Was the localization of Shikigami no Shiro 2 this bad?

dai jou bu · Post by **dai jou bu** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:20 am

Seriously?

Ironically, I do have a PS2 copy of the game, but I think it was God's will not to allow me to run it and use my DC copy instead because my friends' PS2s don't want to read the blue disc of death and my personal grudges for Sony convinced me not to get this system just yet until I see an MSRP that's lower than the Gamecube's.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:29 am

Yes, but it was so bad it was funny. So it wasn't all bad.

Just yesterday I discovered that my Gamecube version of the game looks WAY, WAAAY better than the US version for the PS2. I didn't realize this before when I was playing in yoko mode. So now I think I'm going to put my localized version on the shelf.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:34 am

This game, like most shmups, isn't popular due to how hard it is. You see, easy as pie == large popularity(see: Halo 2, Crash Bandicoot 2, Bubsy 3D).

Gamecube and Dreamcast versions are the only way to go. I'm not sure if they added crap into Shikigami for the Gamecube version, but they're practically the same from my view.

Post by **system11** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:40 am

The PS2 port is fine, the localisation has some stupid dialogue, but since it never made any sense to begin with nothing really is lost there. The cover artwork was bad. That's it really.

A JP (or JP game friendly) PS2 has quickly become an essential machine now.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:44 am

Or a PAL machine which can play american and japanese games.

Katamari Damacy obviously isn't going to come out on PAL. There's only one option for situations like these.

zakk · Post by **zakk** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:45 am

I think it's funnier that the translation you see isn't all that inaccurate...

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 12:54 am

BrianC · Post by **BrianC** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 1:40 am

I don't care much for that article. The localization is cheesy, but it in no way affects gameplay.

Post by **BulletMagnet** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:15 am

I don't own the US version of this, but apparently in spite of its localization atrocities it's still a big improvement over the US port of its predecessor.

Darkcomet72 · Post by **Darkcomet72** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 2:55 am

Elixir wrote:This game, like most shmups, isn't popular due to how hard it is. You see, easy as pie == large popularity(see: Halo 2, Crash Bandicoot 2, Bubsy 3D).

That was so wrong it's not funny. It seemed more like an attack on mainstream gaming rather than anything about the topic.

hikarutilmitt · Post by **hikarutilmitt** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:15 am

Well, you have to admit that most mainstream games ARE designed to be pretty easy and last a long time over having an honest challenge.

And yeah, I've heard from most that the 3 (4?) versions of Shikigami 2 are all nearly identical in form. The only "issue" with the US localization is the storyline voices, the rest is intact.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:26 am

hikarutilmitt wrote:Well, you have to admit that most mainstream games ARE designed to be pretty easy and last a long time over having an honest challenge.

Or not. Especially since this is in a topic for SnSII, which is one of the easiest shmups to come out in years.

Though I assume the people who complain about mainstream games here haven't actually, you know, played Halo 2 on Legendary (easy as pie? Could've fooled me), or Ninja Gaiden on its hardest difficulty.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:53 am

sethsez wrote: SnSII, which is one of the easiest shmups to come out in years.

Yeah, before you said it, I never really thought much about it, but I'd have to agree: SnS II is one of the easier shmups in recent years. Not Shienryu Explosion easy, but easier for me than Cave and Psikyo games, as I tend to get stuck in them at level 3 or (if I'm lucky) 4.

I have avoided credit feeding in SnS II, so I haven't seen beyond 4-1 yet. Does the game get a lot harder in 4-2, 5-1, or 5-2?

Damocles · Post by **Damocles** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 4:33 am

sethsez wrote:Though I assume the people who complain about mainstream games here haven't actually, you know, played Halo 2 on Legendary (easy as pie? Could've fooled me), or Ninja Gaiden on its hardest difficulty.

Off-topic, but DAMN YOU Halo 2 snipers....on Legendary. One-shot kills made me feel like I was playing Rainbow Six. It did have the great effect of teaching me how to take them out with precision fire from the battle rifle and human pistol though.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:03 am

Darkcomet72 wrote:
Elixir wrote:This game, like most shmups, isn't popular due to how hard it is. You see, easy as pie == large popularity(see: Halo 2, Crash Bandicoot 2, Bubsy 3D).
That was so wrong it's not funny. It seemed more like an attack on mainstream gaming rather than anything about the topic.

Well, mainstream consumer titles are pretty much rubbish. Give or take, there's a few fun ones out there, such as Burnout 3. But really, give me the name of one seriously worthy mainstream title for PS2 or xbox.

Though I assume the people who complain about mainstream games here haven't actually, you know, played Halo 2 on Legendary

I don't think I'd have the will power to get that far. The original Halo is apparently better, from what my friends have said.

Well, you have to admit that most mainstream games ARE designed to be pretty easy and last a long time over having an honest challenge.

I take that back. Crash Bandicoot, the original, was quite frustrating. One rainy stage on the last island, where you start bottom left. Oh god, 2-and-a-half-D was something that needed to be mastered before taking on certain areas.

SAM · Post by **SAM** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:23 am

bloodflowers wrote:The PS2 port is fine, the localisation has some stupid dialogue, but since it never made any sense to begin with nothing really is lost there. The cover artwork was bad. That's it really.

Well, well, bloodflowers, you are wrong about this. The Japanese version of SnS2 supports Progress scan mode while the American version does not!!!!

Dialogue and voice acting is really bad. But missing the progressive scan really hurt.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:11 am

Elixir wrote:give me the name of one seriously worthy mainstream title for PS2 or xbox

Would it matter? You've already made up your mind and apparantly consider games you haven't played to be utter shite anyway, so even if I said, for example, Ninja Gaiden, you'd probably find a reason that it was awful.

Elixir · Post by **Elixir** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:28 am

My cousin owns an internet cafe branch in south auckland, here in NZ. We have games come in for our computers, and I get to test them to see that they're all installed and working correctly.

They're all mainstream. But no, I haven't played Ninja Gaiden. Somebody told me it was ridiculously hard though.

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:31 am

SAM wrote:
Dialogue and voice acting is really bad. But missing the progressive scan really hurt.

Sorry to derail, but how so? I know how prog scan works VS interlaced, but I want one person, just one person to point out why progressive looks better than interlaced. I might start a topic about this on the hardware section. (And yeah, I know that the scrolling of the credits on a movie will look smoother on a prog set than on an iterlaced one, but I don't rent movies to read the smoothness of the credit scrolling.)

Don't get me wrong. S-video or RGB improve my picture by giving me brighter colors and sharper images, but what am I going to see on a progressive image that I won't see on an interlaced one?

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 6:43 am

Specineff wrote:what am I going to see on a progressive image that I won't see on an interlaced one?

More clearly defined objects, which is important in a shmup for fairly obvious reasons.

And no, s-video doesn't do progressive scan.

Just out of interest, have you played a game in prog scan before?

arromdee · Post by **arromdee** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:26 am

I find it hard to believe that the original could have been anywhere near that incomprehensible. Even just looking at the bad translations in the manual, you can tell that they would be much easier to understand if whoever translated it got all their verb tenses right and understood use of the words "a" and "the" (which don't have direct equivalents in Japanese).

Is the Japanese dialog available anywhere on the web?

Specineff · Post by **Specineff** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 9:19 am

@Seth:

Yeah. Alien Hominid. And Virtual On OT on VGA monitor. And the motion and definition is the same to me in Alien Hominid, regardless of which mode it's running on.

You see, this is what I want to see:

Two HDTVs, two Cubes/DVD players/Xboxes/whatevers playing two copies of the exact same game, started at the same time, through the same type of connection, one in progressive, the other in interlaced. I want someone to point at interlaced screen and say: "See how that thing looks like it has things on the thang with the thingy? The progressive screen doesn't have that and therefore looks more ______________ due to the fact that it's displaying all of the lines in the frame."

I'm not dissing progressive scan. I just want to know why it makes my life better and my games look more l337.

Post by **system11** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 11:50 am

SAM wrote:
bloodflowers wrote:The PS2 port is fine, the localisation has some stupid dialogue, but since it never made any sense to begin with nothing really is lost there. The cover artwork was bad. That's it really.
Well, well, bloodflowers, you are wrong about this. The Japanese version of SnS2 supports Progress scan mode while the American version does not!!!!

Dialogue and voice acting is really bad. But missing the progressive scan really hurt.

Hm - I have the Japanese version too, and recently bought a TV that can do progressive - I'll have to see how it looks! Is the quality that much better? I used to have a Trinitron 4:3 before, pretty much everything looked fantastic on that when fed with RGB cables.

EDIT: And I would have kept that great TV if we had space for two in the lounge.

EDIT2: Are you really sure it supports progressive? Switching my TV between progressive and 'natural' (a 100hz mode) results in absolutely no change in quality, if anything the 100hz looks a little sharper.
EDIT3: I've turned progressive off for good now with the PS2 - mushi looks better without that mode enabled too.
EDIT4: Well here's a strange one, the Xbox looks infinitely better with it enabled during fast movement. Noticed this after putting MC3 back on, under 100hz it blurs.
EDIT5: TV technology sucks these days - it's all aimed at movies.

professor ganson · Post by **professor ganson** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:18 pm

Has anyone played any of the Shiki games on XBox? I seem to recall that it got the best versions overall, but maybe I'm mistaken.

RealBoutJake · Post by **RealBoutJake** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:30 pm

professor ganson wrote:Has anyone played any of the Shiki games on XBox? I seem to recall that it got the best versions overall, but maybe I'm mistaken.

I want to know the same thing! Please some one respond. I was a little disappointed to hear that the ps2 version is the worst.

howmuchkeefe · Post by **howmuchkeefe** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 3:53 pm

Must you withstand the dialogue? It appears to be optional, but I'm not sure whether any unlockable items are accessible only if you play through the game in 'demo on' mode for each character.

I can't comment on the progressive scan debate, but I do miss being able to play the game in fullscreen without having to turn either my TV or my controller sideways (a la GC Ikaruga). I'm on my way to mastering the art of using a control pad sideways, thankfully.

sethsez · Post by **sethsez** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 4:24 pm

Specineff wrote:"See how that thing looks like it has things on the thang with the thingy? The progressive screen doesn't have that and therefore looks more ______________ due to the fact that it's displaying all of the lines in the frame."

Simple explanation: progressive scan is more accurate to the intended image than interlaced (which adds noise to edges and such), and movement looks far clearer.

If you can't tell the difference, hey, great. It saves you the money of having to buy a TV with progressive.

it290 · Post by **it290** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 5:31 pm

I find the US version of SnS2 to be fine; yes, the translation is terrible, but I've seen mainstream games with translation that was just as bad (not recently though). If anything I like it a bit better than the DC version because of the wait on/off feature, although I'm sure the DC version is preferable if using VGA.

As for the game being easy, I don't know that I agree at all. I guess it's fairly easy if you're playing for straight survival, but (like Psyvariar 2), it's a lot more difficult if you're trying to score high. I often die in SnS2 not because I couldn't dodge something, but because I was being too greedy, which is where the fun/tension of the game comes in.

Blade · Post by **Blade** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 7:51 pm

They must still think American Gamers are morons after all these years.

Games like Grand Theft Auto don't help much for that image either. =____=

Post by **system11** » Sat Jul 30, 2005 8:51 pm

Blade wrote:They must still think American Gamers are morons after all these years.

Games like Grand Theft Auto don't help much for that image either. =____=

Trouble is, GTA games are lots of fun. I never get tired of setting people on fire or grenading a queue of cars at the lights.

shmups.system11.org

Was the localization of Shikigami no Shiro 2 this bad?

Was the localization of Shikigami no Shiro 2 this bad?

Re: Was the localization of Shikigami no Shiro 2 this bad?