Summon Night 5 Has No Voiceovers, But It Has Lots Of Save Files For The West

Summon Night 5 releases tomorrow for the PlayStation Portable and the PlayStation Vita on the PlayStation Store, and it will be the very first in Summon Night’s main-numbered series of games to get a localization in English.

However, with the original source measuring up to a grand total of 600,000 Japanese characters, Summon Night 5 is no doubt a massive game. So, the team behind the localization was saddled with the hefty task of “getting it right” and ensuring that western players’ first experience with the series left a favorable impression. To do that, certain things had to be changed between the Japanese and English versions, and we have just learned via the game’s localization notes what some of those changes were.

One of the very first things players may notice when starting up the game is that the opening animation is in English. However, holding the triangle button just before the animation plays lets you listen to the original Japanese song, if that’s more your style.

Another thing that will become quite obvious to players is the unspoken dialogue throughout the game. Unfortunately, small sales for the title prevented it from being able to afford dubbed dialogue. Though Summon Night 5 has no voiced dialogue, the localization team has mentioned that it will be possible to have future titles dubbed if the fanbase for the series shows substantial growth and support.

Voiceovers were not the only things that had to be sacrificed on Summon Night 5’s road to localization. Secret alternate uniforms for the main characters, Folth and Arca, had to be left out. Originally, the outfits were obtainable if you had played the Japanese versions of Summon Night 3 and 4, had entered a code, and possessed a SN3/SN4 save. Ultimately, the alternate uniforms had to be scrapped from the English version due to a lack of complete source files.

One of the biggest technical changes in the game comes in the form of additional save files. While the Japanese version had limited saves, the English version of Summon Night 5 boasts a grand total of 100. Save-happy players will now have 99 game saves and one battle suspend save at their disposal.

You can appreciate all of the localization team’s hard work first hand when Summon Night 5 releases digitally for PlayStation Portable and PlayStation Vita when the PlayStation Store updates tomorrow, December 15th, 2015. The release date for physical copies of the game is not yet known.