The localization industry is a fascinating business.  There's more to bringing a video game from one country to another than just running the text through Google Translate and then knocking off early for bowling and cheese fries.  It's not enough to translate the script; localizers must tweak and tune all kinds of game elements to better fit the target market.  Sometimes that means rewriting dialogue to change cultural references.  Sometimes that involves altering graphical elements or sound effects to fit into a culture's frame of reference.  Sometimes it even means that the developers had a little more time to work on the base game and can improve aspects of it that they felt still needed improvement.  Today's modern games have the benefit of decades of localization best practices and history to fall back on, but during the Nintendo Entertainment System era, localizers did sort of just outright translate the script (often poorly!) and call it a day.  Yacht Club Games recently brought its NES love letter Shovel Knight to Japan which meant that they needed to localize the game for that market.  They split the difference between the modern and the 8-bit era with their process resulting in a Nintendo Famicom-type version of the game that is professionally altered, but keeps the 8-bit era localization effort intact.  Check out how far they went with localization studio 8-4 to get it just right.

So when we went about localizing Shovel Knight, we wanted to recreate some of the fun differences you might find between regions. We even went through the process of trying to “reverse” localize it. That meant to us, asking what features Shovel Knight would have had if it started out as a Japanese game. We had a few rules in all our changes though: 1) We wanted the gameplay to remain consistent 2) We didn’t want any significant change that made you feel like you missed out by not playing the original version 3) We didn’t want to do something that was traditionally considered bad localization. To us that meant, no typos or bad English, and nothing that would diminish the quality of the game. We also didn’t want to change too much! In the end, we wanted create a great localization by today’s standards. But we had to add a little fun! So we made a few subtle changes here and there that we think really made a big difference!

Now that there's so much information out there about classic NES games and their Famicom counterparts, it's easy to see that, for instance, Nintendo was able to animate the water on the overworld map in the Japanese version of Zelda II: The Adventure of Link while it's static in the international versions.  Likewise, Shovel Knight's Japanese version has animated grass.  Just like when I learned about the Zelda II water, I found myself thinking "No fair!  Japan has a better version!".  That's how authentic this localization process is and I commend Yacht Club Games and 8-4 for their dedication to the craft.  Of course, unlike the differences between Zelda II in which the international version has extra bosses, improved music, and other cosmetic upgrades compared to the Japanese original (so overall I did experience the best version of the game when I first played it), in the end I think that the differences in Shovel Knight do not detract from either version of the game.  It doesn't feel like anything is missing that would notably impact the game which really is the right way to go about things.  They really did follow their own rules.  Bowling and cheese fries all around!

Nintendo hasn't officially revealed its upcoming new NX video game console, but the rumor mill has churned for months regarding the exact nature of the hardware.  Eurogamer is the latest to stir the pot with a report stating that the NX is a portable console with detachable controllers that also plugs into your home television for proper home console gaming as well.  There's also talk that the NX uses cartridges rather than discs.  I don't usually report on rumors, but this one is fun to think about, so I'll bite.  Here's Tom Phillips at Eurogamer:

Considering NX's basis as a handheld first and foremost, the choice may not come as too much of a surprise - although we have heard the suggestion Nintendo recommends a 32GB cartridge, which is small when considering the size of many modern games.

Naturally, we expect digital game downloads will also be available. We were told Nintendo considered but then decided against making a system which supported digital downloads only.

There's a lot to like about this idea.  Nintendo no longer needs to split development of a title to accommodate both handheld and home markets (The most recent Super Smash Bros. games for Wii U and 3DS which are essentially the same game but each tweaked and compromised in some way with their host platforms in mind say hello).  Moreover, if publishers are interested in porting their popular games to the NX, suddenly there are handheld versions of, say, Overwatch, available for the same price as the home console version.  Of course, that assumes that publishers would want to rework their games to run on the NX.  It's been said for years that people buy Nintendo hardware to play Nintendo games, full stop, and with Nintendo going off in their own direction again, I doubt belief that will change much.

Capcom's Street Fighter franchise boasts many larger than life characters each capable of crippling you at a moment's notice, but one of the most powerful, more dangerous, and most mysterious combatants is Akuma.  First appearing as a secret character in Super Street Fighter II Turbo where, under certain difficult circumstances, he interrupted the climactic final battle against M. Bison, he's gone on to become one of the faces of the Street Fighter brand.  Den of Geek chronicles his history across video games, movies, anime, comics, crossover appearances in other games, and much more.

Akuma is the younger brother of Gouken. Together, they studied Ansatsuken (“Assassin’s Fist”) under their master Goutetsu. Akuma, obsessed with becoming the strongest, believed that the dark side of the martial art style is where it’s at and let the killing intent consume him. He mastered the Raging Demon (also known as “Shun Goku Satsu”), a Penance Stare-like fatal attack that does more damage depending on the sins of the victim, and used it on both his teacher and brother. Now Akuma hides in the shadows, hoping to find the one worthy opponent that he can fight to the death. He’s powered by his own negative emotions, and it's physically transformed him into a demon.

I remember first reading about Akuma in an issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly right about the time that SSF2T was hitting arcades, but I knew I would never be able to face him there.  He remained a secret character locked away behind complex requirements for most of his early appearances, and it wasn't until the original release of Street Fighter IV that I finally was skilled enough to unlock him on a regular basis.  While other Street Fighter warriors have complex reasons for why they fight, Akuma's is refreshingly simple.  After all, anyone who is known for a special attack called Instant Hell Murder probably has his priorities straight.

Reading the Den of Geek article, I was surprised at just how many guest appearances Akuma has racked up over the years.  Making him appear as a technologically augmented Cyber Akuma in Marvel Super Heroes vs Street Fighter should feel like Capcom descending into self-parody, but it works.  I want to see him appear in Street Fighter V, but for now he's only slated to play a large part in the upcoming Tekken 7 where instead of being a guest character for the sake of just being a guest, trailers imply he's a major part of the storyline.  That's a pretty good character arc for a character originally created to keep up with Mortal Kombat which gained extra popularity and mystique during its rivalry with Street Fighter II thanks to the hidden ninja Reptile. 

Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog has taken plenty of knocks in his post-Genesis career.  His transition into 3D was bumpy and it seems that the further away we get from those Sega Genesis glory days, the less that Sonic Team and its partners seem to know how to handle the franchise.  Sonic Generations was the best thing to star Sonic in a very long time and long-time fans practically cried out to Sega that it was the Classic Sonic elements that made that game work so well.  Sega followed up that title with the poorly received and rapidly developed Sonic Boom series, so it seemed that hope was lost for the company to learn the right lessons from Generations.  Thankfully it now looks like good things come to those who wait as Sega had announced two new Sonic games that look like they know what they're doing.  For me, the one to be most excited about is Sonic Mania coming in 2017 from Sega, Christian Whitehead, Headcannon, and PagodaWest Games for the Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One, and PC which follows on from those excellent conversions of Sonic the Hedgehog for iPhone and Android as a 2D (actually 2D, with sprites!) side-scrolling title feature new zones and reimagined classic levels.  Just look at this trailer and try not to smile.  I don't think you can resist.

Remember a few years ago when Sonic fans said that Sonic Team should go back to the Genesis roots with a side-scroller for consoles and Sega responded with Sonic the Hedgehog 4 and everyone kinda felt like we'd made our wish on a monkey's paw?  I'm just judging by the trailer here, but it looks like Sonic Mania is the game we all thought we would be getting during that interval between hearing that Sonic was going back to pure side-scrolling and actually seeing how Sonic 4 ended up.  Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles are the only playable characters just like nature intended.  I know I'm risking being caught up in the Sonic Cycle again, but I really want this game to be solid and the title that fans have wanted for such a very long time.

This review of the Wii version of the game was originally published at Kombo.com on December 2, 2008. 

Sonic Unleashed begins where most Sonic games end. Dr. Robotnik has put his latest plan at conquering the world in order to build his own Eggmanland into motion, but Sonic had found the seven Chaos Emeralds and is rapidly racing through the doctor's latest badniks. Sonic turns Super and smashes his way through a robotic blockade, but the doctor's fallback plan captures Sonic, drains the Chaos Emeralds of their power, and transforms Sonic into a monstrous feral beast. Oh, and the planet below splits open and releases an evil force destined to doom mankind. Sonic is ejected into space where he falls back to the planet and apparently lands on a mysterious little critter that has no memories of himself or his place in the world. Sonic and his new friend (named Chip after the little guy's craving for all things chocolate) have to travel the globe to revive the Chaos Emeralds and put the planet back together before Robotnik can completely take over.

Unleashed is basically divided into three types of gameplay. The game's primary levels are locked at the start of the adventure. Players will have to talk to villagers around the world to learn the location of the actual gameplay. Sometimes Sonic will encounter a daylight stage which is what we've come to expect from Sonic the Hedgehog game: blue skies, branching paths through which to run, enemies to smash, rings to collect, and everything else that makes the really good parts of the Sonic experience so joyful. The idea is to race to the goal ring as quickly as possible. Each daylight level alternates between 3D camera-behind-Sonic segments and, in a nice twist that reminds me of Sonic games of the 16-bit era, 2D sidescrolling levels with the camera turned perpendicular to our hero. However, at night Sonic transforms into the beast and must punch and slam his way through contained environments full of creatures made of dark energy. The objective is still to reach the goal ring, but now Sonic moves very slowly and is built more for savage beatdowns than raw speed.

The one thing I always think of first when I recall the Nintendo versus Sega console wars of the 1990s is that whatever one company did first, the other would follow up with their own version soon after.  Nintendo Super Scope?  Sega Menacer.  Super FX chip in Starfox?  SVP chip in Virtua Racing.  Pre-rendered graphical style for Donkey Kong Country?  Pre-rendered graphical style for Vectorman.  While Donkey Kong Country went on to spawn two direct sequels during the 16-bit era, a Game Boy side series, and so much more over the years up through Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the Wii U in 2014, Sega's answer to the gorilla in the room went on to star in a single sequel in the Genesis era and then a couple of aborted relaunches.  Hardcore Gaming 101 has the story of Vectorman's rise and fall.

What Vectorman lacks in consistent difficulty and compact level design, it more than makes up for in its presentation, which is where all of BlueSky Studios' offerings shine the brightest. Proclaiming that the SNES is graphically superior to the Genesis may be a tired cliché nowadays, but it's an undeniable fact that most titles of the time looked better on Nintendo's 16-bit console than they did on the competition and that Donkey Kong Country deserves praise for stuffing all of its then-high-tech graphics and timeless soundtrack in a single 32-meg cartridge with no special chips inside despite its bland gameplay (which the sequels greatly improved upon). In comparison, Sega's console had a much paltrier VDP/PPU and less access to large ROM sizes, but its lightning-fast and easy-to-program-for Motorola 68000 processor could easily trump Nintendo's choice of CPU (the unique, yet terribly slow Ricoh 5A22) in every aspect imaginable if in the hands of a talented programmer, and this is what makes Vectorman's unique graphical style look good up to this day.

By the way, do you know Vectorman's dirty little secret?  It doesn't use vector graphics at all.  That doesn't stop it from looking impressive on Sega's 16-bit hardware though.  It was the unique visuals that first drew me into wanting to play the game.  When I was in high school in the mid-to-late 1990s, a friend had the game and we spent too many weekend afternoons trying to clear the second level.  We were absolutely terrible at it; poor Vectorman may as well as been a magnet for incoming enemy fire.

For as long as I can remember, the primary focus of the Batman franchise has been, well, Batman (with a side order of Joker), but lately there's been a renewed push on exploring the man under the mask.  Batman comics took a jaunt into showing us Bruce Wayne unburdened by the Bat legacy, TV's Gotham has given mixed results showing us Gotham City in a pre-Batman world, and now Telltale Games has a new episodic Batman game coming August 2 for many platforms including the Sony PlayStation 4, PS3, Microsoft Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, Mac, and mobile that, judging by today's new trailer, gives us plenty of Bruce Wayne action as well. 

I've been a Batman fan since I was first exposed to Batman: The Animated Series in 1993 as a preteen, and it wasn't until later that I backtracked to the Tim Burton films for a larger picture of what the character was all about outside of the comics.  His iconic rogues gallery always steals the spotlight and Batman himself is always good for some daring action scenes, but Bruce Wayne is often the more interesting character.  I think that's because (as has been so often cited) Batman is the man and Bruce Wayne is actually the mask.  Consider how Kevin Conroy portrays Batman's voice in The Animated Series, for instance.  His Batman voice is deeper and more intense (not as far as Christian Bale's guttural growl from The Dark Knight trilogy) befitting a costumed vigilante and his Bruce Wayne voice is casual, friendly, and general lighter.  When Conroy's Bruce is with people in his inner Bat circle, he speaks in his Batman voice.  They know who he is.  There's no need to hide it.  Batman is who he really is. 

It's been a big week for Nintendo fans who like excitement thanks to the arrival of the Pokémon Go mobile sensation and the announcement of a new small classic Nintendo Entertainment System packed with HDMI output and thirty of the best games that the NES era had to offer.  We're talk about both of these on this week's Power Button, so join us for a conversation that spans from Pikachu to Punch-Out!!, Meowth to Metroid, and Zubat to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.   Download this week's episode directly from PTB, listen with the player below, find us on Stitcher, subscribe via iTunes, toss this RSS feed into your podcast aggregation software of choice, and be sure to catch up on past episodes if you're joining us late. Remember that you can reach us via , you can leave a message on the Power Button hotline by calling (720) 722-2781, and you can even follow us on Twitter at @PressTheButtons and @GrundyTheMan, or for just podcast updates, @ThePowerButton.

This review was originally published at Kombo.com on June 23, 2009.  Many of the technical issues described below were later fixed with a software update.

Two years after the Ghostbusters dealt with Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters II, a new exhibit on Sumerian god Gozer the Gozerian is about to open in New York City's history museum. When a sudden increase in paranormal activity leads to the reappearance of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man rampaging through downtown, the Ghostbusters become involved in a renewed attempt to summon Gozer to destroy the world. The boys in gray (along with you, the player cast a the fifth member of the team charged with testing the latest in experimental ghostbusting equipment) have to solve the mystery of who is trying to summon Gozer and how they can save the world one more time. Meanwhile, nemesis Walter Peck, who was last seen working for the Environmental Protection Agency, is back to cause trouble for the team, and just who is the alluring woman that seems to constantly be in the wrong place at the wrong time?   

It's taken twenty-five years, but this is the Ghostbusters video game for which fans of the franchise have been waiting. With a story written by Dan Aykroyd & Harold Ramis and voice acting by Aykroyd, Ramis, Bill Murray, Ernie Hudson, William Atherton back as Walter Peck, Alyssa Milano joining the team as new character Ilyssa Selwyn, and Brian Doyle-Murray as Jock Mulligan the mayor of New York City, this game provides a detailed story that ties up loose ends from the two films and answers lingering questions you most likely didn't know that you had. Fan service abounds as players are sent to search the hallways of the Sedgewick Hotel in pursuit of the escaped Slimer, run through Times Square as a revived Stay Puft Marshmallow Man attempts to stomp the heroes into paste, consult with Vigo the Carpathian's painting on important matters, learn the backstory of the ghostly librarian that scared the Ghostbusters away at the start of the first film, fight a giant sloar, discover the source of the psychoreactive mood slime from the second film, and — it has to be said — slide down the firehouse's iconic pole.

Today's announcement that the Nintendo Entertainment System is coming back to stores as the NES Classic Edition mini-console featuring a wired classic NES controller and thirty games built right into its internal memory has sparked a lot of excitement online as gaming fans cheered and prepared to preorder.  However, I've also seen plenty of questions pop up on social media about the news and while I'm not a Nintendo spokesperson, I am a long-time customer and consumer of the company's products, so perhaps I can be of help when it comes to answering these queries.  Allow me to condense the questions down to the basic generalized sentiments I've seen all day today and respond with my thoughts.

Q: What is this NES Classic thing?  Are they making new NES consoles?  I have all the old cartridges in my attic.

The NES Classic Edition is a small, new version of the Nintendo Entertainment System that physically resembles the old NES from 1985, but sports a smaller form factor.  It features thirty games such as Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mega Man 2 built into its memory, so there isn't a cartridge slot on this console.  It only plays those thirty games, but they are some of the best games in the console's library.

Q: So how do I play Duck Hunt without my old Zapper light gun?

Duck Hunt isn't one of the thirty games, so you won't be playing it at all on a NES Classic Edition.  Besides, the old Zapper and today's modern HDTVs don't work well together at all.  See, when the trigger on the Zapper is pressed, the game causes the entire screen to become black for one frame. Then, on the next frame, all valid targets that are on screen are drawn all white as the rest of the screen remains black. The Zapper detects this change from low light to bright light, and determines if any of the targets are in the zapper's hit zone. If a target is hit, the game determines which one was hit based on the duration of the flash, as each target flashes for a different duration. After all target areas have been illuminated, the game returns to drawing graphics as usual. The whole process is almost imperceptible to the human eye, although one can notice a slight "flashing" of the image. Although the Zapper just detects light, it can only be used on CRT displays. It will not work on LCDs, plasma displays or other flat panel displays due to display lag.  Moreover, the NES Classic Edition uses special controller ports like those found on the Wii remote, so your old Zapper wouldn't plug into it anyway.