Yosuke Okunari, the SEGA Ages supervisor, recently did an interview regarding Sega’s about the approach to localization for the Switch releases, and mentioned something interesting. Okunari noted that the team “may try localizing titles which have never been translated if we can draw a reaction.”
“Regarding the titles we are currently porting, the only thing that will be localized in the games will be the menu, and the rest of the game will be left as is. The English in Phantasy Star can be very awkward, but because we want people to feel the nostalgia, we decided to leave it as is.
When we released the Genesis/MegaDrive title Monster World IV for the SEGA Vintage Collection 3, it had never been released outside of Japan, so we had our current localization team translate this title. This title ended up with translation quality which wouldn’t have been possible to have back in 1994 when this game first released.
In the future, we may try localizing titles which have never been translated if we can draw a reaction.”
Okunari also noted about how Switch’s playstyles fit in to the approach of SEGA Ages. Specifically, he cited that multiplayer battles weren’t a focus for SEGA’s 3D titles on 3DS, but “the Switch is easy to carry around and play with other players, so we are considering content where people can battle anyone, anywhere on the Switch.”