Final Fantasy XIII Aiming For Spring 2010 Release In The West

It would be nice to play it while I'm on spring break.

@Archaotic: or possibly just before so they can have a big year end to their profits?

Squeenix takes 6 months at least. So June 2010 in reality at the bare minimum.

drizzt_rocks

Calling it now. April, just after the fiscal year roll-over.

I wish I could understand all the furore about Final Fantasy...

I've tried playing a number of them, but even hours in I just fail to grasp what seems to capture so many gamers.

@Pyrefly: Exactly. This is one game where I'm importing for definet.

@excel_excel: We will see. They've been spouting this "aiming for simultaneous release" stuff for a year or two now. This is the big hurdle by which it'll be judged.

So basically what that says is that if we are really really lucky we may see the game by Xmas 2010 in Europe.

Squeenix is saying international because they know that once FFXIII is released in the americas, English speaking, PS3 owning gamers will import it. Making the release "international."

Esper mind tricks

International?? My ass, we'll see Square Enix...we'll see....

We need to know - I need to plan carefully in which month I'll become savagely antisocial.

After the Crimson Echoes debacle I'm honestly done with Square-Enix.

@JahB: How many hours though? Many FFs are a slow burn before they get interesting.

Only 1,4,6 and 8 have anything that really hooked me in quickly.

The rest I just played on faith with the knowledge that lots of Square games move slow at first.

@Pombar: Weren't they saying before they were aiming for a spring 2010 release in America??

didn't the demo and most of the trailers have subtitles? i'm praying subtitles are included in the japanese release so i can import without having to wait. That and I wouldn't mind a japanese audio track.

OOooooh the green makes it look like Dead Space.

@excel_excel: Yeah it's easier to be pessimistic when it comes to SE but then again Dissidia and 358/2 days are more or less just separated by a week or two between the Pal and NA releases. So they might be trying harder?

WhatTheFrag

Ok, Kotaku, here's a next story idea for you. Tell me why this still happens. Why they (meaning most publishing/game companies) can't release games internationally the same day, or within a few weeks? Do they just not work on localization until after the initial release? Is that the only real reason?

pushmonk

@Pyrefly: I see your release-date-translation skills are well honed, young grasshopper.

I am tempted to think that the game will be out by summer in Europe, but I'd rather stay pessimistic and be surprised.

@pushmonk: I think this is an excellent idea for an article. I'm quite interested to know this myself.

Coming from The Bahamas where we deal with US games and releases, I lived in the UK for a bit and was absolutely amazed at how long some Japanese games take to come out over there.

@Gazuk50: Yeah but *enters fanboy mode* XIII is going to be so much better, so its not fair!

@Ladi: I forgot about lip synching. Add it to the list!

@pushmonk: In some cases, it's not really possible to do a translation before the game is almost done; the initial script needs to be translated, then edited to fit in context; then the engine needs to be modified to allow for other languages, if it was not already done. Then, the formatting in-game of the dialogue needs to be re-done, as in text you can fit a lot more in a smaller space in Japanese than you can in many other languages. Then there's recording the voice acting, which takes a LONG time and can't start until the translation is officially completed. THEN, if there is writing in any of the art assets that is essential to gameplay, it has to be edited to work for different audiences.

Then there's production and distribution, which, at least in North America, can take longer due to geographic size.

Even working in tandem with the Japanese team, it's still inevitably going to take longer, as they can't finish the localized version until the Japanese one is 100% completed, at the very least.

@WhatTheFrag: fair point. They seem to be stepping things up a notch. Maybe I'm just so used to waiting for Final Fantasies its kind of ingrained with in me!

@JahB: It's better that you don't understand the fuss. Saves you £40 every few years!

So, out in 2010, huh? Another game I can wait until 2011 when I can buy it for bargain-bin prices after it turns out to be so revolutionary that nobody likes it.

There was a reason why FF maintained its popularity for so long, and that reason has nothing to do with real-time combat.

@pushmonk: Localisation of the English version of FFXIII is either finished or nearly done. I believe a great deal of the problem lies with redoing cutscenes so that lip syncing matches up properly.

6 Months seems about fair....the Japs had to wait that long for GTA4 after the Euro/US release for example.

Gazuk50

@JahB: I'd say different gamers have trouble understanding the furore over different games. We've all been in that situation where we can't figure out for the life of us why everyone is crazy about a particular title.

You obviously gave the games a chance (which is more than can be said about many people), but they simply didn't click with you.
Nothing "wrong" with that, nothing to understand, you're not "missing" anything. I guess it's just not a franchise for you.

Claims of a racist game based on this pic in 5...4...3...2...

slamdance

@Pombar: *looks out at the sun* Never.....Never forget

Reading some of the comments below, they are all great points as to why it will take a bit of time to complete so a US/EU version can be released. However, what have the developers been working on for the past 4+ years? FFXIII went into development before FFXII was even done. In all that time a US/EU script and type font wasn't worked into the mix? I think the real truth here is that FF doesn't get as big of a crowd here in the US so they want to get their big sales out of the loyal Japanese crowd before they create a version for us Americans.... Hopefully DQ IX will be out before FF XIII so I have something to keep me busy while I wait!!

During the liveblog they said the game was done and a couple of weeks ago it was stated that English voice recording sessions for Final Fantasy XIII were completed which hopefully means the team in charge or localizing the game has already been hard at work typesetting the English subtitles and menus. In theory we could see the international release as early as March but we'll see.

Remember there's an Xbox 360 port in the works too which I have doubts about. It will be interesting to see how it turns out given the technical problems Infinite Undiscovery and Last Remnant had. I also wonder what effect a 360 port could have on the PS3 international release. I mean if they are waiting for the international PS3 version to be completed before they beginning porting it to the 360 I wonder if they would hold off releasing the international PS3 version so they could simultaneously release on 360.

It'd be kind of irksome to know that the PS3 international version was done but we'd have to wait because of the 360 port. Given that they aren't holding back the Japanese version to do a simultaneous release that would just seem unfair to make the rest of us wait on the 360 version before getting to play it It's already disappointing that they aren't going to include the Japanese VO on the international release.

Tyr4nt

@excel_excel: Kingdom Hearts and FFXII. Never forget

@Elite80: seems more S&M to me

Vylen

So still the regular 6 months. Cool.

@JahB: Each one has a pretty different reason for being great. 3-6 overlap a bit as great NES/SNES era RPGs, 1 as a fairly great ultra-simple RPG, 2 is a bit experimental and didn't win as many fans, 7-9 are similar in mechanics but the narratives, casts and settings (the story - what most people buy these games for!) are so radically different that plenty of 'FF fans' will hate one or more of them. X-XII are all so far removed from each other that they may as well be of completely different series'.

So yeah, it's a hard series to judge when they're all so disparate. But mostly, each game is a triumph of its time - going back to many of them, they don't hold up all that well. But to be there at the time, especially with something like 7 or 10, playing it on release, was a marvelous thing.

Yeah there's nothing racist about this picture

@pushmonk: Often, games will only be picked up by publishers overseas once a game has proven its success in Japan, or even US, if you look at things like Persona 3's much delayed UK release. In that instance, KOEI only decided to start EU localisation once the game had proven as popular as it did prove to be with US audiences.
Similarly, not god-tier games (not your FF13s, whose localisation is in-house and starts long before the JP release), will be left to see how they perform at retail before a company makes the risk of buying the license for it.

@denki:

You do realize no FF EVER has used real time combat right?

bkchurch

@hansamurai: What debacle? A group makes an unauthorized sequel to a game using stolen art assets. The logical and inevitable conclusion to such an action occurs. You may be disappointed in the nature of that conclusion, but to call it a debacle is a bit of a stretch.

@excel_excel: Ha ha, that's quite funny when I read your post.

I actually forgot I FoxReplaced the word "Enix" to "Bigots".

SlinkyGuy - So British, I piss tea and poop scones.

@TalKeaton: One of the big factors is money. Making games, localising them, this all costs money, once you've spent that much money on a product you need to see a return.

Say you make a game that will sell 1million in each territory, EU, NA and Japan.

If you release in Japan straight away, that's one million sales worth of revenue in the bag earning interest instead of sitting in customers pockets waiting to be spent.

That's why they don't just sit on finished games waiting for everyone to be ready for a WW release.

As to why they don't start localising earlier. Localising is an expensive business so you make sure that you only do it once. Best way to ensure that is you wait till everything that needs localising is locked (e.g. Waiting till Aerith gets written out) before translating everything.

@bkchurch: FFXII did depending on how you played it.

@Elite80: You are correct. There is nothing racist about that picture.

every time i see this image, i think it's from dead space somehow. :S

curly haired boy

@ittekimasu: No subtitles in the Advent Children demo. And I strongly doubt they'll include English subs in the Japanese version, because they know imports would kill the North-American and PAL PS3 releases.

i cant believe nobody said it yet.
that image there, thats racism. protest this, go.

hoi1ma

@curly haired boy: lol I think I know what you mean. I never played that game, only the demo, but this image is dark and the soldiers have pants and helmets that have a very Dark Space vibe, due to the lines of blue light. ;)

a release date of april 2010.

well thats close to what i was expecting anyway. I imagine i'll still be keeping myself busy playing GoW III even then.

@Ueziel: Some people would like the original voices too, so there's no need to gloat. :P

@stitchjones: They restarted the game's develpment entirely at one point so that would probably be why.

@Tyr4nt: Last Remnant didn't have problems because it was on 360. The fact that it was on 360 meant it had less than it would have with the PS3, thanks muchly to their use of UE3.

Still, the game's problems are pretty much all solved entirely by installing to the 360 hard drive so that's mostly a non-issue in the first place.

Infinite Undiscovery was made by tri-Ace and Square wasn't even originally the publisher. Microsoft handed it off to Square half-way through development, leaving me to believe Microsoft thought Square could rush it out faster, even if it ended up "undiscovered."

I don't think it's disappointing that we don't get Japanese voices at all. In fact, I'm very happy that we aren't. Instead, we get correct english lip syncing, which is much harder to do and will make the game feel much more polished.

So, would this make it the quickest time any nation outside of Japan got an FF title officially published there, or what? I recall there being a decent wait for XII, even.

ShimodaNexus

@Gazuk50: Fair ? It has nothing to do with fair.

Square has to go through an additional SKU, testing/checking localization, then Sony approval, and then printing.

It's just how it goes for overseas SKUs.

wtf_G

@Ueziel: Installing it to the HD didn't fix anything. It STILL had plenty of loading/graphical issues :|

wtf_G

@pushmonk: MGS4 says hi! But really, it was extremely extraordinary phenomenon. Doesn't happen very often.

@denki: I've played the demo at japanese game store and even though I did not understand much about the battle system, it did not feel _that_ realtime. It's ATB on the steroids. After the demo - and as great fan of Snes and PS1 FF's - I cannot wait for FFXIII. I believe they did it right this time.

@eastx: How are the english voices not also the original voices? They were all cast together or at around the same time. The Japanese audio team had to okay all of them and hire them. So why is it so hard for people to accept them?

@slamdance: OMG, Police brutality!!

@hoi1ma: Someone did say it, beat you to it by 6 minutes. Good call though.

Damn librarians are always holding a brutha' down.

@TalKeaton: And this is all understandable, but XIII is coming out in Japan in 3 months or so. Everywhere else, 8-10 months or so. That's about 5-7 months of pure localization.

I think this has more to do with the fact that they're going to localize it to numerous languages, such as French, German, Russian, Spanish, and what have you, in contrast to the typical American view that they're localizing it only into English for the sole enjoyment of the residents of the USA.

wox42

@pushmonk: I don't see why everybody is upset with the delay, FF games are always released later over here because we get the "complete edition", we always get to play the ultimate enemies and side quests before japan, they always have to buy the game again in the "international" edition to get the content we get with the initial release, Square knows that western markets rarely buy the same game twice, thats why they release it this way.

Also square knows that almost 30% of the initial sales come from people that import the game to have it before release in their country.

@bkchurch: Have you played XII? Well, ok, yes, you can set it up to be completely turned based (well, kinda), but the differing character speeds would lead to incredibly long battles without using gambits. Don't get me wrong, I liked XII (everything but the story and vocal track which is 2x too loud), but what I wouldn't give for a more traditional set-up with your characters on the right and your enemies on the left, with a very visible data display at the bottom. Sure, it'd seem old fashioned with our processors nowadays, but it might be what Square needs right now- probably cheaper to produce (easier coding engine?), and would be more of an "instant classic" than the current tripe. As long as it doesn't turn out like the teenage angst-fest that was X.

@wtf_G: Barely. Load times were shorter than most other UE3 games and the slow down/texture pop-in became no worse than Mass Effect, which no one complained about. The slow down in particular was better than Mass Effect as it only happened during attacks where blood was literally flying out of your guys.

It fixed nearly everything and you're lying to yourself if you think otherwise.

@Ueziel: Yeah, right around the time they were shown that the PS3 existed they dropped XIII (PS2) and started on XIII (PS3)

ReynaldoRiv

now imagine if this was still a PS3 exclusive in the west. Uncharted 2, God of War 3 and Final Fantasy 13 coming out just a few months after the $299 price drop in the US.

It's cool that it's multiplatform since more people will play it but from a purely business perspective Sony should really learn when to drop the cash for exclusives. although surely they did but MS offered more.

@TalKeaton: man i wish it was somehow possible for them to release a version that only had subs and english menus. i dont care about lip synching. i definitely dont care about the voice acting. id rather have it in japanese anyway =/ i wonder how many people would be willing to play a version like that

Have never played a Western version of FF before, I am not sure about English dubbed, the Western seiyu rarely impress me in anime or games. Will get Japanese version for sure.

jellyfish

@JahB: I know what you mean. I've put in my time (FFVI 25+ hours, FFVII 16+ hours, FFIX 10+ hours, FFXII 10+ hours) but I always lose interest. I get excited, like everybody else, then I quickly realize there are certain parts in every game where it becomes a grind session. I quickly sour to the experience. I'll probably be picking this game up (along with a PS3 finally), so I'm hoping it will shift the trend - hoping against hope most likely.

@Yossarian: They putin' a hurtin' on my brutha!
Ya can't be doing that to the man, ya can't be doing that to him!

@excel_excel: Metacritic will very likely disagree with you.

uchennaokafor

@hoi1ma: Why? So people can complain about blacks supposedly complaining about everything?

See: RE5 Debacle. Core gamer stupidity at its finest.

uchennaokafor

@wtf_G: Do you even know what SKU is?

It amuses me to no end how all non-Asian markets are treated as one entity to major Japanese game publishers.

@marfin:
Import the US version for PS3...

PS: I guess in your country the EU money is welcome but the people aren't.

I hope sometime down the road a PC version is made.

peterpanpiper2

I may not have to import this like I did FF8 & 9 since the release date may not be far from the Japanese one.

this is one thing I hate about being british. We have to follow stupid, ridiculous, arbitrary EU laws and regulations nobody but people OUTSIDE the UK care about.

i wish we either got NTSC releases and had the NTSC format as well, or we got both. we get the one that USA get first, at the same time as them, and then the localised one comes when its ready.
that way, people who don't need italian, french, german, spanish languages on their game don't have to bloody wait for it.

marfin

@pushmonk:

Because they finish the Japanese version first and start selling it to get a jump on recouping their investment, THEN they localize it for English, etc. It makes sense from a business viewpoint....why sit on a finished game just to wait for the translations when you could be selling copies and making money?

jcb231

@Ueziel:
What are you talking about? Everyone complained about Mass Effect's graphical issues. They're to this day still mentioned in almost every story about ME2. In fact, they were part of the reason I never really got into the game.

From what I've seen of LR it looks almost unplayable for someone like me (unless you get the PC version, which ran okay if your rig was up for it).

@Ueziel:

Because most Japanese games sound terrible in English. See Soulcalibur, Resident Evil, Ninja Gaiden, Street Fighter, etc etc etc. Whenever possible I like to play the games in Japanese....I don't speak Japanese, so I can't tell if the voice acting is horrible like it is in the English version.

I think they shouldn't even bother with an English dub. They should just put the game out in Japanese with English subtitles.

jcb231

@marfin:

I have a friend that lives outside of London. He bought his 360 from the USA and also buys all games by import or has friends purchase it for him when they travel to the States. So he can never buy local Xbox games because they won't play in his 360. He has an American Live account too.

jcb231

@DigitalHero:
japan december 17 2009
NA spring 2010. spring goes from march 21 to june 21. So yeah, expect the spán time to be around 3 to 6 months

@ShadowOdin of dubious snowiness:
isn't a sku some kind of new pants that you can jerk off through it?

WorldGreatest Waiting for Heavy Rain

Not cool with the black guy being comic relief, and now there's whipping? *pushes rpg money deeper in wallet*

Crowbot

Look I realize making a game is tough. I used to work in the game industry so I hope I understand that pretty well, but Square Enix has always been a bit of a conundrum for me. Localization or "EFIGSJ" (Eng, Fre, Itl, Ger, Spn, Jap) for every software app I have ever worked on is developed right along side the app/game whatever the SW product is. So why is it that Square Enix always does their localization separate from the game development?

Just curious.

@yomachaser:
Slow burns indeed. I specifically remember that at the time it took me to finish Parasite Eve 2 (10 hours), FFIX hadn't even let me go to the world map.

Side note: What happened to 3d world maps? Those were awesome :(

@Kakuki: i only have a 360.
and where did you get from that post that EU people aren't welcome here? i said the stupid laws that don't apply to us aren't welcome here.

@jcb231: i wish i imported my 360...would have made things so much better.

marfin

@wox42:
Well that's how it usually goes, isn't it? JP 1st, NA 2nd, EU + rest of world 3rd.

@Crowbot: RE5 syndrome.

@yourcitylovesyou:

(raises hand)

I would play a Japanese language track with English menus/subtitles as my first preference.

jcb231

@Chestnut Bowl: Same goes for north american developers.

Bannana Stand CEO

@Desertwolf: Barrett syndrome?

Bannana Stand CEO

Is there where I blame Mircrosoft delaying the NA launch and start a flame war based on pure assumption and no facts?

Bannana Stand CEO

YEAH baby! I was right! <3
I love myself ; __ ;

Now to wait...

@slamdance: I'm just reminded of the scene in Blazing Saddles where Bart takes himself hostage. Don't know why.

twinturbo2

@jcb231: That is the number one dumbest reason for wanting Japanese only. I can't tell if the acting's bad so it must be good!

No. Look, FFXII's voice acting is fantastic. Lost Odyssey's voice acting is fantastic. Most Atlus games have fantastic english voice acting. You'll be fine.

It's seriously dumb to compare the games you mentioned to FFXIII because especially for Ninja Gaiden, Resident Evil and Soul Calibur, they're meant to be extremely over the top to begin with.

And Ca$h, Last Remnant installed to the 360 runs the same as the PC version. I have played both, I have compared both. They are very nearly identical with the PC version having the obvious better visuals. That's it.

And take a look at reviews for Mass Effect. They'll mention some pop-in or slow down or whatever but then look at what they so. "Oh, it doesn't matter at all. It doesn't affect anything. Game is still fantastic." It's the same deal with Last Remnant. If Mass Effect could garner great reviews despite its visual shortcomings, Last Remnant should have gotten nearly the same score, at least based on visuals alone.

@Ueziel: I still experienced tons of buggy problems, slow down and pop-in with Last Remnant after installing to the hard drive. Perhaps the effectiveness of hard drive installs depends on the model of the system? I have a launch system (once repaired) with the original 20 GB hard drive. LR was so plagued with problems and so repetitive (so I had to experience the problems many times over) that I eventually gave up on it.

@denki:

Yes I did play XII. I'm apparently one of the few FF die hard that actually enjoyed it. XII however did not have a real time battle system. It gave the illusion of real time, but it wasn't. All it did is set all of your characters to auto-attack when the ATB bar filled up, at any point you could open a menu and choose what action you wanted that character to perform. Of course they wouldn't perform it until an ATB bar filled up designating their TURN.

Real time combat works like this: I press a button and my character does something. Often times in RPGs there are cooldowns that dictate when that action can be used again but their is no waiting for your turn. FFXII, and no FF for that matter, has ever worked this way. FFXII streamlined the turn based process so battles would play out faster and that is all.

I actually wish people would stop knocking it. So it wasn't like every other FF? Sakaguchi is gone, did anyone really expect it to be? It took a very innovative approach to the JRPG and despite years of people bitching that every JRPG is the same it got crucified. Funny thing about this industry: people will bitch and moan about a lack of innovation until they pass out but as soon as you try to innovate anything in their favorite franchise they will eat you alive. See also: Resident Evil.

bkchurch

*looks at the picture

Hey, it's Rodney King!

Prosper

That's not so bad, 6 months is pretty good then again PS3 owners can always import if they're not patient enough.

Or SE can pull a Platinum Games and region lock it.

......darn.

Rachel Fogg

@NekuSakuraba just wants FRIENDS: Don't love yourself too much while you wait, it might fall off.

Bannana Stand CEO

@axiomatic: They actually announced that for 13, they'd been doing localization during the development process (For english at least) And that English voice work was almost done.

Masonvrocks

@haran_elessar: What, we forgetting about MAG? Or does no one care about that anymore. I sure lost some interest.

Bannana Stand CEO

@pushmonk: Its about maximizing profits. Money has different values everywhere. If it was not they could even have region lock. Its the cash man.

Is Kotaku.com in the position to ask questions? If so, would some one on the staff ask why it takes Square Enix so f'ing long to release Next Gen games in multiple regions? Why can't they multi task and release games simultaneously like other publishers?

Yeah, I know Spring comes right after Winter, but that still puts the game months away from its initial release, and that's too far away. I thought I read hear that the voice work, the English voice work, was already finished here--I think I even read that the subtitling was finished or just about done in multiple languages--so what's the hold up?

Namco can release their biggest game of the year (Tekken 6) in more than one region with in days of each other. Konami released Metal Gear Solid 4 everywhere on the same day! What's Square doing?

American_N_Japan

@Ueziel: I highly recommend the PC version of TLR; it doesn't suffer from the graphical hiccups of the 360 version and is much more challenging. After spending 200+ hours on the 360 version, I welcomed the smooth animation on the PC.

jmsalal

@American_N_Japan: Umm. Tekken 6 surely isn't Namco's biggest game - not even the biggest game THIS YEAR. It's actually a WAY smaller scale game than Final Fantasy XIII. And so is MGS4 (rabid die-hard MGS fans, don't go all crazy on me now; I'm one of you!).

Besides... Is it REALLY that hard for you to wait a couple months extra for the western release? I mean this is SQUARE-FUCKING-ENIX we're talking about! You should be glad you don't have to wait a full year for it!

@marfin: last time I checked, UK was part of the Union. But we get your point about European solidarity.

@ShadowOdin of dubious snowiness: I wonder if half of the people on Kotaku who use that abbreviation know what it stands for.

@Kaminari: They shouldn't have to wait extra for the localization that is pretty much the exact same game as the one they get in the US.

I am the same, everyone, unless a child, play their games in english here in Sweden, most even opting to play it in english despite Swedish text.

So there's virtually no difference between the game I get and the game that the yanks get. Except I have to wait months longer.

And companies get baffled why piracy even exists ^^

Disclaim: I do not pirate games

@Outi: Maybe you don't know that much about games since both Tekken and MGS are both top-tier series with laaaaarge fanbases. They're pretty big.
Sure, I give you that they're not as big as Final Fantasy, but still, they ARE big.

Does anyone know if the Japanese version has an English text option? I really, really don't want to play the terrible English dub.

ya thats right! Bitch slapn the man down just cuzz he got the fro! HATIN ALL UP THE FFX13... *sigh*

lordhewlett

@The Cap'n: I can't think for a second that they do, since most people use it in a context where SKU=console-model

I found this funny article about it [www.joystiq.com]

It's not like Square-enix hasn't done worldwide releases before. Square-enix is more likely to give a worldwide release for their less popular games, but games like DQ and FF take forever for us to get. Seriously someone in that company needs to get fired for that.

chronomasakari

I really hope they don't kill the black guy. Yes it would be another ugly notch on Japan's already ugly race scorecard, but even more worrisome (mind the sarcasm) is what would happen to the chocobo chick in his hair. If they kill it with him, well, the opposition would be reduced to Disney Villains in my eyes. No depth, just pure evil. Killing a baby chick is like killing a puppy to the power of ten. And if the chick survives, it won't find cooler real estate than Sazh's fro.

@marfin: The reason they do that is because if the UK got the game at the same time as the US, developers wouldn't care that much about a European release and it would be pushed back even further.

Wow, Spring 2010, that's...not soon.

@denki: Yea, it'd be better if FF just took the DragonQuest approach and used the same game over and over again. Then nobody outside Japan would care anymore...

Rebochan

@twinturbo2: I don't think you actually need a *reason* to remember that movie. Any reason is more than justified!

Rebochan

@Chestnut Bowl: Newsflash - international markets are always a secondary market in any game development studio. I mean hell, Japan waits longer for Western games to come to them than we do waiting for theirs to come to us.

Rebochan

@Bannana Stand CEO: Race card syndrome?

Seriously, it's okay to have a black guy doing things that they've had white characters do. Call me when they make him wear red lips and sing minstrels, then I'll be willing to join the brigade.

Rebochan

@Bannana Stand CEO: Feel free, my friend.

Rebochan

@American_N_Japan: Play Star Ocean 4. It was released in the US three weeks after it came out in Japan.

Listen to the horrible dubbing and look at the terrible text.

I am willing to wait a few extra months to have competent dubbing and a script that doesn't suck because they put some time into polishing the damn thing.

Then again, I grew up in an era where you were lucky to wait *two years* to get a Final Fantasy game translated, so maybe I'm jsut grateful they can know it down to about three months (assuming they target March).

Rebochan

@Sarcasmancer: You know American films kill the black guy a lot more than Japanese, right? I mean seriously, "The Black Guy Dies" is like...law in film. If you cast a black guy in your movie and surround him with pretty white people, it's pretty obvious who's got the bullseye on his back.

Now, admittedly, this is probably skewed because American stuff is more likely to have a black guy at all...

Rebochan

@Outi: I agree on Tekken not being as big as FFXIII. But MGS4 i disagree. That game is arguably as big and complicated (localization wise) than FFXIII.
Both FF13 and MGS4 are/were only dubed into English and Japanese and with a diverse opyions in subs. And I'd dare to say MGS4 has the same amount of spoken dialog than FFXIII (more in less time for MGS).

@Sarcasmancer: It's not racist if the perpetrator isn't white.

hamsterjohn

@marfin: You should've just gotten a PS3 so you could import the NTSC version. Region Free gaming is bliss - no waiting, just grab what you want and play it.

ReynaldoRiv

@Sarcasmancer: Barret's still alive.

ReynaldoRiv

@jellyfish: OMG it's a weeaboo. Seriously, you're in an English language forum on an English language website, owned by an English language media company.

It's okay to type "Voice Actor" or "VA" even though the product is made in Japan.

If you want to start dropping words like 声優 (seiyuu, yeah, you misspelled it) you can go to Kotaku Japan [www.kotaku.jp]

Bascraft is there so you'll get a bunch of great stories there too.

ReynaldoRiv

@SonicTheMonkey: no, it's way sooner than expected. My heart's not prepared yet. After the long years of anxiety, the fateful moment looks so close that it's frightening.
Please be gentle with me, it's my first time.

You got DeadSpace in my FF!