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The localization director of Contact is interviewed below:

Even before Contact was finished in Japan, Atlus already announced this title for a North American release. After playing it for a little at E3 we’re not surprised by the decision. Instead of chiming in with our opinion we went straight to Atlus and asked them why Contact deserves your attention. (Hint: it does).

Siliconera: What was striking about Contact that made Atlus decide this is a game we want to localize?

Tomm Hulett (Localization Director): Contact has a very unique sense of humor, using Apple IIe fonts for the title screen and 8-bit looking graphics for minigames. As a long-time gamer myself, I was immediately attracted to the style and the humor behind it. And c’mon, it totally looked like Earthbound.

Grasshopper Manufacture is known for having wacky games at times with confusing dialogue (killer 7). Were there any particular difficulties to overcome when working on Contact?

The only real difficulty was figuring out which lines were meant to be funny and which were serious. There’s a lot of odd dialogue on Contact, seeing as the Professor on the top screen is speaking with you, the player, about Terry, the main character. Also, the files I was working with did not list the speaker of any dialogue. While it wasn’t a problem most of the time, scenes where multiple characters are talking were challenging to figure out.

As a follow up question were there any changes made to the game to better suit it for a North American audience?

It’s in English now. No, seriously, not counting the occasional dual-language release, Atlus doesn’t alter its games from their original Japanese versions.

The story of Contact begins with a professor crashing on Terry’s home planet. How would you describe Terry, the Professor and their relationship?

Terry is your ordinary edgy teen with good intentions and the Professor is an enigmatic old man from outer space. Terry’s been recruited to gather the missing Cells of the Professor’s ship, but he’s unaware that you’re also helping the Professor. So, there’s kind of a dishonesty there. Sometimes the Professor will start speaking to you when Terry is listening, and then he’ll have to backpedal to hide your existence. I imagine Terry wouldn’t be too pleased if he knew the truth.

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