Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate localization director on bringing the game west, leaving out memes
Posted on 8 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 43 Comments
During GDC 2016 today, Capcom localization director Andrew Alfonso delivered a talk on adapting games for worldwide audiences. A portion of his presentation was about bringing Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate west. He spoke about the ways in which he and the team approached the English version – including staying away from memes.
He said:
“I started thinking that I don’t want people picking up my games on release saying, ‘I like these in-style meme references,’ and then another player picking up the games four years later and thinking, ‘They referenced 300 — that sucks!'”
Capcom provides insight into Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate localization
Posted on 9 years ago by Brian(@NE_Brian) in 3DS, News | 1 Comment
A Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate localization blog post went up on Capcom-Unity yesterday. It’s rather interesting and gives some insight into the western release.
Courtesy of localization director Andrew Alfonso, we learn that Capcom approached Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate’s overseas version in a different manner than previous entries in the series. Alfonso reveals that for this entry, he sat in on meetings with the development team during development of the game itself.
Localization plans began in September 2013 or so. As for why Monster Hunter games take so long to localize, you may be surprised to hear that there’s more text in these titles than something like Ace Attorney or Dragon’s Dogma.
Later in the blog, Alfonso touched on how the localization process for Monster Hunter has come a long way from the days of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite. Fans are now being treated to a much higher quality localization. For this latest game, the team went as far as to make adjustments to the UI and tutorials.
“Another thing we did with MH4U that we couldn’t do with MH3U is related to the UI and tutorials. We were able to tinker with them in ways that we weren’t able to do in the past. We consulted with MH4U director Kaname Fujioka and lead designer Yuya Tokuda about what we wanted to do for the western release and received their blessing to change the UI and tutorials in subtle ways that will make the experience smoother for players overseas.”
You can find the full Capcom localization blog for Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate here.
