Curious to see others opinions on Working Designs if it was a new company....

[LINK398]

Basically does anyone think Working Designs would be as relevant as it is or have as many fans as it does if it was a new company that formed say within the last decade or so something along that. Reason being is that in my opinion their are a lot more publishers that seem to specialize in bringing strange Japanese titles to the US that end up becoming hits. Examples are Xseed and NIS for sure. The biggest one is probably Atlus which was probably the second company after Working Designs that started to do this. Don't get me wrong I definetely think that these companies were influenced by Working Designs even though it was a small company. these companies also seem to provide great localizations as well as packaging extras with the first releases of their games. There's no question that Working Designs was probably the first and they were around at a point in gaming where things like this just weren't normal and they were also appreciated by many people. Too bad the company is no more I'm curious as to what games they would have brought over

[cj_iwakura]

The founder has a new company, Gaijinworks.

Er, he'll release their first game eventually, honest.


As much as I love Aksys and XSeed's niche dealings, they're all playing on the stage Working Designs built, so I'll always have love for them. I liked that they didn't mind going the extra mile to make a game appealing for a local crowd, even though they took some(okay, a lot) of liberties every now and then.

[Aeolus]

This thread sums up my thoughts on what Working Designs would be like in today's environment.

[Ranadiel]

Loved Working Designs games. I think they were magnificent and had some decent translations(although I remember there is a Bill Clinton joke in one of them.....so some what dated localizations). I was quite sad when I learned that they were going under years ago. However the writing was always on the wall considering how long it took them to translate any game. I don't think the company could work in today's market without some serious revamping of whatever was causing those delays.

[Lard]

I liked their ambition, but I think I'd end up skipping a lot of their games now, if they were new, if they had kept the same style of localisation.

Their humour was forced and shitty, and I cringed at it back in the day. I can't imagine people not ripping it apart now.

[daved]

I liked their ambition, but I think I'd end up skipping a lot of their games now, if they were new, if they had kept the same style of localisation.

Their humour was forced and shitty, and I cringed at it back in the day. I can't imagine people not ripping it apart now.

I think they did a great job with the localization of Growlanser Generations (II & III).  I never played any other WD games, but I've heard they made a lot of pop culture references.  However, I don't remember them adding any really obvious ones in the Growlanser games; perhaps they avoided it because the subject matter is so serious (lands being torn apart by war). 

[Aeolus]

I liked their ambition, but I think I'd end up skipping a lot of their games now, if they were new, if they had kept the same style of localisation.

Their humour was forced and shitty, and I cringed at it back in the day. I can't imagine people not ripping it apart now.

I think they did a great job with the localization of Growlanser Generations (II & III).  I never played any other WD games, but I've heard they made a lot of pop culture references.  However, I don't remember them adding any really obvious ones in the Growlanser games; perhaps they avoided it because the subject matter is so serious (lands being torn apart by war). 

Still didn't keep them from having some of the principle female party members talk like valley girls since they've always got to have one of those in every game they localize.

[MeshGearFox]

I thought Arc's translation was fine. Alundra's was pretty obnoxious.

The forced, unfunny humor actually /worked/ in Lunar for some reason.

[Lard]

Lunar's is the one that grates on me the most.

To be fair, I haven't played Growlanser 2 & 3 yet.