This whole situation is insane because the team that made the injection patch on 4chan has assembled their own translation team that will do Kuro 2. So all NISA did was drive these fan translations into the anon void where they'll have NO power to stop it.
U can't use the patch on ps4/ps5 so they already stopped a good chunk of it, and the translation quality wise is something we will only see when the Pc release drops, whenever that is
@@londinsilva5993 They didn't stop anything. Whatever was done by Zerofield and hosted on the site "officially" can simply continue in secret and be shared in ways they won't be able to track. Screw them and their attempts to stop something that they fear could make their work obsolete. If I went and decided to make my own translation of the game script for my own better understanding and I'd decide to share it with others without asking for money, I don't see how that would constitue a case of copyright infringement in any way as long as no claim is made that it's an official translation or anything. I still buy the original game in a legitimate way. Seriously, NISA can go and screw themselves.
@@Fircasice That is not how copyright works, u can make that argument about a book that u translate and share around before the official release, after all, "all u are doing is translating text", and u can probably see why it would be shut down as well. It's the same logic.
I'm going to attempt an explain some copyright stuff so bear with it for a moment Party A (Falcom) has exclusive and proprietary ownership, rights and interests in any and all intellectual properties arising out of or created during the performance of this Agreement, including but not limited to copyrights, patents, patent applications, software, technical secrets, trade secrets and others. Party B (NISA) shall execute all appropriate documents, take all appropriate actions, submit all filings and/or applications, render all appropriate assistance and otherwise conduct whatever is necessary as deemed by Party A at its sole discretion for the purposes of vesting any ownership, right or interest of any such intellectual property rights in Party A, and/or perfecting the protections for any such intellectual property rights in Party A. You will note here that it is Party A that requires Party B to protect its intellectual properly rights. NISA had no choice in the matter once the patch got modded into a ripped copy of the game. Prior to the patch being modded into the game the patch was in a legal gray zone since it was not actively altering any files and the program used was an overlay. The 4chan release however was not separate and because of this copyright bullshit reared its ugly head and in order to keep the license agreement with Falcom they were under obligation to protect the intellectual property rights of Party A. I think people are blaming the wrong company and falcom as well as nisa are jointly responsible for this as they also had no choice in the matter. For the record I bought Hajimari for ps4 and was waiting for Zero and Azure to play my copy of that with the Zerofield overlay so it's not like this doesn't affect me. It sucks that NISA took it down and they definitely could have done so in a better manner but I also do not believe the decision was theirs to make and they were following the copyright law. You may not care a whole lot for NISA as a company but NISA is relatively good to its voice actors which is why they keep coming back they do work with the voice actors union which a lot of companies do not. You won't get this with a lot of other publishers hell you likely won't get a PC release without NISA because they work with Durante. Hell you might not even get a dub unless it's with NISA. If you really want the sub-par and unoptimized option of Clouded Leopard Entertainment then you are frankly not thinking for the betterment of the series. NISA might not have the quickest releases but they generally do have quality releases. The trails games are very long and have a lot to them for as big of a game that they have the fact they don't have more issues is generally surprising. I think they continually go above and beyond for the kiseki releases and while I don't think NISA is entirely blameless...there is the whole 'forgetting' to notify its customers that the PS4 version would be a lesser quality issue after all; I do think the community reaction towards them for the Zerofield situation is a bit overblown and misunderstood.
So normally I come in here and shout “YEAH MWAMBA NO. 1” but since this is Trails, I need to change my modus operandi. RANDY ORLANDO NUMBER ONE BABY HES THE BEST DETECTIVE, THE HOTTEST TEACHER AT THORS, AND THANKS TO WAR CRY, THIS REDHEAD CAN TRADE A THIRD OF HIS HEALTH TO SPAM ONE OF THE HARDEST HITTING MOVES IN THEIR RESPECTIVE GAMES
The fact they literally BANNED you in their chat for just asking a question is bloody stupid. Been looking to try this serious for a while starting from the very start so it's cool to see one of my favourite lads bigging it up and enjoying it.
Well people were ddos attacking them so they figured your part of the group. The whole situation sucks but too many people were modding the spreadsheets into the game soooo ya it's a problem wish there was a solution
@@jbird999cg Ths solution is to leave the people the fuck alone? They don't lose money people literally buy the game and just have text placed over it. THEY LITETALLY SAVE MONEY ON HIRING TRANSLATORS SINCE THE FANS DO IT.
@@jbird999cg Anyone enthusiast enough to buy and mod the chinese/kr version is enthusiast enough to double dip when NISA's turn comes, the takedown was ridiculously shortsighted.
Thank you for bringing attention to the matter in a respectful way. Let's hope it somehow makes a difference. The shutdown of Zerofield was the worst gaming-related news I've read for years.
Never played the series, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. Hoping nothing but the best for the fans who dedicated so much time and effort making these games more accessible for others. They deserve so much love
whole series is pretty much about dragging plot with cliche tropes and it’s a heaviest drawback issue, so no real world development, no real confrontation, no real war consequences both world and civil. Last JRPG I’d recommend to anyone, mostly serves as timekiller. Don’t look for anything extraordinary in it
I just got into trails and I was so frustrated about this when this happened. They basically bribed us and taunted us, only to rip it to shreds without even telling people working on it like your friend.
I dont care about trails and this isnt my fight but I wish you luck. Localization nonsense is why i learned japanese to begin with so I feel your pain very much. Most people dont have the time to learn a whole new language just for video games though
The Kiseki series got me through the great COVID quarantine and I will never be able to repay Nihon Falcom enough for helping me keep my sanity during that year. Much like you, I have been caught up on the series, played Zero with the Geofront translation, played Azure with the old translation which was terrible and I didn't care (It's that good), and Hajimari and Kuro 1 on Zerofield's spreadsheets. I was so excited for Hajimari and Kuro that I bought the Dengeki special editions with the full import and proxy purchasing service fees. It hurt my wallet, but I didn't care and had already preordered my Dengeki edition of Kuro 2. However, guess what? When NISA announced Zero was finally being officially localized, did I say "Nah, I'm good?" HELL NO! I bought the collector's edition, a Lloyd plushie, and a puzzle I know I will never put together to show my support. This was announced by the way the day after Zero preorders were locked so I don't really have an option to cancel my preorder at this point. However, like you, I'm stuck with a PS4 version of Kuro I can't play. It's like NISA is basically BEGGING me to give Clouded Leopard money so I can buy the Korean / Chinese PC Port and use the patches as mentioned in this video. I get that we won't get parity release as long as the English rights belong to a company that wants to dub the release. Falcom scripts are finished too late in the process and that's why Clouded Leopard doesn't bother doing dubs in either Korean or Chinese. If they did, they'd have to delay their launch more than they already do. However, what could very well be 2025 before we get Kuro 1 in the west is just too late to ask people to wait, especially when the Trails fanbase, as dedicated as it is, would by and large purchase the game a second time to replay in their native language.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who has worked professionally as a JP -> EN and EN -> JP translator, editor, and localizer, the worst part for me of NISA doing this is how bad their official localizations are; they are littered with mistranslations, altered dialogue for no good reason, etc. Some of these mistranslations call into question whether or not the localizers even played the games they are localizing in the first place. Not to mention how incredibly slow they are with releasing their localized games. If they want to go after fan translations they should: (1) improve the quality of their official localizations to be actual professional products and not something that makes Google Translate look good; and (2) put out games in a timely manor. For anyone curious about the Kiseki series specifically, whenever you purchase a first-print copy of a collector's edition in Japan you get the entire script for the previous game (in the case of CS4 it was the scripts of CS1-3), so I know exactly how long each game is. I can say for certain that these games should not take more than a year, at most, to localize. Now that all being said, I guess it's not too surprising when you go and look at recruitment posts for places like NISA and often see that the ability to speak Japanese is only a 'plus' and not a requirement in order to be a localizer for Japanese games.
I may be stupid but what exactly was wrong with the translations? The only thing I noticed is text sometimes is of center or part of it is not in the box.
Sorry pal, but even if you have experience you can't know how long it "should take" to localize anything. There are variables here. Like...how many employees are working on the project, for starters. I don't think anyone needs experience to know that 2 people work faster than 1 and 3 work faster than 2 etc efc... but if you really do have experience, you should know that better than anyone else.
@@oOPrettywinxOo Part of my job was to know how long a project should take and schedule accordingly. This of course includes accounting for any variables such as how many people to assign to a given project. So yes, I absolutely know how long it should take. Also, just an aside since you mentioned that you don't need experience to know that more people on a project means it gets done faster, but that statement does show a lack of experience/knowledge with localization. While it certainly can be true that more people on a project leads to a quicker localization, this isn't always case. In fact, more people can actually be a detriment to a localization project which is why many localization team sizes are kept to a minimum.
"Imagine avoiding spoilers for Xenoblade for 4 years." I actually did that somehow for 2. Played and stopped midway through and started again (from the beginning to refresh my memory) after 3-4 years stopping again until 3's announcement so that I can finish on time and managed to avoid any significant spoilers that would affect my experience. Currently avoiding spoilers for 3, since I need to finish fire emblem 3 houses for when the next game releases. But it's still unfortunate to hear that the trails series is having these localization issues. I've been interested in getting into the series but have been putting it off because I have plenty of games I need to catch up on. Hopefully whenever I do decide to try the games, they fix up whatever internal issues are going on, so that perhaps like with other series I like I finish whatever entry I'm on so that I can start the new entry immediately
Have you heard about nisa's bad blood with idea factory and compile heart in regards to the neptunia games so it seems that they are garnering a reputation for burning bridges
NISA has had a terrible reputation for years. I have no idea why so many people still white knight for them when they've done literally nothing to earn it. I swear niche jrpg fans can have the most extreme cases of battered spouse syndrome when it comes to their localizers. This isn't the 90s anymore. There are a TON of companies that will absolutely take over if another drops out. I guarantee you Clouded Leopard would jump at the chance to localize Trails for English in a heartbeat if NISA ever dropped.
@@sheridanmovieguy unfortunately, they wouldn't. CLE isn't a company that's active in the west (+ we don't even know if their English translations would be any good, do we?). They would need to set up a whole new subsidiary to be able to do business and implement a new infrastructure in all of America and Europe to even localize anything outside of Asia. Maybe it COULD work as far as a Steam release is concerned, not too sure about the legal situation there. But the console crowd sure as hell wouldn't be getting anything at all. And I also doubt any other publisher of JP games in the west would jump at the chance of translating Kiseki when there is tons of more popular and less dialogue heavy series out there they could rather be doing. You know...less effort for more money is always more attractive to companies than more effort for less money.
It hurts so much man, cause I love trails so much and it honestly feels like us westerners to falcom and NISA we are not as important to them as there chinese and korean audience 💔
I've already pre-ordered Zero and Azure CEs, so ugh rip. But yeah, I've always felt a little iffy with them taking so long, when we *know* now that the Zero translation is 90% Geofront's original work from the fan translation. And then in terms of ignoring it, for some reason I'm remembering that they tried to brush off the terrible localization of Ys 8 as well until the backlash got so bad they went and fixed it (which there's still some... choices in that localization). But yeah, I was absolutely gonna double-dip on the PC versions of Crossbell just so I had everything there, plus it's got more QoL than Kai, then get Reverie on PC, but until they make a real good faith effort to repair this broken trust, I can't do it in good faith either. As much as I really want to play Reverie in English.
I love how you quoted my good friend Ken @14:40. 2022 will be the year when NISA royally f'd up. I will continue to support this great series I have come to adore so much despite all this BS. Great video.
@@Alcor_B Better and faster for who? For only the most hardcore of fans who are willing to jump through hoops to either pirate the games or buy them in a different region, and also apply a separate fan translation program on top of them? I tried that long ago with CS3 and it was awful and buggy, a total waste of money and time and I had a way better experience playing it when it was officially localized.
As painful as it may be to admit, I still plan to continue following the series purchases. It is my favorite series and my stance is that I still want to support more releases coming in official ways to the west for people who are not as dedicated to have easy access to the series. But I do agree on the one point immensely, being that NISA has very poorly handled the situation. My initial thought when I found out about this was "why is Zerofield being hammered down when Geofront got a collab deal? What has stopped them from doing the same here?". I absolutely cannot comprehend that. They have to have known beforehand the kind of backlash that would come after doing this to one of the most respected and beloved members of the fanbase, they can't be THAT out of touch.
Fan translations as a whole are what keep a series alive. Sometimes, for whatever reason, publishers won't bring a specific game or series overseas even if there's evidence to show that fans want it localized. So to hear that NISA was willing to work with fan translators only to then shut down other fan translators isn't too surprising given that NISA is infamous for burning bridges between other companies they've collaborated with. Such as Idea Factory and Compile Heart, the two companies that make the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. In the original trilogy for Hyperdimension Neptunia a character named Nisa was created to represent NIS America as the company helped publish the original Hyperdimension Neptunia trilogy. However, after Producing Perfection NIS America cut ties with Idea Factory and Compile Heart which lead to Nisa being left to the Disgaea series much to dismay of Neptunia fans who liked the character. Of course going back to fan translations, both Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 and 3 have fan translations that remove the meme overloaded script given to the characters and makes the script more in-line with the original Japanese script. Kirby's been given fan translations ever since it was discovered how bad the localized pause screen descriptions and even some in-game dialogue are. Most infamous example is Susie during Kirby Star Allies' Guest Star mode where her Pause screen description basically says she's been going around causing problem *again* for others by mechanizing their planet, the people on said planet, etc. and during some bosses where key pieces of lore are either butchered or straight up *missing.* I just don't get why some localizers think butchering the original script is a good idea. Sure you *might* get a few good jokes here or there or even some dialogue that sounds good. But if fans are going though the trouble of giving a more accurate script than what was given, you should really re-evaluate what it is you're suppose to be doing.
As a huge kirby fan, thats honestly a shame. And it's not the first time Nintendo of America screwed up translations. Hell they will even do it to theor hige franchises like Breath of the Wild.
As a working adult I can't bring myself to care enough personally because... well, I have so many games to play and so little time, if I have to wait a few years I genuinely don't care. Also I don't think calling for a boycott is gonna help your case. If NISA drops the series I can guarantee you nobody else will pick it up for the western market. Yes, it's decently popular now for a JRPG series...but it's also one of the most dialogue heavy series, if not THE most dialogue heavy series out there. The reward to effort/cost ratio is crazy skewed and people like to conveniently forget that companies wanna make money first and foremost and they're not here to make you happy as fans. If they DO treat you well it's mostly because they want you to buy their products. At the end of the day everything is marketing. You may love Company A and hate Company B but at the end of the day they're all the same, whether you like it or not. Oh and if someone is looking for the reason why NISA decided to do this NOW: The Zero release, probably. Zerofield had not taken down their Zero and Azure sheets. Had they done that in time, maybe they would have been spared. Because evidently NISA only starts caring once there is an official translation available. But it's also legally problematic to take down only Zero and Azure and come back later for Hajimari and Kuro. So it was either all or nothing. They had to go for all because the Zero sheet was still up. Now, this only occurred to me in hindsight too, so it's not Zerofield's fault that they didn't think to do that. But it makes sense regardless. Anyways, long story short, I know I will get ratioed for this in the comments of a video like this, but I think people are blowing this way out of proportion. Not specifically you -though like I said telling people to boycott English releases is NOT helping because it's not going to make other companies want to take the risk of working on it either - but some people really need to touch some grass. They act like NISA killed their first born child. Don't complain to me when the series ends up being canceled in the west thanks to y'all's "efforts". I feel bad for the Zerofield Team. Unfortunately, they are the only people I feel bad for because the corner of the fandom who is throwing a temper tantrum right now is just making me want to disassociate with them out of second hand embarrassment. To everyone reading this: I know you disagree and I am sucking NISA's dick according to some people just because I am not throwing a fit over a video game like some people are. Move along if that's what you were gonna say. If you're willing to engage in serious conversation then I am open towards that, otherwise...
Greetings, I have said for a while that people are wasting their time on this. No matter how much you flail about flaunting your rage, you are not going to change anything for the better. It is fine if you disagree with NISA's decision, it really is. But, this effort is going to fail in part because not nearly enough people care about this turn of events as the naysayers claim. I think people would have so much more peace of mind if they just accept the wait time and realize there is a lot they could be doing in their lives in between the wait time. Like you said, people are making a big deal over something that does not need to be. The decision is final, so moving on with life is the best way to go, in my opinion. Cheers, co is
I definitely understand your feeling of frustration over how the anti-NISA side of the fanbase are acting right now, but I think the context you are missing here is that this is a situation that has been simmering over a long period of time and continues to this day. As mentioned in the video, NISA has a history of upsetting fans of Falcom games, but that isn't even the tip of the iceberg. They have a long history of upsetting fans of Japanese games in general. Ranging from game-breaking bugs and crashes (Ar Tonelico 1 all the way up to the modern port of Makai Kingdom in NIS Classics Vol 2), poor localisation that is riddled with errors and inconsistencies (Hyper Dimension Neptunia series, Ys 8 etc), and various miscellaneous issues such as the slow Kiseki release times, that despite the fact that Zero no Kiseki is using the Geofront translation as a base, the PS4 version is vastly inferior to the Switch and PC version. It doesn't even have English voice over either. The C&D to Zero Field was just icing on top of the cake for a lot of people and it was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back. Speaking of which, we can speculate all day as to why Zero Field had to take down all their past work. As you said, it may very well be that Zero no Kiseki was the reason. But the point is at the end of the day, we just don't know. Not only do we not know, we can't even bring this up to NISA and find out a reason without getting banned in their Twitch chat as you can see Enel does in the video. NISA has been completely untransparent on the issue, even going so far as to act coy about it on Twitter with the European branch replying to a tweet about the Kiseki release times saying "What's a Kuro no Kiseki". As you can see by the naked Van "The Kuro 2 spreadsheet is real" meme on twitter, the issue isn't just that fans are impatient and can't wait for future localisations, the issue is also that NISA heavy-handedly took down a spreadsheet that inhibited the use of it on PS4 completely from people who legally purchased the JP version, showing they want to remove all alternative options for players who already had good options that supported Falcom too when they didn't need to and made themselves look even worse. Giving no clarity on the issue and acting coy about it. It shows a clear lack of interest in the passionate side of the fanbase despite what they may say in their call during the NISA presentation. Lastly, I completely disagree that if a small percentage of fans boycott the series, NISA will just completely give up on localising it. That's not exactly how that works. It will show however, that the passionate fans that they say they care about don't like their decision, and as Enel said, it will hopefully get an employees' attention so they could at least be a bit more transparent with us in the future. I don't think you're sucking NISA's dick or anything like that when you show frustration with how fans have been acting, but all I want you to take away from this is I hope you can understand that NISA acting the way they are with not being transparent about all of this and acting coy isn't helping the situation at all, and fueling the fire for more people to dislike them. It's not unfounded behaviour, it was inevitable.
@@silver_breeze I understand the frustration. I myself don't agree with the takedown of at least Hajimari and Kuro at this point from an ethical standpoint. They don't stand to lose anything- yet. Zero and Azure are a different topic and if they had only asked for those to be taken down I would have been with NISA all the way because there should be no place for a free translation in a post-official-localization-world. But fact of the matter is, that's not what they did. But that's the ethical standpoint and then there is the legal standpoint, and fact of the matter is they are well within their legal rights to do this if they acquired the rights to localization. As for the history of NISA with the fandom - I was aware of some of this (eg. the abysmal YS VIII situation...which they fixed, you gotta give them that at least). I was a victim of the weird thing were digital pre orders for csiv didn't download from psn and the ones who did download the dlc after playing the game were permanently locked out too. I was not aware of some other things. Regardless I think the outright RAGE a part of the fandom displays towards this company is making me more concerned for their priorities in life than anything. If people decide not to buy a product over this - fine. Speak with your wallets. But the thing is, you already pointed out, it won't be enough people to make a real financial difference to NISA. And as long as it doesn't do that, NISA won't care. Heck I can't even blame them for making fun of fans who are throwing a temper tantrum over this. Yes, there are level headed people like you. But there are also those out there that are totally overstepping their boundaries and those are the one the social media managers will see, because they're the loudest. Heck, I am making fun of these people, because I can't fathom someone with an otherwise healthy life getting T H A T upset over a video game localization. So really I am not surprised NISA is meme-ing these people and they need to really calm down. And if by some unexpected turn of events it turns out to be enough people to put a dent in their wallet then I think you know that they might drop the series and then we'll be in the same situation we were in after Cold Steel 2, and idt anyone really wants that (except those fans that don't want an official localization at all in the first place, but that's ridiculous, you alrd pointed out the amount of people who are willing to go through hoops to use a spreadsheet are only very few, so imagine what losing 90% of the Western audience will do to Falcom...). Also, NISA isn't at fault for being so far behind on release schedule to be honest. XSeed was very far behind as well and then they skipped Crossbell because Cold Steel promised better profitability due to being for newer hardware. NISA has to fix that hole now, so in that sense, idt they're at fault for the big gap between JP and ENG releases. I am sure there are localizers who would have the resources to work faster on these games & therefore close the gap faster. But the fact that the gap exists is not NISA's fault. The PS4 Version of Zero being inferior to the Switch and PC versions should have been communicated more clearly. Regardless, NISA did pay money to have enhanced Switch and PC versions. NISA can't just enhance the PS4 port, that would be Falcom's job. If Falcom is not gonna do it that's not NISA's fault. Their only fault lies in instransparent communication. All in all I don't think NISA is a company that warrants praise or anything, but at least I can understand where they are coming from - from a place of capitalism. It might not be consumer friendly but it makes sense. The fans who lose all sense and reason over a video game localization....that's a position I can't find any reason for. Not liking what a company does and totally dedicating your life to shit on said company because of it are two different things.
@@oOPrettywinxOo I completely agree with the idea that if NISA had only asked Zero Field to take down the Zero and Ao spreadsheets at this time there would be no reason for me or anyone else as a consumer to complain. Especially considering that the timing would be very close to the release of the game. There is a point to be made that you could feel bad for Zero Field in a case like that, but it would pretty much just be picking a side for the sake of it at that point. Hajimari is a bit less clear for me, there was a case not too long ago in which NISA did cease and desist a Hajimari fan translation (that incorporated the spreadsheet into game in a similar way to the Kuro injection patch), except there was no attempt at taking down the spreadsheet itself then. (In fact I would think it gave people a false sense of security that the spreadsheets would be fine, just not putting the text into the actual game. This of course was shattered with what ended up happening but I digress). I think I would be charitable and say that I wouldn't have much issue with Hajimari either considering they are localising it for 2023. Where I would completely put my foot down and say "hold on a minute, maybe fans are completely right to be angry about this" would be with the Kuro 1 spreadsheet being taken down. As I have argued already, anyone who bought the PS4 release of Kuro from Japan legitimately to support the series can no longer use the spreadsheet and some are left even unable to finish the game at all. This combined with the fact that unlike Hajimari, Kuro hasn't even been announced for localisation officially yet, we actually have no idea as of yet when or even if Kuro will come out. This leads me to think NISA's choice to completely rob people of having a sense of comfort and security of knowing where the series in the future will be in the west made the fanbase a lot more uncertain and caused a rift that will last for a while that NISA realistically didn't really need to do at all. I guess this would lead nicely into the legality argument. I think most people angry at NISA right now are perfectly aware that NISA are completely in the right to cease and desist whatever fan translation they want that infringes on their IP. But to be completely fair, fans also have the right to react to this news however they want, even if it makes them look like a bunch of raging lunatics getting upset over nothing. The point I want to make here is that the legality argument is just that, a legality argument. It has its place in a court of law and if Zero Field had the funds to fight NISA in a costly legal battle, who can say how it would go. But in discussion like this where we are arguing pretty much "how much should fans be angered by this decision, if they even should at all", it is a moral argument to begin with and a legal perspective doesn't have room here. As for the Ys 8 ending up being fixed argument, I agree. My purpose of that part of the argument was to illustrate that there are various issues and complaints in all sorts of different communities that add to an overarching problem people tend to have with NISA. Some people raging might have just heard about this offhand and decided to get mad, some people might be genuinely mad at NISA for various decisions they have made in the past and this is just yet another reason to dislike the company. There are a lot of varied opinions and reasons for people to be mad at NISA that might not even be related to this specific case. Say for example someone has had nothing but negative experiences with NISA games, would they not be rightfully angry at NISA enough to want to do something practical about it? Sure we both agree that realistically NISA is a company and won't be changed in a night but if some opinion starts to shift in the company, maybe going forward NISA will see how what they are doing is affecting fans and maybe be more forthcoming about their issues? Like you said, the PS4 Zero no Kiseki port issue should have been communicated more effectively and the fact that it wasn't should show there is a need for them to be more transparent in times like this to not wedge a divide in the community and get more people to dislike them. Again, meme-ing on twitter about the issue isn't going to do anything, coming out and apologising for not being transparent would be much more appreciated. I guess you could attribute blame for the slow release times to Xseed, but as a company NISA are carrying the target on their back and this target is huge at the minute with everything going on. I think the main running theme of my argument is transparency, I don't particularly want NISA to reverse this decision and like stop localising zero and ao and for fan translations to be the way forward for the series. That's just disrespectful to Zero Field to say that they should localise for the community when they did this out of the good of their hearts. I guess I just want NISA to stop making decisions like this and then banning people for trying to ask what's going on, or not telling anyone about the PS4 version of Zero being not as good. If NISA had had come out and said they were going to localise Kuro after taking down the spreadsheets I and I think a lot of other fans would not be as angry and upset at the current state and future of the series. I think we both understand why fans are upset and you have given anedcotal evidence of having problems with NISA yourself so I can definitely see that you have proof of this. I guess there's just the questions of "should fans be this angry over this?" and "will boycotting do something?" and the answers for both questions for me are yes. Can people go too far and rage like children? Absolutely. But as I explained the lack of transparency is something I think we both agree should change in some way. and a lot of people see boycotting as a way to express this. Sorry if I rambled on, it's nice to have a good faith discussion about this and I appreciate you putting your opinion out there in a place that will obviously be very anti-NISA.
This is insane honestly. I recently bought the first three trails games for PC + cold steel because I wanted to give them a go after finishing Xeno, and seeing this treatment from NISA towards the fans is, quite frankly, extremely off-putting. I still wanna give the games a go, but this definitely is very disappointing to see.
At least NISA weren't the localizers for Sky 1-3 or Cold Steel 1 and 2. So none of the ones you bought will give any money to NISA, but instead to XSEED.
So I just did some research and under US copyright law unless you have the permission of the original copyright holder a translation actually DOES count as copyright infringement. Still messed up what happened but legally speaking I guess it was unauthorized in the first place and since they gave permission to someone else to do an official translation I guess they had to crack down on unauthorized ones (I'm assuming that's what their corporate thinks anyway, but c'mon seriously?)
The issue with that is that both previous entries in the series trails of coldsteel 3 & 4 have/had spreadsheets available way beyond the english release, not just acquisition of copyright. And i dont doubt that its NisAs legal right to C&D the spreadsheet, the reason they shouldn't do it is because its pointless. People are passionate about this series and will translate it, on 4chan if they have to. All they did by coming down hard on fan efforts is sour their fanrelations in the same month as they release a 10 year old game that 90% of fans have already played and are purchasing again on good faith alone. The ps4 version is also just straight up inferior to the geofront patch.
It's sad all this is happening around Kuro, which is honestly where I'm finally interested because it's using full scale 3D models and, judging from that pole dancing bit, a more mature storyline.
I’ve been eyeing this series from a distance for a while now but I had no idea that NISA was actually willing to work with fan translators for localization. What I imagine should be a huge undertaking seems like just a huge hypocritical letdown seeing them also shut down other fan translators.
@@DCG909 NisA only did the localization for the latest 2 games in the series. The series overall is very good and passing it just to own NisA isn't really gonna do much except cause you to miss out.
@@luminous3558 My point is that whilst the beginning might be nice, if I start to really like the series I want to play them all. And eventually I'll run into the NISA debacle and get bummed out. I can spare that disappointment by just skipping it and playing something else, or spending that time on a different hobby. Still got a ton of model kits to paint, gym to go to and my steam library also has a decent list of unplayed gems.
NISA probably didn't want to set a precedence it is their licensing rights. Also they are pushing financial risk buying the rights Falcom have been selling for translating. I don't think it's justified to be this angry about it. Critical maybe about what choice was best, but I still think we have to trust they did it in the interest of preserving the financial and resource viability of the series.
Just finished watching and as someone who's not gotten into Kiseki yet but has seen the love and enjoyment fans like you have had for the series, as well as the recent issues unfold, what's going on is a real shame. I feel you handled the video and its wording respectfully and was informative enough so that even someone not in the fandom could understand more of the situation well. Hope to play through the series someday in better circumstances. Cheers!
This was a really well made and well explained video about the current situation. I actually did'nt agree with your initial tweets, but the way you explained it here was quite good. Im also a massive fan of the series. I have bought all the games of the series starting from cold steel 1 multiple times. Physical, digtal, japanese physical and also japanese digital. I have like quadruple dipped on all of them since. I really want this series to get better treatment in the west. Its an amazing series that takes you on a wild ride like no other games out there. They are literally my highlight of the year every year.
Really glad you made a video on this instead of leaving it as a few tweets. While its definitely appreciated spreading the word on twitter im glad to see someone acknowledge and bring attention on as much of a scale they can.
Businesses like people, make mistakes. If people were to boycott me for every mistake I made, I wouldn’t have a wife, kids or any friends. Boycotting also shows a lack of grace and forgiveness. I am sympathetic to you and those impacted by this but escalations only creates more anger. Prayers of comfort who are impacted by this and prayers of hope that NISA changes their position
Bro the day this went down my preorder for the Zero special edition and Lloyd plush got charged. Didn't even get the chance to get home and cancel my pre order. I don't plan on playing the game I just love the series and wanted to support the official release but now I'm really hoping that contract with NISA expires soon and the west can get caught up. I'm convinced they started charging people that day cause they knew they were about to get a ton of backlash. Cancelled my Azure pre-order and won't be supporting Nisa with anything ever again. Really sucks cause I really wanted to support them and Falcom as well as PH3s excellent PC ports but I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. I'll still continue to buy Japanese releases like I've already done with Kuro 2 to support Falcom and just hope NISA goes back on their current stance or better yet Falcom finds someone else to work with.
NIS brought us closer, but even when we catch up it will be like persona releases where it would take a year. Kondo mentioned this in an interview somewhere that they don't hand it until the end because they want to still be able to change the script. It's definitely going to require more integration and willingness from Falcom when the time comes, it's not just nisa localising, we will probably be caught up in at least a few years (with one year lag behind for the above reason)
@@KarakuraNinjait's insane cause cle often gets same day releases. I know it's not entirely on nisa realistically Falcom really needs to change things but it's probably a mix of problems from both companies 😂
Copyright law basically does not function in any meaningfully fair capacity in the modern era, where individual work/creations can be spread easily without corporate backing (and by corporate backing I mean having a legal budget of any kind).
So I do have to ask: is there any proof at all that Falcom has no hand in this whatsoever? Sure NISA made this decision, but they're required to do things on Falcom's behalf. They're legally contracted to do so. Whether the latter was aware of such a decision or not is unclear. So until news comes out otherwise, I don't think we should all blame just NISA since Falcom could also be a quiet factor in all this.
This too is true. He didn't seem aware in the video that Kondo explained why games aren't going to be upto date due to the translation starting after the end of production since they always want the option to change the script first before complicating things for the localisation Likely why persona is still slow under Sega as well Also explains why ys still takes time even though that series hasn't been behind multiple games like trails
Kiseki fans get fucked by NISA no matter what it seems-- if you don't know Japanese, you need to wait for the spreadsheet, but even IF you know Japanese (which honestly if you like this franchise at this point you should honestly get into it, it's really not as impossible as people make it to be), and you don't have a PS4 you'll need to wait for the PC version, which releases around a year afterwards by CLE, but here's the catch-- THEY WON'T SUPPORT JAPANESE ANYMORE, ONLY KOREAN AND CHINESE. It's REALLY weird that Hajimari supports JP on Steam but Kuro doesn't-- the only reason I can see for CLE to do that is that NISA most likely already bought the JP rights for the PC version and will include it with their English release, so even knowing JP, if you want to play it officially on PC... Well, most likely NISA fucked you too because why not. The fact that they even want to go against people who know japanese fucking baffles me... I really hope they go bankrupt at this point.
I'm literally in the exact situations you mentioned in the video. I was happy double dipping, have Kuro 2 pre-ordered, and had Zero/Azure pre-ordered as well. I've already played Zero and Azure and I was going to replay NISA's version, but ultimately cancelled my orders as soon as I heard about them doing this.
I hear you, but I'm still going to get the official release of Zero later this month. And that's because of a simple reason. I'm on Mac. I already had to jump through some hoops to get Trails in the Sky games working on it and I would have to do even more so if I wanted to play Crossbell games on it. For me personally, it's just lot more easy and convenient to get the game on a console where I don't have to worry about trying to get it set up.
I pre-ordered the special edition of zero and got a email that something went wrong with payment and it being kind of annoying to get fixed. I kind of just want my order cancelled after all this on top of it being the ps4 version which is inferior to the switch and PC versions. If I do end up getting it I'm not going to give them more then I need to and on one of the other platforms
I'm so frustrated by all this. I bought both Crossbell games legally and played the Geofront translation of Zero before the NISA announcement. I decided to stop and was disappointed but fine with double dipping because I wanted to support Geofront, but I can't imagine why they took so long for the Crossbell games when the patch already translated everything and had a ton of QOL improvements. To add insult to injury by taking down the sheets when so few people even use them is such a terrible idea. So few sales are being lost, and I feel like translations are a weird IP gray area since they're derivative but also require a ton of original writing to truly localize. Capcom and Sega have been pretty open to fan works even though they technically infringe on IP because they understand fans aren't competing with the creators for sales. I'm baffled why NISA won't do the same, but I feel like NISA has become a lot more guarded the larger they get
One of the most weirdly not-backwards things about Japan is how they practically just let a whole industry of amateur derivative fanworks exist...and hell actually thrive.
"but I can't imagine why they took so long for the Crossbell games when the patch already translated everything and had a ton of QOL improvements" Because they're not using Geofront's translation. It's just a BASE. They're not actually using it wholesale, and I'd argue it's shittier if they did. Because that shows that they don't give a shit about what they're translating. Them actually taking this time shows that they actually give a shit about the translation and making it better than Geofront.
I guess NISA never changes.... I was willing to forgive their horrible lack of effort and quality with many games they localized during the PS3/PS4 era after they started putting out some pretty decent PC ports of some of NIS' older games like Disgaea and making back goodwill when they brought in Durante to help fix a lot of the technical problems with Ys VIII but now I'm just feeling vindicated in how I was already boycotting the company previously, and will now simply resume my own longstanding boycott of them now knowing what they're up to with the kiseki games. I had already been boycotting them for some 6-8 years prior so it's not really that big of a loss for me to resume with it.
I find it hilarious NISA can't even get their parent company's games out on time, Labyrinth of Galleria is taking 2 years and Disgaea 7 isn't even announced or planned for localization yet.
I mean they do have the pressure to release other games of other companies. All the companies doing WW release are no longer taking games from other games and are only publishing their own games. The only exception would be Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft. The trails series with how complicated it is to handle must not help either (lots of text to translate, yearly releases, ports to pay and make, the "You must play all the games in order" that Kinda forced them to get late in the parution thanks to Marvelous etc)
You can still find the old incomplete patch for Kuro on /fg/ Falcom General but it has a lot of missing text and to my knowledge the crafts, items, arts, tutorials...etc are all untranslated. Another option would be to get Visual Novel OCR which can help you translate any VN or JRPG on the spot, however the quality it's at the level of google translate. Sadly, I think I'm dropping Trails after finishing Cold Steel 4 cuz there's no way I'm giving NISA anymore of my money.
The spreadsheets arent officially hosted but there are ghetto ways to get them as well as an injection patch to put them into CLEs pc port. Kuro2 spreadsheet won't be made by zerofield but 4chan will probably translate it themselves if they have to. Quality might be lower but its gonna happen.
Decided to just buckle down and learn Japanese back in 2008 in order to play the untranslated games I was never able to. Took me six years of chipping away at it but I pulled it off. Best decision of my life. Seriously, with how long you all have been consuming Japanese media, you should have had plenty of time to learn the language by now.
Well, sucks for the English fan base. It may be time to learn Japanese and save yourself the pain. I will be playing Kuro 2 on release, as I have known Japanese for over 13 years (you can see on my channel some old translations I did), so I can help you with understanding the game if you force your way through it or if you have any questions when you play it. If you’re interested just leave me a reply here and I will message you through discord.
Thank you Enel for bringing this to my attention. I was going to buy Zero and Azure as I havent played those yet, will go for the fan translations now if those can still be attained somewhere. I do hope they go back on this decision, this series became one of my favourite very fast and I would hate to be stuck waiting cause of this company.
"If there is a series I enjoy almost as much as Xenoblade it would have to be the Kiseki series" Bruh TRUE THAT. The worldbuilding and lore of Kiseki is so deep, and the combat has got to be the some of the, if not the deepest turn-based RPG combat I've ever played. Probably the only thing that causes it to rank below Xenoblade in my book is that there is almost never any post game content in any of their games. But DAMN is it rough to be a Kiseki fan right now. In the west we're now about three years behind the JP releases, and now the fan translation of Kuro gets shutdown? Really hits you right in the feeling of hype. Like it's getting harder and harder to be excited for these games. If it wasn't for the fact I was so heavily invested in the massive overarching narrative of the series and this was any other game, there's a good chance I would've just forgotten about it by now.
6:31 I loved seeing your top 30 games list. Xenoblade DE is my favorite game of the Xenoblade series so it's a little sad seeing that it's the only Xenoblade game not in your top 30.
Haven't seen the video quite yet, but I do want to comment on the Discord image I saw in your Tweet. It is NOT their fault that the series is behind. I heavily disagree with people complaining about the series being behind in localization and blaming NISA for it. I don't believe it's a complaint to be made at all, but especially directed at NISA. While yes we are three games behind at this point, that's because they have to localize THREE other games first because Xseed skipped them. It's better in the long run to get these games out of the way NOW, rather than just wait and let them gather dust making the series harder to play through. We need official localizations for Crossbell at least, and this is something that should have happened long ago. Yeah, sucks that we don't get the most recent games, but that's literally just an issue in the now. In the future, when new people are trying to get into the series, it'll be so much better that they actually have easy access to Zero and Azure. I'm not gonna comment on the shutdown and my opinions on it right now, because I sure have some, but I will never agree with blaming NISA for the series being behind and I will never agree that getting Zero and Azure instead of the Kuro games is a bad thing.
I basically stopped buying NISA stuff around 2020 all around. Was just tired of their half-assing things after undercutting higher quality localization houses for publishing in the west.
im legit speechless rn. as you said. like whats the harm of having fan translations to game you legally buy to play when that game u bought is supporting the company at the same time. its just stupid. for starters ppl do fan translations on games cuz they might never release to the west and ppl want to play them. i just hope this doesnt kill fan translations as a whole.
Man I got into this series like last year and played all of sky and 2 of Cold Steel and have Zero and Azure preordered. Its gonna suck to be caught up on western releases while waiting YEARS for japanese releases. At this point im going to try learn Japanese if NISA wants to blueball me this hard. Its too late for me to stop I need to see Kiseki to the end
It's too late for me to stop too!! I'm pretty much caught up to CS4 which I deliberately held back from playing but screw it I'm powering through that and Hajimari and Kuro and gonna learn a new language while I'm at it lol
Ah god I’ve avoided the sub Reddit because of this mess the way that nis has done things is wrong but the things that some people in the fandom do and say makes me so sad to be part of the fandom.
I have some bad news for you, but this is the internet. It doesn't matter what you're a fan of, people are going to act like apes about it. You just have to keep in mind these people are a loud minority (and often are children) and ignore them. Sadly corporations don't want to let you do that because it helps their image if they can paint everyone who is against any of their decisions as being the type of person who sends death threats over videogames.
Are you referring to the apparent "doxxing" that supposedly happened? Because I never saw any proof that it did. Someone made a reddit post saying he saw someone do it during the UA-cam stream in the chat. I never saw anyone else substantiate this, nor show any proof it actually happened. It was all hearsay from a reddit account created less than a day before the claim was made. It reeked of a false flag to me, personally. A pretty lame false flags since typically you are supposed to actually do the thing when you false flag and not just go "dude trust me I saw it."
Im more on the YS side of the falcom games but hearing this sort of stuff is extremely disheartening as Ive wanted to get into Trails but if they're going to pull stuff like this maybe im better off not bothering
This is unfortunate. I dont follow Falcom channels so I dont get surprise spoilers so I wasnt aware of this issue. I wont be buying any NISA products until they reverse this decision and even then I was already concerned they were taking advantage of the Geofront team, and this doesnt do anything to satisfy those concerns. At least I still have the old Flame edit localization patches for Zero and Ao to fall back on.
I've been waiting for years to play these after having played the YS series. I kept hearing start with at least Zero. I didn't want to do it on pc. So I have been waiting patiently for the switch releases. I was going to buy hard copies of Zero, Azure after release a few weeks from now. Then eventually cold steel series when there was a full release if I enjoyed Zero and Azure. I wanted to support Falcom and play more of their amazing games. Now I'm really debating if I should buy these games simply out of principle. This is ridiculous. I can't even support Falcom like I want to... I'm thinking if I ever buy it I'll wait it out until it's maybe 70-75% off on switch and digital despite me hating digital. If I have to give Nisa any money it will be as little as possible. I've been waiting for years already. I can continue this trend and just play through some of my game backlog. Whatever.
Hmm, you could always go for the Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Trilogy on PC, those were translated by Exceed, not NIS America, so you can at least get a chance to dip into the series. Cold Steel 1 and 2 were also done by Exceed I believe.
@@dragonmaster1500 I actually considered this before but decided against it. I haven't done pc gaming in many years and ussually use my laptop for professional related stuff. I don't really want to get into the habit of pc gaming again. This switch is the first console I've gotten in many years as well. Also I prefer getting it on switch if possible as this way my significant other can play it eventually as well. She has enjoyed the YS games I got her to try and would probably enjoy these as well I think. I'm thinking my best bet is just give them as little money as I can. Or I could try to buy a used copy later on.
@@ThatBoldStatement Buying the game used will probably be your best bet then, I hadn't actually considered that. It's unfortunate that we don't have switch versions of the Sky Trilogy as well because I think more people should be playing those games and it's really too bad that Exceed get's caught in the crossfire when it comes to this sort of thing. However it turns out, I hope that you and your partner get a chance to enjoy the games at some point. God bless.
To think I'm trying to power through Cold Steel 4 to get Hajimari and Kuro with English overlays just to hear the BS. Yeah I'm definitely boycotting NISA. I mean if they plan to do this at least find a more efficient way of bringing these to the West. Japan is getting Kuro 2 THIS YEAR and We ain't even get Hajimari yet FFS!!!
West having a massive backlog of games that aren't officially translated from Trails is expected given Sky didn't get its official translation for a long, long time. Hajimari not being out has nothing to do with NISA's actions.
Ya know the problem with NISA is not only the translation and their ridiculous translation times. In the last few games they "patched in" bugs that make it impossible to proceed. Dunno if these have been patched out by now. But imagine wanting to play the games a few years into the future and not being able to get a patch because store XYZ has shut down. Ridiculous. Their quality control and testing is bad as heck, but I'm sure ya know that one already. x,D Then regarding Europe they are stationed in England and that is not part of the EU anymore so anyone in Europe has to pay a ton of extra money (nearly 20 bucks shipping + customs and handling) simply because NISA is not willing to make good business decisions or get good shipping lines, IF fans want a CE or even sometimes the standard version of a game. (depending on the game). Then as you mentioned there is the problem with NISA constantly treating really concerning problems as a hoax, which is absolutely ridiculous. Back when they announced their cooperation with Geofront I had the hopes that there was finally some change inside that company for the better, but that turned out to be a pipedream. Thank you for the video, I would have missed this since I started to mostly ignore NISA a while back and only wanted to buy the "blue"/Ao/Zero and Nayuta games from them. Now that won't happen, shame really looked forward to an English physical copy of my favourite games with the geofront translation. Damn that ruffles my feathers. Now I can't even recommend the whole series anymore, not only thanks to the time gap, but most don't wanna go through the hassle to buy JP versions. Even though the Protag of Kuro looks like Knight Blazer from Wild Arms!! (Praise be the Armed Fantasia news) God damn it I was so excited about Kuro, despite not liking the Sen series (but loving all other games). And now I get to see that there was a fantranslation of the first Kuro game AND the second... that I missed out on. This is frustrating.
Horrible decision by NISA. People that are big enough fans to play using a spreadsheet (myself included) are people who also will promote the series as much as they can and also double dip on the official western releases. I have the Limited Editions of Zero/Azure pre-ordered and paid but I'm considering canceling the orders. Tough decision. sigh
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I was checking on the status of the official translations for hajimari and kuro after seeing that the first Crossbell game drops on Steam soon. I had planned to buy and play on day 1 (after previously playing the Geofront release on the joyoland copy I purchased). Now I no longer will be 'double-dipping' as you say. This kind of behavior from NISA is unacceptable and they will no longer be receiving any money from me. I took the money I was going to spend on Crossbell and bought Hajimari and am playing with a fan translation now. I'll keep supporting Falcom but I'm done with NISA.
@@เผด็จาร-นนนนง You can play the pirate ver or anyway you want, but please do not buy the CLE ver, because more people like you buy the chinese ver, they will think the whole asia is chinese and they will keep localize the game with chinese ver in the whole asia
If NISA has a million haters, then I am one of them. If NISA has ten haters, then I am one of them. If NISA has only one hater then that is me. If NISA has no haters, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is with NISA, then I am against the world. CAN I GET AN AMEN
NISA will never have one hater so long as I draw breath, my brother. If the entire rest of the world bows down in worship to NISA, it shall be you and I alone united by our undying hatred. Amen.
“As a huge fan of RPGs that have a heavy emphasis on story and character-driven narratives, as well as deep and interesting combat…” Oh, is that all? I’m joking, of course, but this does kinda show just how awesome Xeno and Kiseki are. I’m assuming everyone reading this has at least played a Xeno game, but if you haven’t played one nor any Trails games I would recommend them. For Xeno, I would suggest starting with Xenoblade DE just for maximum enjoyment of the modern series as a whole (as well as the fact that it probably has the most satisfying narrative on its own without DLC or knowledge of previous titles). For Trails, you can start with the beginning, Trails in the Sky, but honestly it would make more sense to start with Cold Steel at this point. I started with Sky and loved it, but many probably won’t due to its slight antiquation.
Somewhat unrelated, but I've put off this series for a while and want to try it out once I'm done with XC3. Can I pick a newer entry as a starting point? Also, move to trails or try another Xeno game first? I have XC1 Definitive (only like 20 hours in), and can also get XC2 or XCX (for either Wii U or emulated). What's best?
I can't decide for you but for me trails is a big time investment franchise. It is a long game that span across multiple entries. If you really want to play I recommend starting with Trails of Cold Steel 1 or Trails in the Sky. If you really enjoy XC3 try XC1&2 to get the reference. XCX is different from XC numbered title, however the game is so good it ruined other open world games for me.
@@neku2741 I've heard conflicting things about XCX, that it's great but has no direction. The combat of 1 didn't click for me, but after playing 3 I think going back to 1 will be much better. I already have 1 definitive so I guess I'll start with that. XCX definitely looks really cool, though. Debating if I should play it on my Wii U or emulated.
The best way to play Trails is to play them in release order because they are all part of a continuous saga, so any sequel is going to spoil previous games' stories. The one main exception I can think of is Cold Steel 1, which doesn't really spoil any of the previous games, but that ends on a cliffhanger for Cold Steel 2, which does have spoilers for the earlier games. The only downside to playing them in order is that it's a massive time investment lol
Thanks for sharing, I didn't know this, but I'm with you. NIS just isn't doing a good job with this, plus I'm just sick of being 3 to 4 years behind. I'll just learn japanese at this point.
The real flex is to learn japanese and only buy Falcom's games directly :D But yeah it's really dumb. If they were very close behind with the translations I could somehow get behind their move because it could hurt the sells but when they are so many years behind and weren't even capable to translate the games in the right order it's just ridiculous.
I was absolutely planning on buying the official localisation of the Crossbell games even though I played them already. But I just cancelled that plan.
When this all went down alot of people were calling the NISA boycott "childish" and this really boggles my mind. I really do want to understand where this is coming from, but to me deciding that a companies values and actions go against what you find to be right and deciding not to give your money is one of the most mature things you can do. I mean your not offending anyone or personally attacking someone. I really do think that this mentality of boycotting= stupid and childish in the gaming community is why the industry has gotten so brazen with unfinished games and predatory micro transactions.
I wouldn’t call it childish. I’m just not fond of this idea of being called names just because I do not want to deny myself a good time by participating in some boycott.
@@Dharengo Yeah honestly that's fair. I saw alot of attempts at guilt tripping from both sides om Twitter. My argument stands that at the end of the day it's your money and you get to do whatever you want with it, be that boycotting NISA or buying the games.
To be fair boycotting is dumb. If you want to be heard buy the game, leave a review explaining your dislike of the situation and refund it. Reach out to falcom to explain your disappointment in the quality and speed of nisa's translation. In japanese ofc. Your voice as a customer matters, just not buying stuff sends vague signals at best.
I still don't know why the series switched from XSeed to NISA in the first place after CS2. I simply stopped buying CS3 and onward, switching to the Chinese version by Clouded Leopard. Did Falcom came out voicing any comment about this? Falcom voice can be impactful.
You can play the pirate ver or anyway you want, but please do not buy the CLE ver, because more people like you buy the chinese ver, they will think the whole asia is chinese and they will keep localize the game with chinese ver in the whole asia
True, NISA fuck up again. Just to remember for the people in the comment section that there is still an English Patch based on the spreadsheet for Kuro no Kiseki 1 (PC only). Main story, side quest, bonding event, menu, item, art, craft, combat menu, are translated. There is just some NPC who are not translated. It's really good. It's really easy to use it. I will not upload the link because my comment will be erased, but it's easy to find it on youtube. :)
You did accomplish something with this video, Enel: at least I'm aware of all this crap. I was going to buy the localised version of Zero next week, but now I'm going to find a way to buy the original version and use a fan translation. I'm also going to try and spread the word about this. The more the merrier, right?
@@golfer435 Surely there are some bittorrents for the patches floating around? Even if not somebody probably has the files for the old patches on their PC and could make torrents for them.
Okay, so as someone with no stake, I watched this whole video. I agree NISA's translations being so slow is disrespectful to the fans and harming the brand and I can understand why fans are releasing their own translations. But you say people saying the move makes sense as far as NISA losing money is a "stupid" argument because people will "probably" buy the official translation because they love the series so much. Do you have numbers for that, or do you dismiss that argument solely because you and a handful of people you know would double dip?
You have to understand how gimmicky those spreadsheets are in the first place. You need a ps4, a pc and a way to stream the ps4 game to your pc and then awkwardly click next on the overlay with every line. Everyone who isnt a hardcore fan wasn't gonna do that.
@@EnelXC I mean, I can't imagine that a handful of hardcore fans who use spreadsheet translations equates to the majority of the market NISA is looking at when making decisions and that you expect to double dip...
Didn't know about this situation. Thanks for the heads up. Time to boycott NISA completely! I've bought a bunch of their games but there are still way more on my wishlist, guess I'll remove them.
![The Remaining Sept-Terrions [Trails/Kiseki Theory]](/img/n.gif)
This whole situation is insane because the team that made the injection patch on 4chan has assembled their own translation team that will do Kuro 2. So all NISA did was drive these fan translations into the anon void where they'll have NO power to stop it.
U can't use the patch on ps4/ps5 so they already stopped a good chunk of it, and the translation quality wise is something we will only see when the Pc release drops, whenever that is
@@londinsilva5993 They didn't stop anything. Whatever was done by Zerofield and hosted on the site "officially" can simply continue in secret and be shared in ways they won't be able to track. Screw them and their attempts to stop something that they fear could make their work obsolete.
If I went and decided to make my own translation of the game script for my own better understanding and I'd decide to share it with others without asking for money, I don't see how that would constitue a case of copyright infringement in any way as long as no claim is made that it's an official translation or anything.
I still buy the original game in a legitimate way. Seriously, NISA can go and screw themselves.
@@Fircasice That is not how copyright works, u can make that argument about a book that u translate and share around before the official release, after all, "all u are doing is translating text", and u can probably see why it would be shut down as well. It's the same logic.
@@londinsilva5993 Really not the same logic.
I'm going to attempt an explain some copyright stuff so bear with it for a moment
Party A (Falcom) has exclusive and proprietary ownership, rights and interests in any and all intellectual properties arising out of or created during the performance of this Agreement, including but not limited to copyrights, patents, patent applications, software, technical secrets, trade secrets and others. Party B (NISA) shall execute all appropriate documents, take all appropriate actions, submit all filings and/or applications, render all appropriate assistance and otherwise conduct whatever is necessary as deemed by Party A at its sole discretion for the purposes of vesting any ownership, right or interest of any such intellectual property rights in Party A, and/or perfecting the protections for any such intellectual property rights in Party A.
You will note here that it is Party A that requires Party B to protect its intellectual properly rights. NISA had no choice in the matter once the patch got modded into a ripped copy of the game. Prior to the patch being modded into the game the patch was in a legal gray zone since it was not actively altering any files and the program used was an overlay. The 4chan release however was not separate and because of this copyright bullshit reared its ugly head and in order to keep the license agreement with Falcom they were under obligation to protect the intellectual property rights of Party A.
I think people are blaming the wrong company and falcom as well as nisa are jointly responsible for this as they also had no choice in the matter. For the record I bought Hajimari for ps4 and was waiting for Zero and Azure to play my copy of that with the Zerofield overlay so it's not like this doesn't affect me. It sucks that NISA took it down and they definitely could have done so in a better manner but I also do not believe the decision was theirs to make and they were following the copyright law. You may not care a whole lot for NISA as a company but NISA is relatively good to its voice actors which is why they keep coming back they do work with the voice actors union which a lot of companies do not. You won't get this with a lot of other publishers hell you likely won't get a PC release without NISA because they work with Durante. Hell you might not even get a dub unless it's with NISA. If you really want the sub-par and unoptimized option of Clouded Leopard Entertainment then you are frankly not thinking for the betterment of the series. NISA might not have the quickest releases but they generally do have quality releases. The trails games are very long and have a lot to them for as big of a game that they have the fact they don't have more issues is generally surprising. I think they continually go above and beyond for the kiseki releases and while I don't think NISA is entirely blameless...there is the whole 'forgetting' to notify its customers that the PS4 version would be a lesser quality issue after all; I do think the community reaction towards them for the Zerofield situation is a bit overblown and misunderstood.
Wait, hold on. Are you saying this was released as a hard translation? If yes, then yeah, mega screw up.
So normally I come in here and shout “YEAH MWAMBA NO. 1” but since this is Trails, I need to change my modus operandi.
RANDY ORLANDO NUMBER ONE BABY HES THE BEST DETECTIVE, THE HOTTEST TEACHER AT THORS, AND THANKS TO WAR CRY, THIS REDHEAD CAN TRADE A THIRD OF HIS HEALTH TO SPAM ONE OF THE HARDEST HITTING MOVES IN THEIR RESPECTIVE GAMES
The fact they literally BANNED you in their chat for just asking a question is bloody stupid. Been looking to try this serious for a while starting from the very start so it's cool to see one of my favourite lads bigging it up and enjoying it.
Hey guys its simp pineapple again
Well people were ddos attacking them so they figured your part of the group. The whole situation sucks but too many people were modding the spreadsheets into the game soooo ya it's a problem wish there was a solution
@@jbird999cg Ths solution is to leave the people the fuck alone? They don't lose money people literally buy the game and just have text placed over it. THEY LITETALLY SAVE MONEY ON HIRING TRANSLATORS SINCE THE FANS DO IT.
@@jbird999cg Anyone enthusiast enough to buy and mod the chinese/kr version is enthusiast enough to double dip when NISA's turn comes, the takedown was ridiculously shortsighted.
@@Pine2142 like how they shut down geo and then hired them to translate
Thank you for bringing attention to the matter in a respectful way. Let's hope it somehow makes a difference. The shutdown of Zerofield was the worst gaming-related news I've read for years.
THE KURO 2 SPREADSHEET
THE KURO 2 SPREADSHEET IS REAL
Never played the series, but I’ve heard nothing but good things about it. Hoping nothing but the best for the fans who dedicated so much time and effort making these games more accessible for others. They deserve so much love
Falcom and us fans deserve better.
whole series is pretty much about dragging plot with cliche tropes and it’s a heaviest drawback issue, so no real world development, no real confrontation, no real war consequences both world and civil. Last JRPG I’d recommend to anyone, mostly serves as timekiller. Don’t look for anything extraordinary in it
I just got into trails and I was so frustrated about this when this happened. They basically bribed us and taunted us, only to rip it to shreds without even telling people working on it like your friend.
HEY! NISA! Leave them fans alone!
I dont care about trails and this isnt my fight but I wish you luck. Localization nonsense is why i learned japanese to begin with so I feel your pain very much. Most people dont have the time to learn a whole new language just for video games though
Cringe
The Kiseki series got me through the great COVID quarantine and I will never be able to repay Nihon Falcom enough for helping me keep my sanity during that year. Much like you, I have been caught up on the series, played Zero with the Geofront translation, played Azure with the old translation which was terrible and I didn't care (It's that good), and Hajimari and Kuro 1 on Zerofield's spreadsheets. I was so excited for Hajimari and Kuro that I bought the Dengeki special editions with the full import and proxy purchasing service fees. It hurt my wallet, but I didn't care and had already preordered my Dengeki edition of Kuro 2. However, guess what? When NISA announced Zero was finally being officially localized, did I say "Nah, I'm good?" HELL NO! I bought the collector's edition, a Lloyd plushie, and a puzzle I know I will never put together to show my support. This was announced by the way the day after Zero preorders were locked so I don't really have an option to cancel my preorder at this point. However, like you, I'm stuck with a PS4 version of Kuro I can't play. It's like NISA is basically BEGGING me to give Clouded Leopard money so I can buy the Korean / Chinese PC Port and use the patches as mentioned in this video. I get that we won't get parity release as long as the English rights belong to a company that wants to dub the release. Falcom scripts are finished too late in the process and that's why Clouded Leopard doesn't bother doing dubs in either Korean or Chinese. If they did, they'd have to delay their launch more than they already do. However, what could very well be 2025 before we get Kuro 1 in the west is just too late to ask people to wait, especially when the Trails fanbase, as dedicated as it is, would by and large purchase the game a second time to replay in their native language.
Speaking from the perspective of someone who has worked professionally as a JP -> EN and EN -> JP translator, editor, and localizer, the worst part for me of NISA doing this is how bad their official localizations are; they are littered with mistranslations, altered dialogue for no good reason, etc. Some of these mistranslations call into question whether or not the localizers even played the games they are localizing in the first place. Not to mention how incredibly slow they are with releasing their localized games. If they want to go after fan translations they should: (1) improve the quality of their official localizations to be actual professional products and not something that makes Google Translate look good; and (2) put out games in a timely manor.
For anyone curious about the Kiseki series specifically, whenever you purchase a first-print copy of a collector's edition in Japan you get the entire script for the previous game (in the case of CS4 it was the scripts of CS1-3), so I know exactly how long each game is. I can say for certain that these games should not take more than a year, at most, to localize.
Now that all being said, I guess it's not too surprising when you go and look at recruitment posts for places like NISA and often see that the ability to speak Japanese is only a 'plus' and not a requirement in order to be a localizer for Japanese games.
I only vaguely remember that one of NISA's translations broke their own fucking game. If that's not reason enough to stay away, what is?
I may be stupid but what exactly was wrong with the translations? The only thing I noticed is text sometimes is of center or part of it is not in the box.
@@Reynsoon Their port of witch and a hundred knights unironically bricked PS3s back in the day and their apology amounted to "tough shit"
Sorry pal, but even if you have experience you can't know how long it "should take" to localize anything. There are variables here. Like...how many employees are working on the project, for starters. I don't think anyone needs experience to know that 2 people work faster than 1 and 3 work faster than 2 etc efc... but if you really do have experience, you should know that better than anyone else.
@@oOPrettywinxOo Part of my job was to know how long a project should take and schedule accordingly. This of course includes accounting for any variables such as how many people to assign to a given project. So yes, I absolutely know how long it should take.
Also, just an aside since you mentioned that you don't need experience to know that more people on a project means it gets done faster, but that statement does show a lack of experience/knowledge with localization. While it certainly can be true that more people on a project leads to a quicker localization, this isn't always case. In fact, more people can actually be a detriment to a localization project which is why many localization team sizes are kept to a minimum.
Ooooh so that’s the story behind the spreadsheet
"Imagine avoiding spoilers for Xenoblade for 4 years." I actually did that somehow for 2. Played and stopped midway through and started again (from the beginning to refresh my memory) after 3-4 years stopping again until 3's announcement so that I can finish on time and managed to avoid any significant spoilers that would affect my experience. Currently avoiding spoilers for 3, since I need to finish fire emblem 3 houses for when the next game releases.
But it's still unfortunate to hear that the trails series is having these localization issues. I've been interested in getting into the series but have been putting it off because I have plenty of games I need to catch up on. Hopefully whenever I do decide to try the games, they fix up whatever internal issues are going on, so that perhaps like with other series I like I finish whatever entry I'm on so that I can start the new entry immediately
I dont play on consoles. So i cant play any of them anyways
Have you heard about nisa's bad blood with idea factory and compile heart in regards to the neptunia games so it seems that they are garnering a reputation for burning bridges
NISA has had a terrible reputation for years. I have no idea why so many people still white knight for them when they've done literally nothing to earn it. I swear niche jrpg fans can have the most extreme cases of battered spouse syndrome when it comes to their localizers. This isn't the 90s anymore. There are a TON of companies that will absolutely take over if another drops out. I guarantee you Clouded Leopard would jump at the chance to localize Trails for English in a heartbeat if NISA ever dropped.
@@sheridanmovieguy unfortunately, they wouldn't. CLE isn't a company that's active in the west (+ we don't even know if their English translations would be any good, do we?). They would need to set up a whole new subsidiary to be able to do business and implement a new infrastructure in all of America and Europe to even localize anything outside of Asia.
Maybe it COULD work as far as a Steam release is concerned, not too sure about the legal situation there. But the console crowd sure as hell wouldn't be getting anything at all.
And I also doubt any other publisher of JP games in the west would jump at the chance of translating Kiseki when there is tons of more popular and less dialogue heavy series out there they could rather be doing. You know...less effort for more money is always more attractive to companies than more effort for less money.
I honestly need to find a group or place to talk about this situation because it's been bugging me and I need to know what I should do.
It hurts so much man, cause I love trails so much and it honestly feels like us westerners to falcom and NISA we are not as important to them as there chinese and korean audience 💔
Commenting to help boost the video's visibility, godspeed to you.
I've already pre-ordered Zero and Azure CEs, so ugh rip. But yeah, I've always felt a little iffy with them taking so long, when we *know* now that the Zero translation is 90% Geofront's original work from the fan translation. And then in terms of ignoring it, for some reason I'm remembering that they tried to brush off the terrible localization of Ys 8 as well until the backlash got so bad they went and fixed it (which there's still some... choices in that localization).
But yeah, I was absolutely gonna double-dip on the PC versions of Crossbell just so I had everything there, plus it's got more QoL than Kai, then get Reverie on PC, but until they make a real good faith effort to repair this broken trust, I can't do it in good faith either. As much as I really want to play Reverie in English.
I love how you quoted my good friend Ken @14:40. 2022 will be the year when NISA royally f'd up. I will continue to support this great series I have come to adore so much despite all this BS. Great video.
12:11 You would rather have WHAT?!
Better and faster translations? Yes.
@@Alcor_B Better and faster for who? For only the most hardcore of fans who are willing to jump through hoops to either pirate the games or buy them in a different region, and also apply a separate fan translation program on top of them? I tried that long ago with CS3 and it was awful and buggy, a total waste of money and time and I had a way better experience playing it when it was officially localized.
As painful as it may be to admit, I still plan to continue following the series purchases. It is my favorite series and my stance is that I still want to support more releases coming in official ways to the west for people who are not as dedicated to have easy access to the series. But I do agree on the one point immensely, being that NISA has very poorly handled the situation.
My initial thought when I found out about this was "why is Zerofield being hammered down when Geofront got a collab deal? What has stopped them from doing the same here?". I absolutely cannot comprehend that. They have to have known beforehand the kind of backlash that would come after doing this to one of the most respected and beloved members of the fanbase, they can't be THAT out of touch.
Fan translations as a whole are what keep a series alive. Sometimes, for whatever reason, publishers won't bring a specific game or series overseas even if there's evidence to show that fans want it localized.
So to hear that NISA was willing to work with fan translators only to then shut down other fan translators isn't too surprising given that NISA is infamous for burning bridges between other companies they've collaborated with. Such as Idea Factory and Compile Heart, the two companies that make the Hyperdimension Neptunia series. In the original trilogy for Hyperdimension Neptunia a character named Nisa was created to represent NIS America as the company helped publish the original Hyperdimension Neptunia trilogy. However, after Producing Perfection NIS America cut ties with Idea Factory and Compile Heart which lead to Nisa being left to the Disgaea series much to dismay of Neptunia fans who liked the character.
Of course going back to fan translations, both Hyperdimension Neptunia Re;Birth 2 and 3 have fan translations that remove the meme overloaded script given to the characters and makes the script more in-line with the original Japanese script. Kirby's been given fan translations ever since it was discovered how bad the localized pause screen descriptions and even some in-game dialogue are. Most infamous example is Susie during Kirby Star Allies' Guest Star mode where her Pause screen description basically says she's been going around causing problem *again* for others by mechanizing their planet, the people on said planet, etc. and during some bosses where key pieces of lore are either butchered or straight up *missing.*
I just don't get why some localizers think butchering the original script is a good idea. Sure you *might* get a few good jokes here or there or even some dialogue that sounds good. But if fans are going though the trouble of giving a more accurate script than what was given, you should really re-evaluate what it is you're suppose to be doing.
As a huge kirby fan, thats honestly a shame.
And it's not the first time Nintendo of America screwed up translations.
Hell they will even do it to theor hige franchises like Breath of the Wild.
You can actually legitimately learn Japanese in the time it would take for the game to come out officially in English lmao.
This is true.
You shouldnt. NISA will bring you to court for reading japanese at some point, lol.
@@domicraft6341 That's funny as shit lol
Can confirm I played zero no kiseki like 6 months into learning Japanese lmfao
As a working adult I can't bring myself to care enough personally because... well, I have so many games to play and so little time, if I have to wait a few years I genuinely don't care.
Also I don't think calling for a boycott is gonna help your case. If NISA drops the series I can guarantee you nobody else will pick it up for the western market. Yes, it's decently popular now for a JRPG series...but it's also one of the most dialogue heavy series, if not THE most dialogue heavy series out there. The reward to effort/cost ratio is crazy skewed and people like to conveniently forget that companies wanna make money first and foremost and they're not here to make you happy as fans. If they DO treat you well it's mostly because they want you to buy their products. At the end of the day everything is marketing. You may love Company A and hate Company B but at the end of the day they're all the same, whether you like it or not.
Oh and if someone is looking for the reason why NISA decided to do this NOW: The Zero release, probably. Zerofield had not taken down their Zero and Azure sheets. Had they done that in time, maybe they would have been spared. Because evidently NISA only starts caring once there is an official translation available. But it's also legally problematic to take down only Zero and Azure and come back later for Hajimari and Kuro. So it was either all or nothing. They had to go for all because the Zero sheet was still up. Now, this only occurred to me in hindsight too, so it's not Zerofield's fault that they didn't think to do that. But it makes sense regardless.
Anyways, long story short, I know I will get ratioed for this in the comments of a video like this, but I think people are blowing this way out of proportion. Not specifically you -though like I said telling people to boycott English releases is NOT helping because it's not going to make other companies want to take the risk of working on it either - but some people really need to touch some grass. They act like NISA killed their first born child. Don't complain to me when the series ends up being canceled in the west thanks to y'all's "efforts".
I feel bad for the Zerofield Team. Unfortunately, they are the only people I feel bad for because the corner of the fandom who is throwing a temper tantrum right now is just making me want to disassociate with them out of second hand embarrassment.
To everyone reading this: I know you disagree and I am sucking NISA's dick according to some people just because I am not throwing a fit over a video game like some people are. Move along if that's what you were gonna say. If you're willing to engage in serious conversation then I am open towards that, otherwise...
Greetings,
I have said for a while that people are wasting their time on this. No matter how much you flail about flaunting your rage, you are not going to change anything for the better. It is fine if you disagree with NISA's decision, it really is. But, this effort is going to fail in part because not nearly enough people care about this turn of events as the naysayers claim. I think people would have so much more peace of mind if they just accept the wait time and realize there is a lot they could be doing in their lives in between the wait time.
Like you said, people are making a big deal over something that does not need to be. The decision is final, so moving on with life is the best way to go, in my opinion.
Cheers,
co is
I definitely understand your feeling of frustration over how the anti-NISA side of the fanbase are acting right now, but I think the context you are missing here is that this is a situation that has been simmering over a long period of time and continues to this day. As mentioned in the video, NISA has a history of upsetting fans of Falcom games, but that isn't even the tip of the iceberg. They have a long history of upsetting fans of Japanese games in general. Ranging from game-breaking bugs and crashes (Ar Tonelico 1 all the way up to the modern port of Makai Kingdom in NIS Classics Vol 2), poor localisation that is riddled with errors and inconsistencies (Hyper Dimension Neptunia series, Ys 8 etc), and various miscellaneous issues such as the slow Kiseki release times, that despite the fact that Zero no Kiseki is using the Geofront translation as a base, the PS4 version is vastly inferior to the Switch and PC version. It doesn't even have English voice over either. The C&D to Zero Field was just icing on top of the cake for a lot of people and it was definitely the straw that broke the camel's back.
Speaking of which, we can speculate all day as to why Zero Field had to take down all their past work. As you said, it may very well be that Zero no Kiseki was the reason. But the point is at the end of the day, we just don't know. Not only do we not know, we can't even bring this up to NISA and find out a reason without getting banned in their Twitch chat as you can see Enel does in the video. NISA has been completely untransparent on the issue, even going so far as to act coy about it on Twitter with the European branch replying to a tweet about the Kiseki release times saying "What's a Kuro no Kiseki". As you can see by the naked Van "The Kuro 2 spreadsheet is real" meme on twitter, the issue isn't just that fans are impatient and can't wait for future localisations, the issue is also that NISA heavy-handedly took down a spreadsheet that inhibited the use of it on PS4 completely from people who legally purchased the JP version, showing they want to remove all alternative options for players who already had good options that supported Falcom too when they didn't need to and made themselves look even worse. Giving no clarity on the issue and acting coy about it. It shows a clear lack of interest in the passionate side of the fanbase despite what they may say in their call during the NISA presentation.
Lastly, I completely disagree that if a small percentage of fans boycott the series, NISA will just completely give up on localising it. That's not exactly how that works. It will show however, that the passionate fans that they say they care about don't like their decision, and as Enel said, it will hopefully get an employees' attention so they could at least be a bit more transparent with us in the future. I don't think you're sucking NISA's dick or anything like that when you show frustration with how fans have been acting, but all I want you to take away from this is I hope you can understand that NISA acting the way they are with not being transparent about all of this and acting coy isn't helping the situation at all, and fueling the fire for more people to dislike them. It's not unfounded behaviour, it was inevitable.
@@silver_breeze I understand the frustration. I myself don't agree with the takedown of at least Hajimari and Kuro at this point from an ethical standpoint. They don't stand to lose anything- yet. Zero and Azure are a different topic and if they had only asked for those to be taken down I would have been with NISA all the way because there should be no place for a free translation in a post-official-localization-world. But fact of the matter is, that's not what they did.
But that's the ethical standpoint and then there is the legal standpoint, and fact of the matter is they are well within their legal rights to do this if they acquired the rights to localization.
As for the history of NISA with the fandom - I was aware of some of this (eg. the abysmal YS VIII situation...which they fixed, you gotta give them that at least). I was a victim of the weird thing were digital pre orders for csiv didn't download from psn and the ones who did download the dlc after playing the game were permanently locked out too. I was not aware of some other things. Regardless I think the outright RAGE a part of the fandom displays towards this company is making me more concerned for their priorities in life than anything. If people decide not to buy a product over this - fine. Speak with your wallets. But the thing is, you already pointed out, it won't be enough people to make a real financial difference to NISA. And as long as it doesn't do that, NISA won't care. Heck I can't even blame them for making fun of fans who are throwing a temper tantrum over this. Yes, there are level headed people like you. But there are also those out there that are totally overstepping their boundaries and those are the one the social media managers will see, because they're the loudest. Heck, I am making fun of these people, because I can't fathom someone with an otherwise healthy life getting T H A T upset over a video game localization. So really I am not surprised NISA is meme-ing these people and they need to really calm down.
And if by some unexpected turn of events it turns out to be enough people to put a dent in their wallet then I think you know that they might drop the series and then we'll be in the same situation we were in after Cold Steel 2, and idt anyone really wants that (except those fans that don't want an official localization at all in the first place, but that's ridiculous, you alrd pointed out the amount of people who are willing to go through hoops to use a spreadsheet are only very few, so imagine what losing 90% of the Western audience will do to Falcom...).
Also, NISA isn't at fault for being so far behind on release schedule to be honest. XSeed was very far behind as well and then they skipped Crossbell because Cold Steel promised better profitability due to being for newer hardware. NISA has to fix that hole now, so in that sense, idt they're at fault for the big gap between JP and ENG releases. I am sure there are localizers who would have the resources to work faster on these games & therefore close the gap faster. But the fact that the gap exists is not NISA's fault.
The PS4 Version of Zero being inferior to the Switch and PC versions should have been communicated more clearly. Regardless, NISA did pay money to have enhanced Switch and PC versions. NISA can't just enhance the PS4 port, that would be Falcom's job. If Falcom is not gonna do it that's not NISA's fault. Their only fault lies in instransparent communication.
All in all I don't think NISA is a company that warrants praise or anything, but at least I can understand where they are coming from - from a place of capitalism. It might not be consumer friendly but it makes sense. The fans who lose all sense and reason over a video game localization....that's a position I can't find any reason for. Not liking what a company does and totally dedicating your life to shit on said company because of it are two different things.
@@oOPrettywinxOo I completely agree with the idea that if NISA had only asked Zero Field to take down the Zero and Ao spreadsheets at this time there would be no reason for me or anyone else as a consumer to complain. Especially considering that the timing would be very close to the release of the game. There is a point to be made that you could feel bad for Zero Field in a case like that, but it would pretty much just be picking a side for the sake of it at that point. Hajimari is a bit less clear for me, there was a case not too long ago in which NISA did cease and desist a Hajimari fan translation (that incorporated the spreadsheet into game in a similar way to the Kuro injection patch), except there was no attempt at taking down the spreadsheet itself then. (In fact I would think it gave people a false sense of security that the spreadsheets would be fine, just not putting the text into the actual game. This of course was shattered with what ended up happening but I digress).
I think I would be charitable and say that I wouldn't have much issue with Hajimari either considering they are localising it for 2023. Where I would completely put my foot down and say "hold on a minute, maybe fans are completely right to be angry about this" would be with the Kuro 1 spreadsheet being taken down. As I have argued already, anyone who bought the PS4 release of Kuro from Japan legitimately to support the series can no longer use the spreadsheet and some are left even unable to finish the game at all. This combined with the fact that unlike Hajimari, Kuro hasn't even been announced for localisation officially yet, we actually have no idea as of yet when or even if Kuro will come out. This leads me to think NISA's choice to completely rob people of having a sense of comfort and security of knowing where the series in the future will be in the west made the fanbase a lot more uncertain and caused a rift that will last for a while that NISA realistically didn't really need to do at all.
I guess this would lead nicely into the legality argument. I think most people angry at NISA right now are perfectly aware that NISA are completely in the right to cease and desist whatever fan translation they want that infringes on their IP. But to be completely fair, fans also have the right to react to this news however they want, even if it makes them look like a bunch of raging lunatics getting upset over nothing. The point I want to make here is that the legality argument is just that, a legality argument. It has its place in a court of law and if Zero Field had the funds to fight NISA in a costly legal battle, who can say how it would go. But in discussion like this where we are arguing pretty much "how much should fans be angered by this decision, if they even should at all", it is a moral argument to begin with and a legal perspective doesn't have room here.
As for the Ys 8 ending up being fixed argument, I agree. My purpose of that part of the argument was to illustrate that there are various issues and complaints in all sorts of different communities that add to an overarching problem people tend to have with NISA. Some people raging might have just heard about this offhand and decided to get mad, some people might be genuinely mad at NISA for various decisions they have made in the past and this is just yet another reason to dislike the company. There are a lot of varied opinions and reasons for people to be mad at NISA that might not even be related to this specific case. Say for example someone has had nothing but negative experiences with NISA games, would they not be rightfully angry at NISA enough to want to do something practical about it? Sure we both agree that realistically NISA is a company and won't be changed in a night but if some opinion starts to shift in the company, maybe going forward NISA will see how what they are doing is affecting fans and maybe be more forthcoming about their issues? Like you said, the PS4 Zero no Kiseki port issue should have been communicated more effectively and the fact that it wasn't should show there is a need for them to be more transparent in times like this to not wedge a divide in the community and get more people to dislike them. Again, meme-ing on twitter about the issue isn't going to do anything, coming out and apologising for not being transparent would be much more appreciated.
I guess you could attribute blame for the slow release times to Xseed, but as a company NISA are carrying the target on their back and this target is huge at the minute with everything going on. I think the main running theme of my argument is transparency, I don't particularly want NISA to reverse this decision and like stop localising zero and ao and for fan translations to be the way forward for the series. That's just disrespectful to Zero Field to say that they should localise for the community when they did this out of the good of their hearts. I guess I just want NISA to stop making decisions like this and then banning people for trying to ask what's going on, or not telling anyone about the PS4 version of Zero being not as good. If NISA had had come out and said they were going to localise Kuro after taking down the spreadsheets I and I think a lot of other fans would not be as angry and upset at the current state and future of the series.
I think we both understand why fans are upset and you have given anedcotal evidence of having problems with NISA yourself so I can definitely see that you have proof of this. I guess there's just the questions of "should fans be this angry over this?" and "will boycotting do something?" and the answers for both questions for me are yes. Can people go too far and rage like children? Absolutely. But as I explained the lack of transparency is something I think we both agree should change in some way. and a lot of people see boycotting as a way to express this. Sorry if I rambled on, it's nice to have a good faith discussion about this and I appreciate you putting your opinion out there in a place that will obviously be very anti-NISA.
@@cois6061 you are a Bootlicker nobody
This is insane honestly. I recently bought the first three trails games for PC + cold steel because I wanted to give them a go after finishing Xeno, and seeing this treatment from NISA towards the fans is, quite frankly, extremely off-putting. I still wanna give the games a go, but this definitely is very disappointing to see.
At least NISA weren't the localizers for Sky 1-3 or Cold Steel 1 and 2. So none of the ones you bought will give any money to NISA, but instead to XSEED.
So I just did some research and under US copyright law unless you have the permission of the original copyright holder a translation actually DOES count as copyright infringement. Still messed up what happened but legally speaking I guess it was unauthorized in the first place and since they gave permission to someone else to do an official translation I guess they had to crack down on unauthorized ones (I'm assuming that's what their corporate thinks anyway, but c'mon seriously?)
The issue with that is that both previous entries in the series trails of coldsteel 3 & 4 have/had spreadsheets available way beyond the english release, not just acquisition of copyright.
And i dont doubt that its NisAs legal right to C&D the spreadsheet, the reason they shouldn't do it is because its pointless.
People are passionate about this series and will translate it, on 4chan if they have to.
All they did by coming down hard on fan efforts is sour their fanrelations in the same month as they release a 10 year old game that 90% of fans have already played and are purchasing again on good faith alone.
The ps4 version is also just straight up inferior to the geofront patch.
It's sad all this is happening around Kuro, which is honestly where I'm finally interested because it's using full scale 3D models and, judging from that pole dancing bit, a more mature storyline.
I’ve been eyeing this series from a distance for a while now but I had no idea that NISA was actually willing to work with fan translators for localization. What I imagine should be a huge undertaking seems like just a huge hypocritical letdown seeing them also shut down other fan translators.
same here, it pops up on steam from time to time and the type of gameplay seems to my liking.
But knowing this, it's a hard pass....
@@DCG909 NisA only did the localization for the latest 2 games in the series. The series overall is very good and passing it just to own NisA isn't really gonna do much except cause you to miss out.
@@luminous3558
My point is that whilst the beginning might be nice, if I start to really like the series I want to play them all.
And eventually I'll run into the NISA debacle and get bummed out.
I can spare that disappointment by just skipping it and playing something else, or spending that time on a different hobby.
Still got a ton of model kits to paint, gym to go to and my steam library also has a decent list of unplayed gems.
NISA probably didn't want to set a precedence it is their licensing rights.
Also they are pushing financial risk buying the rights Falcom have been selling for translating.
I don't think it's justified to be this angry about it. Critical maybe about what choice was best, but I still think we have to trust they did it in the interest of preserving the financial and resource viability of the series.
Just downloaded the English roms of Nayuta and the Crossbell games on PSP, I won't give NISA the money for the remasters.
I don’t even play trails but I find stuff like this fascinating
Just finished watching and as someone who's not gotten into Kiseki yet but has seen the love and enjoyment fans like you have had for the series, as well as the recent issues unfold, what's going on is a real shame.
I feel you handled the video and its wording respectfully and was informative enough so that even someone not in the fandom could understand more of the situation well. Hope to play through the series someday in better circumstances. Cheers!
This was a really well made and well explained video about the current situation. I actually did'nt agree with your initial tweets, but the way you explained it here was quite good. Im also a massive fan of the series. I have bought all the games of the series starting from cold steel 1 multiple times. Physical, digtal, japanese physical and also japanese digital. I have like quadruple dipped on all of them since. I really want this series to get better treatment in the west. Its an amazing series that takes you on a wild ride like no other games out there. They are literally my highlight of the year every year.
Really glad you made a video on this instead of leaving it as a few tweets. While its definitely appreciated spreading the word on twitter im glad to see someone acknowledge and bring attention on as much of a scale they can.
Businesses like people, make mistakes.
If people were to boycott me for every mistake I made, I wouldn’t have a wife, kids or any friends.
Boycotting also shows a lack of grace and forgiveness. I am sympathetic to you and those impacted by this but escalations only creates more anger.
Prayers of comfort who are impacted by this and prayers of hope that NISA changes their position
Bro the day this went down my preorder for the Zero special edition and Lloyd plush got charged. Didn't even get the chance to get home and cancel my pre order. I don't plan on playing the game I just love the series and wanted to support the official release but now I'm really hoping that contract with NISA expires soon and the west can get caught up. I'm convinced they started charging people that day cause they knew they were about to get a ton of backlash. Cancelled my Azure pre-order and won't be supporting Nisa with anything ever again. Really sucks cause I really wanted to support them and Falcom as well as PH3s excellent PC ports but I just can't bring myself to do it anymore. I'll still continue to buy Japanese releases like I've already done with Kuro 2 to support Falcom and just hope NISA goes back on their current stance or better yet Falcom finds someone else to work with.
NIS brought us closer, but even when we catch up it will be like persona releases where it would take a year.
Kondo mentioned this in an interview somewhere that they don't hand it until the end because they want to still be able to change the script.
It's definitely going to require more integration and willingness from Falcom when the time comes, it's not just nisa localising, we will probably be caught up in at least a few years (with one year lag behind for the above reason)
@@KarakuraNinjait's insane cause cle often gets same day releases. I know it's not entirely on nisa realistically Falcom really needs to change things but it's probably a mix of problems from both companies 😂
Just wanted to say, thank you for bringing this to my and everyone's attention Enel.
i will double dip on releases
I'm genuinely curious. Do they have any legal ground in preventing people from modding a version of a game that they themselves aren't editing?
Copyright law basically does not function in any meaningfully fair capacity in the modern era, where individual work/creations can be spread easily without corporate backing (and by corporate backing I mean having a legal budget of any kind).
So I do have to ask: is there any proof at all that Falcom has no hand in this whatsoever? Sure NISA made this decision, but they're required to do things on Falcom's behalf. They're legally contracted to do so. Whether the latter was aware of such a decision or not is unclear. So until news comes out otherwise, I don't think we should all blame just NISA since Falcom could also be a quiet factor in all this.
This too is true.
He didn't seem aware in the video that Kondo explained why games aren't going to be upto date due to the translation starting after the end of production since they always want the option to change the script first before complicating things for the localisation
Likely why persona is still slow under Sega as well
Also explains why ys still takes time even though that series hasn't been behind multiple games like trails
Kiseki fans get fucked by NISA no matter what it seems-- if you don't know Japanese, you need to wait for the spreadsheet, but even IF you know Japanese (which honestly if you like this franchise at this point you should honestly get into it, it's really not as impossible as people make it to be), and you don't have a PS4 you'll need to wait for the PC version, which releases around a year afterwards by CLE, but here's the catch-- THEY WON'T SUPPORT JAPANESE ANYMORE, ONLY KOREAN AND CHINESE.
It's REALLY weird that Hajimari supports JP on Steam but Kuro doesn't-- the only reason I can see for CLE to do that is that NISA most likely already bought the JP rights for the PC version and will include it with their English release, so even knowing JP, if you want to play it officially on PC... Well, most likely NISA fucked you too because why not. The fact that they even want to go against people who know japanese fucking baffles me... I really hope they go bankrupt at this point.
I miss XSEED.
I'm literally in the exact situations you mentioned in the video. I was happy double dipping, have Kuro 2 pre-ordered, and had Zero/Azure pre-ordered as well. I've already played Zero and Azure and I was going to replay NISA's version, but ultimately cancelled my orders as soon as I heard about them doing this.
I hear you, but I'm still going to get the official release of Zero later this month. And that's because of a simple reason.
I'm on Mac. I already had to jump through some hoops to get Trails in the Sky games working on it and I would have to do even more so if I wanted to play Crossbell games on it. For me personally, it's just lot more easy and convenient to get the game on a console where I don't have to worry about trying to get it set up.
I pre-ordered the special edition of zero and got a email that something went wrong with payment and it being kind of annoying to get fixed. I kind of just want my order cancelled after all this on top of it being the ps4 version which is inferior to the switch and PC versions. If I do end up getting it I'm not going to give them more then I need to and on one of the other platforms
I'm so frustrated by all this. I bought both Crossbell games legally and played the Geofront translation of Zero before the NISA announcement. I decided to stop and was disappointed but fine with double dipping because I wanted to support Geofront, but I can't imagine why they took so long for the Crossbell games when the patch already translated everything and had a ton of QOL improvements. To add insult to injury by taking down the sheets when so few people even use them is such a terrible idea. So few sales are being lost, and I feel like translations are a weird IP gray area since they're derivative but also require a ton of original writing to truly localize. Capcom and Sega have been pretty open to fan works even though they technically infringe on IP because they understand fans aren't competing with the creators for sales. I'm baffled why NISA won't do the same, but I feel like NISA has become a lot more guarded the larger they get
One of the most weirdly not-backwards things about Japan is how they practically just let a whole industry of amateur derivative fanworks exist...and hell actually thrive.
"but I can't imagine why they took so long for the Crossbell games when the patch already translated everything and had a ton of QOL improvements"
Because they're not using Geofront's translation. It's just a BASE. They're not actually using it wholesale, and I'd argue it's shittier if they did. Because that shows that they don't give a shit about what they're translating. Them actually taking this time shows that they actually give a shit about the translation and making it better than Geofront.
Omg thank you I finally understand the naked Van memes I am laughing so hard now
I was going to get it with a series but then I saw how many games weren't over here and I was like no ill play ys instead
When even Mondblut is onto something you know NISA messed up big time.
Lol exactly. This guy is a plague.
Mondblut1984 is always based tho.
@@hahmann is it not that guy who is full misogynist and homophobic ? If yes, then that's not a win for me.
@@Terranigma23 also a pedo
@@Terranigma23 also a real pedo
Very well made video Enel. Your point is really valid and hopefully NISA revert back and let people translate Trails.
I guess NISA never changes.... I was willing to forgive their horrible lack of effort and quality with many games they localized during the PS3/PS4 era after they started putting out some pretty decent PC ports of some of NIS' older games like Disgaea and making back goodwill when they brought in Durante to help fix a lot of the technical problems with Ys VIII but now I'm just feeling vindicated in how I was already boycotting the company previously, and will now simply resume my own longstanding boycott of them now knowing what they're up to with the kiseki games. I had already been boycotting them for some 6-8 years prior so it's not really that big of a loss for me to resume with it.
Nisa moment
I find it hilarious NISA can't even get their parent company's games out on time, Labyrinth of Galleria is taking 2 years and Disgaea 7 isn't even announced or planned for localization yet.
seems like their suffering from worse problems than what Bandai of America did in the late 2000's
I mean they do have the pressure to release other games of other companies. All the companies doing WW release are no longer taking games from other games and are only publishing their own games. The only exception would be Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft.
The trails series with how complicated it is to handle must not help either (lots of text to translate, yearly releases, ports to pay and make, the "You must play all the games in order" that Kinda forced them to get late in the parution thanks to Marvelous etc)
Wait did they shut down all fan translation of kuro no kiseki? No way to get around it?
You can still find the old incomplete patch for Kuro on /fg/ Falcom General but it has a lot of missing text and to my knowledge the crafts, items, arts, tutorials...etc are all untranslated. Another option would be to get Visual Novel OCR which can help you translate any VN or JRPG on the spot, however the quality it's at the level of google translate. Sadly, I think I'm dropping Trails after finishing Cold Steel 4 cuz there's no way I'm giving NISA anymore of my money.
The spreadsheets arent officially hosted but there are ghetto ways to get them as well as an injection patch to put them into CLEs pc port.
Kuro2 spreadsheet won't be made by zerofield but 4chan will probably translate it themselves if they have to. Quality might be lower but its gonna happen.
@@luminous3558 BTW is there any particular forum where i can get the spreadsheets from ?
Anyone got a link to a kuro translation as enel mentioned they're still available somewhere?
Decided to just buckle down and learn Japanese back in 2008 in order to play the untranslated games I was never able to. Took me six years of chipping away at it but I pulled it off. Best decision of my life. Seriously, with how long you all have been consuming Japanese media, you should have had plenty of time to learn the language by now.
Point taken and touche my friend. *taking notes*
I've been considering doing this myself.
I’m too lazy to do that
Never trust any company. Ever.
A rule I live by.
Localization is inherently anti-customer:
change my mind
Well, sucks for the English fan base. It may be time to learn Japanese and save yourself the pain. I will be playing Kuro 2 on release, as I have known Japanese for over 13 years (you can see on my channel some old translations I did), so I can help you with understanding the game if you force your way through it or if you have any questions when you play it. If you’re interested just leave me a reply here and I will message you through discord.
Thank you Enel for bringing this to my attention. I was going to buy Zero and Azure as I havent played those yet, will go for the fan translations now if those can still be attained somewhere. I do hope they go back on this decision, this series became one of my favourite very fast and I would hate to be stuck waiting cause of this company.
People are as people do..
Liking and commenting to hopefully boost the algorithm. I'm actually pretty interested in this series so hopefully the outcome turns favourable.
ONE MORE NISA SALE REJECTED
"If there is a series I enjoy almost as much as Xenoblade it would have to be the Kiseki series" Bruh TRUE THAT. The worldbuilding and lore of Kiseki is so deep, and the combat has got to be the some of the, if not the deepest turn-based RPG combat I've ever played. Probably the only thing that causes it to rank below Xenoblade in my book is that there is almost never any post game content in any of their games.
But DAMN is it rough to be a Kiseki fan right now. In the west we're now about three years behind the JP releases, and now the fan translation of Kuro gets shutdown? Really hits you right in the feeling of hype. Like it's getting harder and harder to be excited for these games. If it wasn't for the fact I was so heavily invested in the massive overarching narrative of the series and this was any other game, there's a good chance I would've just forgotten about it by now.
can we still have hope for kuro 2 spreadsheet or a patch now when zerofield is gone now? Cause i want to see van team continue their adventure
No, not unless /fg/ translates it out of spite, which they probably won't.
@@hahmann wow it sad , maybe i will take a break from the series a while , i have play the series from sky to kuro and this happen .
If it happened it will probably be PC only and take a little longer to make
6:31 I loved seeing your top 30 games list. Xenoblade DE is my favorite game of the Xenoblade series so it's a little sad seeing that it's the only Xenoblade game not in your top 30.
That was just the top 15 though I think in the screenshot
Haven't seen the video quite yet, but I do want to comment on the Discord image I saw in your Tweet. It is NOT their fault that the series is behind. I heavily disagree with people complaining about the series being behind in localization and blaming NISA for it. I don't believe it's a complaint to be made at all, but especially directed at NISA. While yes we are three games behind at this point, that's because they have to localize THREE other games first because Xseed skipped them. It's better in the long run to get these games out of the way NOW, rather than just wait and let them gather dust making the series harder to play through. We need official localizations for Crossbell at least, and this is something that should have happened long ago. Yeah, sucks that we don't get the most recent games, but that's literally just an issue in the now. In the future, when new people are trying to get into the series, it'll be so much better that they actually have easy access to Zero and Azure. I'm not gonna comment on the shutdown and my opinions on it right now, because I sure have some, but I will never agree with blaming NISA for the series being behind and I will never agree that getting Zero and Azure instead of the Kuro games is a bad thing.
I basically stopped buying NISA stuff around 2020 all around. Was just tired of their half-assing things after undercutting higher quality localization houses for publishing in the west.
Never had a good experience with Nisa
im legit speechless rn. as you said. like whats the harm of having fan translations to game you legally buy to play when that game u bought is supporting the company at the same time. its just stupid. for starters ppl do fan translations on games cuz they might never release to the west and ppl want to play them. i just hope this doesnt kill fan translations as a whole.
This series is something I'm curious, but have zero knowledge about.
Thank you for providing details about that situation
Man I got into this series like last year and played all of sky and 2 of Cold Steel and have Zero and Azure preordered. Its gonna suck to be caught up on western releases while waiting YEARS for japanese releases. At this point im going to try learn Japanese if NISA wants to blueball me this hard. Its too late for me to stop I need to see Kiseki to the end
It's too late for me to stop too!! I'm pretty much caught up to CS4 which I deliberately held back from playing but screw it I'm powering through that and Hajimari and Kuro and gonna learn a new language while I'm at it lol
Ah god I’ve avoided the sub Reddit because of this mess the way that nis has done things is wrong but the things that some people in the fandom do and say makes me so sad to be part of the fandom.
I have some bad news for you, but this is the internet. It doesn't matter what you're a fan of, people are going to act like apes about it.
You just have to keep in mind these people are a loud minority (and often are children) and ignore them. Sadly corporations don't want to let you do that because it helps their image if they can paint everyone who is against any of their decisions as being the type of person who sends death threats over videogames.
Are you referring to the apparent "doxxing" that supposedly happened? Because I never saw any proof that it did. Someone made a reddit post saying he saw someone do it during the UA-cam stream in the chat. I never saw anyone else substantiate this, nor show any proof it actually happened. It was all hearsay from a reddit account created less than a day before the claim was made. It reeked of a false flag to me, personally. A pretty lame false flags since typically you are supposed to actually do the thing when you false flag and not just go "dude trust me I saw it."
Im more on the YS side of the falcom games but hearing this sort of stuff is extremely disheartening as Ive wanted to get into Trails but if they're going to pull stuff like this maybe im better off not bothering
Can you make an elemental summoner guide? I'm confused on how the elements work
This is unfortunate. I dont follow Falcom channels so I dont get surprise spoilers so I wasnt aware of this issue. I wont be buying any NISA products until they reverse this decision and even then I was already concerned they were taking advantage of the Geofront team, and this doesnt do anything to satisfy those concerns. At least I still have the old Flame edit localization patches for Zero and Ao to fall back on.
The geofront patch isnt hard to find.
Liked and comment for the algorithm. "What is a Kuro No Kiseki?"
I've been waiting for years to play these after having played the YS series. I kept hearing start with at least Zero. I didn't want to do it on pc. So I have been waiting patiently for the switch releases. I was going to buy hard copies of Zero, Azure after release a few weeks from now. Then eventually cold steel series when there was a full release if I enjoyed Zero and Azure.
I wanted to support Falcom and play more of their amazing games.
Now I'm really debating if I should buy these games simply out of principle. This is ridiculous.
I can't even support Falcom like I want to...
I'm thinking if I ever buy it I'll wait it out until it's maybe 70-75% off on switch and digital despite me hating digital. If I have to give Nisa any money it will be as little as possible.
I've been waiting for years already. I can continue this trend and just play through some of my game backlog. Whatever.
Hmm, you could always go for the Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Trilogy on PC, those were translated by Exceed, not NIS America, so you can at least get a chance to dip into the series. Cold Steel 1 and 2 were also done by Exceed I believe.
@@dragonmaster1500 I actually considered this before but decided against it. I haven't done pc gaming in many years and ussually use my laptop for professional related stuff. I don't really want to get into the habit of pc gaming again. This switch is the first console I've gotten in many years as well.
Also I prefer getting it on switch if possible as this way my significant other can play it eventually as well. She has enjoyed the YS games I got her to try and would probably enjoy these as well I think.
I'm thinking my best bet is just give them as little money as I can. Or I could try to buy a used copy later on.
@@ThatBoldStatement Buying the game used will probably be your best bet then, I hadn't actually considered that.
It's unfortunate that we don't have switch versions of the Sky Trilogy as well because I think more people should be playing those games and it's really too bad that Exceed get's caught in the crossfire when it comes to this sort of thing.
However it turns out, I hope that you and your partner get a chance to enjoy the games at some point.
God bless.
To think I'm trying to power through Cold Steel 4 to get Hajimari and Kuro with English overlays just to hear the BS. Yeah I'm definitely boycotting NISA. I mean if they plan to do this at least find a more efficient way of bringing these to the West. Japan is getting Kuro 2 THIS YEAR and We ain't even get Hajimari yet FFS!!!
West having a massive backlog of games that aren't officially translated from Trails is expected given Sky didn't get its official translation for a long, long time. Hajimari not being out has nothing to do with NISA's actions.
Trails of series is my favorite!! Rean is the best! Also, i just want trails of reverie. We are like 3 games behind.
Ya know the problem with NISA is not only the translation and their ridiculous translation times. In the last few games they "patched in" bugs that make it impossible to proceed. Dunno if these have been patched out by now. But imagine wanting to play the games a few years into the future and not being able to get a patch because store XYZ has shut down. Ridiculous. Their quality control and testing is bad as heck, but I'm sure ya know that one already. x,D
Then regarding Europe they are stationed in England and that is not part of the EU anymore so anyone in Europe has to pay a ton of extra money (nearly 20 bucks shipping + customs and handling) simply because NISA is not willing to make good business decisions or get good shipping lines, IF fans want a CE or even sometimes the standard version of a game. (depending on the game).
Then as you mentioned there is the problem with NISA constantly treating really concerning problems as a hoax, which is absolutely ridiculous.
Back when they announced their cooperation with Geofront I had the hopes that there was finally some change inside that company for the better, but that turned out to be a pipedream.
Thank you for the video, I would have missed this since I started to mostly ignore NISA a while back and only wanted to buy the "blue"/Ao/Zero and Nayuta games from them. Now that won't happen, shame really looked forward to an English physical copy of my favourite games with the geofront translation. Damn that ruffles my feathers. Now I can't even recommend the whole series anymore, not only thanks to the time gap, but most don't wanna go through the hassle to buy JP versions.
Even though the Protag of Kuro looks like Knight Blazer from Wild Arms!! (Praise be the Armed Fantasia news)
God damn it I was so excited about Kuro, despite not liking the Sen series (but loving all other games).
And now I get to see that there was a fantranslation of the first Kuro game AND the second... that I missed out on.
This is frustrating.
Horrible decision by NISA. People that are big enough fans to play using a spreadsheet (myself included) are people who also will promote the series as much as they can and also double dip on the official western releases. I have the Limited Editions of Zero/Azure pre-ordered and paid but I'm considering canceling the orders. Tough decision. sigh
Love that you shared this with us!
Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I was checking on the status of the official translations for hajimari and kuro after seeing that the first Crossbell game drops on Steam soon. I had planned to buy and play on day 1 (after previously playing the Geofront release on the joyoland copy I purchased). Now I no longer will be 'double-dipping' as you say. This kind of behavior from NISA is unacceptable and they will no longer be receiving any money from me. I took the money I was going to spend on Crossbell and bought Hajimari and am playing with a fan translation now. I'll keep supporting Falcom but I'm done with NISA.
good choice buy cloud leopard or joyoland is best
@@เผด็จาร-นนนนง You can play the pirate ver or anyway you want, but please do not buy the CLE ver, because more people like you buy the chinese ver, they will think the whole asia is chinese and they will keep localize the game with chinese ver in the whole asia
If NISA has a million haters, then I am one of them. If NISA has ten haters, then I am one of them. If NISA has only one hater then that is me. If NISA has no haters, then that means I am no longer on earth. If the world is with NISA, then I am against the world. CAN I GET AN AMEN
NISA will never have one hater so long as I draw breath, my brother. If the entire rest of the world bows down in worship to NISA, it shall be you and I alone united by our undying hatred. Amen.
Yet another shitty action by game devs, if they removed the translations, they better be working on official translations themselves.
“As a huge fan of RPGs that have a heavy emphasis on story and character-driven narratives, as well as deep and interesting combat…”
Oh, is that all?
I’m joking, of course, but this does kinda show just how awesome Xeno and Kiseki are. I’m assuming everyone reading this has at least played a Xeno game, but if you haven’t played one nor any Trails games I would recommend them.
For Xeno, I would suggest starting with Xenoblade DE just for maximum enjoyment of the modern series as a whole (as well as the fact that it probably has the most satisfying narrative on its own without DLC or knowledge of previous titles). For Trails, you can start with the beginning, Trails in the Sky, but honestly it would make more sense to start with Cold Steel at this point. I started with Sky and loved it, but many probably won’t due to its slight antiquation.
Somewhat unrelated, but I've put off this series for a while and want to try it out once I'm done with XC3. Can I pick a newer entry as a starting point? Also, move to trails or try another Xeno game first? I have XC1 Definitive (only like 20 hours in), and can also get XC2 or XCX (for either Wii U or emulated). What's best?
I can't decide for you but for me trails is a big time investment franchise. It is a long game that span across multiple entries. If you really want to play I recommend starting with Trails of Cold Steel 1 or Trails in the Sky.
If you really enjoy XC3 try XC1&2 to get the reference. XCX is different from XC numbered title, however the game is so good it ruined other open world games for me.
@@neku2741 I've heard conflicting things about XCX, that it's great but has no direction. The combat of 1 didn't click for me, but after playing 3 I think going back to 1 will be much better. I already have 1 definitive so I guess I'll start with that. XCX definitely looks really cool, though. Debating if I should play it on my Wii U or emulated.
The best way to play Trails is to play them in release order because they are all part of a continuous saga, so any sequel is going to spoil previous games' stories. The one main exception I can think of is Cold Steel 1, which doesn't really spoil any of the previous games, but that ends on a cliffhanger for Cold Steel 2, which does have spoilers for the earlier games. The only downside to playing them in order is that it's a massive time investment lol
Thanks for sharing, I didn't know this, but I'm with you. NIS just isn't doing a good job with this, plus I'm just sick of being 3 to 4 years behind. I'll just learn japanese at this point.
Good on you for using your platform to try to spread awareness of this! Based Enel.
The real flex is to learn japanese and only buy Falcom's games directly :D
But yeah it's really dumb. If they were very close behind with the translations I could somehow get behind their move because it could hurt the sells but when they are so many years behind and weren't even capable to translate the games in the right order it's just ridiculous.
Its like saying mods that add accessibility will make you lose money. Which isnt true. Some games i got because of the availabiity of fan additions
I was absolutely planning on buying the official localisation of the Crossbell games even though I played them already. But I just cancelled that plan.
When this all went down alot of people were calling the NISA boycott "childish" and this really boggles my mind. I really do want to understand where this is coming from, but to me deciding that a companies values and actions go against what you find to be right and deciding not to give your money is one of the most mature things you can do. I mean your not offending anyone or personally attacking someone. I really do think that this mentality of boycotting= stupid and childish in the gaming community is why the industry has gotten so brazen with unfinished games and predatory micro transactions.
I wouldn’t call it childish. I’m just not fond of this idea of being called names just because I do not want to deny myself a good time by participating in some boycott.
@@Dharengo Yeah honestly that's fair. I saw alot of attempts at guilt tripping from both sides om Twitter. My argument stands that at the end of the day it's your money and you get to do whatever you want with it, be that boycotting NISA or buying the games.
To be fair boycotting is dumb. If you want to be heard buy the game, leave a review explaining your dislike of the situation and refund it.
Reach out to falcom to explain your disappointment in the quality and speed of nisa's translation. In japanese ofc.
Your voice as a customer matters, just not buying stuff sends vague signals at best.
I still don't know why the series switched from XSeed to NISA in the first place after CS2. I simply stopped buying CS3 and onward, switching to the Chinese version by Clouded Leopard. Did Falcom came out voicing any comment about this? Falcom voice can be impactful.
You can play the pirate ver or anyway you want, but please do not buy the CLE ver, because more people like you buy the chinese ver, they will think the whole asia is chinese and they will keep localize the game with chinese ver in the whole asia
Are u planning to make a video explaining xenoblade 3 story?
True, NISA fuck up again. Just to remember for the people in the comment section that there is still an English Patch based on the spreadsheet for Kuro no Kiseki 1 (PC only). Main story, side quest, bonding event, menu, item, art, craft, combat menu, are translated. There is just some NPC who are not translated. It's really good. It's really easy to use it. I will not upload the link because my comment will be erased, but it's easy to find it on youtube. :)
You did accomplish something with this video, Enel: at least I'm aware of all this crap. I was going to buy the localised version of Zero next week, but now I'm going to find a way to buy the original version and use a fan translation. I'm also going to try and spread the word about this. The more the merrier, right?
You won't be able to find it. Geofront, as Parton the dealt get it localized officially, agreed to remove the patch entirely.
@@golfer435 Surely there are some bittorrents for the patches floating around? Even if not somebody probably has the files for the old patches on their PC and could make torrents for them.
@@golfer435 once something is uploaded on the internet it never truly disappears
Doing stuff like this is like garuntee if we won’t get anymore games in the west. For Pete’s sake NISA did nothing wrong.
Okay, so as someone with no stake, I watched this whole video. I agree NISA's translations being so slow is disrespectful to the fans and harming the brand and I can understand why fans are releasing their own translations. But you say people saying the move makes sense as far as NISA losing money is a "stupid" argument because people will "probably" buy the official translation because they love the series so much. Do you have numbers for that, or do you dismiss that argument solely because you and a handful of people you know would double dip?
I provide some statistics of a poll within the video and it's a very very common sentiment among the hardcore fans who love the series.
You have to understand how gimmicky those spreadsheets are in the first place. You need a ps4, a pc and a way to stream the ps4 game to your pc and then awkwardly click next on the overlay with every line.
Everyone who isnt a hardcore fan wasn't gonna do that.
@@EnelXC I mean, I can't imagine that a handful of hardcore fans who use spreadsheet translations equates to the majority of the market NISA is looking at when making decisions and that you expect to double dip...
Didn't know about this situation. Thanks for the heads up. Time to boycott NISA completely! I've bought a bunch of their games but there are still way more on my wishlist, guess I'll remove them.
Also good to know I can support the series by buying the games released by Xseed that I've yet to purchase.