Metal Wolf Chaos

[hanzo66]

Here's a video displaying the madness... (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Genl242_ZU8)
The plot: The President gets into a superpowered Mechsuit and goes around the country rampaging the country attempting to defeat his traitorous Vice President who has put the country under a dictatorial rule.
http://www.azillionthings.com/lookytouchy/metalwolf.jpg
America, F*** Yeah?

[Green Bean]

Are you a bad enough president to rescue the dudes?


:smallamused:

[Xuincherguixe]

I really, really want to play this game.

It's funny, but it seems that the game is extremely popular despite no one ever having played it.

[Artemician]

I really, really want to play this game.

It's funny, but it seems that the game is extremely popular despite no one ever having played it.

Because it's awesome.

[Rutee]

I included it in my SRW game (Which might just be how Hanzo heard about it).

NOTHING IS POINTLESS! BECAUSE I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THESE GREAT UNITED STATES!

Total awesome. And I watched the game on Youtube ^.^

[Tengu]

I really, really want to play this game.

It's funny, but it seems that the game is extremely popular despite no one ever having played it.

It's popular in Japan and was never released in other countries. Poop.

[hanzo66]

Actually I caught wind of it from TV Tropes. Found a link to that Video Digest thing. Then I talked about it on the Super Robot Wars thing.

[MeklorIlavator]

What I find really strange is that it at times seems frightening accurate about the "typical" American attitude, yet literally dial it up to 11. And I want this so very badly(they have a shark gun, a Shark gun, how is that not awesome?). Its depressing that they won't release it over here.

[Jibar]

TASTE MY MISSLE PUNCH!

If they released this overseas I would buy it in a heartbeat.
It's that perfect mixture of Totally Unbelieve, Pure Ridonkulas, and Cold Hard Action.

He grabs a missle in mid flight, and then punchs the Vice President's mech in the face!
Who would not want this game?
The President is punching the freakin' Vice President with a missle!
Missle!

[Dervag]

It's popular in Japan and was never released in other countries. Poop.It's too bizarre to sell in the US itself, and in most countries in the world the President of the United States is not an especially popular office.

I mean, do you expect people in Britain or Germany to buy a video game that leaves them thinking of President Bush rampaging around in a mecha? I don't.


What I find really strange is that it at times seems frightening accurate about the "typical" American attitude, yet literally dial it up to 11.How good is your information about the typical American attitude? I mean, I honestly think almost every American who saw this game would think it was ridiculous. And possibly awesome, depending on details.

[Jibar]

I mean, do you expect people in Britain or Germany to buy a video game that leaves them thinking of President Bush rampaging around in a mecha? I don't.

I'm British, and you may have noticed my minor explosions about the missle punch.
We can wait for one of our German colleagues to show up and voice their opinion.

[Green Bean]

How good is your information about the typical American attitude? I mean, I honestly think almost every American who saw this game would think it was ridiculous. And possibly awesome, depending on details.

Since the "typical" is in quotation marks, I assume MeklorIlavator meant it in the same sense that I, as a Canadian, am posting this from my igloo, while Jibar sips tea and gets into fights at football games.

[Artemician]

And of course here, we over in China Singapore here are justly proud of the game's unabashed attitude in dealing with relevant concepts like Justice and World Peace.

[Tengu]

It's too bizarre to sell in the US itself, and in most countries in the world the President of the United States is not an especially popular office.


Stupid attitudes that fill me with rage, both of'em. But not as much rage as the reason why SRW: OG games for PS2 aren't released outside Japan.

[Xuincherguixe]

Stupid attitudes that fill me with rage, both of'em. But not as much rage as the reason why SRW: OG games for PS2 aren't released outside Japan.

Wait, I'm not familiar with this. What reason is that?

[Tengu]

The western publisher wants all games with voices to be dubbed in English. Banpresto doesn't want to let them dub it, because they are afraid the dub might be of a horrible quality, not to mention that most fans would like to hear the original voices anyway.

Banpresto's stance is understandable here. Unlike the other one, which just speaks of close-minded "our language and culture is teh only right one!!1". In comparison, in Poland, which is a rather barbaric country, almost all games are available in both Polish and English languages, usually even in one package.

[Xuincherguixe]

The western publisher wants all games with voices to be dubbed in English. Banpresto doesn't want to let them dub it, because they are afraid the dub might be of a horrible quality, not to mention that most fans would like to hear the original voices anyway.

Yeah, that is pretty stupid.

[Rutee]

I mean, do you expect people in Britain or Germany to buy a video game that leaves them thinking of President Bush rampaging around in a mecha? I don't.
Who would confuse President Wilson with President Bush though? One is filled with awesome and win, and the other with fail and lose.

[SurlySeraph]

@^: Well, the vice president is named Richard...

[Count D20]

RE: super robot wars.
Can,t they just have both.
Also, I can't remember if I am punctuating my contractions right.

[Dervag]

Who would confuse President Wilson with President Bush though? One is filled with awesome and win, and the other with fail and lose.You have an excellent and compelling point, though Bush would probably do better as a mecha pilot than any other recent American president, since he was a competent enough fighter pilot not to hit the ground or be disqualified for being at risk of hitting thr ground.

I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if most non-Americans found the idea of the president of the United States rampaging around in a mecha and yelling things like "NOTHING IS MEANINGLESS! BECAUSE I AM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!" rather disturbing.

Funny, probably, but still disturbing.


I'm British, and you may have noticed my minor explosions about the missle punch.
We can wait for one of our German colleagues to show up and voice their opinion.In my defence, I did not know you were British, but instead thought you were a citizen of Utilitaria. While the British invented utilitarianism, they aren't all that much better at practising it than anyone else, so it was an honest mistake.


The western publisher wants all games with voices to be dubbed in English. Banpresto doesn't want to let them dub it, because they are afraid the dub might be of a horrible quality, not to mention that most fans would like to hear the original voices anyway.

Banpresto's stance is understandable here. Unlike the other one, which just speaks of close-minded "our language and culture is teh only right one!!1".On the contrary. It speaks just as loudly, if not more loudly, of a desire to avoid having games where the voicing is incomprehensible gibberish to most of the target market.

Only a tiny minority of Americans are as fluent in Japanese as in English, or even remotely as fluent. If a game whose dialogue is entirely in Japanese is released in America, it will get strange reviews ("gameplay good, but I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying, and there's no dubbing option.") Except for the small number of people whose Japanese is good, this is a reason for everyone to avoid spending their hard-earned money on the game. Thus, the game will never sell nearly as well as a game with English dubbing.

So for a Western game distributor, having the game include English dubbing is likely to increase sales by a very large factor, probably multiplying them by five or ten. And having the game with language entirely in Japanese will reduce sales by a very large factor, to the point where they may not sell enough copies of the game to make it worth the trouble they took to import them and distribute them to stores.

The same goes for games voiced in German or French or any other language. If people in your country don't almost all speak the language, having all the voices in the game speaking the language is going to be very bad for sales.

Thus, games released in Poland may have English dialog, but they are also released with Polish dialog. This is so ordinary Polish people, who may well speak little or no English, can understand what's going on. In the same way, some games released in America have Japanese dialog (such as some of the Ace Combat games), but also English dialog. That way, people who don't speak Japanese can understand the plot and hear any verbal warnings or comments spoken during play.

I don't think this is "our language and culture is teh only right one!!" at all. It's more like "our language is the only one our people can be counted on to speak, so if the game isn't in our language we won't sell nearly as many copies."

How many successful games in Japan have no Japanese dialog option?

[hanzo66]

Personally I would choose a game/anime dubbed just because I much prefer actually understanding stuff rather than being forced to read Subs, not that I have a hatred of Subs mind you.


Still, I fear for the day where we find that the War Budget has gone to making one of these things for our president of our Great United States. Then he will make sure people don't misunderestimate him ever again.

[Jibar]

In my defence, I did not know you were British, but instead thought you were a citizen of Utilitaria. While the British invented utilitarianism, they aren't all that much better at practising it than anyone else, so it was an honest mistake.

Then you are forgiven, and congratulated on knowing it was invented in Britain while I, the Philosophy student who has an exam on this is a week did not.

I must confess, the state of giant robot games outside of Japan worry me. We don't seem to get nearly as many as them, when you'd think giant robots would just sell themselves.

[Jibar]

In my defence, I did not know you were British, but instead thought you were a citizen of Utilitaria. While the British invented utilitarianism, they aren't all that much better at practising it than anyone else, so it was an honest mistake.

Then you are forgiven, and congratulated on knowing it was invented in Britain while I, the Philosophy student who has an exam on this is a week did not.

I must confess, the state of giant robot games outside of Japan worry me. We don't seem to get nearly as many as them, when you'd think giant robots would just sell themselves.

[Tengu]

On the contrary. It speaks just as loudly, if not more loudly, of a desire to avoid having games where the voicing is incomprehensible gibberish to most of the target market.

Only a tiny minority of Americans are as fluent in Japanese as in English, or even remotely as fluent. If a game whose dialogue is entirely in Japanese is released in America, it will get strange reviews ("gameplay good, but I couldn't understand a word anyone was saying, and there's no dubbing option.") Except for the small number of people whose Japanese is good, this is a reason for everyone to avoid spending their hard-earned money on the game. Thus, the game will never sell nearly as well as a game with English dubbing.


Your point would be completely valid if not for a single thing - each time someone says something in SRW, it's also subbed (and apart from combat there's usually text only, no voices). The only people who would complain are "I want everything 100% in American*!!1" purists and these too lazy to read the subtitles - and this is not Planescape: Torment, you don't drown in text here.

* - American instead of English used purposely.

Most games released in Poland in dual-language have the option of either English or Polish subtitles, but only English voices. Their sales weren't lower because of that, and titles who got this treatment were big, like Oblivion or Bioshock.

[hanzo66]

Well, from my experience Dubs nowadays are pretty decent (barring 4Kids, but that's more a censorship issue for me). For the SRW games they can try to have whomever dubbed the characters of the original series do their characters again. From what I've seen of a clip from End of Evangelion the dub for that one is actually pretty good (Tiffany Grant puts up a commendable performance).


Still, since we're talking of SRW, seeing some GREAT AMERICAN JUSTICE in that game would be awesome.

[Echowinds]

This game is hilarious.

[Dervag]

Your point would be completely valid if not for a single thing - each time someone says something in SRW, it's also subbed (and apart from combat there's usually text only, no voices). The only people who would complain are "I want everything 100% in American*!!1" purists and these too lazy to read the subtitles - and this is not Planescape: Torment, you don't drown in text here.OK. Hold on and think about it for a second.

From the point of view of an American, this is a game with subtitles and unintelligible speech (usually- very few Americans speak Japanese, as is true of most nations around the world).

Which isn't a crippling drawback, but it is a drawback. A somewhat annoying one. In the specific case of this game, it may not be a big important problem. But if you're a major game distributor, you deal in dozens of games. Maybe even a hundred or more.

You're not going to treat this game specially; you're going to have a corporate policy for your games. The policy may be "We only market games in [list of countries] if they have spoken dialogue available in the language of the country." Or it may be "We don't insist on dialogue in the local language, but we do insist on subtitles." Or anything else.

In this case, the corporate policy of American game distributors appears to be "we're not going to try to sell a game in the US if it doesn't have English dialogue." That doesn't mean they're being chauvinistic or stupid. By and large, corporations cannot afford to be chauvinistic about their games, especially when so many of their most popular games come from Japan anyway. It means that they honestly do not think the game will sell as well if it does not have English dialogue.

There are hundreds of other games on the market that do have English dialogue, which will give them an advantage in the English-speaking parts of the world. Dubbing is not a very expensive or difficult process. Yes, it can be done badly, but it's not that hard to do it right. Frankly, all you have to do is take the English translation of the script and e-mail it to a fluent English speaker; that really ought to be enough.

Why on Earth should a large corporation with dozens of game lines make a special exception for one game developer who refuses to stick to the company policy? Remember, they have that policy for a reason. Probably, they tried to sell games with no English dialogue and they didn't do well, or they did a study suggesting that games with no English dialogue would not do well.

If you want to blame the stupid Americans for preferring games with dialogue in their native language to games with subtitles and dialogue only in foreign languages that only a few Americans in a hundred speak, fine.

But that's a very strange thing to condemn people for. Most people in the world are like that, you know. There are many countries where you don't get the option, because it isn't cost effective to translate game dialogue into Polish because there aren't enough Polish-speakers who will buy the game. But it is definitely cost-effective to translate game dialogue into English, because there are millions of gamers who speak English.

Game distributors want to sell popular and profitable games, no matter what country they live in. Why do you expect them to sell a game they expect to be less profitable because its developers refuse to allow translation of the spoken dialogue?


American instead of English used purposely.Why? Did the game developers agree to translate it into a form of British English that is somehow impossible for Americans to understand?

Plenty of Americans would by a game with spoken dialogue and subtitles all written in British English. That wouldn't be a problem. Americans can UNDERSTAND British English.

But they don't speak Japanese.


Games released in Poland in dual-language have the option of either English or Polish subtitles, but only English voices. Their sales weren't lower because of that, and titles who got this treatment were big, like Oblivion or Bioshock.That's probably because the titles were big. Bioshock got good reviews all over the world, so Poles would buy it even if they couldn't understand what the characters were saying. The game you're talking about apparently doesn't have that advantage.

[Rutee]

Dubbing may not be /hard/ to do right, but it still has a semi tendency to not be done well. I think though, that most people inclined to SRW on a conceptual level (That is, the fans of big metal superheroes beating the hell out of each other) are perfectly fine with it being in Japanese, but I've been wrong before. I hear there's also issues with Compatible Kaiser though.. can't imagine what, it's totally original, so it shouldn't present a problem, but that's why they're rumors.

Also, Metal Wolf Chaos is already in most excellent English, though we know why that won't get released here.


Plenty of Americans would by a game with spoken dialogue and subtitles all written in British English. That wouldn't be a problem. Americans can UNDERSTAND British English.
We can?

[hanzo66]

I call people pillocks. Does that count?

[Dervag]

We can?Unless the speaker is talking quite fast or in a very odd dialect, yes. It's not impossible.

British English and American English are not different enough to be separate languages, and it is a pointless sneer to say Americans speak "American," not English. Yes, the pronunciation and spelling conventions are different. Yes, the accent is different enough that it can impede comprehension. But speakers of the two dialect clusters are close enough that they aren't speaking absolute gibberish, as English would sound to a pure Japanese speaker or Japanese would sound to a pure English speaker.

[Rutee]

...They're totally speaking gibberish like half the time. They really are speaking a seperate language. I mean listen to them. :smallbiggrin:

There was a note I forgot off the first page too... oh well, can't remember it. *Baps own head, sticks tongue out.*

[Tengu]

Why? Did the game developers agree to translate it into a form of British English that is somehow impossible for Americans to understand?

Plenty of Americans would by a game with spoken dialogue and subtitles all written in British English. That wouldn't be a problem. Americans can UNDERSTAND British English.

But they don't speak Japanese.

Missed my point. I meant that there is no such language as "American" (http://www.superdickery.com/propaganda/40.html).



That's probably because the titles were big. Bioshock got good reviews all over the world, so Poles would buy it even if they couldn't understand what the characters were saying. The game you're talking about apparently doesn't have that advantage.

Less-known games were also released in that way - as I said, it's a common way of translating video games in Poland.

As for the rest of your post, I'd like to second Rutee - most people who are interested in the SRW franchise and who would buy the PS2 versions would prefer to listen to original voices.

[Dervag]

Missed my point. I meant that there is no such language as "American" (http://www.superdickery.com/propaganda/40.html).OK, you're right, but the video game distributors don't believe such a language to exist, unless they're so dumb it's hard to imagine them still being in business. If the game had been produced by a British or Australian company, they wouldn't be having this problem- no dubbing would be required.

As it stands, the distributors are making a fairly harsh, but understandable demand. In my opinion, just as understandable as the original artists' refusal to agree to a dubbed version of their work.
___________________________________

The artists have a right not to allow the quality of their work to be diluted by a dubbing, but the distributors have a right not to take the risk of selling a product where all the dialogue is in a language most of their market doesn't speak. And they pretty much have to decide whether or not to take that risk across the board, for all games. That's the problem with being a corporation that handles dozens or hundreds of individual games- if you try to make unique exceptions for 'special' games, you'll end up taking a lot of risks that can cost the company money.

It sucks, because sometimes the company would be better off taking the risk. But it happens in all parts of the world, and not just in the United States. The more individual cases you have to handle, the more likely you are to construct a general policy to simplify your life- and the less likely you are to make exceptions to that policy for the sake of an individual case.

In the case of American game distributors, dubbing from Japanese into English is very common. By now, there's pretty much got to be a small industry of Japanese to English 'dubbers' who do this sort of thing all the time. Japanese companies will not have difficulty finding a competent dubber if they wish to do so.

And having the game dubbed into English is a significant bonus in English-speaking nations. It helps the distributor sell the product. It makes it more likely that the game will get good reviews in the English-speaking nations. Is it surprising that companies who make their daily living by selling games in an English-speaking country care about that?
_____________________________________


Less-known games were also released in that way - as I said, it's a common way of translating video games in Poland.OK. I misunderstood again.

However, I would point out that there's a good reason for this- subbing is much cheaper and easier to do than dubbing. If the target market is relatively small (the set of all Polish gamers, for instance), the reduced cost of subbing as opposed to dubbing may very well offset the reduced sales. If the games give you a 20$ profit margin per sale, and you only sell, say, 90% as many... if you were only going to sell twenty thousand copies to begin with then you lose 400 thousand dollars. If you were expecting to sell two hundred thousand copies, you stand to lose four million dollars.

For four million dollars it's worth paying someone to dub your game into the local language. For four hundred thousand, it might not be. For forty thousand it almost certainly wouldn't be.

If a game in Poland won't sell enough copies to make dubbing into Polish worthwhile for the small increase in sales to Poles, then very few games get dubbed into Polish. The US, with something like eight times the population of Poland and (probably) a proportionately larger gaming community, is a bigger market. This makes expensive marketing tactics like dubbing the game into the local language worthwhile in America, where they would not be worthwhile in Poland. Or, for that matter, Australia- if Australia were the only place in the world anyone spoke English, almost nobody would bother to dub games into English. There aren't likely to be enough Australian gamers to make it worth the cost.
__________________________________


As for the rest of your post, I'd like to second Rutee - most people who are interested in the SRW franchise and who would buy the PS2 versions would prefer to listen to original voices.OK. That's a very relevant fact, but do the game distributors know that? Can they count on that, so that a guy in their marketing department could stake his career on the fact?

At this point, the problem isn't that the game distributors are being pigheaded. The problem is that they don't understand the niche market they'd be selling SRW to. Most of their customers, like most people around the world, are likely to prefer games spoken in their own language, if they can get them. The market for the SRW franchise may be an exception or they may not, but unless the company goes to a LOT of effort to find out (an effort that might well cost them a large fraction of their hypothetical profits on the game), they don't know that. Even if they do find that out they're essentially placing a bet on it: "Can we make a profit on a game in which none of the characters speak English?"

if the answer is "maybe, but we can't be sure," then company executives are likely to say:

"Forget it, stick to the policy. If those developers want to sell their game in America, fine. Let them make a dubbed version. If they want to include the original Japanese dialogue as an option, fine, but they need an English dub. We have a policy of not selling games in which all the characters are saying things only five or ten percent of our market can understand."
_________________________________________________

This kind of thing happens all the time, all over the world. It isn't some sort of unique American evil. As China becomes one of the world's most largest game markets, I bet you'll see them doing it too. If you don't see Japan doing it, it's probably mostly because so many of the world's best games are already in Japanese.

[Tengu]

Yes, I understand that it's not an inherently American attitude. Their policies make sense from a company's point of view too, as the most important thing of every company is to generate income. But it still doesn't change the fact that I'm pissed they couldn't make any sort of understanding, and that in this tragic comedy all three actors suffer, but the one with least power, the customer, most.

Of course, there's an alternative - learn Japanese and import their games on your own! In fact, I could do that even without learning the language, in case of Metal Wolf Panic... Hmm, now I'm tempted...

[Rutee]

Do note that Metal Wolf Chaos is X-block.

Personally I already know the OGs and OGG plot, so I'm not missing too much. But it'd be fun to play it with much better graphics.

[Tengu]

Do note that Metal Wolf Chaos is X-block.


Gah! I'm not buying Frat-Boyx just to play a single game (apologies to all three X-Box owners who are not frat boys). Okay, back to plan A - finding a store that will sell and ship an English version of Disgaea for less money than a small car.

[hanzo66]

Well, there is a guy who did a playthrough of the entire game.

http://www.vimeo.com/user333007/videos

[Xuincherguixe]

Well, there is a guy who did a playthrough of the entire game.

http://www.vimeo.com/user333007/videos

And here's an example of hard to understand American English :P

But if you want confusing, listen to Newfoundland English.

[hanzo66]

Don't worry, that's what we in the States would call "Bats*** insane dialogue* as well.

[Xuincherguixe]

Don't worry, that's what we in the States would call "Bats*** insane dialogue* as well.

No, I mean the person playing the game.