Gamasutra has an excellent interview up with Tim O'Leary, the man who heads Nintendo's North American localization team, and who helped prepare Advance Wars: Days of Ruin for the U.S. market.O'Leary reveals how feedback from western gamers was a major influence on the new direction taken by Days of Ruin, and describes the various thought processes behind the game's art direction and characters. This leads into a wider discussion regarding the art of localizing games to match different cultural sensibilities, with O'Leary using the likes of Animal Crossing on the GameCube and the Pokémon games as examples.
Finally, there's also quite a lot of talk about the inner workings of the Treehouse, the name given to the Nintendo U.S. localization division. Turns out that the localization of Nintendo games is one hell of an intricate process, with every last pixel scrutinized so that it makes perfect cultural sense. All in all, it's a fascinating read, so hit the link below!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
1-23-2008 @ 7:18PM
Wilerson said...
I haven't yet had a chance to see if the localization of Advance Wars: Days of Ruin was good, but I just have to say that the Ace Attorney series have best localization that I have seen. It's amazing how most of the Japanese puns were translated for an Western audience.
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1-23-2008 @ 8:09PM
SephFinale said...
"Boy meets girl. Boy gives girl flower. Boy names girl. ...What's wrong with this world?"
Localization...COMPLETE. I just picked up the game.
Oh, word of advice...on the 4th or 5th mission I believe, ask for tactical advice for a good rofl.
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1-23-2008 @ 10:35PM
Brett from Atlanta said...
They did a great job on this game. It is really fun.
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1-23-2008 @ 11:23PM
Archibold said...
This was actually surprisingly interesting. I always hear about games' localisation and what was lost/done well and it truly is fascinating to see all that goes into a (good) localisation. I never knew how much had to be redone for Animal Crossing, either. Overall, a very good read.
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