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For many a year we’ve heard countless complaints from forlorn gamers,
and more specifically rpg fans, frustrated at the large amount of rpgs that
were released in Japan but never made the long journey across the pacific to
the shores of America. Indeed many will be aware of games such as Bahamut
Lagoon, Seiken Densetsu III and the Langrisser series, along with a whole
ream of others which remain for many, distant, mystical games which we only
hold the faintest glimmer of ever playing and fully comprehending (fan
translations not withstanding of course). In the west, America is the
second home of the rpg, and while the many complaints of American (and lets
not forget Canadian) gamers are probably fully justified, for the rpg fan
who resides in Europe (or indeed Australia, lets not leave anyone out), not
only are these complaints increased tenfold, but there are a whole host of
other grievances which are rarely addressed.
Life for a PAL rpg fan is often an arduous and frustrating search for
information on release dates that never seem to materialize, garnering hope
from the vague link on a dubious, badly translated French website that a
walkthrough might be being published in Europe for Game X (replace with
Dragon Quest VIII in my case) sometime this year, and so perhaps there is a
glimmer of hope that the said game will finally see a PAL release some 18
months after the Japanese got their hands on the game. And that is on a
good day. More often than not the said game never makes an appearance on
our shores and we are forced to import the games ourselves at great expense,
and just generally a hassle! How lovely it must be to walk into a shop (or
store) and be able to purchase a copy of Suikoden III which will then run
perfectly on your console when you arrive at home, no modification or fuss
required.
The PAL gamer has missed out on so many great rpgs in the past few
years which did receive an English translation, it’s an incredibly
frustrating state of affairs. Can you imagine living without the likes of
Xenogears, Final Fantasy Tactics, Chrono Trigger and Cross, Valkyrie
Profile, most Working Designs games, Dragon Warrior VII, among countless
others? Until the recent Playstation re-releases, Final Fantasy IV and VI
had never seen the light of day in Europe. Many casual rpg fans in PAL
territories don’t even know these games exist, which is a shame considering
how much joy they would potentially garner from them.
It is not just games which don’t get a PAL conversion which are the
source of woe to European gamers; the lengthy conversion times for the few
that do trickle through the net only add to their plight. Admittedly, the
demands on time which translating a game into German, French, Italian and
Spanish obviously encompass is understandable, especially in this text-heavy
genre, but nevertheless the wait is a frustrating one. In the case of
Dragon Quest VIII (now renamed simply ‘Dragon Quest’ for the projected PAL
release in April, owing to the fact that no other games in the series have
seen European releases, although it’s a slightly irksome name change for me
anyway), the majority of the text was translated in the UK and virtually all
of the voice acting was also done there. Why is it we have to wait a whole
five months after the American release before we can get our hands on it
then?! (I know why, but that’s not the point!) Poor PAL conversions with
framerate issues and big black borders only add injury to insult, but
beggars can’t be choosers it would seem. And PAL gamers are very much the
beggars at the bottom of the social scale in rpg terms. With all the
translation costs and relatively low returns most rpg releases expect in
Europe, it is perhaps easy to see why many publishers are not particularly
inclined to satisfy the loyal, but relatively small PAL rpg fan collective.
Having said all that, brighter days do appear to be on the horizon
for the Euro/Aussie rpg fans, as this current generation has seen a good
deal of releases that in previous generations may well have not seen the
light of day, such as Tales of Symphonia and Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifers
Call (Nocturne for America). That still doesn’t explain the lack of a PAL
release for Suikoden III….. I’m looking at you Konami! Perhaps in response
to this Konami can be commended for their relatively swift PAL conversions
of Suikoden IV and Tactics, and also, low and behold, the announcement (at
the time of writing) that Suikoden V would be released in Europe with no
mention of an American release! We’re also forgetting the handful of rpgs
which actually had PAL releases and not American ones, notably Terranigma
and Shenmue II for Dreamcast. Now and again it feels good to be a European
rpg fan!
However, if being brutally honest, I would wager that many hardcore
PAL gamers would admit that they enjoy being members of the exclusive club
who play import rpgs their friends may only have heard distant rumours of,
or seen tantalising screenshots of in magazines once before. It is an
exciting, passionate underworld of hardcore gamers, and perhaps if rpgs were
much more mainstream in Europe then some of this would be lost. It can be
argued that most rpg releases which don’t contain the words ‘Final’ and
‘Fantasy’ in their title are so low key that most casual gamers aren’t aware
of them anyway, and I’ve heard reports of copies of Ys: The Ark of Napishtim
and Xenosaga II which weren’t even put on shop shelves, such was deemed the
lack of demand for them. There is little doubt that console rpgs are still
a relative niche market in Europe, but it’s a catch twenty-two situation; if
few rpgs are released (and marketed poorly or seemingly not at all) then
sales will be low and future PAL releases may be passed over. It’s a
frustrating situation, but hopefully it is one which will gradually improve,
and that certainly appears to be the case when looking at the steady
increase of rpgs plucked for PAL conversion in the last ten years or so.
So, American brethren, next time you sigh at the couple of months you
have to wait for Grandia III to be translated, just spare a thought for your
equally avid, but sadly deprived (not depraved!) European counterparts
gnashing their teeth on the other side of the pond!
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