It seems Japanese RPG publishers are convinced the western gamer will never have any truck with funny Chinese cartoons, for we hear that upcoming oppai RPG Star Ocean 4 will be stripping out plenty of its anime visuals in favour of Final Fantasy-esque computer graphics, which when combined with the completely English dub will help spare the American consumer the distaste of having to deal with anything too foreign.
So far, it appears only the interface will be suffering this treatment; replacing the entire character designs with properly effete CG designs probably exceeds their localisation budget, although we have to wonder whether they would try given the chance.
The big RPG publishers seem not to have heard of the popularity of anime outside Japan, and perhaps have all become slightly unhinged from seeing the sales figures Square enjoys, despite the fact that Square never took any notice of all the complaints about its “girly” male characters. And have they not heard of Persona?
Perhaps, any disappointing sales will be blamed on the failure to completely localise the title?
The game itself will be released shortly, on the 19th of February: you can always opt for the Japanese version if you of a mind.
It will also be interesting to see how the CG release of Tales of Hearts fares in the western markets…
Thanks to Jin on the forums for bringing this to our attention.
Do you guys know that the ps3 game actually have both the CG AND 2D interface. As well as English AND Japanese voices + subtitles in like 5 diffrent languages including English.
I actually have to say, the Western visuals in the menu system actually look better.
Which is weird, I normally like it the other way around
So much for ‘best of both worlds’.
if everyone took the time to quit bitching and moaning, and actually play the game, who knows, ya might find ya like it
amen!
which is my point to have choice either Anime or CG and either Jap or Eng dub who cares if they make it on 4 – 5 or 6 dvd dual layers who cares if they make you pay for the extra stuff i wouldn’t mind spending more money if it meant getting a better game overall, even with CG in no way was it made to be without Anime feel its got tons of Anime style scenes between the protagonist and the female heroine she slaps him and calls him a perv enough times lol that originated from Anime and manga and Jap games so why not make the overall experience selectable to be full Anime with Anime portraits too?
Portraits are important in rpg’s they stick with you throughout the game. This Star ocean 4 game is based off Anime and the characters eyes are huge its trying to pull the gamer into an Anime world regardless of what some people think of CG saying it fits better is wrong it makes me look at the game differently now and in a bad way, the game has no emotion they all feel like robot dolls to me, and to make it worst the Eng dub track have you heard how terrible most of the voices are,
exept for few to name one of them being Welch her voice is sassy and very interesting I can hear her emotions when she speaks, but people like Edge or Lymle the English voices are plain, uninteresting, expressionless, most of them look and sound like creepy doll robots. Whats with lymles slow robot like talk shes supposed to be a kid not a creepy tard baby robot sorry thats how she sounds and I’m afraid she may sound that way to the end of the game? lol
well there’s a few more that don’t pitch up either, none of them come close to the amazing acting of Welche’s voice whoever she is congrats your very skilled. I remember her from Lost Odyssey and some cartoon on TV, her voice has great acting skills. Lost Odyssey had decent Eng dub, usually games are mostly better with Japanese dubbing.
Valkyrie profile 1 on the PSX had great English Dubbing too you know why? Practically all the cast was known popular voice Actors/Actresses and they did a great job pulling it off. Its all about emotions in your voice having a good impressionable voice and pulling it off when your reading lines this is why most of the Japanese dubbing is almost always the best they know how to handle their voices and put many emotions in their voice acting.
My proof is Anime Japanese dubbing majority of us fans watch Anime with Jap dubs, for star ocean games it would of been better if they used Anime full on everything although I will still enjoy it with this CG but not as much as i did star ocean 2 and its Anime style. Sorry for my English if any mistakes, this not meant to start flame or influence people away from the game it is still good game but just not as hot as it could be, shame that.