Exclusive: Interview With Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja's Localization Lead
Posted by Shawn Struck on 03.02.2007
411 Mania recently got the chance to sit down with Atlus' Nich Maragos, the man who put words in Izuna's mouth. See what HE has to say about the game inside...
Shawn Struck, for 411 Mania: Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja is a game with a light hearted tone to its story. How do you maintain a balance between comedy and not taking the game seriously?
Nich Maragos:Well, not every game is meant to be taken seriously. In the world of Izuna, you’re not fighting to save the world from destruction, or to find an ancient, terrible secret. You’re fighting to rescue a single village from hiccups, infantilism, and other lame curses, so I took that as license to turn the comedy up as high as it would go. It’s more of a struggle in other games, where you have to be mindful of the tone of each scene and make sure it doesn’t jar against the comedic elements. But in Izuna, it’s comedy all the way.
411 Mania: What is the biggest challenge you have faced in the localization of Izuna?
NM:Honestly, I’m struggling to remember anything that was particularly difficult about it. I know that doesn’t make for a very interesting answer, but Izuna really was one of the easier projects I’ve worked on. Even the character limit, though tight at 22 letters per line, wasn’t as confounding because there’s so little expository or dramatic dialog.
411 Mania: Are there any in-jokes you've managed to sneak in, or perhaps an obscure NPC or bit of dialog you'd like to clue in the readers to watch out for?
NM:There’s a certain bit of in-house Atlus slang that Izuna is the third (and perhaps last) game to contain. It popped up in B-Daman and Super Robot Taisen, and recurs in a hidden village you really have to work to find in Izuna. I’m not sure which players, if any, will have played all three of those games, but on the off chance they have, there you go.
411 Mania: Who was your favorite character to write for, and why?
NM:Again, not the most interesting answer, but... Izuna herself. She has the majority of the game’s dialog, and her personality is so brash and out-there that I always had fun coming up with her reactions to the cursed townspeople.
411 Mania: What's the most satisfying part of localization for you?
NM:The most satisfying part is also sometimes the most frustrating: I try really hard to make sense of “untranslatable” Japanese puns. There was one that stumped me for a while on Persona 3, but I figured it out eventually, and I was pretty proud of myself. The frustrating part is, if you do the job right, no one will ever realize what an accomplishment it was when they read it!
You can find out more about Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja by visiting www.atlus.com. Check out 411 Mania Games soon for a full review of the game, and an exclusive interview with Izuna's Project Lead!
