Why no Team Baldrhead game translations?

[Ragtime]

Other than Duel Savior (which is amazing).

 

Their VN's seem like perfect games to be translated because they have:

 

1) Great art

2) Fairly simple japanese (from what I've been told)

3) Decent gameplay elements

 

Yet nobody seems to want to touch any of their games with a 10 foot pole. I can imagine that since most of their games are so massive, each project will probably take months of absolute dedication from a group of people (or years of so-so dedication), but it isn't like nothing like that has been done before.

 

Is it just that the Baldr games have been unlucky in the selection process ? or is there some other more fundamental reason for which none of them have even been attempted ?

 

I've had my eye on the Baldr series for almost a decade, I'm actually at a point now where I'm starting to learn Japanese just so I can play them.

[LinovaA]

In two words:

 

Tutorial Images

 

Edit: Mind you, I have only played Baldr Sky Dive 1... which I have not finished yet.

[Satsuki]

Because translating all of those gameplay elements and technical terms is way too painful.

Not many translators want to deal with them.

[XReaper]

somehow i´ve been wondering the same, as its highly unlikely for giga to work with western publishers, regarding an official english release

[Tenkuru]

Yeah, it's really sad...  

 I've been waiting for someone to pick up Baldr Sky, but then decided that it's probably faster to learn Japanese myself 

[Ragtime]

 

Because translating all of those gameplay elements and technical terms is way too painful.

Not many translators want to deal with them.

[CryingWestern]

Though i believe giga would shut the Tl down, like it did to the one before.

[Ragtime]

Though i believe giga would shut the Tl down, like it did to the one before.

[Down]

Is it just that the Baldr games have been unlucky in the selection process ? or is there some other more fundamental reason for which none of them have even been attempted ?

[Narcosis]

1) Giga does not want their games localized, similiar to Light.

2) Most of their stories are preety long and include game elements, which requires a lot of time and effort.

3) There are better vn's being translated. Really.

[Eclipsed]

Here's something JastUSA had to say about RPGs

"…it’s a challenge when games are big and expensive. One thing we’re not too happy about is the way RPGs take 2-3x the resources yet sell about as well as any other game." link

 

obviously fan translators aren't in it to sell but the 2-3x resources can be off putting

[Bolverk]

4.61 MB of text.    4.61 MB

[atorq]

One of the biggest hurdle in translating Baldr Sky is simply that it's 4.61 mb of text, which is really A LOT.

 

For some sort of reference, this message is 142 B, which means it would be a whole lot of work. That is about 1 byte per character/sign/space.

[Down]

For some sort of reference, this message is 142 B, which means it would be a whole lot of work. That is about 1 byte per character/sign/space.

Script sizes are usually given in shift-JIS encoding, which is not exactly the same, but as a rough estimation you'd get bout 2 bytes per character.

 

To give some tangible reference, G-senjou no Maou is only 1.77 mb of text, Tsukihime is 3.09 and Grisaia is 3.85 (a bunch of data is available on TLWiki). So yeah the whole of Baldr Sky is like 1,5 times Tsukihime. And that's not counting all the time spent editing images.

[Decay]

Giga not wanting their games translated isn't really the reason. Futsuu seemed willing to ignore that, and so does Ixrec. Futsuu stopped translating Baldr Sky because the game is huge and he got a life, nobody forcibly shut that project down. 

[Kawasumi]

1) Giga does not want their games localized, similiar to Light.

[XReaper]

the logic behind such practice IS pretty simple.

they (& other companies) are producing games/vns primarly for the japanese market, means aiming at japanese customers (or others affiliated with their culture) in general, which requires adjusting to their natural habits & also strictly considering their preferences (for maximizing profit).

And thats also the main point why many publishers refuse working together with western ones, as they fear that that kind of content, once made accessable to the west, might affect their countries image in a very negative way (Like the RapeLay skandal did). As a direct result of this people in japan might refrain from puchasing their products, out of fear beeing stigmated by citizens of the western hemisphere - ergo leading to a massive money loss for japanese game developers.

we can say what we want, but from a conservative point of view the content presented in 90% of Vn´s is considered highly desturbing porn, often paired with violence.

Blame it on your goverment, curse your mother for teaching you morals & ethics, despise everything, but it´ll stay the same, as long as the western world wont become more openminded & less prudish regarding sexual content.

[CryingWestern]

Script sizes are usually given in shift-JIS encoding, which is not exactly the same, but as a rough estimation you'd get bout 2 bytes per character.

 

To give some tangible reference, G-senjou no Maou is only 1.77 mb of text, Tsukihime is 3.09 and Grisaia is 3.85 (a bunch of data is available on TLWiki). So yeah the whole of Baldr Sky is like 1,5 times Tsukihime. And that's not counting all the time spent editing images.

[Kelebek1]

The screenshots don't look very good though, that's the problem I found. I've looked multiple times thinking I might try it, but the gameplay screenshots really kill it for me each time. Seems like a good reason that it wouldn't be picked up to me; that it's just bad.

[Deep Blue]

The screenshots don't look very good though, that's the problem I found. I've looked multiple times thinking I might try it, but the gameplay screenshots really kill it for me each time. Seems like a good reason that it wouldn't be picked up to me; that it's just bad.

[Clephas]

As an example of objectionable content... Baldrsky Zero's slave-gladiator/soldier system.  An entire system devoted to raising cyberwarriors, using them up, then recycling the parts... literally.  You have a debt?  Sell your organs or body parts.  If you make the mistake of being crippled or rendered useless?  Have fun being drugged up and returned to the cyberbattlefield as a psychopathic berserker.  Have a disease?  Have fun selling your entire body to support your 'siblings' at the 'orphanage' where they 'produced' you.

[Soulless Watcher]

As an example of objectionable content... Baldrsky Zero's slave-gladiator/soldier system.  An entire system devoted to raising cyberwarriors, using them up, then recycling the parts... literally.  You have a debt?  Sell your organs or body parts.  If you make the mistake of being crippled or rendered useless?  Have fun being drugged up and returned to the cyberbattlefield as a psychopathic berserker.  Have a disease?  Have fun selling your entire body to support your 'siblings' at the 'orphanage' where they 'produced' you.

[Ragtime]

The screenshots don't look very good though, that's the problem I found. I've looked multiple times thinking I might try it, but the gameplay screenshots really kill it for me each time. Seems like a good reason that it wouldn't be picked up to me; that it's just bad.

 

Watch a video of the Gameplay, it is actually (in my opinion) leagues ahead of any other VN/RPG which has an English translation. If you are comparing the gameplay to a triple A, big budget, non-VN title, obviously you are going to find that it falls short. Considering however, that this is a VN with a gigantic novels worth of text (I would estimate between 400k and 600k words which twice as large as most epic fantasy books (ex: Robert Jordans wheel of time books are about 300k words each on average)) to backup the gameplay, I'd say that it is pretty spectacular.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder. Some people probably prefer the turn based strategy of the Alicesoft/Eushully variety, but I've always loved a little action thrown into my RPG's (ex: tales of destiny series) because it makes me feel like I'm an active participant rather than just an observer who is along for the ride.

[douggle]

this keeps infuriating me to no end, mostly because I just cant understand the logic behind it.

Oh well I cant help it I guess.

*opens memrise*

It's not that hard to understand really, I mean think about it Japan is one of the most xenophobic cultures out there.

[Mephisto]

Because the game is fucking massive and it would take forever to translate all the text and edit all the images.