/vr/ - Retro Games

Blaustein and Kaku both did a good job on MGS1 and MGS2 respectively given their circumstances of both project, but I feel people (particularly EOPs) tend to overpraise them because of their mutual dislike for Kojima as a way of not admitting that Kojima is a good writer on his own merit. It's pretty obvious they had people like Scott Dolph and Satoshi Hirano supervising their work and making sure they were properly translating and not going off-script by acting like they were script doctors. Blaustein in particularly is notoriously difficult to work with, according to Guy Cihi (pic related), so it's possible he rubbed people the wrong way in MGS1 and they got a better deal with INTAC (the company that handled all the Metal Gear translations since Ghost Babel).

I mean if you're actually fluent in Japanese (or google-translate the Japanese lines), you'll notice that most of their contributions amount to basically adding more one-liners and jokes here and there.

>>9844452
It's because Agness Kaku leaked development document containing sensitive information about the company.

>>9210243
Blaustein has pretty badmouthed everyone he has ever worked on, not just Kojima (he spoke ill of the likes of Satoshi Hirano, Scott Dolph and Harry Imada) and is very rude on Twitter to people who offer even the mildest of criticism and throws temper tantrums whe things don't go his way. Guy Cihi has also said that he's impossible to work with.

>>9184695
Indeed he is. (see also >>9184457)

>>9094962
>Fun fact: Many big translations worked on by (((Jeremy Blaustein))) were redone in part or in full by the developers because they were not usable. Dragon Warrior VIII, Valkyrie Profile, Castlevania Symphony of the Moon, and Metal Gear Solid among other cases.
I noticed the pattern myself, since Silent Hill 2 and 3 were also redubbed when they got HD re-releases.

>>9042875
t. Jeremy Blaustein

Well, Blaustein is a hack writer after all.

>>8994793
Agness Kaku fucking sucks, that's true, but Jeremy Blaustein shouldn't get away scot-free either. There's no reason he couldn't just praise Agness Kaku or defend her translation without throwing that passive-aggressive dig at Kojima. Instead, he encourages her shitty behavior by acting like they're both better than the original writer. It's kinda ironic, considering Blaustein trashed MGS2's translation (without having even played it) on that Pushtotalk podcast, but decided to buddy-up with her after learning about their mutual dislike for Kojima.

If they want to brag about the fact that they came up with the name "codec" (even if it was a fluke) or they snuck-in some epic quips that weren't in the Japanese script, that's fine by me. But to pretend that they came up with the politics, themes and characters of MGS1-2 all of their own is laughable to anyone with a half a brain.

Makes me wonder if everything Guy Cihi said about Blaustein being so difficult to work, to the point that the Japanese Konami staff secretly hated his guts, could be true. It would also explain why redid the voice acting for Twin Snakes if he was shitty at signing contracts.

Jeremy Blaustein is a hack. The only reason MGS1 turned out to be good as it is was due to Scott Dolph breathing down his neck.

>>8944249s
It's not so different from how Jeremy Blaustein and his fanboys whine about Kojima being a hack writer and then brags about how his translation fixed the story. Then you find out that most of his changes were just Marvel-style epic quips that didn't fit with the tone Kojima was setting up and the guy didn't even know something as basic as the Japanese word for "radio" (the name for codec was just a fluke). Not to mention, he always seems to be having a falling out with every person he ever worked with.

>>8914990
>He's also the reason SH2 and 3 can't be ported, since he was in charge of contracting the VAs
Pretty interesting that Castlevania: SOTN and MGS1 both had voice acting changes when they were remade on newer gen consoles. Makes me wonder if there were contract issues involving those games too.

>>8702839
Blaustein's twitter timeline is just him bitching about Kojima ghosting him every other day while still piggybacking on his association with MGS1. Makes me wonder if he was as much of an asshole when he worked with him and that's why he got ghosted.

>>8577398
I always wonder why Kojima never returned Blaustein's calls.

>>8438874
>wait a sec, Blaustein got screwed because someone in Japan noticed his subtitles didn't line up with the Japanese audio, something they wanted to do for the MGS Integral re-release. Kojima didn't like it and went with some yes-men from MGS 2 onward (not sure if he still uses them).
That's the version he usually gives and there's a bit of a truth to that, but he was no longer employed by Konami when he did MGS1 (he was working for them as a freelancer), so they simply choose to work with someone else. And contrary to popular belief, Blaustein was not blacklisted at all, since he still got to work with Konami on Silent Hill 2-4 (see pic related, where Guy Cihi discusses his experiences working with Blaustein).

When Satoshi Hirano and Tomokazu Fukushima were writing the Japanese subtitles for the English dub in the Integral edition, they've noticed a few of the lines and dialogue were a bit off, so they redid the translation a bit for Twin Snakes. But even then, one of Blaustein's actual translation errors (the one scene when Liquid mentions that Big Boss was in a coma, when in the Japanese dialogue he simply mentions he was sterile) was still kept in TTS and even the Japanese subtitles wasn't even changed in either, Integral or TTS, to reflect the difference. Plus, they still kept Blaustein's use of CODEC for Snake's radio, to the point that even the in-game data used it from MGS2 and onward.