Recognizing that Jake Hunter’s Western debut last year wasn’t everything it could have been, Aksys will attempt a “do over,” re-releasing the detective/adventure game with the episodes and features cut from the English edition, as well as a new script promising more personality.
Aksys pulled inspiration from several sources to implant that noir atmosphere missing from the original, adding in bits of Law & Order, Columbo, Murder She Wrote, Brick, and Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon).
We spoke with the localization editor Ben Bateman about why the studio decided to have another go with the game, and what changes we can expect with the script.
Just to clarify — is all the content in Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past taken from Tantei Jinguuji Saburo: Inishie no Kioku (The Ancient Memory)? Or is there any content originally from the series’ other mobile releases in Japan, or Kienai Kokoro (The Abiding Spirit)?
Ben Bateman: Memories of the Past contains Inishie no Kioku in its entirety, but nothing from Kienai Kokoro or any of the other mobile releases in Japan.
I’m sure that every company has published several titles that they might not be satisfied with and wish they could have another hack at — what is it about Jake Hunter that spurred you to actually go back and remake those cases?
BB: The first Jake Hunter was a test to see if there was a market for digital novel style games. Thankfully, it did well enough to warrant another release which gave us the opportunity to give Jake Hunter a little more personality.
Can you talk about any particular feedback that you’ve acted on, as well as maybe specific adjustments to the cases or characters?
BB: People said it was “too dry” or it “didn’t read well”, and they cited numerous spelling and grammar errors. Grammar and spelling, obviously, we’ve gone over with a fine-tooth comb — that’s really the only way to improve on that front.
Although we can’t cite any specific examples of customer feedback that lead to a specific change in the game script or characters, we have made changes to some characters in an effort to give consumers what they were asking for after the release of the first Jake Hunter game.
For instance, the character of Jake’s assistant Yulia Marks was initially pretty flat — she was essentially an obedient foil for Jake, and didn’t have much character apart from agreeing with Jake and getting him coffee. In Memories of the Past, Yulia has a personality: she talks back to Jake, berates him for being stupid, and has something we in the business like to call “emotional range.”
To use a Star Trek analogy, the early Yulia was akin to the ubiquitous Enterprise computer voice — now she is the Emergency Medical Hologram.
The cases themselves, however, haven’t seen much in the way of sweeping changes — after all, we aren’t comfortable straying too far from the original intent/story of the Japanese version.
With the “Jake Hunter Unleashed” comic episodes and the popularity of humorous adventure games like the Phoenix Wright series, would it be correct to assume that Memories of the Past will have a more lighthearted tone?
BB: Although we have done our best to imbue the characters and dialogue of the Detective Jake Hunter episodes with more of a sense of humor, it would be a mistake to compare them to Phoenix Wright, which is — at its heart — a comedy.
If Phoenix Wright is Starsky and Hutch, or CHIPs, then Jake Hunter is more like Law and Order or Columbo. We’ve done our best to give Jake that film noir-ish, dry, see-it-all sense of humor you might hear from Lenny Briscoe or Sam Spade.
Is the localization being handled internally? How is your localization process different this time, compared to your previous process?
BB: Yes, the localization was handled internally, by a team of specially-trained alligators. Aside from the alligators, with this version we decided to focus on style, the content having already been established with the translation/editing of the first game.
We developed a sense of who Jake and his companions were from our initial release — in Memories of the Past we have been able to develop those characters. In other words, you might say our localization efforts this time around have been focused on characterization, rather than simple translation.
Because the first Jake Hunter was a shorter experience than most typical DS titles, it was given a budget price — will Memories of the Past see more standard pricing, or will it also cost $20?
BB: Our projected retail price is over $9000 dollars. ;)
Aksys has yet to announce a release date for Jake Hunter Detective Story: Memories of the Past. You can find more screenshots and details for the game on the publisher’s official site.
See also: Jake Hunter back on the case
