While it seemed there would be no end to my whining on the subject, Order of Ecclesia has come and gone with little fanfare over the great job they did localizing it. Even my own review of the game, which was pretty positive, danced around the subject.
I picked up the official strategy guide recently and have been using it to pick off all the little doodads that I missed earlier. I even briefly started a new game earlier today. Free of the haze that playing a new Castlevania for the first time draws over my eyes, I noticed immediately that the text was comfortable, natural, and best of all, exuded personality. What happened? These games have always been terrible in this department, it’s something I complain about every time but ultimately accept because of the other qualities of the series.
To answer that… well, maybe… listen to the most recent episode of 1up’s Retronauts podcast. In this, you will hear Jeremy Parish carefully navigate naming names while praising the localization in what he refers to as the latest episode in a long-running franchise which is known for bad localization. A friend of his, he says, worked on the localization of this game and did an excellent job. When the result was so good, the game’s Japanese producer asked if the localization before was bad… apparently he was unaware, despite images like the one above being freely available online. When told that yes, the localization before was very bad, he seemed to take offense. This, I’m guessing, is why names are not being named. I’m going to just go ahead and assume he’s talking about Castlevania and Koji Igarashi here.
Still, I have to wonder what kind of commercial success Order of Ecclesia has enjoyed. In my shopping on eBay I see a lot of copies of the game selling for very little money, even in excellent condition. It’s a shame, really.