While it may be true that this game is probably not hard to play in japanese, my comment was not just meant for this one, but for every japanese game. An RPG for example, would be a much different case…and sadly, most JRPGs released in the US still force you to listen to dubbed voices instead of the original ones (aside other changes).

Besides, let´s not forget that we don´t know yet what will be changed for this game (if anything). It could be more than just a song…

The argument of people not liking the J-pop song doesn´t work for me… If it were that, then I could say that there´s probably several people that wouldn´t like the replacement song either, or that you never know which song would appeal to most people.

And like I said before, in terms of music, language doesn´t matter much (and the meaning could be seen through subtitles). After all, there has been several songs in different languages that have been popular in the US before (or other countries). I don´t know why people assume that because a song is in japanese, US people won´t like it. And this localization is not only for people in the US, but for people in Canada and Latin America as well, and it could even be used for Europe.

Just like a movie is not changed to appeal to a different culture (aside dubbing, which is always optional and secondary), I think that games (which I also consider a form of art) shouldn´t be changed either. And I don´t see much western games that are changed to appeal other cultures, just a few exceptions (which are mostly for Asia, but not for Europe, Latin America or other countries).

While I agree that it would be nice to have a third option, I personally think it’s totally fair to have those 2 choices. At least we *can* import it now, thank god (or Nintendo) that the DS is region free. This game’s language barrier is about as small as it gets and I’ve had no problems with it whatsoever. If you want to play it in Japanese you’re gonna have to go through a few minutes of extra trouble, it’s as simple as that. Not completely unfair.

I do agree that it’s better to play a game as an original, but let’s face it, not everyone’s gonna like the catchy Jpop and most people are gonna want to know what they’re singing in the game. They’re going to want to make this game as accessible as they can for the American market. It’d be nice to have an option in the option screen, I suppose, but music simply takes up too much space on the DS (as far as I’m aware of, anyway).

Well, when I wrote “editors”, I didn´t mean just translators… After all, there´s several localization issues in gaming aside language. But yes, you´re right, and I´m aware that translators/editors are not the ones that choose the direction of the localization (at least, most of the time). I blame those who make these decisions…(and people, they´re the worst…)

Maybe I´m wrong, but I even think that most translators out there would agree with me (hopefully, you´re one of them), and like I mentioned before, not all publishers do the same.

I´m sorry if my comment offended you, or other translators out there. May the force be with you…err, I mean…good luck to you guys.

The decisions don’t come from the translators. Sometimes the choice to change these things comes from the marketing department.

Please, leave us translators alone. It’s not always our fault.

I don´t understand why some people can´t embrace, or at least accept the fact that as a japanese game, it´s supposed to be influenced by it´s culture, just like US games or from other countries are. Disrespecting its original form, is like disrespecting the game itself in my opinion.

It´s a shame that for those of us that think this way, we are most of the time forced to choose between a “westernalized” game, or playing the original one without understanding it (or learning Japanese… which is no piece of cake as far as I know). I´m always thankful for those publishers that have enough respect for the original game and/or for those gamers that think like me, like Atlus, NIS or Aksys to name a few.

By the way, I don´t think that language is really important in music, but the music itself is. I never agreed with the idea of a song being translated to other language, because if you do that, it´s clearly not the same song anymore (and I´m not even refering to when the singer is not the same). The importance of the lyrics in a song is its sound, and the meaning doesn´t matter music-wise.

PS: It´s the first time I hear about Jet Impulse… looks great…