Topic: Phantom Brave Delayed to Include Japanese Voice-overs

[Flames_of_chaos]

Due to overwhelming demand, NIS America has decided to delay Phantom Brave in order to include dual voice-overs.
 http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/newsArt.cfm?artid=18602

 NIS America recently announced that they decided to delay Phantom Brave: We Meet Again in order to include Japanese voice-overs.    

Originally, the game was only going to feature English voice-overs. Due to overwhelming feedback from fans, the company and development team decided to please their fans and include English and Japanese voice-overs.    

The game is a strategy RPG where players can create units by confining souls into various objects on the battlefield; once the souls are confined in an object, players can summon monsters or ghosts from those objects.    

Phantom Brave: We Meet Again will now be released on August 4.    

PHANTOM BRAVE: WE MEET AGAIN GAINS DUAL  VOICE-OVER    

Santa Ana, CA (May 29, 2009) – NIS America announced today that Phantom Brave: We Meet Again will add English/Japanese dual voice-overs thanks to overwhelming support from NISA fans and hardcore gamers. In appreciation of all the great fan support, NIS America negotiated with the developer in Japan and they have happily accepted the request. The development team has noted that "as long as fans and gamers can enjoy Phantom Brave we‘ll do our best to get this feature in". Due to the implementation of the dual voice-overs, the release date will be delayed until August 4th.    

About Phantom Brave: We Meet Again  Phantom Brave is a turn based strategy RPG that incorporates unique battle styles and a  hardcore character customization system. Players can create units from a number of list  of monster/ghost categories and power them up to a exponential number.    

Battle System  There are two main phases to Phantom Brave's battle system. The first phase is the  Confine phase. Marona the protagonist of this game can summon ghosts and monsters  as battle units to fight for her. However, in order to do so she must "confine" souls in to  objects on the battlefield like rocks, plants, and items. Depending on what you object  you use as the host the stats of the units you summon will greatly differ. Some units are  become stronger on certain objects, so knowing your spirits' characteristics becomes a  very important strategic element.    

Key Features  1. English/Japanese dual voice-over  2. All new story chapters  3. Improved graphics  4. Redesigned User Interface  5. Extra items, skills, and characters    

Bonus Item  Phantom Brave includes a digital art disc that is packed with artworks and portraits.

[broodwars]

I'm sorry, but if people want the game to have Japanese Voice Acting so much they can buy the import version.  I only had a passing interest in this game, but to see NISA back down and delay a game for something like this when they wouldn't even delay Ar Tolelico 2 to fix the crash bugs they created in the localization process just bugs me to no end.

[Stratos]

When was the game originally going to be released? A delay for me is good because there are already too many games coming out for me to keep up. Though juggling two jobs, one with almost guaranteed overtime and another with good tips should make it easier for me.

Are there any other SRPGs coming or out on Wii other than this and Fire Emblem? I want more.

[Enner]

I'm sorry, but if people want the game to have Japanese Voice Acting so much they can buy the import version. 

Now that's a bit mean; telling them to buy the game at a much higher price and with important text they can not understand.

Without going in to a sub vs. dub debate, having two voice tracks ought to be an expected feature in an age of increasing media space. Seeing as how Phantom Brave is, they can't blame graphics for taking up space on a DVD-5 or a DVD-9. Also, I advocate having the Japanese voice track for a limited edition release as a replacement or as an inclusion if cost really is a concern for a publisher. There is certainly a fan base that would happily buy such releases.

[broodwars]

I'm sorry, but if people want the game to have Japanese Voice Acting so much they can buy the import version.

Now that's a bit mean; telling them to buy the game at a much higher price and with important text they can not understand.

Without going in to a sub vs. dub debate, having two voice tracks ought to be an expected feature in an age of increasing media space. Seeing as how Phantom Brave is, they can't blame graphics for taking up space on a DVD-5 or a DVD-9. Also, I advocate having the Japanese voice track for a limited edition release as a replacement or as an inclusion if cost really is a concern for a publisher. There is certainly a fan base that would happily buy such releases.

Hey, I'm all for both camps getting what they want from the get-go if the developer had such a thing in mind.  I just get annoyed at the sheer level of unadulterated whining from the subbies when their audio track doesn't included, especially if it's to accomodate a fully-voiced dub track (see: all the knashing of teeth on their forums about Ar Tolelico 2 not getting the Japanese VA track so they could fit the English VA in).  Sorry, this is a North American release so that takes priority.

This specific instance is more my annoyance with NISA in general, after they pretty much pissed me off permanently with their unbelievably-inept quality control on a certain title I already mentioned.  I just find it funny after they came right out and said they weren't even going to issue replacement discs on Ar Tonelico 2 for major issues they created in the localization process, that they would then turn around and cater to a very small segment of a potential fanbase and spend resources putting in the Japanese dub track for this game (something that people should just consider an extra at this point).  And mind you, Phantom Brave is probably going to sell like crap anyway just for being an incredibly niche game on a system not generally friendly to 3rd party games. 

I just find NISA to be a more than incompetent localization studio at the moment, so yeah I'm being a little mean to the subbies at the moment but whatever.  I don't like the idea of anything taking NISA's attention away from issues that actually matter so they can focus on secondary issues like this.  I'd rather the game actually played the way it was supposed to.

[Flames_of_chaos]

The original release date was June 16, and it's good that they are including a Japanese VO track because the PS2 Phantom Brave has a dual VO track(English/Japanese). Originally fans didn't like it how the Wii version was "inferior" in that regard.

[TJ Spyke]

I would be pissed if I was interested in the game, being forced to wait just so a very small amount of whiners can get the Japanese voices in (which usually are inferior). It's bad enough I can't watch the last episodes of Naruto on Hulu in English (the Japanese voices suck compared to the English ones).

[Flames_of_chaos]

It's all the matter of preference, at least they are taking the time to do this for the fans.

[TJ Spyke]

They should make 2 versions then: the normal version and then later the Japanese one. I just think a game should never be delayed for something wanted by maybe 1% (max) of the people who will buy the game.

[vudu]

They have to delay a game to include something that's already been finished for months?  That seems ... weird.

[Ian Sane]

I admire the dedication to their hardcore fans... but doesn't probably EVERYONE who cares about this already have this game on the PS2?  But then I guess if you insist on having Japanese voice acting when you can't even speak Japanese that you may also be willing to buy multiple editions of the game just for the extra content.

I guess it would nice if they just didn't have to delay it.  It's nice to provide that language option but they're probably pissing off more people with the delay and I'll bet anyone whining about the language thing will probably buy the game anyway.  I'm not a big supporter of taking advantage of devoted fans like that but... I don't know.  It's a tough call.

[KDR_11k]

I admire the dedication to their hardcore fans... but doesn't probably EVERYONE who cares about this already have this game on the PS2?

It worked for Okami, didn't it?

[Ian Sane]

It worked for Okami, didn't it?

I meant the voice acting specifically.  Only really hardcore RPG snobs care about any voice acting other than English.  I'm assuming that anyone who is really anal about that sort of thing would have bought this game on the PS2.  Not anyone interested in the game at all but anyone interested enough that having the Japanese dub is a big deal to them.  If you're that devoted you weren't sitting around with just a Gamecube last gen hoping that Phantom Brave would someday make it to a Nintendo console.  If you were that kind of RPG nut you obviously bought a PS2 last gen and probably bought this game the day it came out.

[Enner]

Hey, I'm all for both camps getting what they want from the get-go if the developer had such a thing in mind.  I just get annoyed at the sheer level of unadulterated whining from the subbies when their audio track doesn't included, especially if it's to accomodate a fully-voiced dub track (see: all the knashing of teeth on their forums about Ar Tolelico 2 not getting the Japanese VA track so they could fit the English VA in).  Sorry, this is a North American release so that takes priority.

This specific instance is more my annoyance with NISA in general, after they pretty much pissed me off permanently with their unbelievably-inept quality control on a certain title I already mentioned.  I just find it funny after they came right out and said they weren't even going to issue replacement discs on Ar Tonelico 2 for major issues they created in the localization process, that they would then turn around and cater to a very small segment of a potential fanbase and spend resources putting in the Japanese dub track for this game (something that people should just consider an extra at this point).  And mind you, Phantom Brave is probably going to sell like crap anyway just for being an incredibly niche game on a system not generally friendly to 3rd party games. 

I just find NISA to be a more than incompetent localization studio at the moment, so yeah I'm being a little mean to the subbies at the moment but whatever.  I don't like the idea of anything taking NISA's attention away from issues that actually matter so they can focus on secondary issues like this.  I'd rather the game actually played the way it was supposed to.

Mm. I figured someone would call out my lunacy of wanting to pay less of something to understand something (subtitles) to not be able to understand something else (Japanese voice).

As for Japanese voice should be regarded as extra, I disagree but only from a subs junkie bias. I've been around long enough to realize that the only difference between Japanese-voiced character and an English-voiced characters is that you can pretend the one you don't understand is better than it actually is.

I have favorite actors and actresses on both sides of the pond (that seem to sound off in all the major titles) and would pay for the opportunity to hear both sides. Hell, I would even welcome and pay for alternate voice track DLC if it is a reasonable price. And not just for Japanese games but American and European games as well. One-five bucks to be able to play Gears of War, Ace Combat, or Symphonia in Japanese would be a highly enjoyable novelty for me.

Still, I have to recognize that voice acting is low in importance to a video game. And that there are some people that were looking forward to Phantom Brave Wii coming out on a specific date. I have yet to let a release date slip to get to me, but there's bound to be people to be less tolerant than I am.

[broodwars]

I have favorite actors and actresses on both sides of the pond (that seem to sound off in all the major titles) and would pay for the opportunity to hear both sides. Hell, I would even welcome and pay for alternate voice track DLC if it is a reasonable price. And not just for Japanese games but American and European games as well. One-five bucks to be able to play Gears of War, Ace Combat, or Symphonia in Japanese would be a highly enjoyable novelty for me.

You know what, I've never thought about that but that is a very good point: why AREN'T companies using DLC to offer multiple language tracks for games that would benefit from it?  That's a very logical use of the system, probably too logical for most companies.

[Flames_of_chaos]

They have to delay a game to include something that's already been finished for months?  That seems ... weird.

The Wii version was originally set to be released only with a English VO track, since this is a last minute change the game does have to be delayed to implement it. Also when something new is implemented they have to check if there's any glitches that occurred.