Why I love Working Designs

[Daria]

I suppose what I really admire about Working Designs in the quality of writing that goes into their translations. After playing games like Alundra and Lunar I'm amazed by how many other publishers fail to inject any sense of humanity into their characters. After playing a Working Designs title you really feel you've experience an epic whith characters that feel as real as if you'd met them in novel as opposed to video game which are normally known for their flat and wooden caricatures.

That and their perverted. Gotta love the sophmoric innuendo.

[digitalpress]

CHALLENGE POINT: DARIA.

For posting first for this tribe, DARIA has scored a point with this post.

I'd also llike to say that I'm happy to "give it" to Daria. She's been a wonderful asset to this community and worthy of my "point".

(hows that for sophmoric innuendo)

[Nz17]

I'd also llike to say that I'm happy to "give it" to Daria. She's been a wonderful asset to this community and worthy of my "point".

(hows that for sophmoric innuendo)

digitalpress, please try to "contain" yourself.

[Nz17]

I love Working Designs because the company never releases a game before it reaches full maturity. Yes, it is off-putting when one must wait YEARS for a game translation to arrive, but in the end it is well worth it. That is because Working Designs doesn't just transliterate the game, WD transforms the game. They rebalance gameplay, add additional features like extra saves states and rumble support, then squash any and all bugs. Instead of using "Convenient Voice Actor A" for the hero's lead, they have a proven stable of talented voice actors and actresses, including the vocally-gifted singer Jenny Stigle.

Then there is the translation of the game's content itself. Not satisfied with simply "telling it how is was," WD takes the games spirit, spins it into an Americanified reimagining, and adds personality, humor, and depth, which both preserves the original story but makes the characters ones people in our culture can believe in. No character ever breaks face unless it is called for by the original game's script, and by the end these are not actors on a stage, but rather a close-knit gang of friends that you hate to say goodbye to. That is why I love Working Designs.

[Dahne]

I love Working Designs cause they made the guy who played Ghaleon drink like four gallons of milk so his voice would be all phlegmy for the death scene.

[Nz17]

I love Working Designs cause they made the guy who played Ghaleon drink like four gallons of milk so his voice would be all phlegmy for the death scene.

Gotta love John Tuitt -- he is so good at playing those "cool bad guy" types.

[Crush Crawfish]

I love working designs because they go the extra mile and package all sorts of neat extras with their games. I also love them for at least trying to bring the PS2 Goemon game here, before it was canned...

[Aussie2B]

I like Working Designs for including soundtracks with some of their games, and for having the soundtracks contain the good old music rather than the not-as-good newer stuff that's actually in the game. :P

[PapaStu]

I appreciate Working Designs because they kept me collecting. After burning out on my PlayStation collection, I turned to WD and their variants to keep me occupied. Needless to say its been at least 3 months and i've still not completed the PlayStation portion of the collection. There has never been a company thats been as tricky as Victor has been creating covers just to irk the collectors, though im far from irked because ive had way too much fun finding all these games and covers that no one else has know completely about.

P.S. for the 10 PSOne released games there are 9 with at least 2 covers, and of those 9, 2 have more, Lunar SSSC has 5 and Alundra has 9. The PS2 stuff to the best of my knowledge only has one cover apiece.

[Azazel]

I like Working Designs for including soundtracks with some of their games, and for having the soundtracks contain the good old music rather than the not-as-good newer stuff that's actually in the game. :P

Did they do soundtracks for any titles other than Lunar?

[Aussie2B]

Daria would know better than me. o_O I'd like to say yes, but I'm pretty sure my brain is mixing up Working Designs and Atlus as I often do.

[Daria]

Well let me think here...

Working Designs: both Lunars came with sound track Cds.
ATLUS: Rhapsody and Thousand Arms (if you were smart enough to mail away for it. I wasn't. Dammit!)

And that's about it.

[Nz17]

Well let me think here...

Working Designs: both Lunars came with sound track Cds.
ATLUS: Rhapsody and Thousand Arms (if you were smart enough to mail away for it. I wasn't. Dammit!)

And that's about it.

Don't forget that the September release of Growlanser Generations will include (amoung the other plethoria of the DELUXE version) a soundtrack CD.

[Azazel]

Hopefully the music in Glowlanser will be good enoguh to deserve it's own soundtrack.

[Azazel]

If you cound Japanese titles 1 or 2 of the Megaten games came with soundtracks. I remember the LE Devil Summoner. There might of been others.

[digitalpress]

I like Working Designs for including soundtracks with some of their games, and for having the soundtracks contain the good old music rather than the not-as-good newer stuff that's actually in the game. :P

HIDDEN CHALLENGE POINT: AUSSIE2B.

For reasons that will be disclosed later, AUSSIE2B has scored 1 point with this post.

[AB Positive]

I love Working Designs cause they made the guy who played Ghaleon drink like four gallons of milk so his voice would be all phlegmy for the death scene.

HIDDEN CHALLENGE POINT: Dahne

For reasons that will be disclosed later, Dahne has scored 6 points with this post.

-AG

[calthaer]

You know what, I'm not a big fan of the Lunar series...but Alundra was so good that I'll give a shout out for Working Designs.

In fact, I think I almost prefer Alundra to most of the Zelda games that have come out in the last 5 years. What am I doing in the Nintendo tribe?

Well...I'm not in my tribe for just one game, I guess. But Alundra is calling my name.

[Daria]

You know what, I'm not a big fan of the Lunar series...but Alundra was so good that I'll give a shout out for Working Designs.

In fact, I think I almost prefer Alundra to most of the Zelda games that have come out in the last 5 years. What am I doing in the Nintendo tribe?

Well...I'm not in my tribe for just one game, I guess. But Alundra is calling my name.

Zelda may have invented the genre, but I think Alundra perfected it. (:

[Dahne]

In Alundra, is there any way to save the girl who makes things explode instead of the surfer guy? I remember thinking that if I had only gone to surfer guy's house first, then explody girl's second, it would have let me save her instead of him, but for some reason I never reset and tried it.

That was a great game. Some really nasty puzzles. Alundra and Lufia II must have the toughest puzzles in an RPG ever.