Japanese Torchlight Never Existed, Gets Canceled Anyway [UPDATE]

[John Funk]

Japanese Torchlight Never Existed, Gets Canceled Anyway [UPDATE]

The Japanese-localized version of Torchlight for XBLA has been canceled, which is a good thing because it never existed in the first place.

Bad news, everyone: Torchlight isn't coming out for Xbox Live Arcade in Japan. It's a shame, really - sure, the Xbox 360 is dead in the water in Japan, but there were probably a few Japanese gamers looking forward to playing Runic's excellent [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/reviews/6697-Review-Torchlight] dungeon-looter.

The unfortunate news was broken by Microsoft Japan [http://www.xbox.com/ja-JP/support/info_110309], who attributed the game's cancellation to a bug in the game's text. That must have been one pretty whopping severe bug, but hey, Japanese is a complicated language, right? Better luck next time, Microsoft.

Except Runic Games says that a Japanese version of Torchlight never existed at all. Runic president Travis Baldree told Joystiq [http://www.joystiq.com/2011/03/09/torchlight-xbla-cancelled-in-japan-due-to-text-bug/]:

[blockquote]We're not privy to the decision making process in providing the game in Japan - but it was not due to bugs in the translation because the game has never been translated to Japanese. Since there was no existing Japanese version of the game, the complexity of a new translation combined with the randomly generated naming scheme for Torchlight made it beyond the scope of the project.[/blockquote]

Abwuh?

There's a saying about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing, and that probably goes double when one hand is in Washington State and the other is in Tokyo. But you'd think that there'd at least be some communication on whether or not a game is actually being localized.

It's probably a good thing that the Japanese Torchlight was canceled, then, or else that release date for a nonexistent game would have been pretty embarrassing.

UPDATE: Microsoft has clarified the situation with the following statement: "We made the decision to not launch "Torchlight" on Xbox Live Arcade in Japan due to localization complexities; not due to bugs. We apologize for any inconvenience."

(Joystiq [http://www.famitsu.com/news/201103/09041319.html])

Permalink

 

[Aedes]

Amn... alright.
I can only think on "lol wut?" here.

 

[Megacherv]

Sooooooooo... they canceled it because they couldn't translate it? Weak

I've settled for less than that, MegaMan StarForce 2 wasn't released in Europe because they couldn't be bothered releasing it here, same with StarForce 3

 

[Erana]

The Japanese typically do have at least a rudimentary understanding of our alphabet; they could have left the names and gone through with translating the dialogue. I mean, it wouldn't be the best translation, but it would be managable.

Except, of course, how did this communication error happen in the first place?

 

[Atmos Duality]

Translation:
Microsoft: "Japan is already a weak market for us, so rather than sink a ton of money to do localization and pay tariffs (because we aren't a Japanese company), we decided to shitcan the entire thing."

Uh, yeah. I'm not buying the "It's too hard to translate" line.

The technical difficulty of the localization would prove more difficult than usual, sure, but certainly nothing worth canning an entire localization over. I mean come on; there are shitloads of EnglishJapanese translators out there with YEARS upon YEARS of experience!

Hell, even Ted Woolsey is the director of first party publishing for XBLA; he should have been able to provide assistance with finding a translator who could do the job. Or (if he wasn't too busy) he could have done it HIMSELF. He's only been doing those exact sorts of translations for two decades!

So lets cut the bullshit Microsoft, and just admit that this is purely a market decision. They must have figured that the cost of localization is much greater than the profit they can get out of it.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Torchlight is very bad anyways. I regret buying it. And I love games like Diablo II and Titan Quest. Torchlight was just. Awful.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

So don't translate it yet offer it anyway.... uhg and they wonder why people pirate..

 

[Exterminas]

... why the hell do you have to translate a game like Torchlight anyway?
We don't translate most of the japanese porn and do just fine.

Torchlight probably is less story-intensive than most hentai movies...

 

[Brainst0rm]

Torchlight is very bad anyways. I regret buying it. And I love games like Diablo II and Titan Quest. Torchlight was just. Awful.

Um, care to justify your opinion? I happen to love Torchlight - the story was lame, but it's not a story-focused game, and it's not pretending to be. I always appreciate honesty in game design.

 

[BENZOOKA]

Torchlight is very bad anyways. I regret buying it. And I love games like Diablo II and Titan Quest. Torchlight was just. Awful.

Um, care to justify your opinion? I happen to love Torchlight - the story was lame, but it's not a story-focused game, and it's not pretending to be. I always appreciate honesty in game design.

Well, I don't need to justify why I don't like something, but I usually don't care for the story, so that had nothing to do with it. It's just the gameplay as a whole. I didn't like the crammed environments. I didn't like the look of the graphics nor characters. As I moved forward I didn't feel the need to focus on items or skills. It had just too much everything and the pace was completely off. I can't really pick any particular part or aspect of it that I liked. I didn't play it for more than a couple hours, but after the very beginning excitement and expectations, I didn't find it enjoyable, at all. I didn't expect it to be like Titan Quest or expect it to rock my world, but it didn't even hold my interest, which is not much of a task. It just wasn't for me.

 

[Tom Phoenix]

Em, yeah...considering how many RPGs specificially-catered to the Japanese market are released, I am preety sure nobody in Japan is crying over this.

 

[Magners]

Were you playing on Normal ? It even says not to play on Normal if you have played this sort of game before and also I think people can have their own opinion but saying Torchlight is awful is simply wrong, you may not like a game but you must have the intelligence to accept that is a good game.

An example of that would be how I am not too fond of Half-Life but I know it's an excellent game.

 

[antigodoflife]

My head hurts... what did i just read... It confuzzled me...

 

[Nalgas D. Lemur]

Torchlight is very bad anyways. I regret buying it. And I love games like Diablo II and Titan Quest. Torchlight was just. Awful.

It was nowhere near as much fun as Titan Quest, which is still my favorite game in the genre, but I wouldn't go quite that far. It didn't have a whole lot of depth, and it was waaaaaay too easy even on Very Hard (get exploding shot, hold right mouse button, win game), but I at least thought it was worth the $5 on sale for a single run through it. Awful's being a little harsh. At the very least it was pretty polished and extremely well supported, even if you personally didn't enjoy it and it was kind of an "ARPG lite".