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Alan Wake Screenshots Straight From Japan

By Spencer . April 20, 2010 . 2:09pm

Microsoft is giving Alan Wake a full localization in Japan. They got Shunsuke Sakuya who did some voice work for Final Fantasy X as Rin and Darker than Black to voice Alan Wake, the main character. Alan Wake has Japanese text too.

Fully localized and story driven? Maybe Alan Wake has a chance for decent sales in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Read more stories about Alan Wake & Microsoft & Remedy & Screenshots & Xbox 360 on Siliconera.

Hraesvelgr

And the sad thing is, these screenshots are almost more than they’ve shown of the game to us western gamers.
Aoshi00

Not too familiar w/ Sakuya Shunsuke, just looked him up doesn’t look like he did many major anime voice roles. Rin was the travel agent in FFX right, don’t remember what his Jpn voice was like, but the Eng one was very unique.. You know if this is dual track like Heavy Rain? I imported Heavy Rain because of the excellent Jpn cast. Wonder if the Jpn LE would have the Alan Wake novel translated too… I think I’m just staying w/ the US LE..
- http://www.siliconera.com Spencer
  
  Good question! I only heard about the Japanese dub, unfortunately. They have the limited edition though with the book. It would be kinda silly to sell it in Japan in English. On the other hand, some US games were sold in Japan, with English manuals and a Japanese instruction sheets so…
  - Aoshi00
    
    I’m surprised they actually dub it in Jpn because all the trailers shown so far were in Eng. You can never tell, Mass Effect only has Eng. dialog and Jpn sub, Uncharted 1/2 is dual track so are Heavy Rain/ Ratchet1/2 /Gears of War 1/2, Bioshock 1 only had Jpn dub but no Eng. dub, and Bioshock 2 has Eng. dub and Jpn sub only.. need to do a lot of digging first…
    
    I just looked at the website, says a limited 9,999 copies in print, the ironic thing is can they sell them all…? I know people in Jpn who have played Heavy Rain really digged it, of course that’s still not that many people looking at the big picture.
    
    http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/games/splash/a/alanwake/limited.htm
    
    Translated Alan Wake novel wouldn’t be genuine though :) I don’t think I need to import this, the Jpn Uncharted dub was pretty weird anyway, not that it’s bad, but the Eng. dub was just too good because the original voice actors acted out the scenes in mo-cap. Don’t see any info on the other seiyuu, probably no biggie…
Chow

Correct me if I’m remembering this differently, but isn’t there the same fascination in Japan as there is in North America about having a foreign language track in their games? It was something like being less able to detect good/bad voice acting in a language you’re not adept at. I can’t remember where I read that, but Siliconera seems one of the likely candidates, citing the International versions of games released in Japan.
- Aoshi00
  
  I don’t think so, it really depends.. on one hand, it’s definitely easier for Jpn gamers to play the game if it has Jpn dialogue, so they can concentrate playing instead of reading bean-sized subtitles. But on the other hand, for games like Alan Wake, Uncharted, Heavy Rain, that are clearly from the West like Hollywood movies, I’m sure some people would feel English is more appropriate in terms of atmosphere and setting, even w/ the trade off of inconvenience of reading subtitles. I think the difference is watching foreign movies in their original languages w/ sub is easier than playing games in a language you don’t understand.
  
  I think most gamers would appreciate thorough localization though, like Splinter Cell Conviction will be dubbed in Jpn w/ a veteran cast, instead of just having some subtitles slapped on a final product. W/ more languages to choose it would never hurt right? Another example is the movie Harry Potter maybe, it’s dual track of course like most Hollywood movies released in Jpn, some people would feel easier to understand the story listening to the Jpn dub first, but once they have a good grasp of the story, they might be interested in viewing the movie the 2nd time in the original English dialogue, so they could see the true acting and learn some English too right?
  
  There are many logical reasons why people enjoy both dub or sub, I can’t stand people who dismiss one or the other…
- gar3
  
  I can’t speak for all Japan but my Japanese nephew likes to have Japanese audio and English subtitles or vice-versa running in the games he plays. The reason being he gets an extra English language study in that way, heh. He likes to play games and if he learns something along the way that justifies any time spent with it to him.

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