- Joined
- Jul 28, 2018
On the latest episode of the 8-4 Play podcast, the crew interview longtime localiser Matt Alt. Towards the end they talk about Matt's time in video game localisation where he mentions he worked for Jeremy Blaustein's company on Shenmue II.
He says they had absolutely nothing from SEGA -- no references, no explanations, just text -- and it was a struggle to get any questions they had about the game answered. Editorial choices like "how close to follow the original game's localisation style" didn't even enter their minds.
It sounds like multiple companies were given different chunks of the script, too (I think), with them working on areas of Wan Chai and the mini-games.
He tells a funny story about how they literally had to ask their local Chinese restaurant what the Japanese words for "Man Mo" referred to, because they were at a complete loss.
It's not much but the whole interview is worth listening to!
He says they had absolutely nothing from SEGA -- no references, no explanations, just text -- and it was a struggle to get any questions they had about the game answered. Editorial choices like "how close to follow the original game's localisation style" didn't even enter their minds.
It sounds like multiple companies were given different chunks of the script, too (I think), with them working on areas of Wan Chai and the mini-games.
He tells a funny story about how they literally had to ask their local Chinese restaurant what the Japanese words for "Man Mo" referred to, because they were at a complete loss.
It's not much but the whole interview is worth listening to!
