Star Ocean 4 dev blames June EU release on translation

Square Enix wanted to release it at the same time globally.

Having to translate Star Ocean: The Last Hope into multiple European languages is the reason why UK gamers are having to wait four months longer than those in the US and Japan to play the game, Square Enix has said.

Yesterday the Japanese company announced that the tri-Ace-developed Japanese role-playing game, exclusively on the Xbox 360, would be out in Europe in June. The game is already out in the US and Japan.

Square Enix's last major "next-gen" RPG, The Last Remnant, was released in Japan, North America and Europe simultaneously on November 20 last year. In 2007 Square Enix president Yoichi Wada said The Last Remnant was to "become a cornerstone for our worldwide strategy".

UK gamers, however, are being forced to wait for Star Ocean: The Last Hope, which is actually the fourth game in the series.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com, Yoshinori Yamagishi, producer of the Star Ocean series, said that because The Last Hope is available in multiple languages translation took up "quite a lot of time".

He said: "To be frank, we really wanted to release it simultaneous all over the world. The trouble is, as opposed to The Last Remnant, this game is available in quite a few languages, so obviously it took time for us to localise the game into languages, and also translation had to be done at two different stages: translating into English first and then European languages, which took up quite a lot of time. So this time around we were not able to release it simultaneously."

Hopefully Star Ocean: The Last Hope will be worth the wait. Square Enix's last two "next-gen" role-playing games, the above average The Last Remnant and the disappointing Infinite Undiscovery, didn't exactly set the world on fire.

Are you disappointed in having to wait till June for Star Ocean: The Last Hope? Is translation still a valid excuse? Let us know in the comments section below.