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NEWS: Princess Peach: Showtime! Developer, Ganbare Goemon! Producer's Bakeru Game Heads West




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Doubleclouder



Joined: 07 Jan 2024
Posts: 60
PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2024 4:25 pm Reply with quote
I'm surprised to see this get localized. I thought it would be too Japanese and text heavy given all the random Japanese tidbits and facts in it. I'm glad it is though since it's a fun game and the spiritual successor to the Ganbare Goemon series and more people should play it.
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 667
PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2024 4:43 pm Reply with quote
Doubleclouder wrote:
I'm surprised to see this get localized. I thought it would be too Japanese and text heavy given all the random Japanese tidbits and facts in it. I'm glad it is though since it's a fun game and the spiritual successor to the Ganbare Goemon series and more people should play it.

Yeah, I too thought that it'd be "too Japanese and text heavy" for the Western market. Glad that the game has been able to cross cultural boundaries and see the light of day here.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1234
PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2024 9:57 pm Reply with quote
I really don't see how this is too Japanese to be released at all, especially considering we already got Ganbare Goemon long ago. If anything, I'd think we'd appreciate the Japanese factoid bonuses even more.
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MFrontier



Joined: 13 Apr 2014
Posts: 12941
PostPosted: Tue Aug 13, 2024 10:16 pm Reply with quote
This looks cute and fun!

And that's Junko Takeuchi as Bakeru?
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OjaruFan2



Joined: 09 Jul 2018
Posts: 667
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2024 11:02 am Reply with quote
Kicksville wrote:
I really don't see how this is too Japanese to be released at all, especially considering we already got Ganbare Goemon long ago. If anything, I'd think we'd appreciate the Japanese factoid bonuses even more.

What made me initially concerned about it being "too Japanese" is the game's theme of yokai mythology. The combined factors of me not seeing a whole lot of people (in the US at least) talking about yokai outside of a small niche group, the limited popularity of yokai-focused franchises (such as GeGeGe no Kitaro and Yo-kai Watch) in the West, as well as the lack of localizations of Ninja Box, Kotodaman, and Bakutsuri Hunters, made me convinced that Bakeru would be passed over for a Western release. Nonetheless, I'm definitely intending on buying the game when it comes out and really do hope that it succeeds here.

As for Ganbare Goemon, I noticed that many of the games stayed in Japan and the few that we got seem to get overlooked a lot compared to Konami's other series (such as Castlevania and Contra). I just haven't seen a whole lot of wide promotion for Goemon and thought that the lack of a Western release of many of the games had something to do with non-Japanese audiences dismissing the series as "too Japanese and weird" to get into. Unless if it's more of the higherups making assumptions of how the series would be perceived in the West.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6197
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2024 11:23 am Reply with quote
Kicksville wrote:
I really don't see how this is too Japanese to be released at all, especially considering we already got Ganbare Goemon long ago.


The last Ganbare Goemon game America (or Europe) got was the second of the N64 duology and nothing since. Also there’s still the unhelpful thing of the fifth game (Legend Of The Mystical Ninja) being released with most of the character names and what not being changed.
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Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1234
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2024 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Whenever a Japanese-y property doesn't come over or seem like a big hit, people assume it's because it's too Japanese. If a Japanese-y property does hit, the subject rarely comes up.

I do not think it is particularly dentrimental to this game coming out anymore than it was to Onimusha, Okami, Samurai Warriors, Muramasa, Sakuna, Kunitsu-Gami, etc etc. There was a time people said we'd never get anymore Yakuza because those were "too Japanese". That time is in the past.

My point in bringing up Goemon is that if we could get a few of them in the 90's, I don't see why it would be so unlikely to get a similar game in 2024.
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Ninten



Joined: 23 May 2017
Posts: 39
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2024 3:55 pm Reply with quote
Doubleclouder wrote:
I'm surprised to see this get localized. I thought it would be too Japanese and text heavy given all the random Japanese tidbits and facts in it. I'm glad it is though since it's a fun game and the spiritual successor to the Ganbare Goemon series and more people should play it.
We're in 2024. People know about Japan.
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funkfoot



Joined: 22 Feb 2023
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2024 9:14 pm Reply with quote
Ninten wrote:
We're in 2024. People know about Japan.


I mean, we're still getting Ace Attorney levels of localization in 2024 as well.
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fhoosi



Joined: 27 May 2019
Posts: 36
PostPosted: Mon Aug 19, 2024 5:42 pm Reply with quote
Games like Onimusha, Okami, Samurai Warriors, Muramasa, and even the Yakuza series have found success internationally despite—or perhaps because of—their cultural specificity. Your mention of Goemon is an interesting case study; if games from that series could be released internationally in the 90s, there's a reasonable argument that similar games could still be released and succeed today. Thank you for solving the problem of extreme energy conservation. However, there are still a lot of questions about the development of the web part of the project, we need a new team for the frontend and possibly the backend. So far I've only found out about The Frontend Company, but I'll keep looking. Can anyone else recommend someone else?
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