100 reasons why Sega is/was stupid.

[AndrewTS 0]

BACK ON TOPIC, folks:

 

66) They have produced some of the most awful English game dubs ever.

 

Bad voice acting is somewhat of a staple in Japanese imports, even when the companies responsible are some of the best in the business. Capcom's own Resident Evil is a prime example. Most people tend to blame the actors, but that's not always valid. Voice direction, sound production, and writing all play huge parts. Almost no company gets it right the first try. Square's early efforts were pretty awful (FFX), but have improved remarkably. However, even know not everything goes right. See: Mena Suvari's cough-syrupy performance of Aeris in Kingdom Hearts 2, making just about everyone with a pair of ears clamor for Mandy Moore to return to the role, even though all the talent was there to have made it good.

 

Of course, not every company that's been doing the job for a long time gets any better. Sega's been English-dubbing games since the days of the Sega CD, and they *still* suck at it for the most part.

 

I present to you

Exhibit A.

 

Not enough? Have some more!

 

Exhibit B

Exhibit C

Exhibit D

Exhibit E

Exhibit F

 

67) They bent over for EA Sports to give them special privileges.

 

Remember those funky Electronic Arts cartridges for the Genesis? That looked like no other carts? Why is that?

 

Well, if you're familiar with NES history, you'll know a number of companies produced unlicensed NES cartridges, i.e. they were not manufactured by Nintendo themselves, thus did not get slapped with the Nintendo Seal of Quality. Camerica, Tengen, Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree, and others got into the act, with several different methods used to bypass the lockouts.

 

Well, did any of them get official endorsements from Nintendo? Naw. But after EA decided to make their own cartridges that worked on the Genesis, without any Sega endorsements or approvals, they rubbed it in Sega's faces.

 

But the real story about Populous for the Genesis was that Jim and I worked on it in isolation and when it was finished it was used to blow apart the existing SEGA publishing practices. We had just reverse engineered the NES and EA had another team reverse engineering the Genesis at another location. They put us in a building, away from other programmers, amongst the nice people in the accounting department. Everything we did was kept secret and we worked in a kind of "clean room" environment, so we wouldn't be tainted by materials that had been copyrighted. We carefully followed the same techniques Compaq used to reverse engineer the IBM. After our NES reverse engineering work was complete, they asked us to port Populous and try to figure out the rest of the Genesis. The information we received from the Genesis reverse engineering team had many holes in it, which we attempted to fill by poking at the machine through code in various ways. One of the holes we found about after production, one single bit was left unset in Populous and it made the screen colors bleed. Populous was ported in an amazingly short amount of time, and was ready for CES when Trip dropped a bomb on SEGA and showed them a completed game on their machine that wasn't beholden to their monopolistic publishing practices. From what I understand, this helped Trip Hawkins (EA's founder) negotiate a heck of a deal for EA to be able to manufacture Genesis cartridges with SEGA's blessings.

 

So Sega pretty much just took it, hence the funky carts. Of course, maybe Sega's official stance wasn't to pursue these on legal grounds (I don't know of any actions taking against CodeMasters for their unlicensed carts), but Sega never gave them or any other such company an official license.

 

Sega-16 Article / Interview with Kevin McGrath.

 

68) They can't properly emulate a huge portion of their own games.

 

With Virtual Console, XBox Live Arcade, and the Playstation Store all featuring classic game titles, classics from every era have been hitting the download services. However, each time Sega throws another piece of Genesis shovelware out there, the questions are asked "Where's NiGHTs? Where's Panzer Dragoon Saga? Where's Eternal Champions CD?" And so on.

 

Well, the simple fact is...it isn't just that Sega doesn't care (because they don't, incidentally), but it's that they can't. Sega doesn't know how to properly emulate Sega CD games and Saturn games on current hardware.

 

Sonic CD wasn't implemented into Sonic Mega Collection for this reason (although it was attempted, as hackers had uncovered). It's also presumed why the Saturn Sonic Jam lacked it as well, even though the video clips from it were included.

 

All of the Saturn and Sega CD games that have been emulated on current hardware (original Panzer Dragoon in Orta, Sonic CD and Sonic R in Sonic Gems, Virtua Cop 2 in the Sega Smash Pack) had been made possible from Sega reverse-engineering the original code from the PC versions--something they have been unable to do with the Sega CD/Saturn games, for some reason.

 

If Sega had access to the original code of the games, this wouldn't be a problem (which allowed the Lunar remakes to be made). It's not that Sega can't possibly do it...but they're too cheap to invest in the R&D necessary to pull it off.

[World's Worst Man 0]

Did Sega even hire real actors, or did they just pull random people off the streets? I mean god damn, a lot of those clips sounded like random people who had literally no clue about how to properly deliver their lines. As bad as most dubs are, usually the actors don't sound completely clueless.

[AndrewTS 0]

Like I mentioned--I'm pretty sure that the voice direction and production of Sega shares heavy blame too.

 

I can't believe anyone would hear some of those clips, say "good enough" and call it quits.

[World's Worst Man 0]

Certainly true. And whoever hired those VAs should probably be blackballed from the industry forever.

[Special K 0]

When Sega CD came out, I wanted Lunar and Dragon Force so, so, badly. Guess what? Working Designs actually promoted it. That is the only game I can remember being promoted for the Sega CD.

 

Thankfully, I got to play it when the Playstation came out.

 

There are so many supposed great cult games for the Saturn. I REALLY want to play Guardian Heroes.

 

Plus Radiant Silvergun and the Shining Forces. C'mon GBA/GBDS/Nintendo, step it up!

 

I would buy a GBDS for Gaurdian Heroes and Dragon Force in a second.

 

 

Oh I guess I should mention some shittiness.

67) Phantasy Star Series is the most overrated series ever. Ever. Levellvellvellevellevellevel Whoops she dies. grindgrindgrindgrind. Wow that was a crazy ending! Also, I cannot suss out what any item spell is! With the $70 booklet. Fuck that game and fuck people who enjoy it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Isn't Dragon Force Saturn?

 

What is a GBDS?

 

DS is just Nintendo DS. It's technically not a Game Boy.

 

Guardian Heroes should be possible, provided Treasure has access to the original code. However, considering they ported Ikaruga but not Radiant, maybe they don't.

 

Ironically, Treasure still has Sega ties to this day, it appears.

[Special K 0]

Yes Dragon Force is Sega Saturn. It's also impossible to find, and I would really like to play it.

 

I called the DS GBDS. MEA CULPA

 

There was a Guardiuan Heroes Advance. It sucked ass.

 

Phantasy Star still sorta sucks. As a caveat, when Phantasy four came out it was the most highly sought-after game on the Geneis. It also costed $80. Suck on that RPG fan!

 

P.S. Genesis had the greatest, hardest, most involving SRPG in Warsong. I did beat it, but I could never keep all of my guys alive. Fucking Lance.

 

'Oh a skeleton' DIE

'Oh some barbarians!' DIE

 

The worst part was watching some scrubs literally hump him to death.

[AndrewTS 0]

Warsong = Langrisser (1).

 

Langrisser I+II = compilation on PS1, NCS (Nippon Computer Systems) did a few reprints too.

 

NCS did Moto Roader which came out on Virtual Console.

 

So, maybe....

[LaParkaMarka 0]

I ended up buying a used Saturn around when Dreamcast came out, just to play Dragon Force. It's an excellent game, I have the box for it sitting a few feet away. It's sad that Saturn still failed miserably even with a decent library of exclusive games.

[AndrewTS 0]

It's sad that ____ still failed miserably even with a decent library of exclusive games.

 

There's *lots* of systems you can put in that blank, though.

 

Except for N-Gage, 32X, and Virtual Boy.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

Square's early efforts were pretty awful (FFX)

 

Objection.

 

Exhibits A and B: John Dimaggio and Dwight Schultz!

 

Anyhow, on the voice acting front, I have to give ups to Sega / Sonic Team for allowing a Japanese audio version on the localized Sonic Adventure. It was much better that way.

[Special K 0]

"Warsong = Langrisser (1)."

 

Yes I know. But who's going to recognize an incredibly obscure game from its Japanese roots? Anyway, Game was fucking hard.

 

Langrisser II can be found, IIRC, it was Europe ONly, so a strike there.

[BUTT 0]

Phantasy Star still sorta sucks. As a caveat, when Phantasy four came out it was the most highly sought-after game on the Geneis. It also costed $80. Suck on that RPG fan!

Dude it cost $100. A hundred fucking dollars.

 

The only game in the series that I've played is the first and from what I played I found it enjoyable. Since I have no patience I never got far in it.

[AndrewTS 0]

Phantasy Star still sorta sucks. As a caveat, when Phantasy four came out it was the most highly sought-after game on the Geneis. It also costed $80. Suck on that RPG fan!

Dude it cost $100. A hundred fucking dollars.

 

The only game in the series that I've played is the first and from what I played I found it enjoyable. Since I have no patience I never got far in it.

 

Other RPGs were very expensive at the time, too. I think Mario RPG was $70-$80, even.

 

Objection.

 

Exhibits A and B: John Dimaggio and Dwight Schultz!

 

Clips plz. What I've heard out of that game was pretty darn bad.

 

Even talented voice actors can suck when other things go wrong.

 

Although I suppose I was a bit harsh there. It's not all that bad, just incredibly amateurish compared to stuff that they would do later (FFXII, DQVIII). The work in those games are excellent, despite the fact that I don't like those games!

[Special K 0]

I remember PS4 costing $80, and Chrono Trigger the same.'

 

I must ask: what is the big deal about Phantasy Star 2? It's a horrible level grind with an OK story.

[World's Worst Man 0]

After having recently played FFX, I can say the voice acting isn't as bad as legend says. Yuna is consistently sub-par and occasionally she is tremendously awful, while Tidus isn't consistently as bad, but still has some awful lines. Everyone else is generally at least passable. It wasn't good on the whole, but it wasn't bad either.

[luke-o 0]

but it wasn't bad either

 

No, It was fucking awful. Simple as. Theres nothing else to it. It was fucking awful. It made Resident Evil look like fucking shakespeare. And like the good Shakespeare like Twlefth Night.

[World's Worst Man 0]

You sure convinced me.

 

69) No more traditional Phantasy Star games. Does that count? I like PSO and all, but show me some of the old Phantasy Star love.

[tigeraid 0]

My Sega CD came with Sewer Shark, one of the worst games ever made.

 

That's a good enough reason for me to hate it.

 

Yet, despite that, I've proven an unexplainable loyalty to Sega's hardware... I bought a Sega CD, a Saturn and a Dreamcast when they came out... I still regret getting rid of my Dreamcast, but in general they were mistakes...

[LJSexay 0]

oh man, I feel for ya getting rid of your Dreamcast. I could never get rid of mine.

[DrVenkman PhD 0]

For some reason, some of my games are unplayable on my DC. MvC2 goes into an eternal load once you pick a team, ditto for NFL Blitz.

[AndrewTS 0]

Maybe your lens is dying. I noticed similar problems on my first DC before games stopped working altogether.

[tigeraid 0]

I really should ebay one one of these days.... Is there even a decent DC emulator for Windows?

[Guest Princess Leena]

Kinda. But, you need a really strong computer to run games well. And they aren't close to the quality of the DC games. With the price of DC stuff now, it's not worth it.

[LaParkaMarka 0]

After having recently played FFX, I can say the voice acting isn't as bad as legend says. Yuna is consistently sub-par and occasionally she is tremendously awful, while Tidus isn't consistently as bad, but still has some awful lines. Everyone else is generally at least passable. It wasn't good on the whole, but it wasn't bad either.

 

A lot of the FFX hate stems from things like the "Laughing" scene...I think that was more an issue with the script than with the actors themselves. What are you supposed to do with that scene? The only way it really made sense to me is if:

 

a) Tidus and Yuna are both quite stupid.

b) Whistling randomly and laughing is how stupid people connect.

 

That or they were on drugs.

 

Anyways, the point is that the really bad voice acting in FFX is really glaring, and those scenes are the ones people are going to remember. The majority of non-Yuna dialogue, from combat comments to random conversations was mediocre to good.

[Guest Princess Leena]

It made sense... Yuna tells Bitch Boy to smile and laugh out loud because she's sacrificing herself in this quest and wants to try to stay positive. He does it in a "silly" way. They share a jocular moment. Of course, a touching moment like that should have been written much, much better... and not had that "OMG, I hope nobody else is hearing the crap I'm playing" feel.

 

Yuna has a few scenes a lot worse than that. Her voice acting is so, so bad. She had no clue on how to show proper emotions.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I can't say anything bad about the Saturn because I bought one brand new when it was basically a dead system for only $75 or so. Fire Pro 6 Man Scramble fun!

[The Metal Maniac 0]

For some reason, some of my games are unplayable on my DC. MvC2 goes into an eternal load once you pick a team, ditto for NFL Blitz.

 

My buddy's Dreamcast started doing that to Fire Pro Wrestling D (the only game we ever played on it), but he managed to hop online, find an FAQ to re-calibrate the laser or something, and get some more time out of it.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I think I remember reading something about the DC discs having a weird copy protection where even a very minor scratch can basically make the disc unplayable on the Dreamcast system.

[Guest Smues]

I think I remember reading something about the DC discs having a weird copy protection where even a very minor scratch can basically make the disc unplayable on the Dreamcast system.

 

I don't know if they had that on the DC but I know on the Saturn the copy protection was on the outer ring of the disc and very easily scratchable.