Captain Karnage Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 (edited) The other night I was thinking about the localization of snes games, and then I thought Mystery of the Emblem could have made it to the west. I imagine Nintendo wouldn't have any interest in bringing over the famicom games or bring over FE4 and FE5 considering how late in the snes's lifespan they would have come out. Mystery of the Emblem wasn't that complex of a strategy game and would have been a good way to test the market and see if people liked this kind of game. I imagine if Nintendo wanted to release it in the US it would have been a holiday 94 release. Does any one have any ideas on why they would or wouldn't have released it back in the day on the Super Nintendo Edited January 30, 2015 by Captain Karnage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sentacotus Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 To be honest I don't know. While Shadow Dragon was pretty underwwhelming for most people it did sell relatively well and the DS as we all know had a really strong install base at that point. It does seem logical that it would be localized. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HF Makalov Fanboy Kai Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 simple really, it was released late on the DS's life span and was low on priority on 'games that must be translated on the DS" translation of what i just said "Its not pokemon so noone's gonna buy it, gotta get Black/White 2 done above all esle" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Geek Posted January 30, 2015 Share Posted January 30, 2015 (edited) I think it was the general lack of success of JRPGs in the West at that point. I remember specifically hearing about the poor sales of Final Fantasy I on NES being a big deciding factor. If you're talking about New Mystery of the Emblem, that would be because of how poorly the last few FEs had done. Also the atrociously high piracy rates on DS games. Edited January 30, 2015 by The Geek Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Karnage Posted January 30, 2015 Author Share Posted January 30, 2015 To be honest I don't know. While Shadow Dragon was pretty underwwhelming for most people it did sell relatively well and the DS as we all know had a really strong install base at that point. It does seem logical that it would be localized. sorry if you misunderstood, but I was referring to the super famicom title Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DragonLord Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 I think regardless of the success of the SNES in the west, they didn't feel confident that a game of this genre would sell well back then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alertcircuit Posted February 3, 2015 Share Posted February 3, 2015 Because its weird and hard and how could American kids possibly enjoy this. It involves thinking. Keep in mind this is the same company that didn't give us the real Super Mario 2 because it was apparently too challenging for american kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hardin Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 Realistically, NoA probably didn't have the manpower to localize a game as text heavy as Mystery of the Emblem at the time. You have to remember that in the 90's the localization of games was not the massive industry it is today, but was done only by a few people at the company. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SRC Posted February 4, 2015 Share Posted February 4, 2015 I think regardless of the success of the SNES in the west, they didn't feel confident that a game of this genre would sell well back then. I think it has a lot to do with this. Fire Emblem is actually a fairly complex game, and would probably be intimidating if not unappealing to most American gamers of the time.. Bear in mind, JRPGS like Dragon Quest were selling loads of copies in Japan since 1985, while the genre did not really take off in the US in spite of Nintendo's best efforts. Now, why would Nintendo take a risk on an even more complex JRPG when Japanese hits like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy were modest successes at best? Meanwhile, Earthbound, came out about half a year after FE3. It's about as player friendly as an RPG can be and has a style that I think would much better resonate with American audiences of the time. While it's hard to say exactly why Earthbound failed (bad marketing?), we can probably say that in hindsight that not localizing FE3 was a sound decision on Nintendo's part. Keep in mind this is the same company that didn't give us the real Super Mario 2 because it was apparently too challenging for american kids. SMB2 is such an absurdly difficult game, though. I'm actually surprised that it sold many copies in Japan to begin with. (FWIW, I'm not sure how well it was received critically.) Maybe it was riding off the success of its older brother, haha. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weso12 Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Meanwhile, Earthbound, came out about half a year after FE3. It's about as player friendly as an RPG can be and has a style that I think would much better resonate with American audiences of the time. While it's hard to say exactly why Earthbound failed (bad marketing?), Big of a tangent but I think Earthbound failed in the US not because the marking (well other than they should have focused more on Television ads than magazine ads). Also they made the strange choice to every copy of Earthbound come with a strategy guide making it more expensive for SNES game probably REALY REALY REALY hurt its bottom line. In terms of them not realising FE3 over here for it being hard to for americans that's debatable, they didn't realise mario 2 not because they didn't think americans could handle hard games (it was actually common practice to make American versions of games HARDER to combat video games rentals which were apparently illegal in Japan), rather they didn't want a game brutal difficultly to hurt mario's image in the US. The probable reason they didn't localize was that it's high risk, low reward. It takes a lot time energy and money to localize a game like fire emblem, and RPGs in the US just weren't high sellers here. Side Note: I kind of wish that Fire Emblem 3 was translated into english not because fire emblem would have a fan base before melee, but because's we wouldn't have to use melee's butchered engrish translation of the lords name just because of that's people know him as, seriously any compentent translator would have called him Mars Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Raven Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Earthbound failed because JRPGs didn't appeal to the west until like the PSX era. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paper Jam Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 FE3 came out in 1993, and if it had been localized for North America and/or Europe, that localization probably would have come out in 1994. I don't think that Nintendo was aware of any market in North America for turn-based strategy games with RPG elements (TBSRPG) at the time. Maybe there was none. Come to think of it, how many TBSRPGs were there in the 90s? I think Shining Force came out at about that time, but I think the earliest big TBSRPG in North America in the 90s was Heroes of Might and Magic, which came out in 1995 (a good year or two after FE3 came out in Japan). Maybe that was why they decided to localize Mother 2 (or Earthbound) but not FE3. The JRPG market might not have been as big in North America before Final Fantasy 7 came out, but it was there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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