Kickstarter project for PSP dungeon crawler

[Estebang]

Monkey Paw Games, known for releasing some Japanese PS1 games on the US PSN (including Dezaemon, Shienryu and a few other shmups), are trying to raise half a million dollars to give Class of Heroes 2 (AKA Ken to Mahou to Gakuen Mono. 2) a physical and digital release on the PSP.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/127 ... psp-system

I think they may actually have set their sights too high, only because the series is rather generic and average. There are many, many better PSP games they could have chosen for this project, such as the second Corpse Party game. There also happens to be a PS3 version of Class of Heroes 2. Still, I'm very willing to support the continued localization of PSP games, and I'll throw them a few bucks. If only Cave had the cojones to use the site!

[Estebang]

Wait, didn't see this:

In essence, it will allow us to hit the familiar level of quality we reached at Working Designs.

- I didn't know they were made up of former WD staff
- "Working Designs" and "Quality" do not belong in the same sentence
- They talk about modifying some stuff in the game, just like they used to do
- I hope their translation skills have improved

Not going to withhold my donation, but man. Depressing to see Vic Ireland still kicking around. Also, the physical release will be print-on-demand to Kickstarter donators--it won't even be on Amazon.

[GaijinPunch]

Looks pretty gay.

[Wenchang]

- They talk about modifying some stuff in the game, just like they used to do

Yep. Working Designs have ruined games in the past so I'm not supporting this. I would like a physical copy(though I don't want all of the lame trinkets) of this game localized but I'm not going to support this kind of mess. The selfish part of me hopes that this will be successful and I can buy a used copy from someone later, but I'm not willing to donate $60 at this time especially to people who have done such crappy jobs with projects in the past.

[cj iwakura]

I'd like to know what people think WD did that was 'crappy'. They brought us RPGs no other publisher would have dreamed of localizing.

Atlus, XSeed, NIS, and Aksys probably wouldn't be in business if not for the foundation WD set.

They made people realize localizations weren't something you could just half-ass.

[Wenchang]

I'd like to know what people think WD did that was 'crappy'. They brought us RPGs no other publisher would have dreamed of localizing.

They also made several games like Silhouette Mirage or Popful Mail tedious to play with stupid and needless difficulty adjustments. Nevermind the at times bush league voice acting or the fact that any changes made in those games were done more to suit Vic Ireland than anything else. I don't hate Working Designs but I really do not long for the days of their translation efforts when nowadays the efforts from XSeed are so much better.

Atlus, XSeed, NIS, and Aksys probably wouldn't be in business if not for the foundation WD set.

First, Atlus have been around as long as Working Designs were so I doubt that statement. But besides that point, great, if that's the legacy of Vic Ireland and Working Designs to you that's fine. But getting past the nostalgia, the stuff done by Atlus, XSeed, NIS, and Aksys is often much more professional and better done than the WD stuff and I really have no desire to go back to the old days of endless annoying pop culture references, constant release delays, no Japanese voice acting option(not that I use it but it's apprently important to others), difficulty adjustments which essentially only make the game's more obtuse, etc. Even back then you compare the localization of something like Vagrant Story to anything ever done by Working Designs and there's just no comparison.

[Ganelon]

I don't think the monetary goal is unreasonable. Assuming Gaijinworks will allocate more to the $59 version if the first 4000 is accounted for and disregarding other pledges, then they're only looking for 8475 pledges. I think that's a fair expectation for a PSP game while allowing Gaijinworks to make some guaranteed money at the same time. I like that these Kickstarter projects allow hesitant publishers to guarantee release when goals are met.

That said, I think the Class of Heroes series is unappealing. The original was the game that used the source code behind Wizardry XTH and didn't mention it until hackers happened to uncover it. I'm also not a fan of SD characters at all and it's clear most of the western audience isn't either. Why Vic picked this game instead of any of the Elminage games—all 3 installments of which have been released on the PSP in some form and that represent the highest tier of handheld dungeon crawling—is beyond me. I didn't pick up the original because of the art and I'll skip on this installment as well unless this project is just a few hundred off from being funded in the last few days.

As for Working Designs, I still have fond memories of the company. Some of its changes were very suspect but as cj iwakura mentioned, given the option of an OK localization and no localization at all, it's hard to hate. And even with rather liberal "translations," WD offered quality, fluid text that took more than a decade for translation companies to follow. Vic picked some of the most appealing JP-only games and I appreciate that. WD favored CD games, JRPGs, anime cutscenes, and speech back when they were unappreciated in the US. It had a great, informative, and constantly updated website from the get-go and a President who often popped up on Usenet to answer questions. I can't think of any other video game company at the time that connected more with its fans, and that was back in the early 90s, about 15 years before the transparency we've seen lately from niche companies such as XSEED.

I agree though that Popful Mail's increased US difficulty is a bit annoying. Same with both XZR/Exile and Vay's money changes. However, I've mentioned before that I disagree that US Silhouette Mirage is tedious since I've been able to clear both without continuing. What many forget is that WD added aspects to make that game easier as well and everything balances itself out in the end. And I even give props to WD for reducing Albert Odyssey Gaiden's encounter rate. What's easy to forget is that not all the changes WD made were bad. All of WD's menu and save changes (sans the magic exp.deduction in Sega CD Eternal Blue) were for the better.

As for a video game history, Atlus USA was around but didn't pursue anything related to RPGs until the original Persona for PS (for anybody who thought Ogre Battle for SNES was the first, that was localized by Enix and still years behind WD's Sega CD offerings). If you take a look at Atlus's early offerings, consider the difficulty changes in Persona, the fixed character size name reductions in Ogre Battle, and Tactics Ogre's typo-filled script. We've come a long way since then with more natural translations and dual audio but that's after WD's time. I'll grant that the release delays were a bit silly though.

But I'd still love to see how Vic makes things work in today's world. There are still plenty of games that could be localized. With Atlus focusing on Megaten and original IPs and N1 on the best of its own products recently, there should be some room for Gaijinworks to release products. Just a few years ago, everyone thought there was some problem working with Falcom but nowadays, XSEED has given them good representation. I'm worried about Vic's infamous game "tweaking" but hope that he realizes that in today's era, players want the original product. So far, the choice changes mentioned on the Kickstarter page—"extra saves and better controls, smoothing out the user interface experience, and adding perks"—all sound positive. I still don't intend to purchase Class of Heroes but do hope to support Gaijinworks when it brings out some JP games that are more personally appealing to me. I even bought Miami Law when that game was released and enjoyed it quite a bit.

[cj iwakura]

But getting past the nostalgia, the stuff done by Atlus, XSeed, NIS, and Aksys is often much more professional and better done than the WD stuff and I really have no desire to go back to the old days of endless annoying pop culture references, constant release delays, no Japanese voice acting option(not that I use it but it's apprently important to others), difficulty adjustments which essentially only make the game's more obtuse, etc. Even back then you compare the localization of something like Vagrant Story to anything ever done by Working Designs and there's just no comparison.

The later WD games really toned the pop culture stuff back. Growlanser II & III were by and large very serious, and Dragon Force's localization is still great today.

I also agree with Ganelon that I can think of a ton of RPGs I'd have rather had(especially any of the Elminage games or, heck, Oreshika), but I understand Acquire were the most willing to help them out, and CoH has some brand recognition, so I say more power to them.