Legend of Heroes 5 (US/PSP) is...

[Tigershard]

Way too friggin' long! Last week I got to chapter 4 and assumed I was almost done with the game. Nope! I just started chapter 7 last night. While it is neat to see how all of the games connect up, it all still feels a bit weak.

What makes things worse is I am playing the bad Bamco PSP version. If people tell you to stay away from them, I would take that advice. I have now suffered through LoH III-V, and the only one I actually enjoyed was Tear of Vermillion, even though it probably had the the worst translation out of all of them.

I worry this experience will prevent me from starting up LoH VI any time soon since I am all LoH'd out.

[Tigershard]

Apr 14, 2011 11:24:50 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

Actually, I'd argue Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch has the worst translation.
-Tom

I'll believe you on that, seeing as my Japanese skill level is only at JLPT 5 level.

I think Moonlight Witch had my favorite temporary party heroes, but Vermillion had my favorite main characters.

Song of the Ocean has the worst side character in the trilogy...

SPOILER: Click to show

Aida. I didn't mind her at first, but her going emo over a doll being destroyed... I think a real character death would have elicited more emotion out of me.

[ParanoiaDragon]

I personally though ToV was the worst. Probably because of all the typos. I enjoyed SotO, & loved MW, though, I know I'd love it more if the dialogue was as good as Tom says it is in the Japanese version.

[gctKAZ]

I am playing through Moonlight Witch right now (on ISO while I try to find a seller with a complete copy who will ship to Canada), and although I have no experience with the content of the Japanese dialogue, in my ill-informed opinion, the poorness of the localisation is overblown.

Honestly, I see missing punctuation here and there but it is for the most part coherent. Before playing it and going only on people's comments here, I was expecting stuff like "I'm not regret" or "Victoly" or "All your base are belong to us". Admittedly, for a professional product it lacks polish and it is slightly shocking how the scripts could pass editing to reach retail shelves but I wouldn't say it's awful to the point that it's not worth playing.

But what do I know, I'm just an unwashed eater vagabond when it comes to Falcom stuff. Having low standards helps me to enjoy things that others might not And I suppose this is exactly what Sir Wyrdwad means about thinking it's not a poor localisation. My ignorance is bliss...

[Kimimi]

Here's a list of the various differences, might help
- www016.upp.so-net.ne.jp/usitora/gagharv/ed3uspsp.htm

[Tigershard]

Final chapter! My PSP ran out of battery at the guardian/combo spell battles, so will have to wait until tonight or tomorrow to finish

Thanks for that list Kimimi. Wish I knew about it when I was playing MW, since I don't remember the overall story too well right now (its been 2.5 years)

[gctKAZ]

Thanks for the insight, Mr.Wyrdwad. It's good to be aware that I am missing something, but here is how I think about it. If the localisation contains 60% of the essential story elements, I should get 60% of the experience. However, with my negligible Japanese knowledge, I would understand perhaps 1% of the story if I were to play it through with Japanese text. The only thing that could motivate me to learn Japanese at this time would be if I were to marry a Japanese wife - an event whose probability of occurrence I can safely say is almost zero. So, I will take what I can get for English gaming options. Not saying I especially encourage companies to release rushed translations, but at least I will appreciate that I can get something more out of it.

As for the game being long, I just finished the prologue and there are some really annoying things to do just to get the story to progress a tiny bit, for example:

"Go see the captain, he should be in his quarters"
Upon reaching captain's quarters, he's not there, so the nearest dude says "I think he went to the cargo hold, go look for him there."
Getting to the cargo hold, dude there says "You just missed him, he went to the mess hall for a snack"
At the mess hall, another dude says "He's already done eating, he went back to his quarters"
And from myself, "THIS IS F---ING BULLSH*T!!! Why are you doing this to me Falcom?" Completely unnecessary.

[Tigershard]

Just finished the game. I take back some of the stuff I said earlier. The ending was fantastic and makes it worth playing through all three of the games. I loved the songs during the ending. For a game about music, most of the songs in the game weren't all that spectacular, but piece played at the beginning ending totally made up for it.

[narugami]

How is the PSP remake itself (not the translation)? I actually have the PC versions of the Gagharv trilogy but haven't managed to get through any of them except for A Tear of Vermilion. I tried White Witch but got irritated after the characters kept walking on to the tables for lack of any hit detection...

[narugami]

Thanks for the response, Wyrdwad!