Rob Heiret, one of the people behind localising Animal Crossing: New Horizons on Nintendo Switch has spoken publicly about the thinking process that went into creating the infamous “I caught a sea bass! No, wait – it’s at least a C+!” joke which pops up every time you catch one. In a series of tweets, Heiret is seemingly echoing the thoughts of fans and explains that he’s also tired of it, but the team thought carefully about making the pop-up a positive one.
You can see the tweets for yourself below:
And when we were workshopping the fish jokes, someone pointed out that, as a joke people were going to see many, many times, generally along with disappointment they didn't catch something better, maybe it would be better to spin it positive. Make it a C+ instead.
— Rob Heiret | BLM | StopAsianHate | TransRights (@Rheiret) May 10, 2020
Anyway, my point is, we were doing our very best, down to details you might not have considered, to make this the most positive, comforting, funny game we could. And I know the dev team was doing the same.
— Rob Heiret | BLM | StopAsianHate | TransRights (@Rheiret) May 10, 2020
The lesson is: Using the same joke over and over is catastrophic.
Presumably, the dialogue in game is coded with only one line for the sea bass, so this is something the English locaisers couldn’t have changed even if they wanted to.
True, but the localized line in New Leaf was something along the lines of “Sea Bass?? You again??” Very strange for a first catch but it quickly makes sense when you see how common they are. Of course, I can see how they might want to avoid doing the same line for New Horizons but.. yeah… as you said this is more a problem with Animal Crossing vs the localization.
Maybe next time, they could alternate strings, offer some good variety.
Only dialogue issues I have with the game is villagers repeating themselves, especially Isabelle constantly saying there is no news for that day. Isabelle needs an option like Copper did in the gamecube version where she tells you who’s visiting that week.
It’ll also be nice if we can at least get a brand new camper every two weeks, the campsite being use once a month or barely is annoying and feels like a waste of space, they also need to nerf spawn rate for seabass a bit more, and at least add more buildings, oh yeah and the villagers definitely need more dialogue I hate to say it but they seem even more repetitive in new horizons than new leaf, also has anybody been having issues at nooks store been playing since launch, and I have seen the same 24 set of the wallpaper recycle constantly it’s so annoying and I only been able to get something brand new, or interesting through saharah, or wisp.
That sounds terrible. I finally decided to quit playing New Leaf the other day (started replaying it a little bit after New Horizons came out) and I went well beyond the burned out phase. It’s kinda ridiculous when you suddenly realize your daily chore is purchasing items and immediately reselling them just for purpose of being able to reorder them again at any time which 99% of the items you probably won’t reorder. And it can take up to an hour of real time to do this daily chore so… yeah. Oh, and it doesn’t take long to realize there’s only like 6-8 personality types in villagers so… not much to surprise you with.
I’ve felt like ever since Animal Crossing put more focus on you being able to customize stuff in more ways they put the villager dialogue on the backburner. The customization is nice and all, but the whole reason I started this series was for the animals. At least give me more ways to interact with them, like asking them if I can help them with something or do minigames with them. I think they also need to patch Redd because he hasn’t returned for at least two weeks for me, and at this rate it’s going to take several years to complete the art gallery.
One thing I can’t wait for though is the dream suite update. With the option to customize your island and put furniture outside I bet there will be islands that will put popular towns like Aika Village to shame.
Yes we need the dream suite, also I only seen Redd two times and he’s never came back really needs to get patch
Man honestly, I don’t get it …
It’s a terrible pun. He’s trying to imply that the bass you caught is not worth a C grade but a C+ grade.
I’ve never heard anyone talk about stuff that has numerical grades as “yeah that’s a C paper” or “get me the C fire extinguisher”.
Heh, I was somehow trying to make sense of the C having something to do with the sea. Lol.
I mean, SOME one put in TONS of effort making sure we know what Splatoon was – or is referenced – when catching the squid. But no love for the Octopus/Octolings :/