Being project lead is a little strange, because although you come to feel like the game is “your” game after spending so much time with it, you of course don’t play much of a role in creating the game. By the time we began work on Etrian Odyssey, it had already been fully completed in Japan, so “all” we did was take R&D1’s work and convert it into English. When we read reviews of Atlus releases, mention of the localization usually rates about half a paragraph at best, which is about right.

But there’s still a lot that has to be done that most people never consider. Graphic text, for instance, is something people take for granted, but it’s often one of the thorniest parts of a localization effort. Since the amount of space in a graphic file can’t be changed without reprogramming that can introduce bugs, and the graphic may consist of a single Japanese character, you have to figure out how best to represent “Attack” in one or two letters.

Something else you have to consider is what changes, if any, to make to the game for its American release. The gameplay balance in the American version of Etrian is left exactly as is, but there were a couple other minor changes: the text input had to be changed to make it more intuitive for native writers of English, for instance, and we increased the number of letters that players could input into names and memos.

This is the first project I’ve been lead on, and thanks to the incredible programming and localization staff, it really couldn’t have been easier. Often one of the hardest parts of localization staff, it really couldn’t have been easier. Often one of the hardest parts of localization is dealing with text files that are out of chronological order, or decentralized into a million folders and tiny files, but the staff at Atlus R&D1 and Lancarse (the talented coding team who implemented R&D1’s design) made it the easiest process I’ve ever seen. It was a game so designed to be localized that the files were specially formatted for it, and their foresight meant we could have new builds of the game turned around in a day or two.

Etrian Odyssey might not be “my” game - the other columns by Mr. Niinou and the Atlus staff should make that clear - but I feel more attached to it than anything else I’ve worked on at Atlus so far, and obsessed over its details even while editing other projects. If you have even half as much fun playing it as I did working on it, then that’s what I call a success.