Working Designs / Game Arts thread - lunar, grandia, etc

[Scarlett Johansson]

With the announcement of the Lunar Remaster, I thought we could use this thread to discuss Working Designs (RIP).

So for the longest time I had thought Luffia and Lunar were in the same universe. I was young, fuck off. I also remember hearing very recently the woman who performed the theme songs is....drastically different now, and is or was kind of a whore?

Anyway the trepidation that I have is that evidently the remasters are going to have new voice acting. Grandia's charm lies in its cheesy ass voice work. Can you imagine if we ended up stuck with Xander Mobus, Kira Buckland, and Cristina Vee as the leads in Grandia 1? Blasphemous. And of course Grandia 2 has Jodi Benson in a rare villainous role. Dark Ariel basically.

 

[UtadaWasabi2]

Grandia >>>>>>>>> FF

 

[SSj_Ness (Yiffed)]

I don't remember if the PSP one had acting (the one I played), but either way I'd prefer the original acting, that would help prevent meddling of the script.

 

[HexFag]

Going through Grandia 2 after finishing Grandia 1 (adored this game so much that it's probably my favorite game of the year) and while the charm and adventurous spirit of the original isn't there the gameplay is far smoother and the interchangeable mana eggs are so much better than having to buy the magical elements from a shop and then having to spend multiple fights spamming Diggin to level earth magic. The Lunar remasters, despite having never played the original, have me feeling skeptical because the company behind the remasters, GungHo, did the remasters for the first two games and they are not very good.

Grandia 1 suffers the most, turning one of the most beautiful games of its console generation into complete shit by adding this disgusting smoothing filter to sprites, adding a shitty AI upscale to background textures, using the inferior PSX code instead of the Saturn code, and adding an assload of bugs in the process. Somebody on the steam forums did a full writeup of everything that the original port did wrong. It really makes me wish that some dedicated autist got down and tried to restore as much of the Saturn port's changes as possible to the PC port but that'll probably never happen.


Grandia 2 is also just extremely buggy and has fucked audio. You can do everything the remaster does (even the 60fps battles!) on a Dreamcast emulator.

The only benefits that the remasters have over the Saturn version of Grandia 1 and the DC version of Grandia 2 are higher quality FMVs and fast loading times.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

I remember playing Growlanser 2 on the PS2 as a teen. Was really great game and made me appreciate the art of high quality boobage.

Also a case where the opening song was way better in the USA version.

For some reason never played 3 despite coming in the same case.

 

[Maniacal Foreigner]

I appreciate the lengths they went to in order to bring JRPGs that would otherwise likely never see the light of day in the West overseas, as well as include goodies such as soundtrack CDs, but the pop-culture references they would shoehorn into the scripts were an early symptom of the garbage localization trend that's in full swing today.

 

[Jerri's Kid]

I never played Grandia or Lunar, but I remember Working Designs for these games:

Both of these were really fun. Cadash was an arcade game originally, but I rarely played it because there was always a huge crowd. Besides, it had a timer like the Nintendo PlayChoice games, so it was more fun to play the TurboGrafx version.

 

[ShitLurker]

Played and loved Lunar, also Grandia though I failed to beat the final boss I think and Eterna blue much later I also played and was in the "post game with crap ending". I definitely enjoyed them when I played them, but knowing now about how much Working Designs fucked with scripts, I'd probably be less charitable if I decided to replay any of those games today. At least they just pushed stupid jokes and not propaganda.

Don't know if there is a "definitive" version with a more loyal translation out there though.

 

[Chad Holdenford]

On one hand, those games were pretty cool and dare I say underrated. Alundra for the PSX and its predecessor Landstalker for the Genesis are solid action RPGs for instance.

On the other hand, they do have some occasional quippy dialogue instances. It was nice back then when they inserted covert sex jokes and even some toilet humor (remember that huge diamond you're supposed to get at the beginning of Lunar?), but in a time where every fiction piece needs to have those "relatable" dialogues, it can get grating. So much so, I have seen some romhacks/retranslations of the PSX WD games where they undo those quips and keep the original scripts intact. I can only imagine the Lunar remaster will crank up the Marvel dialogue up to eleven.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

So much so, I have seen some romhacks/retranslations of the PSX WD games where they undo those quips and keep the original scripts intact.

Where? The only ones I can find change the game balancing but not the dialogue. Unless you're talking about the PSP version of Silver Star

 

[Chad Holdenford]

Where? The only ones I can find change the game balancing but not the dialogue. Unless you're talking about the PSP version of Silver Star

Oops, my bad. As it turns out, those Un-Working Designs hacks were indeed just rebalances to the originals, which had some frustrating features. The scripts are pretty much the same. One can find them on CDRomance just fine.

I have to admit the only one of those I played was the Alundra one, whose script wasn't particularly smartass to begin with.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

I love how Alundra got a sequel that has nothing to do with the original.

I've been told to not touch the DS Lunar game.

 

[Fcret]

Lunar SSS was one of the first games I played as a kid where I felt like I was experiencing a game only I could enjoy and my friends wouldn't understand. That's a convoluted-ass sentence but basically it was a definitive moment where I discovered my specific taste in games.

I was like 9 at the time and I distinctly remember thinking to myself, "my friends will think I'm gay if I tell them I like this girly-ass game." 90s suburban America feels like a completely different reality now lol

 

[ShitLurker]

I have to admit the only one of those I played was the Alundra one, whose script wasn't particularly smartass to begin with.

I'm kind of surprised Alundra was a Working Designs game from around that time. Probably because it got a pretty dark tone at times and the cast of characters was small and defined, so it's a lot harder to just have some random guy talking about playing the sax or whatever. Alundra is in the bucketlist of "really should replay". I remember one of my greatest gamer annoyances was getting 49 of the 50 gilded falcons and having no idea where the last one was.

 

[IDanceonTrannyGraves]

Working Designs localisations were absolute shit with stupid dated humour (like turning the guy from Alundra into a surfer dude).

 

[Fcret]

Working Designs localisations were absolute shit with stupid dated humour (like turning the guy from Alundra into a surfer dude).

Terrible localizations and Vic Ireland was a proto-lolcow. Still, I have to at least give them some props for bringing these games over when no one else was willing to touch them.

I'm just glad we live in an era where localizers don't go out of their way to maliciously butcher foreign games according to their personal sensibilities. Imagine if we still had to deal with that haha

 

[X Prime]

Where? The only ones I can find change the game balancing but not the dialogue. Unless you're talking about the PSP version of Silver Star

No retranslations exist. If a game is already in English it usually needs a dedicated autist and simping fanbase to do a retranslation. Lunar has neither.

See also the reason Wild Arms 2 does not get a retranslation.

 

[HexFag]

Is the PSX versions of the Lunar games the best way to play it? I know there's the Sega CD version and the Saturn versions but idk if they have translations or if they're even that much better.

Apparently the remasters are going to have an "old graphics" mode unlike the Grandia remasters so they might not end up being complete dogshit. More screenshots here.

 

[Fcret]

Is the PSX versions of the Lunar games the best way to play it? I know there's the Sega CD version and the Saturn versions but idk if they have translations or if they're even that much better.

Apparently the remasters are going to have an "old graphics" mode unlike the Grandia remasters so they might not end up being complete dogshit. More screenshots here.
View attachment 6468744View attachment 6468745

Sega CD version was also translated by Working Designs. The maps and some of the story beats were changed by Game Arts (original devs) when they made Complete for PS1/Saturn and YMMV on those. No matter what English version you play, I'd recommnd the Un-Worked Design patches to undo some of the game system changes WD made to make the games more difficult (esp the 'pay to save' functionality in Eternal Blue on the Sega CD).

SegaCD has sprite-based cutscenes ala Ys I and II on the Turbografx-16. Playstation and Saturn switch to anime FMVs. Saturn and Playstation also have more voice-acting (although the English PS1 versions cut some voiced lines because they mostly reused the original recordings and couldn't get the original actors to come back and add in the new lines).

The Saturn version is largely unremarkable. It has better music according to some people than the PS1 version but it's not a massive difference and more a matter of taste. Saturn version also tends to run slightly worse (there are slowdowns in some parts iirc) and the FMVs look terrible unless you have an MPEG addon for your Saturn (and even with the addon they don't look as good as the Playstation's FMVs for some reason). I don't really see much reason to pick Saturn over PS1 if you're playing in English.

EDIT: Also I can't believe I forgot the most important part about the Saturn versions - they're not available in English. JP onry

Personally I grew up with the PS1 version and consider those the definitive old versions. The SegaCD games suffer from the general low-saturation you saw on the Megadrive/Genesis due to palette limitations and I feel like it ends up making the games feel a bit bleak (though some people love that).

The PSP version is not worth playing. It was not adapted to the smaller screen size well and has a ton of softlocking bugs.

No retranslations exist. If a game is already in English it usually needs a dedicated autist and simping fanbase to do a retranslation. Lunar has neither.

See also the reason Wild Arms 2 does not get a retranslation.

I actually think we're getting a retranslation for this one simply because Vic Ireland owns the rights to the original English script and has been kind of unhinged when it comes to rereleases because he wants to be personally involved if they're using his script. That's why we didn't get Lunar on the Megadrive mini console in the US and Europe even though it was on the Japanese version.

 

[xXx: State of the Union]

Alundra is a GOAT game to me and fags that bitch about the localization are gay.

IDK about the rest tho