Support NeoGAF

[Bullet Club]

What has Joe pulled out of his large sack this week?

It's a retrospective on Working Designs' American releases. Hooray!




Episode 350 - This episode focuses on controversial publisher/localizer Working Designs and all of the games they released here in North America.

0:00 - Intro
1:01 - Parasol Stars
2:14 - Cadash
4:03 - Exile
5:52 - Cosmic Fantasy 2
7:39 - Exile: Wicked Phenomenon
9:51 - Vasteel
11:17 - Lunar The Silver Star
13:59 - Vay
16:03 - Popful Mail
19:38 - Lunar Eternal Blue
22:16 - Iron Storm
23:29 - Shining Wisdom
26:30 - Dragon Force
28:26 - Albert Odyssey
30:37 - RayStorm
32:04 - Sega Ages Volume 1
33:14 - Alundra
35:07 - Elemental Gearbolt
37:16 - Thunder Force V Perfect System
39:12 - Magic Knight Rayearth
40:34 - Lunar Silver Star Story Complete
43:53 - Silhouette Mirage
45:31 - Vanguard Bandits
48:06 - RayCrisis
49:13 - Gungriffon Blaze
51:13 - Lunar Eternal Blue Complete
54:14 - Silpheed: The Lost Planet
57:16 - Arc the Lad Collection
58:45 - Growlancer Generations
1:00:21 - Wrap up
1:01:25 - Game Sack if Directed by Working Designs

 

[SirTerry-T]

This guy always delivers, think it helps that he is probably from the same generation of video game fans as myself. Always enjoy his content.

 

[Walter Matthau]

Joe is a machine. Excellent quality like always.

 

[trikster40]

What was ever controversial about WD? One of my favorite publishers, they were always open and communicated well with the public, I miss them!

 

[Team Andromeda]

WD was a brilliant company that did some of the best translations around. The quality of their voice work, use of full colour manuals, colour scans on discs and keeping the original Japanese art on the covers was without equal at the time. Trust the magerment at SEGA America to piss them off and make them dump with the Saturn and not bother with the DC.

 

[Shifty]

What was ever controversial about WD?

Their tendency to make questionable gameplay tweaks during the localization process with a view to adding artificial length via extra grind or increased difficulty, often attributed to the industry's fear of the rental market at the time.

I'm only familiar with a few of the titles in the OP, but off the top of my head both Popful Mail and Silhouette Mirage had buffed enemies and significant increases to item shop prices that changed their pace for the worse.

So on the one hand, we actually got to play these games without learning japanese or paying import prices, in some cases with notable extra content like the Grim Reaper fight and extra ending in SM.

But on the other, those changes are set in stone for the western versions, and require fan patches or a good modern rerelease in order to restore the original developer-intended design.

 

[Madonis]

I appreciate them for providing high quality packaging, extras and generally above average localization work for games that, in some cases, were unlikely to be licensed and released outside of Japan

At the same time, their translation quality ranged from pretty good to awkward. Some of the Clinton jokes they introduced, for example, felt a bit out of place back then and are even more dated now.

I am less familiar with the gameplay tweaks mentioned above, but these days that sort of thing would work better as an optional toggle the player can turn on or off at will.

 

[Shifty]

The Un-Worked Designs thread on ROMHacking.net has some good info on what gameplay changes were made and which games ended up getting fan patches.

 

[BrownBrown]

another great episode

 

[cireza]

The Un-Worked Designs thread on ROMHacking.net has some good info on what gameplay changes were made and which games ended up getting fan patches.

The right way to play these games, really.

 

[theclaw135]

I'd like to hear more concrete about what else WD chased that didn't pan out. The name is all we ever saw of Iron Storm 2.

What was ever controversial about WD? One of my favorite publishers, they were always open and communicated well with the public, I miss them!

Sticking to their guns maybe a bit too much. They didn't want to release anything outside their niche to pay the bills, and sometimes they'd refuse to cut their losses on projects running way behind schedule.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

The gameplay changes are annoying and generally bad from what I've seen. They also made some insane localization changes which a lot of people are butthurt about:

Personally I find it hard to get upset over ruining the creative purity and sanctity of fucking Magic Knight Rayearth, so it doesn't really bother me much.

 

[Bullet Club]

Edit: wrong thread

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I remember playing Vanguard Bandits, suffering through an opening song with a vocalist that seemed amateurish, and then playing it for about 20 minutes before the bizarre dialogue just turned me off completely. I never played it again.

 

[ShirAhava]

Never really minded the WD dialogue changes and pop culture humor
(a lot of the original writing wasn't exactly award winning, minus very few exceptions so who cares)

but the gameplay changes holy shit I remember feeling like the level of difficulty didn't fit with the levity and tone of certain games and it turns out I was right

I'd like those hours of my life back.....but overall I loved WD and didn't Vic used to post here? good times (I think)

 

[Mitsurux]

Great video, loved the translation notes in the beautiful instruction manuals they used to put out. Felt like a company with a bunch of workers who were actually gamers.