FGO US Tour - Interview with Albert Kao Part 2

It’s kind of, a lot of times we have, like I’ve said at some panels before, our fandom, especially NA, we have a lot of people that play JP already. Either concurrent with NA or they might know what’s going on in JP but they wait till NA to start playing, but with that they still know everything that’s coming down the line.

What makes it difficult is that you start missing that element of surprise in how you can do a panel. For JP, they can plan a big event just to refill something, do some really cool stuff with it… For NA, we can do the same thing and people might say, “What’s the point, we already know it”. That’s the difficult part when it comes to NA events, “How do we create some sort of element of surprise?” or “How do we still make it entertaining, knowing that our fans already know the information is coming?”

It’s like “Oh my god!” And then it’s like “Oh that’s what we have for today”, or an animation update or something. Unfortunately for NA, we have to plan a little more.

Yeah, so that makes everybody really happy knowing that fans are still super excited for the content that’s to come.

No, not specifically. I mean, we are doing the FGO Tour, and we felt like we wanted to do something along with it.

I don’t have much information on that, so I can’t really say.

I kind of like.. JP hasn’t really done this, but what’s really interesting is that like, it’s almost like a combined concept of what they do in Universal Studios Japan and the Halloween-themed amusement parks where they turn the entire park into something. Kind of want to recreate, like, a miniature city.

*laughs* I don’t know, or like a scene from FGO, or a miniature version of Chaldea so people can almost feel like “Oh, we’re inside Chaldea” and then go see what, you know, this room will be like and that room will be like. I think it would be fun for kind of an immersive experience like that outside of the game, that will bring peoples’ favorite memories back.

I also want to build that Mash shield out there, follow the same concept, which is that we want people to relive that moment where - it was exciting, it was funny, it was touching. I want to do more to recreate the experience.

I don’t have any information on that, so I can’t say anything.

The.. other uniform one?

That, I don’t have much information.

We have been talking about it. Epic of Remnant 3, Shimosa, so… The hardest part about starting to work on Shimosa would be that everything is Japanese. Heavy Japanese lore, sprinkle in some religious and cultural influence here and there, especially when it comes to that Caster and then how his ideals… It’s a giant mass of Japanese culture, and when it comes to Japanese culture we always suffer the dilemma of “Do we translate the meanings, translate phonetically like just leave it as what it is, or how do we do this?” We have to start looking for references, is there already existing translation literature?

For example, for some of Musashi’s translations, we had to look through existing literature that … You know, Musashi’s Book of Five Rings, we had to go into that and draw references from it. For Shimosa the hardest part would be finding the references to see if there’s even existing references, and one thing about Fate is that it has everybody’s favorite historical figures. It’s one thing to want to make a video game sound cool, but if it’s drawing from historical reference we kinda have to stick to it.

So it’s that choice of how we want to localize it is going to become very difficult. All the Japanese terms, I think, will kill us, but we’ll do our best to do our research and make sure we didn’t overlook anything so that everybody can enjoy it.

I mean Shimosa’s not a roadblock yet, it’s just we’re talking about it right now to be like, “Hey it’s coming up the pipeline, what’s going on.” Actually, starting from Epic of Remnant, the difficulty of localization definitely spiked with the references thrown in the game now. Especially once, every time Holmes shows up, it’s basically a lore bomb with a bunch of stuff that he explains, and stuff like that.

I would say Shimosa is difficult just in terms of the Japanese references. Starting from Epic of Remnant, every single one has an aspect of that Singularity that’s really difficult to localize, just because different references that we have to look for - not just historical ones, but Fate universe ones that we have to look for. Kind of making it difficult.

Personally, Lostbelt? Well, JP’s only up to 3 right now. 3! Cause I’m Chinese, so…

Yeah, SIN! It takes place in China, so… And how they depict the First Emperor is really interesting. It’s a really refreshing thing to see them depict the First Emperor that way. And then Old Li Shuwen, that guy is awesome, so I’m really looking forward to Lostbelt 3 when we get to that part.

Oh, the CCC event!

Other than the CCC event, from Epic of Remnant… Ooh, that’s a giant spoiler… I really like Shinjuku just because. I like 1 and 3 for different reasons. Shinjuku, I like how the story unfolds - like that battle of the wits, that aspect I really like. And then the interaction between Jeanne Alter and Saber Alter, we had a lot of fun writing that. So Shinjuku for that aspect.

Shimosa

Meme?!

Oh, “Whassup my homies!” will remain as the greatest creation all-time. Got that T-shirt, I’m gonna frame that T-shirt. *laughs*

Number 1, absolutely.

I love it how every time when it gets to the gacha and then people start posting, “You’ve been visited by - “ like the wiggly Altera, or great emperor, I was always like “Aw, that’s cute.” *laughs* Or Gudako - whatever she does, I’m just like in love with that stuff.

*laughs* The heathen.

In NA? Hmm. I think I always say the Garden of Sinners event, I really like it just because the tower brings out a different aspect of the Servants. It brings out their regret, it brings out the side they’re trying to hide, and that part I really like especially when it comes to Elisabeth, you know where she’s saying, “I never wanted to become the vampire Carmilla! I’ve been screaming for help and nobody heard me!” That kind of agony, that kind of struggle - the different side that we get to show people, that part we really enjoyed working on. So I’ll say the Garden of Sinners.

*laughing* Pass.

There’s actually some.. how do I say this, technical and logistics hurdles that we have to go through. Do we fix them in the future, I’m not sure to be honest, but we’ll see what opportunities we will have, but right now I can’t make any promises.

No problem.

He’s.. from my own impression, he’s extremely professional. He really loves his job, he loves the fans and loves the franchise as well. I wouldn’t say that’s surprising because I worked with him before already, but I always love that part about him and working with him has always been such a delight!

No problem!