Hey everyone. Vic Ireland contacted me with a few clarifications that I'd like to share: 0:37 - Ireland wrote mostly for Turbo Play, which was a sister publication from the folks who made VG&CE. I only have one issue of that magazine sadly. That and the other one available for download on the internet do not feature him credited, so I had to go with my observations. I would've loved to show his name on an article or review. EDIT: Found and instance of an Ys III review written by Vic in the December 1991 issue of Videogames & Computer Entertainment (after or around the same time as the first TurboGrafx-16 releases from Working Designs came out, so I didn't look far enough ahead in my search). archive.org/details/vgce_91-12/page/n45/mode/2up?view=theater 18:31 - I say that they re-recorded the cut scenes since they couldn't get the isolated audio tracks. This is not true. They re-recorded them because the Japanese version's audio was weak. I certainly agree with that assessment. 20:52 - Vic says he implemented the pay to save mechanic to prevent "save scumming back when I cared how people play". He seems to regret its inclusion. I still say that it didn't affect my playthoughs at all, though I can see why people would object to it. 23:00 - There is actually some Working Designs humor in Iron Storm. According to Vic "if Japan wins where the US eventually stages an economic invasion of Japan, flooding it with inexpensive autos, TVs, radios, and gadgets. The resulting trade imbalance enslaves Japan to the US. " I would've loved to show this. 34:12 - Regarding the increased difficulty in Alundra, Vic says "I didn't only buff monsters in Alundra. It was more of a balancing. For the final boss I reduced its HP and increased its attack power. The Japanese version took FOREVER to kill. It was a tiresome attack sponge. I made it easier to kill, but more deadly if you got hit so the battle was a more reasonable length. Someone who formerly complained bitterly about WD "meddling" on Alundra wrote me an apology letter after they played the Japanese version and realized that I did inarguably change at least some of it for the better. Also, the opening animation with the rock music was just for the US version. Did not exist in the Japanese." 39:44 - Magic Knight Rayearth. I probably should've mentioned that the hard drive crash happened at Sega in Japan before Working Designs got the game. I did when I talked about this one in the "Last Officially Released Games 2" episode. Regarding if it was just FMV data or not, Vic clears things up with "Rayearth source code was absolutely partially lost on the Japanese side in a crash before we got it. Anyone that says it was just FMV lost has no idea what they're talking about. Tim had to really jump through a crazy amount of hoops and hack out chunks of binary, already compiled code from the retail Japanese release to fill in the gaps in code libraries that were lost or damaged to eventually get the English version to actually work." 45:45 - I said Vanguard Bandits' Japanese title was Epic Stella when it's actually Epica Stella. Vic adds some more fun trivia about the game: "Vanguard Bandits" was actually called Epica Stella in Japan, not Epic Stella. Vanguard Bandits was an accidental title. We were spitballing after we got the legal notice from Midway about Detonator Gauntlet infringing and someone jokingly said "Panty Bandits" to someone else some distance from me and I misheard it as "Vanguard Bandits." It actually was a way better title than Detonator Gauntlet, so it worked out OK. Also, the surround assist feature of the game (where if you have allies adjacent to an enemy you are attacking, that helps you) that really improves the strategy did not exist in the Japanese version. Ken worked a long time on that to get it right and it turned out great. I'll add to this post if Vic adds more clarifications.

This is probably one of the most anticipated episodes of Game Sack for me, and seeing the duration of it, I applaud your hard work Joe. Thank you for making my Saturday nights great!

I miss them so much. I don’t have many things left from them, except my Growlanser ps2 release. Thank you for making this episode. I loved how they snuck little messages in their magazine ads in the copyright section :)

What do you think of Working Designs? Love 'em? Hate 'em? Do you wish they had localized Chrono Trigger? Final Fantasy 7?

As a Lunar fan, I have a love genuinely/love ironically relationship with Working Designs. I will admit that a lot of their earlier translations have aged poorly... but a lot of translations from that era have aged even worse. And yeah, the changes they made to the diffculty is unacceptable. Their PS1 era translations were honestly fine, though, aside from a few questionable line changes. Personally I think their song dubs were great, the boat song in Lunar Silver Star Story in particular I think is better than the Japanese version. Their packaging and collector's editions are absolutely gorgeous though, you can't deny that.

My friends and I were obsessed with that Lunar theme song when it first came out! Hearing it brings back memories!

Best episode ever! Thanks Joe. I miss Working Designs. They really brought alot of the rpg games out here. Not to mention the love they put in their product cases. Especially when it came to collectors sets. We really don't see them much anymore which is sad.

"they even made french people seem normal", i almost spit my coffee over that one.

Working Designs was the only reason we could play these games outside of Japan and back in the days that was awesome but nowadays i mostly patch the games with un-worked patches because they often changed and rebalanced to much in my opinion.

Working Designs brought some pretty great games over here. Their translations don’t bother me. As long as the basic idea of the story comes across I don’t care if some random NPC says some dated 90s humor. Alundra is one of the best games ever. I’m definitely glad we got that one. It out-Zeldas some Zelda games, and I think the music is really good. The puzzles get way too convoluted at times, though, sort of like Lufia II. Those puzzles where you push blocks on ice and they only stop when they hit a wall or something are just bad.

Joe I know you’ve never been one to overly flex your collection but I know it’s gotta be incredible. You actually inspired me to collect because of how knowledgeable you are. It’d be cool to see your collection. Maybe a montage style video going through your shelves. Thanks again for your content as always!

Popful Mail's translation is so powerful. I hope video games go back to insanely funny translations like that. This episode definitely got me interested in some of their other games. Exile has always been on the radar so good to know there's more to it than I thought.

More continues can be earned in Parasol Stars, they are hidden well though. The bubbles, or enemies when thrown into certain spaces on each stage, and you uncover hidden items. You can hit each area multiple times with bubbles or enemies, and each time the bonus items you uncover increase in point value, eventually you uncover a 100 yen coin, collecting it earns you a continue. Bonus doors in boss rooms (like Rainbow Islands) can be uncovered by collecting 3 "miracles" in each world, if you get 3 of the same, you get a bonus door on the boss stage, entering it and you can actually find a large Yen coin that awards you 99 continues, finding a rainbow necklace which pops up every 77 levels played, within the stage, also awards you 99 continues.

I was first made aware of Working Design thanks to Game Sack, so this is perfect.

Vanguard Bandits is one of my favorite games ever, and it's great to see someone else even know it exists, let alone appreciates it's quality

I remember hearing this game company's name despite never playing a game from them. As it's over an hour long, we're in for the long haul!

lot of nostalgia in this one for me. I always enjoyed the dumb and silly translations. Sometimes you get a chuckle sometimes you don't, its all good

That ending skit alone earned the thumbs up. Thanks for the trip down amnesia lane!

This was one of the best episodes of GameSack I've seen in a long while.

Joe, you are without a shred of a doubt a true, honest, genuine soul. This episode is by far one of your very best. Working Designs games have always been really special to me. I have had many adventures and journeys with various titles, Dragon Force being number one for me personally. You have brought light to many in a world full of chaos just with this episode alone. I just wanted you to know this. Thank you Joe and we miss you Dave. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. BTW, I am heading over to my local BlockBuster Video to go rent Iron Storm I have always wanted to play and Beyond The Beyond really blows. Same story with me too. Damn you, Samson and your curse!

I hope the script writer for Albert Odyssey's translation never apologizes to anyone. That thing was a masterpiece

The Iron Storm translation drops the ball hard when it comes to naming the german units, especially the Navy. It´s a garbled mischmasch and more like a wordle task to figure out what is what.

Pretty odd i was just watching sega lord x’s video on working designs on the Sega CD. Now this drops? Cool 😎

This might be the most expensive episode in GS history.

I always wanted to fall asleep hearing about the entire Working Designs catalog, thanks Game Sack!

The translation notes were the best thing and I really wish others had done it back then (or even now)

I had a love/hate relationship with Working Designs in the 16-bit era. On the one hand it was great to be able to play games from Japan that no-one else dared to bring to the US and I really enjoyed Cosmic Fantasy 2 on the TG-16 CD even if it's a SUPER basic and grindy RPG. On the other hand I absolutely hated how WD decided to make many of the games they translated unfairly hard with Exile 2 in particular basically being broken. I didn't realize that they managed to hang in there until 2005. Well done on this video! I really enjoyed it!

As always, top notch. Every single week I’ll take a peek for however long a sack needs to be

It's best to mention that Magic Knight Rayearth was directed by Rieko Kodama, the character artist of Sega Ninja, Phantasy Star, Phantasy Star II, one of the artists on Sonic the Hedgehog, the director on Phantasy Star IV, and the producer of Skies of Arcadia.

"Games with good stories cannot be made without CD-Rom." Chrono Trigger: *farts*

This episode is one of Game Sack's best. I LOVE Working Designs, and the coverage here goes into the awesome guides and manuals you'd get with these old games (which very, very few channels have). And if anyone is wondering what the rule is for localization, like, "when is it okay to add humor and such," the answer is this: it is pretty much only okay when Working Designs and ADV do it.

Wow. Hats off to Gamesack, I only grew up playing a handful of these titles and had NO IDEA of the rich history of Working designs. Thanks again Joe for an amazing video man!

Love it or hate it, they definitely made random NPC dialogue a lot more interesting.

Another thing of note for Growlanser is that the nicely animated opening cutscenes from the Japanese version were replaced with generic character art portraits and music. That always saddened me cause Satoshi Urushihara's artwork is always a sight to behold, and his animation is stellar too.

I grew up in Redding CA, and Working Designs was someone of a source of local pride. I was working at a Software Etc (now Gamestop of course) when Magic Knight Rayearth came out on the Saturn, and they hand-delivered us 3 copies. I was able to snag one, but holy hell I wish I had just taken the whole case. :)

The VA for Popful Mail is wild. Thanks for covering this, was really curious about what other titles they had done other than Dragon Force and Silhouette Mirage

What an absolute treat and undertaking! This is a fantastic episode! Your hard work shows and was enjoyable from beginning to end. Your knowledge of Working Designs also shows in your skit at the end. I LOL'd! Keep up the excellent work!

It was more than a "spat" between Bernie Stolar and Victor Ireland. Sega of American's management and then Bernie Stolar once he became Sega of America's CEO, blatantly delayed and hindered Working Designs repeatedly with every 2-D JRPG game Ireland wanted to localize and publish for the Sega Saturn because of some kind of "approval" and "quality assurance" process Stolar demanded of Working Designs, and Stolar having yelled at Ireland that 2-D Games and RPGs "don't sell in the US".. which was very wrong as 2-D fighting games like Marvel Vs Capcom and Street Fighter Alpha were HUGE in the arcades, and then FF 7 on the PS proved that RPGs can become a huge success with the right marketing and big time ad campaign. The arguments between Victor Ireland and Stolar and all the special "conditions" were major difficulties and are **why** Working Designs did NOT localize and publish the original Sega Saturn remakes of Lunar and Lunar 2 (named Lunar Silver Star Story and Lunar 2 Eternal Blue) in the US, and instead WD then started localizing the Playstation ports of those two Lunar remakes... Me and all the gamers that LOVED the Sega Saturn and RPGs back then were lucky we even got Dragon Force, Shining Wisdom, and the repeatedly delayed Magic Knight Rayearth action rpg localized for the Saturn in the US at all.... many were disappointed about the LUNAR remakes (the original Saturn versions) not getting localized back then... Most of this clash between Victor and Bernie Stolar and what was going on was revealed via EGM and Gamefan magazine interviews with Victor Ireland and many of Ireland's posts on RPG and Lunar fan Newsgroup message boards back in the mid 90's

I loved the translations. It gave the games a personality that many games these days don't have because they are literal translations. Working Designs wasn't the only ones to do this and it was a delicate balance that could ruin a story if done wrong.

Technically the reason they went out of business was because they were going through the localization equivalent of development hell with the unreleased English version of Mystical Ninja Goemon Zero that they spent over 2 years on but was cancelled shortly before completion.

Personally I like fan translations most of the time a lot of love goes into them.

I love the fact that they existed and brought over many games which would have stayed in Japan otherwise. Their packaging was also great, especially for the Lunar games on PlayStation. I didn't care for all those pop cultural references, which really just break the immersion. I have to be honest I'm glad they didn't localize Phantasy Star IV. Imagine Professor Holt hating to miss Melrose Place or a Zio's cult member sorting his ABBA collection... yeesh!

Very funny that you upload a full WD retrospective right after their near-finished Goemon Zero PS2 beta leaks out

My intro to working designs was Alundra and that is one of my all time favorites. The manual and map that comes with the game are beautiful! Great video Joe.

Rev. Joe is my favorite person to see at Midnight on a Sunday! It's like console church!

South Park, Beavis and Butthead, Blink-182... I have no idea why fart jokes were considered the pinnacle of comedy in the 90s.

I wouldn't have been able to babe a single Working Designs game prior to watching this video. This is one of the reasons I love this channel. I learn so much about gaming history watching these videos. Really great stuff!

Just so happy to see Game Sack finally mention Space Harrier.

While WD's rewritten dialogue might be a bit over-the-top, it looks like it makes the games more enjoyable, interesting, and memorable. JRPGs are notorious for their overabundance of dry, repetitive dialogue (depending on the game, of course), and I can think of a bunch of more recent games that could probably benefit from some punched-up translation work (whether WD or Woolsey-styled).

"Japanese versions of games are almost always the harder versions." Working Designs: "Hold my beer..."

Zach Meston and I used to talk about games a lot on AIM back in the day. He was a member of a game collectors group on a forum we all used back then. I have both of those Lunar game guides still. He let me know that all the pictures were in them were taken with a digital camera off of one of their Dev machine monitors.

Really glad you covered this! I still love playing Alundra and Elemental Gearbolt, and I definitely agree that Working designs brought some real gems to this side of the world, even though they needlessly cranked up the difficulty. I for one am very thankful for those Un-worked Designs patches.

I fall into the latter as well. I never get angry at translation changes unless they change the story. I liked their stuff.

Sony considered 2D to be absolute crap despite starcraft, age of empires and pokemon being the most popular games of the time.

Interesting timing, bringing this out just as the Prototype of their Goemon PS2 translation was leaked!

I know they get a lot of hate these days, but those Working Designs’ games are some of my favorites! I love the packaging and translations! And back in the 90’s, they were one of the few companies bringing over Japanese games that might not have been localized otherwise.

I love Working Designs so much...the best collector edition's EVER!!!

It's a good day when a new episode of Game Sack blesses my timeline.

I remember really treasuring the Working Designs games back in the day. Not only was the packaging always top-notch (for instance, even the *plastic* for the Saturn cases was of higher quality than most games for the system), but they had a 'feel' that love and care was put into them and that they weren't just shovel-ware cash grab ports. I was a bit late to the Saturn scene, but I managed to buy both Magic Knight Rayearth and Panzer Dragoon Saga when they came out, and, honestly, I enjoyed Rayearth more because it gave the impression of being the result of a labor of love. Even though I know I'm *supposed* to think Saga was the best thing on the system, it just felt hollow by comparison. On the other hand, the translations could sometimes be a bit irritating. I remember watching the Silver Star Story Complete "Making Of" disc and being extremely annoyed when they mentioned that they decided that a character, who was a hermit in the original Japanese version, actually needed to live alone because he "had bad gas". I think I actually rolled my eyes when they said that.

Can you imagine back when the internet was so slow it took overnight to send a game? Yes Joe I am old so I remember those days, my first internet usage was in 1992 or 1993 so there wasn't any pictures, video, audio at all. None of the students were at all impressed but our teacher said it'd be big. Guess Mr. Savard RIP knew what he was talking about. I had bought an ink jet a year or so later and he was impressed with it's quality and cheapness compared to laser printers. That was with my $2000 386 which had I believe like a 120 MB hard drive.

Yessss!!!! You did an overview of Silhouette Mirage PS1, thank you, been recommending it for years. I feel the exact same way when I play it, I pop it in ready for a run n gun, but then you remember you kinda gotta play by the game's rules/mechanics, but after 1 level, I'm sucked back in and can't wait to get to the next level. I love this game. And apparently in Japan, this game was much more religion based, Silhouette and Mirage being good and evil, I remember reading somewhere the entire story was changed(due to possibly Sony being scared people would think it's a Christian game or maybe there was too heavy an emphasis on it, I'd love to know the full story). I would really like to see how deep they went with the religious stuff, how far the rabbit hole went in game. I love games where the goal is to kill the devil, Ghosts n Goblins series, Cursed Castilla, Castlevania series, Cuphead, it's a fun sub genre I collect. And it goes with my absolute favorite sub genre to collect and play of all time, 32-bit 2D beautiful sidescrolling action games. What a video, more Sackaltine, please.

When people talk about Working Designs, one point that seems to enter the discussion often is that JRPGs are written "dry" in Japanese and deserve to be "improved" by translators changing the story. I can't comment on the changes Working Designs made because I have never played any game they have translated. I don't need to, because I'm literate in Japanese. On that topic I can write with authority. And I would like to say in the strongest possible terms that if you have been told Japanese RPG dialogue is dry, YOU HAVE BEEN LIED TO. JRPGs are if anything an oasis where creative and inventive writing flourishes in ways that would be difficult to accomplish or censored in other mediums. Now, I could simply assert this, and my argument would have equal weight to those who claim the writing is dry. It wouldn't be _quite_ equal weight because I actually know Japanese and my opinion is informed, but I can't easily prove that to an outside observer. Instead, I'd like to cite a few examples of creative Japanese writing that may be familiar even to people who only know English. ・The phrase "Puff-Puff" from Dragon Quest ・The dialogue of Ayla from Chrono Trigger ・The entire caveman chapter of Live A Live ・The character Selphie Tilmitt from Final Fantasy VIII ・Mother 2/Earthbound in general ・The Ruins of Alph in Pokémon GSC/HGSS ・The TALK function across the entire Megami Tensei series For the purposes of the above list I limited myself to only the most obvious examples from the most well-known games, but there are far more and if anything obscure, untranslated games are especially creative. These are also examples that are so extreme they survived translation, most creativity and nuance suffers greatly when translated. I challenge anyone to call any of those examples "dry". From an RPG with no dialogue, to having a chapter where all dialogue is in code, to coining a new word and so much more, JRPGs are anything BUT dry and boring. This lie that JRPGs have terrible uncreative writing pisses me off because every time it's repeated another person decides not to learn Japanese. Because of that, I'd like to stay on my soapbox for a moment longer and be very direct. If you like Japanese RPGs, LEARN JAPANESE. You can learn Japanese using JRPGs as a textbook. It isn't even hard. Well, it is, a little, but it's mostly just tedious memorization. That's something anyone can do, especially JRPG fans. If you can memorize the names of 900 Pokémon, I assure you that you can memorize 2,000 kanji. You don't even need all 2,000. Most JRPGs are written at about a 5th grade reading level. You can get through 90% of them with only the easiest 100 kanji and a good electronic dictionary like Aedict. If you love JRPGs, if you truly love the way they make you feel and inspire you, you owe it to yourself to learn Japanese and read their original text. Don't get a translator to tell you what a character is saying, hear their voice yourself. It makes every moment so much more magical. An hour or less of studying every day can change your life. Please, at least consider it. Thank you for reading my manifesto, I hope you enjoyed being subjected to it as much as I enjoyed getting it out of my system.

Comfy video time. Im grateful these are still being made. Also, anyone else hear Kraftwerk at 5:38 ?

Personally I hated them, changing dialogues and sometimes story was bad enough but cutting or censoring games was annoying, but thanks to them I learned japanese.

Working Design is like the 90s version of Xseed

I'm sure someone else has mentioned it before, but in parasol stars throwing enemies/water into thin air reveals pickups that increase in points, with the last one being a 100 yen coin that gives you an extra continue, after which it resets the item order again. I COMPLETELY understand why you weren't sold on Parasol Stars beforehand now as that one thing takes it from an overly punishing panic to an addicting exploration/secret finding game! Highly recommend giving it another shot with that in mind!

YOU BROUGHT BACK THE FART! AND ON A VIDEO ABOUT ONE OF MY FAVORITE GAME COMPANIES. God bless you! I picked up a few of Vic's own copies in the mid 2000s signed by him, some of my most treasured possesions.

Nothing better than just over an hour of checking out Joe's Sack!

Alundra is one of my most favourite games... ever!

I just started playing alundra two weeks ago. My first time playing a working designs game. I’ve heard of their legendary status for years. There is a character named Bonaire in it. And when I realized what Bonaire sounds like if you say it out loud after the character says “that girl is real Bonaire material” I knew I was in for something special.

Hi! If Victor is still out there, I've been trying diligently to reach out to him about a potential 'Lunar' sequel idea (and its convoluted licensing situation.) First off, I hope he's doing well. And second, I understand the frustration with the feeble attempts to get a third game made over the past several years, but I'm very confident that he'd enjoy "The Silver Legacy." And hopefully, he sees this comment! 👍

Glad as usual to see Popful Mail here. I freaking ADORE that game! And I 100% agree with everything you said, I love the liberties they took with the translation and I welcome the added challenge too. You must be quite the gamer to not consider this game to be too tough. For the average gamer I imagine this game will be tough as freaking nails. Most seem to get stuck on the Golem boss, and for good reason. He is freaking TOUGH! Good news is if you can beat him then you should be able to beat the game as it doesn't get much tougher than that guy.

Here's hoping we'll get the Lunar games on the rotw's Sega Genesis Mini 2..

Popful Mail...if I ever travel back in time to 1994, I will move heaven and earth to get a Sega CD and a copy of this. Popful Mail was way ahead of its time.

Great video. Working Designs was my favorite back in the day.

As a huge RPG nerd, I have such mixed feelings about Working Designs. Predictably, I'm not a fan of their humor or localization decisions, though I have more issue with them fundamentally altering a game's balance than the dialogue changes, but also, if it weren't for them, many of these game would have never had any release outside Japan at all. They also made some amazing box sets with collectables as standard releases, the Lunar Complete games being excellent examples. But I still feel like they made each game they touched worse in some way or another... it's like they both deeply respected the source material while simultaneously doing the exact opposite xD Either way, that ending skit was spot-on

Working designs is the reason why restoration patches exist.

That “ebonics” thing in Albert Odyssey is insane, certainly didnt remember that from when I played it

Man hood episode, thank for showing all Working Designs software they did and game play footage, your time is certainly appreciated.

On one hand I appreciate WD for giving gamers a chance to play games we might never have played otherwise. On the other hand...they had a nasty habit of writing script wholecloth, introducing nasty bugs (like NISA), and cranking up the difficulty for _reasons._ Bill Clinton jokes. In _Lunar._ Seriously?

There is an “un-working designs” patch for nearly all of these games. Removes the terrible grinding and difficulty. Cool roms

Just got home from a long day of work, shower and ready for bed.. New episode of Game Sack Every time. Thanks for the consistently great content Joe 👍🏼

WD was done seriously dirty at E3 97. They were denied an adequate floor presence at the last minute. Also, he canceled plans on bringing the Saturn versions of Grandia and Lunar, and Thunderforce Gold Pack releases that would include Hyper Duel and Blast Wind, now two of the most expensive imports for the system, especially HD.

I hate when who's just supposed to port/translate takes too much liberties. If you're so "creative" just make your own game already.

Working Designs honestly just seems like they were a bunch of hacks with terrible writing skills. Making a ton of ports and screwing with them doesn't make you a legitimate developer. These guys weren't game creators, and these were not "their" games.

Working Designs were the unsung heroes of the 4th and 5th Console Generation, localizing a large quantity of high quality video games for the SEGA CD, SEGA Saturn, and Sony PlayStation. It's sad that they're largely forgotten nowadays.

That quote from Thunder Force V reminds me of a line from the original dubbed version of the Ghost in The Shell film (1995), where a character in the market says " It's a bargain at twice the price!"

This will be controversial, but I don't see the problem with spicing up random NPCs like they did in Alundra and such. I don't think they ever drastically changed the stories in any of their games. Although, I do have a problem with them screwing up the game balance in nearly every one of their releases.

Working Designs - making perfectly balanced games impossibly difficult since 1991

My colon has been feeling alittle swollen, I'm gonna go get that checked out. Thaks for the advice

Maybe your best episode in a long while. Thanks for the video. Working Designs games for the PS1 were always my personal holy grail, shame that I lived in a country with a terrible economy and no PS1 official distribution.

The translations are one thing, but Working Designs' arbitrary gameplay alterations (often making the games substantially more difficult than their Japanese counterparts) have kept me from seriously diving into their releases.

Límited run games is the Working Designs of our time, but without the Quality 😂

If nothing else, it's interesting to see how influential their work was in certain segments of nerdery--lots of miniature RPGs made by English fans read like Working Designs translations. Either that or they had their fingers on the pulse of nerd humor at the time.

The amount of enjoyment I get out of this channels videos is honestly priceless. Fantastic work and thank you for your efforts as always.

Yes, I love collecting Working Design games. They were great!

In the UK a spaz is a derogatory term for someone suffering a significant disability or learning difficulty. Not great.

Dragon Force and Magic Knight Rayearth are some of my favorite video games of all time. Dragon Force had beautiful pixel artwork and the gameplay was extremely fun and unique. Magic Knight Rayearth meanwhile was a great last hurrah for the Sega Saturn along with Panzer Dragoon Saga and the other 1998 titles like Shining Force III or Burning Rangers. Both games deserve way more recognition, especially Dragon Force. Longe live Working Designs!

I'm so glad Working Designs doesn't exist anymore. I'm sad people lost their jobs when the company went under, but that's the only way for them to not ruin any games anymore. Fortunately, there's the Un-Working Designs project, which is undoing all of Working Designs mistakes, by fixing their stupidity. I can't stand modifying the games' original intentions (gameplay/difficulty-wise), or changing the story and altering the dialog. Now, to make them perfect again, we just need someone to re-translate the games back to their original japanese intentions.

I really hate the dichotomy that you either want hyper literal translations or super liberal translations that play fast and loose. The fact of the matter is that Japan and its culture isn't incomprehensible to English speaking audiences. Cultural references and quirks should only be removed if absolutely necessary. My problem with Working Designs' translation philosophy is that, for the most part, they just made a bunch of stuff up and weren't adapting anything for English speakers. They just felt clever adding in their lame jokes and writing.