterizations from how they were intended. On top of that, their humor was/is usually juvenile, like something only an elementary schooler would laugh at (Summon Night 5 opens with a warning that you'll get bad breath or constipation if you pirate it), or in very bad taste, like the Retardotaur in Vay or the joke in Magic Knight Rayearth referencing how Ike Turner would beat his wife, Tina Turner. Nothing says comedy like real-life domestic abuse. When I think about the Magic Knight Rayearth localization, it especially makes me mad because I feel bad for any established Rayearth fan who bought the game back in the day, expecting it to be representative of the source. It was my favorite anime back in the 90s, and the only reason I was spared that abomination of a localization is because I didn't have a Saturn back then (though, considering what the game is worth these days, I kinda wish I owned a copy). But I mean, how do you take a game based on a shoujo manga/anime, i.e. primarily targeted at a preteen/teen female audience, and think it makes sense to insert a bunch of sex jokes, crass language like "skank", and Western pop culture references that would never come out the mouths of Japanese girls in 8th grade nor those in a fantasy world totally unrelated to Earth?

Anyway, I could rant about Working Designs for days and days, haha. In the grand scheme of things, I'm still appreciative that they brought out a whole bunch of games that surely wouldn't have left Japan otherwise.

[WulfeLuer]

I'm not going to sit there and pretend that WD went a bit crazy on the translations, a lot of it does come across like a bunch of wannabe Simpsons writers got a job localizing Japanese stuff instead. A lot of it was crass, but sometimes you'd get clever stuff like referencing "I am the eggman, I am the walrus." Most of it is nerds being nerds (the Dork Side will dominate your destiny) and targeting teen and preteen boys, that at the time seemed to be category a) Beavis or b) Butthead. At least they were open about their target demographic. I didn't know they did that to MKR, though; that was a mistake.

Indeed, they picked games to localize that no other game company wanted to touch, and the stigma against RPG's and 'too Japanese' games in the Western market (made worse by people like Bernie Stolar) made it even more of an uphill battle. Even with the breakthrough that FF7 provided, the suits were dead set on keeping the niche games niche, which also strongly affected the guide market. There was some horrible stuff being published (yay Prima) and being gobbled up for $15-20 a pop back then. But WD was dead set on delivering high-end gamer swag. Their perfectionism and wondrous stubbornness got them in the end, but it was a helluva run.

[Aussie2B]

It really is bizarre how they bungled their strategy guide releases. I mean, when did the Lunar 2 guide finally come out, months after the game's release? I mean, no shit your guide didn't sell well when the majority of the people who would've bought and used it were already done with the game by the time it was available. It just makes no sense that they failed to make a simultaneous release. It's not like they were a third-party like Prima or BradyGames, who would have to ask, say, Squaresoft to provide information and early access to a game. Working Designs was localizing and publishing their games themselves, so if they worked on putting together a guide at the same time as they were localizing, it should've been even easier for them to make a simultaneous release than the other guide publishers.

[lendelin]

It really is bizarre how they bungled their strategy guide releases. I mean, when did the Lunar 2 guide finally come out, months after the game's release? I mean, no shit your guide didn't sell well when the majority of the people who would've bought and used it were already done with the game by the time it was available. It just makes no sense that they failed to make a simultaneous release. It's not like they were a third-party like Prima or BradyGames, who would have to ask, say, Squaresoft to provide information and early access to a game. Working Designs was localizing and publishing their games themselves, so if they worked on putting together a guide at the same time as they were localizing, it should've been even easier for them to make a simultaneous release than the other guide publishers.

Too bad that Zach Meston isn't a DP member anymore, he wrote the Lunar 2 guide among many others. He once stated what the big prob was, I can't remember exactly what it was, but he admitted that it was a big mistake to release the guide so late. (70% of guides are sold within three weeks after a game is released) I think he wasn't satisfied with the quality and WD gave him more time to finish it.

On the other hand the terribly delayed Lunar 2 guide was an exception and not the rule.

You are right that the humor in these guides were teenie-jokes and sometimes bathroom humor. I got them when I was an adult but still I enjoyed them because they were different and high quality unlike many others we got at the time. The guide business was in its infancy at the time, and to get such guides was just great, in particular for JRPGs which were still back then cartainly niche games and didn't sell well enough to warrant published guides.

[Aussie2B]

The strategy guide for Arc the Lad Collection was another they screwed up. The guide they released only covered the first two games. They planned to release a guide covering Arc the Lad 3 later on, like they did with Lunar 2, but realizing that doing so kills the profitability of a guide, they decided to scrap the Arc the Lad 3 guide entirely.

[Edmond Dantes]

Also, I think I hate some of those translations less than most folks. Trying to adapt the spirit of culturally different humor with re-written jokes more obvious to the new audience is a great concept, even if some of it aged poorly or just never worked. Earthbound certainly did that more deftly, but I can appreciate it in its timeframe

To be honest, my question is how much of a difference the translation really makes.

I mean, that might be odd coming from the guy who will always say to watch anime subbed when possible, but even I'll admit (for example) that Yu-Gi-Oh in Japanese is only a slightly better experience than in dubbed English--it's still a fundamentally generic shonen anime just with card games instead of martial arts battles, and if you didn't like it in English its doubtful that you'd have thought the original was worthwhile.

Likewise, and I may be about to commit a major sin here, and I mean, I do LIKE Lunar: The Silver Star (both versions), but at the end of the day the game is kind of a bog-standard JRPG about a boy who sets out to be a hero and ends up having to save the world from a dark lord (here called a Magic Emperor) with plot twists you can see coming a mile away (gee which of these obviously evil looking people is gonna turn out to be the bad guy later?) and characters who are basically archetypes, only the PS1 version doing anything to make them break out of that and even then, just barely. And was anyone really surprised that [SPOILER] turned out to be a goddess?

I mean it was fun, and its flaws get forgiven because despite being cliche it managed to salvage that with its execution (one of the only cases of this, like, ever), but... I highly doubt I'm getting a worse or totally destroyed experience just because the version I played had a kid who talked about eating Wheaties.

[eskobar]

To be honest, my question is how much of a difference the translation really makes.

I mean, that might be odd coming from the guy who will always say to watch anime subbed when possible, but even I'll admit (for example) that Yu-Gi-Oh in Japanese is only a slightly better experience than in dubbed English--it's still a fundamentally generic shonen anime just with card games instead of martial arts battles, and if you didn't like it in English its doubtful that you'd have thought the original was worthwhile.

Likewise, and I may be about to commit a major sin here, and I mean, I do LIKE Lunar: The Silver Star (both versions), but at the end of the day the game is kind of a bog-standard JRPG about a boy who sets out to be a hero and ends up having to save the world from a dark lord (here called a Magic Emperor) with plot twists you can see coming a mile away (gee which of these obviously evil looking people is gonna turn out to be the bad guy later?) and characters who are basically archetypes, only the PS1 version doing anything to make them break out of that and even then, just barely. And was anyone really surprised that [SPOILER] turned out to be a goddess?

I mean it was fun, and its flaws get forgiven because despite being cliche it managed to salvage that with its execution (one of the only cases of this, like, ever), but... I highly doubt I'm getting a worse or totally destroyed experience just because the version I played had a kid who talked about eating Wheaties.

The games are enjoyable... and the experience is there and I am thankful that I had the possibility of playing that game in some form, but when you really like your hobby and go deep in you analysis its when you start to question why WD took the liberty to make that changes, now that we have more people doing great localizations you even question more the way that WD works, the target customer really could have appreciated a more precise translation, respecting the original message the director wanted to give to the players.

I really like to read or listen the original director vision, being a movie, animated series or a book. Yes, you can add or subtract elements to fit into a space, but changing the original vision is not really the best way to treat another person's work.

[Aussie2B]

I've never been able to wrap my head around the excusing of WD localizations that goes like "well, they were boring, generic games to begin with anyway". If that's the case, then why on Earth were they licensed for localization in the first place? Why didn't they license games that were, you know, good to begin with, rather than giving us localizations that basically turn the game into a fanfic or parody of the source material? RPGs also aren't visual novels either. I don't think it's even necessary for the plots to be that inventive. They have other aspects like exploring and battling to keep the players interest too. If series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy could have many games with fairly by-the-books plots of fantasy worlds under the threat of some great evil, and they can still rank among many people's favorite RPGs, without the localizations needing to shoehorn in added humor and totally rewrite the scripts, then why should that be necessary for other RPGs? If it is felt necessary, then I think they aren't getting to the root of the problem. You can try to polish a turd, but it's still gonna be shittier than something that's not a turd to begin with.

But my perspective on this is probably gonna be different than many, since I work professionally in localization. I'm deeply invested in the art of localization, but for those who aren't, I can understand why they'd be less concerned about changes. It is true that, even with a poor localization, a fun game will probably remain fun, even if the potential fun has been diminished by some degree. Countless 80s and 90s games are proof of that.

[celerystalker]

I've never been able to wrap my head around the excusing of WD localizations that goes like "well, they were boring, generic games to begin with anyway". If that's the case, then why on Earth were they licensed for localization in the first place? Why didn't they license games that were, you know, good to begin with, rather than giving us localizations that basically turn the game into a fanfic or parody of the source material? RPGs also aren't visual novels either. I don't think it's even necessary for the plots to be that inventive. They have other aspects like exploring and battling to keep the players interest too. If series like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy could have many games with fairly by-the-books plots of fantasy worlds under the threat of some great evil, and they can still rank among many people's favorite RPGs, without the localizations needing to shoehorn in added humor and totally rewrite the scripts, then why should that be necessary for other RPGs? If it is felt necessary, then I think they aren't getting to the root of the problem. You can try to polish a turd, but it's still gonna be shittier than something that's not a turd to begin with.

But my perspective on this is probably gonna be different than many, since I work professionally in localization. I'm deeply invested in the art of localization, but for those who aren't, I can understand why they'd be less concerned about changes. It is true that, even with a poor localization, a fun game will probably remain fun, even if the potential fun has been diminished by some degree. Countless 80s and 90s games are proof of that.

For me, giving WD a pass on that stuff has more to do with the fact that at the time, I just didn't know any better. Those are the versions of the games that I knew for years and years, never really thinking to question anything. It's liking Robotech even though it's a hacked up Macross... that may be true, but for 20 years or so, I only knew it as Robotech, and that's where my nostalgia is.

It's not that I'd say that they were right to do what they did, and when I read some of the meticulous notes on the Earthbound translation and the effort put into localizing to speak to westerners while maintaining the spirit of the intended lines, I gained a far greater appreciation for quality translations. No, it wasn't right... but it was all I knew, and it just didn't wreck it to the point where it overrides how much I treasured those releases.

Surprised at how reviled the Rayearth translation is. I was a big fan of the anime, but I guess due to the time in which it came out, where anime would get all kinds of weird localizations from companies like ADV, AnimEigo, Anime Works, US Manga, Manga, Pioneer, Funimation... you couldn't assume anything was right it seemed.

[Aussie2B]

Yeah, I can accept things as being products of their time. What bugs me is that the owner of WD/Gaijinworks and many fans argue that it was right to handle them as they did. They'll even argue that it's superior to how most game publishers handle localization these days, and that mentality is then applied to today's Gaijinworks releases, which are handled just the same as the old WD releases. I'd have no problem accepting the old releases for what they are if Gaijinworks was like "yeah, that's how we did things then, but we've evolved and improved". It's like with Atlus. Yeah, the original Persona localization was pretty awful, with how they tried to Westernize it, but they've matured as a localizer since then. I don't see any of that kind of maturing in Gaijinworks, and their diehard fans seem happy with that, preferring the nostalgia they get from 90s-style localizations over what is all but objectively better localizations being done these days by other publishers.

[WulfeLuer]

Atlus developed and grew with the time. Human endeavors especially in media have to change at least some or they stultify, and they'll lose and/or alienate their audience. WD didn't really want to leave the crass ol' 90's behind, and between that and their perfectionism with their goodies and version of localization they wound up closing their doors. Almost like dudebro became dogma. I agree that most of their version of localization just wouldn't fly with most of the gamers out there today, and while I can see Gaijinworks trying to bring that back and succeeding to some degree, it seems to have become its own excuse.

Anyway, whatever you feel about the translation and the crass corniness, a lot of trails were getting blazed there. And I still say that WD at least gave is an ridiculous amount of swag in their releases, even if some of it was pretty much Cracker Jack prizes for nerds. I still enjoy that, and appreciate that they were trying to be different, and making a mission out of bringing games to gamers because gamers wanted to play them.

[Nz17]

Oh my, where to start?

How many of you have played Sony's and Ubisoft's LUNAR localizations? What did you think of those? I thought the Ubisoft one was lame, and the Sony one was boring. Then again, I didn't like the other changes in the GBA & PSP ports/remakes.

From what I read, the major reason for Working Designs's death was Sony of America. In the 90's, SoA was cool with WD's approach and choices. But starting in the 2000's, SoA's stance for PS1 and PS2 was, "3D good, 2D bad!" SoA wanted the PlayStation games to look technically impressive so it was trying to squash 2D releases at the time. If you wanted to release games with 2D graphics, SoA required them to be budget-priced, compilations, or both. That's why WD's last few releases were either compilations or 3D games. WD actually wanted to make each Arc the Lad game its own separate release, but it couldn't get Sony of America's approval that way, which is why the ATL collection was so delayed. The delays for WD around this time starved it of money.

The Lunar stuff is especially nutty. I have a buddy who owns all seven Sega CD disc variants, as well as their fan art edition of Lunar for PS1.

The LUNAR FAE variant is the rarest one from what I understand. It was crafted after the PC port of LUNAR was cancelled after months of work due to worries about software compatibility.