Does Namco Hate America?

[SpiritMacardi]

Frankly in a world where Sonic has already made a complete idiot of himself, I find Namco to be the only classic 3rd party developer that still has any dignity left. Though regardless of how much I love their games, I sense that the feelings are not mutual. Ever heard of a game series called Klonoa? Probably not, which leads me to the point at-hand. It seems Namco keeps making excuses as to why they refuse to release the remaining games in the US, mainly claiming it was due to lack of sales of the previous. Now most developers know that in order to make money from a game, you need to do a lot of advertising and give notice of the release. Not good ol' Namco. The Klonoa series games were all released under the radar without any advertisment, and yet the company wonders why no one buys the games. Is this a joke? It seems almost purposeful. Klonoa isn't even the only example of odd behavior. Both Tales of the Abyss and Tales of the World: Radient Mythology had absolutely beautiful opening songs in the Japanese versions, but they were cut for no reason from the US release and replaced with horrible synthesized tunes. The Tales series has also been released under the radar, despite them being wonderful RPGs with some of the best stories I've ever seen. What also comes as a major disappointment is the US release of the Tales of Phantasia remake for GBA. It was littered with engrish and misspelled names. They actually translated "Ragnarok" as "Kangaroo". Is Namco just making excuses to try and screw their American audience?

Send me replies to what you think about this. I always love hearing alternate insight.

 

[Melty Blood]

Eventually I'm just gonna move to Japan, learn the damn language myself, and play the raw games.

 

[monodiabloloco]

I know how you feel on that. It's not just Namco though. There are so many games that just never get seen here, or come in without a peep, OR when they do come, they take forever to get here (I'm lookin' at you DS re-remake of FF IV.) . It's pretty sad too. Especially now that there are so many American 'otaku' out there who jump all over anything Japanese. You would think that they would take advantage of that and send them over. Heck, the bigger titles have people making translation patches for most languages out there. You think they would take that as a hint to release overseas. Heck how expensive can it really be to just implement multi-language options and ship a few here and there to see how well they sell?

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

 

[EGOinside]

"Ragnarok" as "Kangaroo? are you sure? why would they translate a word thats not japanese?

I think the real reason might be poor sales of other titles and japan has always done this - played darkstalkers by capcom? it's pretty good all 1v1 2d fighter fans it's a must. I mean the Metriod series didn't really sell well orginally in the west. find a good importer store it's the only option.

I was also thinking that - know you have langauge options on a dvd why hasn't games used this? it would save a lot of delays.. like Smash Bros brawl... i don't think europe is getting that till the 2nd quarter...

 

[SpiritMacardi]

"Ragnarok" as "Kangaroo? are you sure? why would they translate a word thats not japanese?

I think the real reason might be poor sales of other titles and japan has always done this - played darkstalkers by capcom? it's pretty good all 1v1 2d fighter fans it's a must. I mean the Metriod series didn't really sell well orginally in the west. find a good importer store it's the only option.

I was also thinking that - know you have langauge options on a dvd why hasn't games used this? it would save a lot of delays.. like Smash Bros brawl... i don't think europe is getting that till the 2nd quarter...

Yes, there was a man who referred to the end of the world as "Kangaroo" instead of "Ragnarok". This incident was also noted on the Wikipedia article for the game. As to why they did it, I'm utterly lost because somehow the official company managed to mess up their own game, meanwhile a small group made an english patch for the Super Nintendo version that contained perfect translations.

 

[i_am_undead]

Yes. And they hate freedom by proxy.

 

[The Q]

Klonoa? I hate the word, as I hate hell, all Montagues and Namco.

Actually I loved that game. It was a fun little platformer.

 

[Broken Blade]

I'm still pissed off about the different Final Mixes not coming over here. DAMN YOU SQUARE!!!!!

 

[EGOinside]

it's common in all marketplaces, if your looking at the figures for a business - you'll find 80% of your revenue will come from 20% of your market. Now if ask namco's accountant and not his loving gamers he'll tell you to focus on that 20% and screw the rest.

It's streamlining to stop over spend, god i'm boring....

To go with he pac-man over think. Would the ghosts not be the west chasing the pac-man while he tries to progress in the world and collecting nuggets of knowledge only for them to be devoured too when pac man is powered up and superior!

 

[monodiabloloco]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

Yeah, but the remakes that appear here in the US are actually labled properly. So, the remake of FF IV for DS is actually the one we saw as FF II for SNES. That one and the other released here as FF III were my favorite two for constant replayability. CRAP! I sound like a damned fanboy..

 

[OneWingedSin]

1) Multilanguage options would only tend to delay the games more as to the added voice-acting and translation requirements.
2) Final Fantasy IV was also released on PSX in one of those misc. collections, previous to the DS, the only one we had never seen localized was Final Fantasy 3 numbered correctly.
3) It just sounds like it got the same shoddy translation that a lot of ports get. (ToP remake)

 

[Terramax]

Frankly in a world where Sonic has already made a complete idiot of himself, I find Namco to be the only classic 3rd party developer that still has any dignity left. Though regardless of how much I love their games, I sense that the feelings are not mutual. Ever heard of a game series called Klonoa? Probably not, which leads me to the point at-hand. It seems Namco keeps making excuses as to why they refuse to release the remaining games in the US, mainly claiming it was due to lack of sales of the previous.

What are you talking about? Just about every Klonoa game came out in the US. The reasons why there aren't any more is because they didn't even sell well enough in Japan.

Tales of the World: Radient Mythology had absolutely beautiful opening songs in the Japanese versions, but they were cut for no reason from the US release and replaced with horrible synthesized tunes.

Frankly when I hear the kind of ranting in the charts you Americans call music it doesn't surprise me they change the music to synthesized tunes. If this isn't a case of literally changing games to move closer to the general US' liking I don't know what is.

Ultimately you're in the minority here. Because the majority of the gaming public would rather waste their money on Grand Theft Auto, Halo and Need for Speed sequels than games like this. If I were the head of Namco, I wouldn't bother translating and releasing games in the US at all. It'd seem like fighting a losing battle.

 

[Rooster893]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

Actually, that happened a couple of times, FF6 in Japan was FF3 in USA, and it continued on for awhile until FF7 I think.

 

[Rooster893]

Didn't they remake Klonoa for the Wii?

That should be a look in the right direction for the series. After all, I am a big fan of the series (just look at my avatar!) and would love to have more games released in the U.S.

 

[dududf]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

Actually, that happened a couple of times, FF6 in Japan was FF3 in USA, and it continued on for awhile until FF7 I think.

Jesus Christ mate. 3 year Necro.

 

[Rooster893]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

Actually, that happened a couple of times, FF6 in Japan was FF3 in USA, and it continued on for awhile until FF7 I think.

Jesus Christ mate. 3 year Necro.

Geez, I don't know this stuff!

 

[Atmos Duality]

I rather liked Tales of the Abyss, even in its current "Americanized" form.
And really, it's expensive as sin to advertise in America; I can't really blame them.

Though tangential, I'd say Nintendo's stubborn desire to never release the other Mother games in English is even worse.
Why not sell it via Wii-Ware? They have controlled advertising, controlled distribution...

 

[Solo-Wing]

Ya I happen to love Klonoa and the Ridge Racer series but not many people know of them because Namco does no advertising. The last ads they did were for a Pac-man game I think... Can't really remember though...

 

[dududf]

Um...didn't FFIV come over here as FFII?

Actually, that happened a couple of times, FF6 in Japan was FF3 in USA, and it continued on for awhile until FF7 I think.

Jesus Christ mate. 3 year Necro.

Geez, I don't know this stuff!

Well for your information then when a thread is old it's typically not smiled upon to bring it back up. No one's gonna be mad or anything at most they'll raise an eyebrow.