Part 27
Onmi posted:
From what I can tell yes? Developed by Japan Art Media. and according to Wikipedia was published by JP Marvelous Interactive, NA Ubisoft, EU Rising Star Games.
Now as an Australian with an EU copy, Rising Star didn't actually do squat besides release the game, so I don't know if somehow Ubi was in a working relationship with JAM but... I don't see anything like that.
Ubisoft appeared to be involved from the moment JAM started making it. Like I said, fans were looking at storyboards before the games were made and released. Dragon Song is unique in that, unlike other Japanese made games where they are made in Japan first and then brought over and translated by another company and released, Dragon Song was on such a tight and competitive timeframe to be the first RPG for the DS that while the game was being made in Japan it was also being translated and bug-fixed by Ubisoft. (At least, to the fans involved, it appeared to be happening side-by-side.)
Fans talked mostly with the folks from Ubisoft, if there was interaction with JAM I haven't heard of it. But, all the material the fan consultants got were from Ubisoft. They would look over the storyboards they got from Japan and say their piece on what they saw. A lot of the stuff on these storyboards is written in Japanese. (All of the fans were shameful Japanese knowers, some with more proficiency than others.) I presume there was a great deal of executive meddling on Ubisoft's part. They really did seem to have a lot of veto and idea power in this. A lot was riding on this game, it wouldn't surprise me if they were incredibly hands on.
But you're right, it's a lot to just blame Ubisoft. Other entities were involved. I can only say that the bulk of the people fans spoke to in e-mails and over the phone were from Ubisoft.