Legends of Localization DEV BLOG

I’ve been going over the version 2 script of Funky Fantasy IV this week in preparation for our latest book project. I can’t believe it, but I’ve run across a couple of lines that give really good life advice. Learn well from the friends of Gorube, Skull Million, and eagles:

• While I am aware of my fault, my life is just right.
• Do not mess up with the people you love.
• Take it easy!
• Do not be afraid of the dangerous part.
• Educational guidance will be helpful.
• Do not try hard to think that the eagle is an eagle!

Even during the victory lunch, the LoL team had a meeting to brainstorm potential new projects.

It’s an LoL tradition to have a victory dinner after the release of our latest book. After Zelda, we went to an amazing Irish pub. EarthBound took us to both a great pizza place AND a southwestern themed place (yeah, we celebrated twice).

Now it’s time to celebrate This be book bad translation, video games! Where should we go?!

This week I’ve been doing some organization-related work for my upcoming book about Funky Fantasy IV. I’ve got an early chapter already mostly done but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything good/funny so I’ve been scouring through text files and jumping around in the game to get things I missed before.

It’s a bit of a hassle since FFIV/FFII don’t really have debug menus, so I’ve been relying on an old save file archive I put together for my FF4 comparison site. The problem is that I never really documented where each save file is so it’s always taken me 10+ minutes just to find a save file where I need it to be. So now I’m finally going through and documenting that stuff for future time savings.

Unfortunately it looks like one of my saves is missing entirely so I’ll have to play a good chunk of the game to re-create it. It’s also a bit of a hassle when using different save files on different versions of the game, as it means the characters’ names get messed up each time. But it’s a small hassle when I stop to realize I’m playing Final Fantasy IV for a career – kid me would be so shocked hear about this 😛

His game wasn’t out yet, and Sonic was already claiming to be super star.

It’s no secret that I work on a million things at all times, so lately I’ve been trying to slow down a bit so my old bones can catch up to my brain. In particular I started playing the new Zelda game in Japanese… but even then I wound up taking screenshots of every piece of text I came across. I probably wouldn’t have bothered with taking screenshots, but boy is that screenshot button on the Switch controller the handiest thing I’ve ever come across. I do wish it saved in png format though…

Anyway, I’ve been playing the game super weirdly and spent about 200 hours before I finally went and continued the story/talked to Impa after leaving the plateau. During that time I explored everywhere, usually by taking the totally wrong way on accident, and talking to everyone/fighting everything. It’s been a ton of fun, and I made it a personal rule right from the start to NOT use the Shrine Sensor thingy. I think that alone made it twice as fun for me.

Poe’s been playing the English version as well, taking screenshots here and there. I don’t have any specific projects for this game in mind, but screenshots are the lifeblood of Legends of Localization. I’m sure they’ll come in handy at some point!

Mato’s had a business card since the release of LoL’s first book, and now Tony & I have been honored with one, too! Mine has my favorite bad translation on the back, and Tony’s has an impossible quiz:

Here’s the latest in our quest to acquire all versions of Zelda games: the Asian version of Zelda 2~

Last week, we released our latest Legends of Localization book!

It’s the debut of our new line of  bite-sized LoL books that focus on a single subject instead of a single game. This one takes a look at bad video game translations from the 1970s to today, AND we go much deeper than the well-known “All Your Base” mistakes (although “All Your Base” is definitely featured). There are games in there that I’ve never heard of, like a Gundam text adventure and a bunch of obscure arcade games.

Buy it over at Fangamer!

While at SGDQ, we realized that we were about 2 hours away from the corporate headquarters of Bang Printing. They’re our favorite book printer, and they’ve printed every LoL book to date. So Kari Fry, Ryan Novak, and I drove up there to take a tour! Here are some pictures from that trip:

Click that ↓ link to see more!