Little tidbits about Vanillaware's Muramasa: The Demon Blade keep popping up lately, the latest being that Ignition Entertainment (who are publishing the title in North America) have decided to keep the original moonspeak voice-acting and only localize the sub-titles.

Here's what Business Development Director for Ignition (and ex-1Up Yours host) Shane Bettenhausen had to say during an interview with SiliconEra:

“For Muramasa we decided to stick with the original Japanese voices and only localize the text.”  “We felt the game was deeply steeped in Japanese tradition, mythology, and culture that trying to dub it, trying to make something more Western is really not a service to the product.”

Maybe I'm just a weeaboo, or a purist, but I wish more companies had a similar frame of mind. I'm just an altruistic hippy, but I like the idea that perhaps the "product" has some intrinsic value outside of the number of copies it sells. 

Oh wait. That's not true at all. 

Anyway, the translation is being outsourced to a "very high end" company, but hopefully a different one than whoever localized Ignition's Lux Pain, rendering it damn-near unplayable. Destructoid reader unangbangkay points out that Muramasa's release will create a three-way brawl for the title of "Best North American Publisher of a Vanillaware Game": Atlus and Nippon-Ichi brought over Odin Sphere and GrimGrimoire, respectively, two years ago.

So, let's have a chat: Do you prefer subs or dubs when it comes to Japanese games? And when Muramasa: The Demon Blade hits shelves in September for the Wii, are you buying it?

[via unanbangkay]