Magic Knight Rayearth (Saturn): JP vs. US gameplay

[@bhelish]

Working Designs was the definition of high effort low quality localizations.

[@jackylee5850]

Indeed, especially if a player knows Japanese, one look at their localized dialogues and you can tell that it doesn't come anywhere close to it's original meaning

[@gurriato]

Rayearth for the Saturn is a near perfect anime adaptation. It is a solid enough game that can be enjoyed on its own, but also simple and easy enough so that fans of the show can play it even if this genre of games is not their forte. Along the way, there's plenty of dialogue either taken from the original or expanding on it, following the characters' personalities. The decision to turn this into a hardcore game with one hit kills and remove spoken dialogue was completely tone deaf, though not surprising coming from Working Designs.

[@Pan_Z]

They earned the nickname "Wrecking Designs" for a reason.

[@joeyarcade5865]

"Oh yeah, she could toss my salad any time"...this is an actuall line from the english version. I'm not kidding! One of the bystanders in the ice village sais it when caldina is dancing. Working Design really knows how to trash a game.

[@marakarthegreat]

Id rather be stuck reading text that I can't understand than hearing the half-assed voice acting.

[@SuperPlaytendo]

The cutscenes are fully voiced in the Japanese version but are silent in the English version. Interesting.

[@jackylee5850]

Voice acting isn't cheap, it applies to both sides, but the Japanese are just willing to go that extra mile than their western counterparts.

[@thereaper9149]

So is the Japanese version worth grabbing if I’m not gonna pay 1,200 for a copy lol fucking insane the prices right now.

[@STBill]

1 person is Working Designs.

[@TheSalamanderMenace4]

1 other person is also from working designs

[@SpiralPegasus]

Whoa! Never knew Magic Knight Rayearth had an _action game_ in _english_! Thanks for letting me know!!

[@SupperTails66]

Yeah, it's a pretty fun game, but choose the version you play carefully: * Only the Japanese version has full voice acting; nearly all of it was removed in the US release. * The US version has Working Designs dialogue rewrites which, while less vile and in-your-face than the Lunar games, are still very common and quite out of place. * The US version is, obviously, much harder.

[@samuraigundam0079]

SupperTails66 I have the U.S. version, and I've read that Working Designs fixed a lot of the slow down that was supposedly present in the Japanese version, and that WD included new material that was given to them by the Japanese designers. But yeah, that dialogue lacks the intricacies of the story, in favor of a more light hearted tone, which is unfortunate.

[@aegisofhonor]

the JP version can be gotten for $20...the US version? "laughs" you can't touch it in box for less then $300 now due to the massive collector market. and yes, the JP version is superior in many ways, though the US version does add some extra features not seen in the JP version.

[@MikeyFADE]

@@aegisofhonor is the jp version playable if you only know basic japanese?

[@ZidaneFooty]

@@aegisofhonor what features?

[@Mchenrygames]

thanks for sharing your work, cant wait to try it

[@timkasansky2528]

so the japanese one is even easier than the localized version? it probably isn't even fun then.

[@suprshin]

Working Design was the MVP for JRPGs. Atlus would be the comparable company today.

[@gurriato]

Working Designs was a plague for JRPGs and for videogames in general.

[@AssociationAdmirer]

The difficulty is indeed absurd - absurdly easy. It blew my mind when I learned that the Japanese version of MKR is even easier than the North American version. And I'm not even very good at overhead action games! This is hardly the first instance I've learned of where a localization team had to ramp up the difficulty on a Japanese game that was balanced so that a player with their dominant arm amputated could complete it without trouble, but this one takes the cake.

[@jackylee5850]

They were notorious for raising the difficulty by buffing the enemies while debuffing the players, this was all done to make sure players don't beat it too quickly and return the game to the rental shop, since game rental was still a big thing back then in North America. They did the same thing to Popful Mail too, and that's why there's so many patches nowadays that undo the changes in their games and revert it back to the Japanese original, and you'll find that the developer really just intended to create a lighthearted relaxing game instead of a stressful one. Pretty much any game that working designs had involvement in, the original is way easier.

[@AssociationAdmirer]

@@jackylee5850 Oh, it's not just Working Designs. Market research has found Japanese people like their games very easy, while Americans like them harder, and Europeans like them much harder still - and developers and localization teams have taken this into account. Sega themselves cranked up the difficulty for American and European releases of games like Astal and Virtual Hydlide. There are also plenty of Japanese localizations of games from other countries where the difficulty has been completely nerfed, like Mr. Bones.