Pains me to hear it called a failure, it’s such a delightful game. While the Western release years after was not part of initial development, it’s also a landmark game in English localization history. The script brilliantly handles the puns and other specific quirks of the original Japanese while also setting a standard tone for this series and similar games that followed. For example, I don’t know if Kansai-ben was translated into a US Southern dialect in a video game before this one.
Pains me to hear it called a failure, it’s such a delightful game. While the Western release years after was not part of initial development, it’s also a landmark game in English localization history. The script brilliantly handles the puns and other specific quirks of the original Japanese while also setting a standard tone for this series and similar games that followed. For example, I don’t know if Kansai-ben was translated into a US Southern dialect in a video game before this one.
Not a video game, but Osaka in Azumanga Daioh (2002) immediately comes to mind as a prior example of Kansai-ben->Southern localization.