Eustrath for iPad

10/07/03

Mark Bernstien's post about The War of Eustrath HD reminded me of a comment I made the other day. His post also made me curious about the game itself. Unfortunately, I still don't have an iPad, so my knowledge is limited to what I could find online (the iQubi web site and some YouTube videos).

To clarify, Mark implies that there is an original Japanese version, wondering if the text is different. According to the iTunes site, the Japanese version is not out yet. This of course made me curious about the production workflow of Eustrath. The core development team must be Japanese, no doubts. But the entire front end of the 1.0 version is English.

I think if iQubi was going to bother with a full out English launch, they should have gone the extra step. Proofing is not that hard and people can be hired to do it. Be that as it may, perhaps that improvement will show up in a future iteration. Iteration is good, and a sense of craftsmanship is important to any job worth doing.

As for the "small breast" comment, such dialog appears frequently across Japanese entertainment. It's even a common feature in the hit Japanese TV series, Trick. When you check that link, scroll down to the "Running gags and motifs" section. At this posting, it's entry number two. And as a sanity check on the popularity of the show, there is a Nintendo DS game released this past May (Japanese only).

Why are anatomy comments so popular in Japanese entertainment? I'm still working on that one. I think it might stem from historical issues, and this anatomy element does appear in visual form in certain ukiyo-e. So it does appear to be cultural, perhaps in a way similar to the French grotesque etchings. Now that I see the connection, this might be fun to look into.

About the narrative being central to the game, I can add one interesting side note. A quick scan of the Eustrath comments in the Japanese iTunes site shows no mention of the dialog. Ratings among the Japanese are generally high. Either the narrative does not matter (Japanese users are accustomed to this kind of Super Robot War game play and know what to expect) or the Japanese player and English text are on a level where parsing is not an issue. The latter could be a design consideration among the producers. Again, a reason why I am quite curious about the workflow behind Eustrath's design.

10/07/03