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Post subject: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 2:15 am 
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Just wondering if anyone on the Dynamic Designs team has ever worked on a humorous parody translation. Alternatively, can anyone recommend a decent parody patch?

This question came to mind while translating a game that was, shall we say, 'less than well written'. In my opinion, there wasn't enough there to build a decent story, even with creative editing. It made me wonder about the merits of producing a zany alternative patch to inject a little life into the gameplay. I've gotten the impression that such endeavors generally aren't well received, so I'm just wondering if anyone ever did a good parody.

I'm weissvulf over at the RHDN forums by the way aka John. :ugeek:


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 23, 2018 7:30 am 
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I wouldn't call it a parody per se. However, we did inject a good amount of original content into Princess Minerva because of this very issue. See, the game had great defining moments. Those moments when the story was progressing forward were all well written. But then when it came to useless townie dialog. That was an entirely different matter. Every town had no less than five people that had similar text to this.

Minerva
"Have you heard anything
about monster girls
roaming around loose!?"

Followed by a generic answer.

"Yes, I've heard they're
roaming around!" (or something similar)

or

"No, I haven't really heard
anything about that." (Or something similar)

It literally had this text about 100 times in the game. No kidding, it was in every darn town no less then five times (well except that one empty town.)

Anyway, as I stated in the readme file. Yes, we altered this dialog. And I don't give a hoot who whines about it. I hope in the end what we did was found to be humorous and fun. Just as the defining moments of the game already were. No events of the game were changed, just fun dialog injected when things got dry. If the purists refuse to play it because of this, well I'm OK with that. I'm sure far more would have dropped it over the ridiculous amount of crappy repeating dialog without giving it a real chance otherwise. And when the townies had important things to pass along, we left them be.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:52 am 
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I can SO relate to that. I remember menu descriptions I once did that were something like:
Mummy : This man has been mummified and is covered in bandages.
Huge Spider: A spider that has grown large.

When you invest so much time and thought into making a game fun for English speakers, it feels like a crime to leave something like that intact. I might feel a tad worried if a translator steamrolled over original content to remake something 'in their image'. But, I call stuff like your example "non-content" - formulaic placeholders that the programmers used to save time/effort.

Personally, I just judge a game for what it is when I play it. Sure, I have a curiosity about what might have been in the original Japanese, but that has no bearing on how good the version I'm playing is. It's like the Robotech animated show. I watched it as a kid and liked it. Years later I learned it was an amalgam of three separate anime series with a Frankenstein-ed plot. That fact doesn't make the Robotech series any worse or better.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 5:27 pm 
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There's a guy that posts patches to games that are google translated.. the Final Fantasy 5 google translation patch is funny as hell....

https://legendsoflocalization.com/funky-fantasy-iv/


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 6:52 am 
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An auto-translation would be easy to try and might turn out fun.

I'm kind of surprised that there aren't more humor based video games produced, especially among fan translations since they don't have have to be profitable. Thinking back to all the games I've ever played, I only remember one that focused on humor: Giant Citizen Kabuto. Some had funny moments in between evil-wizrd-destroying-the-universe drama, but rarely was it a significant component. I never hear anyone comment on the fan made parody hacks either.

I think humor is hard to get right, especially if it's a major component in a plot. Maybe that's why there isn't more activity. Looking through the RHDN lost of spoofs, the only one that seems like a fleshed out spoof (rather than remake) was for Final Fantasy V.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 9:03 am 
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I think humorous games have been a thread throughout gaming since the early days. Maybe because my buddy always really enjoyed humor, but it makes me think of a few funny/silly games we played a bunch like Whacked!, and the Outlaw Golf (Tennis/Volleyball) series. We loved those games.

I had to check a list to jog my memory, but another one of my friends used to really like Armed and Dangerous, which I hear was a parody/comedy that was pretty good. Serious Sam always seemed like a funny, absurd parody of the FPS, and though I never played it, Duke Nukem was probably the original of those. There was stuff like the Leisure Suit Larry series too. Those were good for a laugh or two.

I don't think there's been any lack of comedy/parody games in Japan either. I've always been curious about Otaku no Seiza. There are the famous Sega GaGa, and Rent-a-Hero games too.

EDIT: As for fan translations, there are all of the horrible "Little Remo the A-- Master" style hacks that one jackass kept making for years. I think they crept off to their own site eventually. Maybe the "comedy" parody hacks all went there? EDIT2: Christ, don't go there. It's still an unadulterated cesspool.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 11:05 am 
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There is also Hourai High School by AGTP. Wish we could have also finished that one. I wanted to do some things differently to how Gid and Satsu did them. However, our time was better spent elsewhere. Who knows, if we find we've run out of things to do, we might get back to it at some point if I can convince the others. However, I still suggest you give AGTP's version a spin. Pretty fun game.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Sat Jan 27, 2018 12:16 am 
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I forgot Serous Sam. It definitely has a humorous side. I remember finding a secret area and expecting extra loot, but instead I got "You discovered a secret ambush!" and enemies spawned all over. The titles you mention give me some hope that a parody would be well received enough to be worth the effort.

The sceenshots for Hourai High School look like just the type of humor I appreciate: subtle, but consistently present and not relying on cheap 'fart joke' type gags. I am definitely going to give it a play. I'd actually love to translate a funny game like that, but I strongly suspect my Japanese skills are not up to the task. I routinely run into phrases I'm not familiar with and have to rely on research to sort them out. With something as subtle as humor, I'd probably be like Edward Scissorhands trying to pet a puppy.

Anyways, thanks for giving me some feedback. Hearing what other people think always helps me crystallize my own thoughts. :)


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Tue Jan 30, 2018 11:55 pm 
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I'm quite enjoying Hourai High. So far, the humor seems to come from a zany situation and presentation more than 1-liner type zingers. There's a lot of fun nuance in the dialog. It's quite charming.


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Post subject: Re: Has anyone here ever done a parody?
PostPosted: Wed Jan 31, 2018 3:35 am 
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Its been years since I played it, but there was this RPG Maker game called The Sword and the Fish that was very funny although the graphics are pretty rough.


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If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favorable reference to the devil in the House of Commons


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