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US Shmup Ports - Ikaruga Vs. MLF2? 25

Posted by simoniker from the a-study-in-opposites dept.
US conversions of Japanese games can either be beautifully done or amateurishly botched. And the 2D shoot-'em-up (aka shmup) genre has seen both over the past few weeks. First, there's been Atari's conversion of Treasure's vertical 2D shmup for Gamecube, Ikaruga, which has been generally hailed as 'a great thing', with the preservation of turn-to-vertical mode (play with your TV on its side to exactly replicate the arcade version!) and even an online score ranking system. On the other hand, the budget US release of vertical shooter Mobile Light Force 2 (actually Shikigami) from XS Games has prompted howls of derision from the hardcore fans, with a bizarre Charlie's Angels-aping cover that has nothing to do with the game, and vertical mode and cut-scenes removed. But then, the game is still fundamentally intact - so how much should these import changes matter if you can snag the game cheap? Opinions, as always, welcome.
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US Shmup Ports - Ikaruga Vs. MLF2? More

US Shmup Ports - Ikaruga Vs. MLF2?

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  • What I don't understand.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by x311 ( 600406 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @07:48AM (#5909299) Homepage
    .....is why they just don't do a direct port of the game and change the dialogue/speech from japanese to english? What the hell is the point of taking things out?? If anything leave whatever is in, translate it, and add more stuff if so inclined. I just don't understand axing stuff from already well-made games, but then again, that's probably why I'm not running a video game production company right now...
    • Because it costs money for people to do the translations and do high quality audio recordings. It's much cheaper to rip those parts of the code out and replace them with throw away sound bites and cheap "art".

      American International used to do this all the time with foreign movies. Just write a new script that sorta fit the mouth movements, rename people as needed, get a few people to read the voiceovers, profit at drive-ins.

      XS Games is just cheaply getting these games over to the US market. There isn't
    • Heck, don't even change the dialog - just subtitle it. It'll be cheaper, and anyways, have you listend to English voice-overs in most games? Ugh! And people think dubbed anime is bad!
      • Heck, don't even change the dialog - just subtitle it. It'll be cheaper, and anyways, have you listend to English voice-overs in most games? Ugh! And people think dubbed anime is bad!

        Capcom did that with Rival Schools for the PS1, they just left in all the Japanese speech and added some subtitles, and it was great. Certainly better than just omitting whole scenes.
    • What's even more enigmatic is this. "Mobile Light Force", which we all lovingly know as Gunbird, actually HAD AN ARCADE RELEASE IN THE UNITED STATES. And it was in English. Albiet not very GOOD English at times...(quote: "I left to you, Ace. Show the one to eyes.")...but English nonetheless. Hell XS could have even taken the English text directly without fixing the grammatical errors. The issue with the screen modes...well the Japanese PSX port of Gunbird (which was done by Atlus...ok how come Atlus di
  • I saw this game at best buy the other day and it looked interesting. Maybe I'll rent it some time to see if its worth owning. I can remember many an afternoon, after school, playing Life Force. Anyone remember Mr. Brain with arms? Mr. Pharoh head. Crazy Skull with eyballs man? That was a fun game! Maybe this game will rekindle those feelings.
    • Actually, Konami is the primary reason I mod-chipped my original playstation: Gradius Gaiden.

      Released overseas only, it's a pretty awesome game. Even on easy, some of the levels just have massive amounts of crap flying at you...

      Also, for the PS2, I picked up Gradius 3 and 4. Pretty decent games; if you're used to the SNES version of Gradius 3, get ready for a slightly more difficult challenge.

      As well, later this year Konami has Gradius 5 slated for US release. I'm sure they're not making much money

  • Phalanx (Score:3, Funny)

    by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) <philsand AT ufl DOT edu> on Thursday May 08, 2003 @09:12AM (#5909814) Homepage
    See, I have trouble getting worked up over bad covers to shooters. Because, really, it'll never be as bad as Phalanx [gamespy.com].

  • It's simple... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Ransak ( 548582 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @09:37AM (#5910022) Homepage Journal
    An import game is only good if it winds up on engrish.com [engrish.com] at some point.

    All your base are belong to us, and stuff.

  • On a recent spending spree at Best Buy, I picked up Ikaruga. Since the Penny Arcade kids had mentioned it favorably and I needed a good game I could pick up for only short game breaks. Ikaruga is really fun, but its not something I can play for extended period of times, which is good cause I still need to finish Wind Waker, and I have high hopes of playing through most of the Final Fantasy series again this summer.

    The whole polarity thing really puts an interesting twist on the game. Basically you switc
  • XS games puts out cheap conversions. I mean in price. Mobile Light Force 2 is between $10 and $15 NEW for Playstation 2. The loss in content is probably worth it.

    Hmmmm, I can't imagine why someone would think babes would sell video games. It was probably a toss-up between that and a Domino's coupon for free pizza.
  • I don't care if the port of MLF2 was incredible and even featured MLF3 as a bonus. Ikaruga would still kick it's ass.

  • Why versus? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by analog_line ( 465182 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @11:04AM (#5910791)
    I mean, yeah... Ikaruga is probably the best vertical shooter EVER. Its graphics, gameplay, and everything else just annihilate every other shooter I've ever seen. I almost got an import GameCube so I could play it, until I heard it was coming out here. It also isn't a hell of a lot different from the Dreamcast version. I don't think the localization was much more than the menus redone. The audio isn't changed.

    Yeah, Mobile Light Force 2 is a stripped down version of Shikigami, but the actual part of the game you PLAY is still there, and it's still fun. And cheap as hell, which is a good thing. Getting some quality shooters in at low prices might actually revive the market for the whole genre over here. As long as they don't cut out any actual gameplay, I'll keep buying XS Games' ports. Maybe it'll get more of the Metal Slugs and such localized over here, if people are shown there's a real market for a quality localization.

    Definitely, if you want the better game, there's no question it's Ikaruga hands down. But if price is a concern, or you just like playing shooters, there's no reason I can think of aside from being a purist that you shouldn't go get Mobile Light Force (Gunbird 2), Mobile Light Force 2 (Shikigami), and Sol Divide right now. They're good games.

  • Don't forget MLF1 (Score:3, Informative)

    by Inoshiro ( 71693 ) on Thursday May 08, 2003 @11:41AM (#5911124) Homepage
    While Shikigami no Shiro is sadly butchered, those of us who own Gunbird 2 on the Dreamcast and enjoyed its wonderful import cry when we play MLF, aka Gunbird. Gunbird was never translated over here properly.

    The worst part about XS Games' shitty port is that you can look at the PSX disc and see that it has all the movies and text intact, they just delete all the lines of code in the program which display text or play a movie. Whenever you get up to those crazy pirates, the game pauses for it. Then moves on. Pathetic.
  • I work at an EB, and we've sold a tremendous amount of copies of Ikaruga. Why? Because we've had it in the GC demo unit since the day it was released (minus the days we were out of stock). People play it, and love it. Just this weekend a five year old sat there and played it for no less than 20 minutes; his parents finally just bought it for him so they could take it home.

    Nor is Ikaruga following traditional sales charts by selling immediately and then slowly declining. Sure, we had our presells and t
    • Is it really selling that well? Or is it just your location (because you had it on demo)? Most of the EB's around here (Toronto area) initially ordered no more than five copies -- two or three which were ear-marked for employees. I don't know about you, but a "constant sales rise" above five copies still makes it a pretty damned niche title.
      • Selling one or two a day is fairly incredible for something anything as obscure as Ikaruga. We're what's considered a high volume store, and for us to be selling nearly as many Ikarugas per day as we are NBA Street 2 is fairly significant.

        Granted, I think it's selling well for our location because we had it in the demo unit. But that's my point. When people play it, they like it. It's a horrible lack of foresight on behalf of the industry that they haven't promoted this game more than they did. They a
    • I don't get it. The game is undeniably good looking, and I tend to like shooters...but it doesn't appeal to me at all. I still fire up the far more traditional Star Monkey on my PC now and then and really enjoy it, and my friends always have to hold me back from wasting $20 in quarters whenever I see a Raiden machine, but Ikaruga does nothing for me. Am I broken or something?

    • I would recommend Strikers 1945 over MLF anyday.

      It's on the PSX, it's out in America, and it's only slightly "butchered" (No Tate mode, which is the flip your tv mode for arcade perfect play.)

      It's very similar to Gunbird/MLF because it's also developed by Psykio and the Gunbird and Strikers 1945 series are built with the same engine.

      Much better port, much more worthy of support.

  • Actual name of MLF2 is Shikigami no Shiro, which means Castles of Shikigami.

    I recently saw a preview movie of Shikigami no Shiro 2, which looks incredible.
  • Infogrames/Atari stripped out much of the storyline in Ikaruga for its North American release. During each level's opening (when it lists the name of the Chapter), there was in the Dreamcast and Arcade versions a relatively short transcript of part of a dialogue between Shinra (the main character) and a leader of the village Ikaruga. This is gone in the American release. The gallery mode in the Dreamcast version had descriptions of the characters - also removed.

    These are minor changes compared to what occu

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