Quote Originally Posted by Aussie2B View Post
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