PSX vs SCD Lunars

[BigBoogie]

What a Cowinkydink. I just finished the psx version last night (no lie). I completed both on my SCD years ago, and all in all I would have to vote for the psx version. After reading the above, I dont know if im gonna do Eternal blue. Is it worth it?

[Daria]

As the lead English writer of both PS1 Lunars...

I... I love you!

Ok.. fangirl isms aside now... *coughs*

I dunno I generally thought the PSX games to be an improvment over the Sega CD versions. It's a shame Ubisoft butchered Lunar Legends however. (They way they had Luna screaming at Nall and Nash to get along when they didn't even bother to have them argue was confusing... she came off as a complete bitch for the first part of the game) I suppose it was suppose to be more literal translation but ugh... it had none of the flair of the WD's versions. Some of my favorite RPGs are those with scripts that are entertaining to read, afterall that's what you'll spend most of your time doing in an RPG.

I also didn't think the adult humor was toned down in the least, next to Knights of Xentar Lunar EBC was one of the most perverted RPGs I've ever played. But you know... tastefully perverted in a funny way. :P
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Wendie 99

[zmweasel]

I... I love you!

You just made my year. Thank you. :)

I dunno I generally thought the PSX games to be an improvment over the Sega CD versions. It's a shame Ubisoft butchered Lunar Legends however

I was very disappointed with Lunar Legends. I tried to get involved with the localization, but Ubi never got back to me. I would've done it for free, just to keep it faithful to the WD style.

Some of my favorite RPGs are those with scripts that are entertaining to read, afterall that's what you'll spend most of your time doing in an RPG.

Yep! In particular, I tried to insure that every NPC was entertaining and/or informative. Some of the best dialogue in the PS1 Lunars is uttered by the most out-of-the-way NPCs, during very specific timeframes (after/before certain events), to reward the most hardcore players.

I also didn't think the adult humor was toned down in the least, next to Knights of Xentar Lunar EBC was one of the most perverted RPGs I've ever played. But you know... tastefully perverted in a funny way. :P

You're comparing the EBC script to Knights of Xentar?! Now you've REALLY made my year. :) Victor's weakness was potty humor, and my weakness was sexual humor, and our respective localizations reflected that.

-- Z.

[Azazel]

I've played through the Sega cd versino and played about 1/3 of the PSX versions. Barring the improved graphics and FMV the originials are much better on the Sega cd. Part of the problems with the PSX version is they just reused parts of the Sega cd translated scripts and didnt' translate parts of the remake. This has been talked about to death at other sites so I'm not going to go into great detail about it.

Actually, I'd LOVE you to go into detail, as I'm wholly unaware of any "parts of the remake" that weren't translated.

And how is the reuse of certain sections of the Sega CD translation a "problem"? As I explained in a previous post, when the Sega CD text applied AND couldn't be improved upon, we used it. Howver, even the reused text was occasionally tweaked for grammar and/or length, as we had MUCH more text-space in the PS1 versions.

-- Z.

Well it's a problem if something is changed in the remake and you used the script from the original versions and it doesn't make sense/flow well with everything that is going on at the time in the story. I think at least one of the things I remember being mentioned was something in one of the cave where it had some script that was used from the Sega cd version and it was something that was changed, or altered in the remake. It might of been that cave that leads to the magic city but I don't remember anymore. I did a quick check and I couldn't find the old messages that went into greater detail about this and cited specific examples of waht was wrong or maybe could of been better. Reusing some of the script if something hasn't changed from the original to the remake I have no problems with.

Also why in the Sega cd version did you not use a lower case font? Was there some technical problems that caused this or something else? I know they at least had english Capital font that encluded in Bios. I think at least Vay had a lower font as well but I haven't touched that in many years.

[Chooky]

Crap, I totally forgot Zach haunts these boards. Anyways, though I may have a few nitpick-y problems with EBC, I still absolutely LOVE the Lunar games. I used to be able to finish the SCD version of SS in a single day because I knew the game so well. And I had to go on a sort of epic quest myself just to track down a copy of EB (I'm too tired to post it now). If it weren't for the Lunar games, I honestly don't think I would have ever gotten into RPG's. Thanks for all the great memories.

</fanboy ranting>

[SoulBlazer]

Indeed. One of the things I LOVE about the Lunar games is the great convos you can have with NPC's if you take the time to TALK to them, more then once, during the game. I still have a laughing fit to this day when I think of the William Shatner joke from SSC.

[zmweasel]

Well it's a problem if something is changed in the remake and you used the script from the original versions and it doesn't make sense/flow well with everything that is going on at the time in the story.

That would indeed be a problem, but as I mentioned, we only used the Sega CD text when appropriate, and rewrote any sections of it that didn't make sense or didn't flow.

I think at least one of the things I remember being mentioned was something in one of the cave where it had some script that was used from the Sega cd version and it was something that was changed, or altered in the remake.

You're thinking of the White Dragon Cave in SSSC, which has a text error in that it refers to an element of the Sega CD version that was removed from the PlayStation version.

I mentioned this mistake in the SSSC hintbook, although I don't recall if I explained WHY it happened: an older textfile was inadvertently used instead of the updated and rewritten textfile.

I took (and take) full responsibility for the error, although I certainly wasn't thrilled with the performance of WD's "quality-assurance department," a group of employees taking home the newest build each weekend and pretending to play through it.

I did a quick check and I couldn't find the old messages that went into greater detail about this and cited specific examples of waht was wrong or maybe could of been better.

Certainly, there are parts of both translations that could have been better. I'm forever second-guessing my work. But do I think a random Web-forum poster/whiner could have done a better job than me? Hell, no.

Also why in the Sega cd version did you not use a lower case font? Was there some technical problems that caused this or something else? I know they at least had english Capital font that encluded in Bios. I think at least Vay had a lower font as well but I haven't touched that in many years.

I didn't work on the Sega CD translation, just the strategy guide, so I'm not sure why that version was all-uppercase.

-- Z.

[zmweasel]

Eternal Blue complete had to be one of the biggest disappointments I ever had in my gaming career. Not only was it late late late late late (in typical working designs style), WD screwed with the game too much. They unnecessarily ramped up the difficulty in the wrong places, and there were an infuriating number of battles - and the enemies on the screen were impossible to avoid in 99% of the cases.

So you were disappointed with EBC because it shipped "late," whatever that means. Later than what? Are you disappointed when you play ten-year-old games because you're playing them so "late"?

And what do you consider the "wrong places" for increased difficulty?

I also don't recall there being an exorbitant amount of combat, but again, it's been several years since I played the game for a considerable length of time.

And the voices in battle.... if i had to hear Leo scream "I SAVED THIS FOR YOU, INFIDEL!!!!" i woulda thrown the game out the window. Then I find out during the epilogue you can turn battle voices off. Argh.

So you're disappointed with EBC because you didn't figure out a sound option until you reached the epilogue?

The sound bites in the Japanese version were just as repetitive, so if you're going to complain about 'em, blame Game Arts, not WD.

and for the love of god I hope they make the little dragon they use sound like Darth Vader next time. Ruby had the most annoying game voice in history - that wasn't changed from the Sega CD version tho...

In fact, Ruby's voice WAS brought down a notch in the PlayStation version, because we knew she was too whiny in the Sega CD version.

They shouldn't have increased the resolution on the anime scenes. they claim they ran them through a low pass filter to reduce artifacts, but some of them still look absolutely horrible.

I agree that the anime scenes could've and should've looked better. To Victor's credit, he tried a LOT of compression methods, but he chose the wrong one.

All in all, the SegaCD version is far superior in every way except for the kickass extras you get with the PSX one

I wholly disagree with you, but that's probably to be expected. :)

-- Z.

[kainemaxwell]

Too bad no option to shut Ruby or Nall up was explored. :P

[Azazel]

Thanks for clearing up the part about the White Dragon Cave. So many people have commented and asked about that in the past. Most of the people I remember commenting on that were people that know Japanese pretty well and played through both the US and import versions.

I think the 2 things myself that I've never liked much about Workingdesigns games was that most of them they made them harder in the US versions. Most of them I didn't have much of a problem with. I think Exile 2 on the PC Engine/Turbografx 16 cd was the worst of them. I could never get past that Waterfall boss, and I even did a lot of excess leveling up. I had to play through the import version which is a cakewalk. I can maybe understand to a certain degree cause of how easy it was but I think WD went to far with that title. I know some things you had to change for the US version like the Japanese version your items stuff was called Drugs and in US version you called them tonics. I know some of the religious theme had to be changed to a certain degree cause you couldn't get way with some of that stuff back than.

I think the other thing I could probably do without is some of the jokes and pop references or whatever you want to call them. Like I got hemroids or something along those lines. I know most of those were just put in as part of the towny dialogue but I could probably live without them. A few of them were kind out of place from what I remember but I haven't touched a WD title in many years.

I generally kind of liked the way that Hudson translated someof the Turbo grafx 16 cd titles. You know like Ys 1-3 Dragon Slayer Legend of Heroes 1. I could probably like without the dialogue in Dragon Slayer beening written in a middle age dialogue kind of like Dragon Quest. I compared the Japanese version to the US version and other than the names it was mostly unchanged. I found only one line changed for as long as I played which was something minor like the dangerous monsters outside of town was changed to slimes or something like that and even that is pretty minor.

But I guess you can never make eveyone happy.

[Daria]

I compared the Japanese version to the US version and other than the names it was mostly unchanged. I found only one line changed for as long as I played which was something minor like the dangerous monsters outside of town was changed to slimes or something like that and even that is pretty minor.

I'm sorry for being confused... but why is change a bad thing? If we all wanted the unblemished Japanese scripts we could simply play the Japanese versions. Personally I like it when a company takes the time to re-work a script, as long as they do it well, shows me that they actually care about what they're wiritng as much as I care about reading it.

And I'm sorry for a game as bland as the original Dragon Warrior was the olde English script helped it tremendously. It gave the game a style fitting of the time period it was set in. And sometimes name changes are good as well... some Japanese names just plain suck in English. Again using DW as an example, The sound of Loto makes me cringe, Edrick is much more epic sounding and same goes for Gawelin as opposed to the oddly out of place modern sounding Laura.

Haven't played Dragon Slayer (well except the Japanese Genesis version) so I couldn't say whether the script fit it or not.

Edit: And I MUST be weird because Ruby's voice didn't bother me at all in the PSX version. But then I normally like voice acting most people seem to hate... Tales of Destiny (Eternia) for example. Except for when Meredy speaks in english I thought the voices fit the characters very well.
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SHIP SALE

[TomMage]

TomMage, I STRONGLY recommend you give Paper Mario another chance. If there is even the slightest bit of love for Mario in your heart, this game could possibly make you explode. There are cameos and in-jokes everywhere, and the writing is suprisingly good. The battle system easily ranks as one of my all-time favorites because it actually requires real twitch skills. Damn that game was so freakin' sweet...*drifts into nostalgic trance*

Oh I'm not saying Paper Mario is not a good game, I'm just saying I don't think it's as good as Super Mario RPG for SNES. It's hands down the best RPG for N64 (and IS a good game ). I don't count the Zeldas as true RPGs by the way. They are good also, no Metroid for N64 either far as I know, hence N64 my most disappointing system of all time.

Thanks,
Tom

[TomMage]

Indeed. One of the things I LOVE about the Lunar games is the great convos you can have with NPC's if you take the time to TALK to them, more then once, during the game. I still have a laughing fit to this day when I think of the William Shatner joke from SSC.

Oh absolutely I would go back to nearly every town after something significant happened in the game, talk to everyone again (plus of course talk to them more than once each individual time too). These are some sweet games, RARELY will I replay a game since I have hundreds of games I have not played yet but am replaying SCD Eternal Blue right now. The humor is FANTASTIC Might have to replay Popful Mail too, I loved that game also.

Tom

[TomMage]

Too bad no option to shut Ruby or Nall up was explored. :P

Though I have played only the SCD versions of the games all the way through I loved ALL the voices, including Ruby

Tom

[TomMage]

Workingdesigns always make the games much harder when they release them over here. The original versions were fine as they were did. If they wanted to make the game harder why don't tey make include a hard mode or something?.

Personally I enjoy the added challenge There ain't no RPG I can't beat!!!!! Well the Lufia 2 ancient dungeon I haven't beat yet (did beat the normal game). Got to bottom of L2 Ancient twice but was unable to beat the boss, you only get like 4 attacks. That is probably the ultimate RPG challenge.

Tom

[TomMage]

I do wish we'd taken out the anti-gay "joke" you mention, as it was wholly unnecessary and downright hateful.

Well I did not think it was anti-gay really. I thought it was funny. It's a game, poking fun at Leo, not putting down gays. Fantastic games, I forgot some of the great humor, having good time replaying SCD EB now.

Tom

[Azazel]

I compared the Japanese version to the US version and other than the names it was mostly unchanged. I found only one line changed for as long as I played which was something minor like the dangerous monsters outside of town was changed to slimes or something like that and even that is pretty minor.

I'm sorry for being confused... but why is change a bad thing? If we all wanted the unblemished Japanese scripts we could simply play the Japanese versions. Personally I like it when a company takes the time to re-work a script, as long as they do it well, shows me that they actually care about what they're wiritng as much as I care about reading it.

And I'm sorry for a game as bland as the original Dragon Warrior was the olde English script helped it tremendously. It gave the game a style fitting of the time period it was set in. And sometimes name changes are good as well... some Japanese names just plain suck in English. Again using DW as an example, The sound of Loto makes me cringe, Edrick is much more epic sounding and same goes for Gawelin as opposed to the oddly out of place modern sounding Laura.

Haven't played Dragon Slayer (well except the Japanese Genesis version) so I couldn't say whether the script fit it or not.

Edit: And I MUST be weird because Ruby's voice didn't bother me at all in the PSX version. But then I normally like voice acting most people seem to hate... Tales of Destiny (Eternia) for example. Except for when Meredy speaks in english I thought the voices fit the characters very well.

I personally don't see anything wrong with Loto. It makes just as much sense as Endrick. Same with the other name you mentioned. There are plenty names in Japanese games that get changed for english releases where there's nothing wrong with the Japanese names. A few of the engish names in games can sound just as bad and sometime worse than the original Japanese versions. Some of the Japanese names are odd and or weird and I kind of like them that way, and they fit well for the games story. I think for Dragon Slayer the Japanese name for the main character was Asteros or something like that and it and it was Logan in the US. Not really much of an improvement. The voices on that version really got on my nerves, and thankfully you can turn them off. Personally you can have just as good a Dragon Slayer or Dragon Quest script without the old english. Some of the translated roms were translated that way and I think they sound as good or sometimes better than official translations like DQ 1, 2 5 Byuu version and 6 other than some of the grammar and typos that you might run cross.

As for changes I believe some changes are fine but don't go to the extreme. I personally don't need to see lines like Cless you fuck like Tiger or something along those line. Even though that TOP example might be a little extreme. I'll also agree that most literal translations suck, despite what most anime fans say. Like the Final Fantasy 3 translation versus the Final Fantasy 6 retranslation. Most of my issues with changes from Japanese to english version is when they make changes that aren't any better and actually worse from what the actual Japanese script said. Some of these things unless you know enough Japanese you won't really understand and of course you'll never see.

There also is a english Dragon Slayer Legend of Heroes on the MSX. You could get the rom for that if you want. I have no idea what the translation is like but I think it was done by Ocean.

[Azazel]

Workingdesigns always make the games much harder when they release them over here. The original versions were fine as they were did. If they wanted to make the game harder why don't tey make include a hard mode or something?.

Personally I enjoy the added challenge There ain't no RPG I can't beat!!!!! Well the Lufia 2 ancient dungeon I haven't beat yet (did beat the normal game). Got to bottom of L2 Ancient twice but was unable to beat the boss, you only get like 4 attacks. That is probably the ultimate RPG challenge.

Tom

Have you tried Exile 2 yet? There's plenty of RPGS out there that I haven't beaten. I'm talking about normal games not extra dungeons that you don't have to play if you don't want to. I know I'll probably never beat Lufia 2 cause of some of the dumb puzzles that were in it.

[TomMage]

[/quote]

Have you tried Exile 2 yet? There's plenty of RPGS out there that I haven't beaten. I'm talking about normal games not extra dungeons that you don't have to play if you don't want to. I know I'll probably never beat Lufia 2 cause of some of the dumb puzzles that were in it.[/quote]

I don't think so? I played one Exile game, on Genesis, it was very disappointing, very few hours to complete it. There is another Exile game (2?)? Lufia 2, you don't have to beat all the puzzles to win the game although I beat most of them. There is one I never could though, supposed to be the toughest puzzle in video games, period. I do everything possible when playing a game, to beat regular L2 took me about 95 hours. Ancient dungeon, well dang, no saves, about 8 hours a shot, then ya die and have to do it all over. Might try again someday though............

Tom

[Azazel]

The Genesis one is the first Exile. The second one was only released on the PC Engine/Turbo Grafx 16 cd and the Japanese PC only. It's like the first one and is fairly short like 3 to 4 hours. The xecond on you get to play as other characters other than Sadler. If you remember the first one game anymore kind of be familiar with the characters. Although if you didn't like the first one you'll probably not like the second one much.

Actually there were a couple of parts in lufia 2 where I had to look at a faq cause I was stuck on a puzzle which you had to get past to proceed in the game. After a while the game just bored me and I said the hell with it. There's better stuff out there I cna spend my time playing. Personally I'd rather play through more games and miss some secrets and stuff like that than spend the time needed to do eveything in a game. There only a few games I spent the time to find all the secrets for myself.