Valkyria Chronicles 3 (PSP)

[AtlanteanMan]

Yeah, it's kind of sad how many game companies will savagely protect their intellectual properties they don't want to bother continuing or supporting anyway. Outside of monetary greed there is absolutely NO justifiable reason not to at least allow another willing developer to take over a localization or even an entire franchise if you don't wish to continue supporting it. This is a MAJOR reason for why genre variety is dying out in the West; Sega's back-catalog of AAA franchises alone could (and has) supported an entire console. I'm pretty sure ALL of us here could fill an entire page with great titles/franchises we haven't seen released in years or even decades (add Interplay and their awesome SNES/Genesis lineup of The Lost Vikings, Rock 'N Roll Racing, and Clay Fighter to the "Where are they now?" list I mentioned above). Too bad such games get relegated to the "not good enough for consoles" portable games market if they're even released at all; there absolutely IS A MARKET, and a GOOD one, for these kinds of games on console!!!!

[Probit_Return]

I can't even think of a good reason why they shouldn't license it out to someone else. Sega's logo would still end up in the game, and possibly even on the cover, anyway, as the developers of the game, and a lot of the localizors would probably send it back to them for final programming. Outside of that, translating, marketing (which Sega of America won't/can't do anyway), and distributing the game would all be done by the localizor. And, as was mentioned, they'd see more money than letting it rot.

[AngrySalesMonkey]

Can we at least see a European release of this too? What Xseed games have been brought over to Europe anyway?
Latest Xseed game I played was TitS, wish we could get games like that in Europe too, importing costs a lot.

Atlus, NIS and Xseed never give us anything but download only, which is a real disappointment. But I'd look forward to see what kind of limited edition package we'd get for VC3 if Xseed localized it.

This all depends on a European publisher wanting to work with us to release one of our titles as a packaged product in Europe. Can't get into details right now, but one publisher has shown interest in one of our products so hopefully we can finalize the deal and get an official European retail announcement out shortly.

[AngrySalesMonkey]

Bleh, hate seeing the original speculations being confirmed. But again, the question is WHY, if a company has no interest in localizing anything, they would have no interest in licensing it out for SOME kind of profit? Something that Sega has been notoriously reluctant about in the past. X licensed dollars, last I checked, is better than 0 dollars. It's always been an enigma to me...

Keep in mind there are always large costs involved on any localization project, such as dedicating programmers to work with our localization team on inputting text and voice files, recoding to meet SCEA regulations (such as X button being to "confirm" rather than the O button on Japanese games), and also assigning a product manager in Japan to oversee the entire project from localization to marketing and PR. Any resources tied up to localization efforts are resources taking away from creating new games.

With that said, I've played VC2 quite a bit and think it's an awesome game (I'm a sucker for good strategy games), so though we've never worked with Sega before in the past, we'll look into it.

[ShinobiMuramasa]

Keep in mind there are always large costs involved on any localization project, such as dedicating programmers to work with our localization team on inputting text and voice files, recoding to meet SCEA regulations (such as X button being to "confirm" rather than the O button on Japanese games), and also assigning a product manager in Japan to oversee the entire project from localization to marketing and PR. Any resources tied up to localization efforts are resources taking away from creating new games.

With that said, I've played VC2 quite a bit and think it's an awesome game (I'm a sucker for good strategy games), so though we've never worked with Sega before in the past, we'll look into it.

Thank you for posting AngrySalesMonkey! It's great that you'll be looking into it, I really hope you guys can work something out with Sega. It's becoming very difficult to come by good localized strategy games. If you guys do pick it up, I think most fans would be perfectly fine if you left the Japanese voice acting in. I know I would prefer the Japanese voice acting whether we're given the option to choose between English or Japanese or if it only has the Japanese voices. It would probably save a lot of money to just have the Japanese voices since you wouldn't have to hire voice actors and it would save time and money on programming.

[Disgruntled Walrus]

Keep in mind there are always large costs involved on any localization project, such as dedicating programmers to work with our localization team on inputting text and voice files, recoding to meet SCEA regulations (such as X button being to "confirm" rather than the O button on Japanese games), and also assigning a product manager in Japan to oversee the entire project from localization to marketing and PR. Any resources tied up to localization efforts are resources taking away from creating new games.

With that said, I've played VC2 quite a bit and think it's an awesome game (I'm a sucker for good strategy games), so though we've never worked with Sega before in the past, we'll look into it.

I am currently playing an import copy of VC3, and I can say without a doubt if you liked VC2 then the third would be right up your alley. They made alot of great gameplay and customization improvements, and although I can't understand much of it I really like the characters and story. The new character specific abilities also add an interesting layer of depth. For example, the main character Kurt can form a 3-man squad for a turn, allowing you to cover more ground and launch a 3 way attack.

[Probit_Return]

While I do love the English voice acting in the first two, if it meant actually seeing the game over here, I'm all for leaving the Japanese voices in to save money. It makes me immensely happy just knowing that you'll think about it. Even if nothing comes from it, it's still nice to know. Thanks for posting for us AngrySalesMonkey.

[Disgruntled Walrus]

Yeah just Japanese audio would be groovy. Aksys did it with Record of Agarest war, and the prequel comes out in America tommorow so it must have done fine. Also typically the original voice-overs are much better.

[UNIT0918]

While I do love the English voice acting in the first two, if it meant actually seeing the game over here, I'm all for leaving the Japanese voices in to save money. It makes me immensely happy just knowing that you'll think about it. Even if nothing comes from it, it's still nice to know. Thanks for posting for us AngrySalesMonkey.

Yeah just Japanese audio would be groovy. Aksys did it with Record of Agarest war, and the prequel comes out in America tommorow so it must have done fine. Also typically the original voice-overs are much better.

Oh geez, here we go. I'm sure many fans would appreciate it even more if you guys could give the game English voice-acting. After all, the previous games were localized in English, and last time I checked, the west's primary language is English as well. Not to mention that Valkyria Chronicles is set in an alternate version of Europe, which has English as one of it's languages, but not Japanese. Plus, I think both Valkyria games have the best English voice acting in recent localized Japanese games.

But, if there's no choice but to leave out English voice-acting and just license the Japanese voices, then I guess that's okay too. It just that I already played the game in Japanese, so hearing something fresh by listening to the game in English would be wonderful.

I'll leave it at that. I don't want to start another Japanese vs. English voice acting flame war.

[SpaceDrake]

SCEA rules require English voice for any game released in America. There are only a tiny, tiny handful of exceptions to this rule (though Wizardry IS one, which surprised me). There's essentially no chance a VC game would release in English without English voice, especially after the first one got fairly famous for its good voicework.