A great interview with a guy who’s had a huge impact on the king of RPGs. These days, it’s a brave and rare thing for someone in loc to be visible, and some of the replies/quotes to this kinda drive that point home. I can only imagine how much worse it is on the other place.

RPG Site@rpgsite.net · 7d ago

"Ultimately, both Yoshida and Soken are entertainers, and (I hope!) appreciate my attempts at maintaining that sense of entertainment in my interpretations" - Koji Fox on localization, Final Fantasy XIV, FF16, books, Shantotto's dialogue, The Primals, coffee, & more: www.rpgsite.net/interview/21...

your junes #persona4

I was speaking to a localizer once of a well-loved series - to the point where the publisher knows full-well that localization is a big part of why it is successful in the west - and they remarked "What if [localizer] gets in a car wreck? They're the VOICE of that character. We'd be screwed."

Trick Weekes@trickweekes.bsky.social · last mo.

One of the things that, as lead writer, I had to bang into the head of senior leadership sometimes was that writers were not interchangeable even within a project. One writer knew a certain companion inside and out. When we lost that writer, a new writer coming in took twice as long to do the work.

I started Dragon Quest III HD with the lords of fast food performing their most epic collab ever. I have set them all to auto battle for the entire game for I am but an observer on this Burger Odyssey

In 2022, I wasn't feeling FFXVI, so I said I would play the entire main line series again, and only *then* would I play it. I also said that by the time I got there, surely FFXIII would be available a console I actually have plugged in. Well I just platinumed FFXII and dear reader, I was wrong

The Guild games were my first experience with having work become inaccessible and it sucks. If there’s anything that could save them though, it’s people who aren’t gonna stand for something Matsuno made being buried forever

Kimimi🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️@kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com · 3mo ago

It's absolutely criminal that Crimson Shroud hasn't been ported to anything. That game deserves so much love! kimimithegameeatingshemonster.com/2021/09/20/d...

Everybody posting about FFV as their first import and I’m over here in the “THERE WAS A FIVE?” club when FF7 revealed the tangled Western Final Fantasy travesty

So you're telling me that with the humans out of the picture, the Pokemon no longer fight, offer their labor for the benefit of the community, barter for goods, and build primarily clean energy to power their homes? ...Makes you think

I usually just admire all the "get to know me" "30 days of..." and grid-things like this from afar, because I tell myself I do not need the engagement and it works. But this one was unhinged enough to pull me back in to Posting

Finally

Going to Japan for the first time in 11 years tomorrow! It’s a business trip and I’ve got wall to wall meetings all week, but drop me a line if you wanna say hi and I’ll uh… try to make it happen

The full map to the original Castlevania. This is a brilliant map. Despite seeing a map in between stages, you don't really think about how it all connects, but the flow lines up almost perfectly making one cohesive castle.

The smattering of games I finished this year. It was neat to escape my JRPG enclosure for a few of these and clear some things I’d meant to do 5-25 years ago. I remain adamant that playing games years late is the way: less discourse, fewer bugs, and whole content updates!

Fired up an old iPad and got to read about 8 tweets from 2022. Man

Google Photos: remember that time you captured the perfect shot of the golden hour? The shot:

KIRYU-CHAN! 🔪✨ #yakuza

If your game has voice acting, then working with the voice actors is half of your writing process. It's not complete until you've heard it interpreted and reimagined by a voice actor. And they always reimagine it in ways that elevate the writing, in ways you never would have imagined yourself.

I love them all actually but putting a few moments out there that have stuck with me

John Ricciardi@johntv.bsky.social · 11mo ago

If I could add more the next two would probably be FF7 and FF14

Bless the fine people at Square Enix who decided to put the actual logo of FFT on the package spine instead of that terrible “arial black on white” that they’ve defaulted to for a decade plus. You have some of the most beautiful art, logos, and fonts in the industry!Keep using them!

This is an amazing bit of localization history, touching on A Link to the Past, Super Mario 64, Pokemon, and Animal Crossing!

Time Extension@timeextension.com · 12mo ago

Interview: "We Did Try To Keep 'Forest' In The Name" - How Mario 64's Princess Peach Helped Bring Animal Crossing To The West.

To this day there is a certain subset of people who seem to think that Japanese is a sterile, wooden language (and thus, wooden translations are more “”accurate””) when the real Japanese is infinitely more creative than they could ever imagine

10 years ago my boss asked me if I’d ever want to dub Yakuza 0 - I was like, Nahhh. But life comes at you slow, and I’m glad we had 10 years (in the joint) to prepare for the challenge. THANK YOU to the entire team, cast, and crew who made it possible, and enjoy the game!

Having a real 8 day so far, will be 9 by the end

Food for thought. External QA, animators, voice actors, and musicians deserve to be part of the narrative of game makers.

No, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 wasn't "made" by 30 people

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's credits are a lot bigger than "30 developers".

rockpapershotgun.com

Every store: Thanks for shopping with us! Now if you would kindly leave us a 500 word, 5 star review essay on Yelp, rate your customer service associate, [Jeremy] with another 5 stars, and take this short (15 min.) survey about your experience for a chance to win a FREE taco? WE VALUE YOUR FEEDBACK

I don't mean to go back to the Game Awards; we all know the troubles. BUT — Metaphor winning Best Narrative is the first Japanese to English localization title to achieve that in the show's 10 years. And yeah, "down year", dearth of "prestige" AAA titles to compete against, I know all that. (1/3)

Proud of Metaphor, proud of my team, proud we got to have a part in casting this magic. If you played it, I hope it connected with you.

Shoutout to the amazing interpreters working during the Game Awards tonight! You all did such an amazing job❤️

Being localization producer on Geoff Keighley’s RPG of the Year was not on my life’s bingo card …which is a shame because now that it happened I can’t shout bingo.

Sooo more Theatrhythm DLC when