I love how my blog post has gone completely off topic with all this inane bickering. Oh well, whatever keeps it bumped I guess. 
 
Oh, and I actually just picked up a copy of RE:CV a few hours ago for $7. That's probably the next game I am going to blog about.

"Then why not just call him Belzebub? Or hell, why not add a demon called Malebelgia in his place? (Wait, that wasn't a demon, but whatever. Just call Spawn a religion and leave it at that :P.) That last one would make far more sense, given that it's much closer to the source material. And I made the point of fan translations being too literal, but in this case, I could forgive them. 

" @ArbitraryWater: 
 
I'm no kid, I'm a centuries old King! Just for that: battle. *draws swords* "

" I'm starting to doubt your claim about their great localizations. I didn't get the feeling that this was properly localized when I was fighting a fly monster from Hell called Belzaboul (shouldn't that Beelzebub, Atlus guys?).

The untranslated lines and spelling errors prevent me from enjoying the story, to a certain extent, and point out how rough and unpolished the game is in general. Also keep in mind that names have the tendency to flow out of their boxes (again, not in fan translations)
 
Let me say this: I wasn't searching for any untranslated lines. I just stumbled upon one when conversing with that rock star character. We're never told that she speaks Japanese, and the line itself is never explained, so I can't blame it on taking it out of context. The game doesn't even set up any context for it; there's a conversation, she leaves, JAPANESE, then back to the map screen. I did research, and other people seem to have the exact same problem, indicating that this was not a screwed up version I got by mistake or something. And given that this happened in another game (according to your Persona 3 anecdote, I think), I'm starting to doubt your claim about their great localizations. I didn't get the feeling that this was properly localized when I was fighting a fly monster from Hell called Belzaboul (shouldn't that Beelzebub, Atlus guys?).
 
My point was that I expect higher quality from a large company with far more resources, money, and general knowledge of the subject than I do from fan translators with limited time, manpower, and knowledge of both the language and programming skills. However, since we're moving into a grey area, let's move into the light, also known as the next argument:
 
I thought Devil Survivor more resembled TWEWY than it did the original SMT, but I see your point. Anyway, I thought the plot focused more on people abusing the hell out of demons (Keisuke, Kaido, etc.) and "overcoming God's ordeal" (if I have to hear that ONE MORE TIME...) than it did the demon throne thing. That was more important near the end of the game, when you could choose between serving God or your creepy cousin.
 
Inserting touch controls that aren't needed is bad, but so is omitting touch screen controls when the game in question is outright begging for them. Perfect example: Radiant Dawn. Simple point and click controls would have made the game slightly better, but oh no, I must move about and navigate menus to play the game. I adjusted in time, but the point is that this game would be better if it had simple motion controls. No waggle or anything, just pointing at a guy and telling him where to go and what to do.
 
I only noticed some of this crap near the end, when I got three decisions. Other than that, many of my decisions had very little impact on the general course of the game. And now that you've mentioned the pussy route, let me say that the game seemed to despise me for every choice. Want to fight off the demons? Well, you're a judgmental, puritanical asshole who casts fear upon those around you! Want to help those demons? Go ahead, if you want to make God cry? Want to kill both the demons and God? Fuck you, that's not even a choice. Automatic game over.
 
I tried adjusting my allies to their strengths and cracking skills in alignment with said strengths, but the game seemed to resent me for it; whenever I did plan things out like that, the computer would move enemy units in exactly the right way to screw up my carefully laid-out plans. As for Beldr, my original plan was to defeat all the demons and then focus on him. I completed it, then went to fight him. I could only harm him with one unit, which is kind of cheap, but I made it to the low stages of his health. The game then said, "Oh, looks like you're about to beat this fairly difficult boss. Let's see what I have up here. *reaches up ass, pulls out the entire Roman army* Now try and beat him."
 
I still find a lot of these arguments to be perfectly valid. I know strategy RPGs are supposed to be hard, but this is the only one I've played that lacks the legitimacy of any other strategy RPG.

As if there's even a choice! Disgaea, of course!
 
Although that said, you could easily lose yourself being side-tracked fighting the Item Gods and the extra stages you can unlock before you actually finish the game... but I assume you mean completing the campaign, which really doesn't take all that long in the grand scheme of things. And you can always petition the Dark Assembly to make the enemies weaker so you can practically trample over anything in your way.

" I'm curious about Disgaea myself, since I'm rather familiar with BG.    The PC Jagged Alliance goes for what, like 4 or 6 bucks now...  I forgot if I asked you before, but have you ever played X-Com? "

" @Slippy said:

" I think Resident Evil 3 being the worst in the series is a little harsh. Resident Evil 5, as a Resident Evil game, was much worse. The last hints of horror that were in RE3, and also RE4, were wrung out completely in RE5. Because of co-op, RE5 also lacked the feeling of isolation that RE3 had going for it at the best of times. "

I don't want to get into this. Basically I like both the old and the new RE games and believe that they have to be held to separate standards because otherwise you have crazy people going "RE4 and RE5 ARE NOT TEH TRU SURVIVAL HOROOR BLAH BLAH BLAH".   But don't worry. I have yet to play Code Veronica, and for all I know it could be far worse than RE3. And I never said I didn't like RE3, but that it is the weakest one I have played so far. "

The sad thing is that the fan translation is better. Here's an example: Mystic Ark was recently translated by two separate groups. I'm playing it in the first translation, and here's the only major technical problem I've seen with it so far:
 

" I think Resident Evil 3 being the worst in the series is a little harsh. Resident Evil 5, as a Resident Evil game, was much worse. The last hints of horror that were in RE3, and also RE4, were wrung out completely in RE5. Because of co-op, RE5 also lacked the feeling of isolation that RE3 had going for it at the best of times. "

" Here's why I hate it so much:  Freezing, a difficulty curve that shoots into the stars about halfway through, a translation rougher than many of the games I've played, a story that rips off TWEWY, its desire to be a GBA game (going so far as to not include touch screen controls at all), a final boss that can only be beaten with RNG abuse, and the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics has done everything this game is trying to do, except much, much better. "

" @ArbitraryWater:   Fair enough. Then what would be the game that did everything Jagged Alliance does, but much better? You know, what FFT is to me? "

Here's why I hate it so much:
 
Freezing, a difficulty curve that shoots into the stars about halfway through, a translation rougher than many of the games I've played, a story that rips off TWEWY, its desire to be a GBA game (going so far as to not include touch screen controls at all), a final boss that can only be beaten with RNG abuse, and the fact that Final Fantasy Tactics has done everything this game is trying to do, except much, much better.

I'm curious about Disgaea myself, since I'm rather familiar with BG.  
 
The PC Jagged Alliance goes for what, like 4 or 6 bucks now...  I forgot if I asked you before, but have you ever played X-Com?

It is time once again after a long break for me to review old... games? Actually no. Unfortunately, Disgaea is a long game, as is Baldur's Gate, and with the release season almost upon us, I will probably only be able to finish one before Dragon Age comes out. So instead of bothering to review something new, I will take a look at some of the games I have reviewed previously and see how they have held up since I looked at them prior. Sounds good? Good. Let's go.

Goldeneye

Resident Evil 3

Jagged Alliance

The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall