A Look At Lux Pain’s Localization (Update)

go go Ignition Entertainment my wallet dies again!
can’t till next year! year of portables again.

I’m surprised they didn’t change everyone’s names to Western names as they did Phoenix Wright, Jake Hunter, or Time Hollow. I suppose those games needed to retain the puns for characters’ names for a good localization.

I love when new guys step in and suddenly turn into publishing heroes.

aksys, xseed, Atlus, NISA… say hello to ignition!

massive thumbs down to O3 and UFO for not respecting their customers.

i’m definitely picking this up because i love adventure games and I want to support ignition for not westernizing the names. I don’t mind westernized names, but sometimes the new names are worse then the japanese names.

It’s kinda strange when games or TV series get “westernized” but the graphics still scream “hello we’re in Japan” though…

And now the question: this game has tons of voice acting (featuring some prominent japanese voice actors) for a DS game, what about it? Dub or no?

@Chris: yeah that tends to bother me too, especially if they call the city/town, a western city/town as opposed to making up a name. So i’m very happy ignition didn’t go that way. It’s like they think we’re so ignorant we won’t notice all the blatant japanese things in the game. And frankly what’s wrong with playing as a japanese person rather than a western/white person, unless your racist. That’s one of the things that bothered me about the localization of Phoenix Wright. I loved the localization, but why did they have to insist that PW is taking place in America, when there are SO MANY japanese cultural references. Just take a look at Maya and her village, there is no way you can convince me that it’s not based off of Japanese culture. But whatever, I was still able to enjoy PW, it’s not fatal to a game’s enjoyment, but I just don’t understand it.

As for dubbing, I don’t mind as long as we get a decent job. There is actual logic behind changing the japanese voices to english voices; NA is, after all, an english speaking region.

Yeah, the spiritualism /Jpn culture part is a little far-fetched, eg. Morgan Fey’s ‘do :) But I thought Phoenix Wright has one of the best video games localizations ever (numerous typo withstanding) retaining the jokes and references, in some cases, surpassing the original.

No doubt the alternate Western names are more endearing and natural to the US audience. I like both versions fine. But to average gamer (other than anime fans), I’m sure Phoenix Wright, Maya Fey, Miles Edgeworth, Franziska von Karma, & Apollo Justice are much more meaningful sounding than Naruhodo Ryuuichi, Ayasato Mayoi, Mitsurugi Kenji, Karuma Mei, and Odoroki Housuke. Not to mention a lot of thought has gone in to retaining the intended puns. I especially commend the part they make Franziska being from Germany. In the Jpn version, of course Phoenix is Japanese and Franziska is an American.

I still haven’t finished Lux Pain yet though, haven’t touched my DS in a while, a lot of catching up to do.

Yes, there is a huge amount of dialog in Lux Pain, so a lot of dubbing would need to be done (the volume is a little low on the Jpn game unless one uses the headphone). Even though dubbing these days in games is generally good, it’s hard for me to get into RPGs w/ Eng. dialogue, so I import most of them like Persona 4, unless the US version has dual tracks.

@Aoshi: I can’t argue with how great the PW localization is, for I too enjoyed it. And you make a valid point about the name changes, capcom really did give it their all. Maybe it’s a little too much to expect the names to be western yet the setting to be japan and the characters to be japanese. I think that would confuse and irritate more people then not. I’m in the minority here, I know. XD