Just last week, Sega and Yakuza Studios announced that
Judgment, their newest intellectual property, will be localized to a bunch of languages; being voiced in English and Japanese, and including subtitle tracks for French, Italian, Spanish, German, and English.
In a recent interview with Sony's official PlayStation Blog,
Yakuza series' Localization Producer Scott Strichart revealed a few details about
Judgment's localization, and why the game will be featuring two English subtitle tracks instead of just one.
Strichart reminds us that it's been over a decade since we last saw an English audio option in the Yakuza series; mainly due to the lukewarm reception this option got from fans of the series. With
Judgment, however, they have the opportunity to start from scratch and, hopefully, turn things around this time.
"
It’s been about 13 years since we’ve had an English audio option in a Yakuza game. Despite having some incredible talent playing key roles, that dub just… wasn’t very well-received", explained Strichart.
"
We’ve only had Japanese audio as an option ever since, but with Judgment introducing a completely fresh cast, we figured now would be a great time to try this whole English thing out again, while of course offering the original Japanese audio if that’s what you’d prefer."
As mentioned earlier,
Judgment will also be featuring two different subtitle tracks in English; one for the Japanese audio, and another for the English audio;
Judgment being one of the first games to ever offer that option to players.
"
Have you ever played a game with a dub and selected the Japanese audio, only to have the English dub’s subtitles appear, despite clearly not matching the length or maybe even the intensity of the line?", hypothetically asked Stichart as he continues: "
People call those “dubtitles,” and they happen because the English audio is generally treated as the lead language, for obvious reasons, and the Japanese audio acts as simply a bonus feature for the enthusiast crowd. But for a game as steeped in Japanese as Judgment and its Yakuza legacy is, this was not an acceptable concession to me. So we localised the story twice."
It is nice to see that they localization team is really willing to go the extra mile to have players enjoy Judgment in their own language, especially those who will get the option to choose between any of the English subtitle tracks of their liking. Yakuza fans are still waiting for the games to be localized, but it is great that they'll be getting Judgment, the series' spin-off, fully localized.
To read the lengthy interview on Sony's official PlayStation Blog, be sure to
click right here.
SEGA of America is proud to announce that the new courtroom thriller from Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios, Project JUDGE (working title), will release in 2019 on the PlayStation®4. Project JUDGE will feature the voice acting talents of Japanese actor/artist Takuya Kimura as the game's main protagonist, Takayuki Yagami.
Judgment will be available for the PlayStation 4 on the 25th of June.