Tree House's Erik Peterson, a localization writer/editor for Nintendo in Seattle took some time to answer a few of our questions regarding the very good Drill Dozer and how the story of a girl and her drill came across the sea. The Q&A is after the jump.

Kotaku: The American audience is particularly fickle, especially when it comes to female leads in video games. We have only a handful of "acceptable" ones, really. Samus in the Metroid series is one example, Lara Croft is another. This is interesting when one considers the lead in Drill Dozer. I'd argue that marketing a character like Jill and her Drill is much harder than marketing Lara Croft - whose mere aesthetic alone will bring in consumers. Similarly, Samus Aran, while we know as female, we spend the majority of the time with her visage hidden in a suit, or recently in Prime and Prime: Echoes she is largely represented in classic FPS fashion as a gun on screen.

Considering these, how does the localization team, take a character like the cute, mini-badass-in-her-own-way and make the character shine in Drill Dozer?

Erik Peterson: We let the graphics speak for themselves. The development team infused her character with a lot of personality and a lot of attitude. She doesn't have much dialogue herself, so we let her actions and the people around her do the talking for her — what you learn about her from the way she behaves and the way people speak to her tells you more about her personality than any words could.

K: How do you make this character stand out and her story be accessible to gamers - I say this not because I question the motives of Nintendo, but rather I'm interested in how you guys in localization wanted to make the character appeal to a diverse audience, because of the relative difficulty in getting female leads in gaming.

EP: Who doesn t want to play as a cute, pink-haired schoolgirl that crushes stuff with her hulking robot? Jill s cute, for sure, but she s also really tough. She s had to grow up fast. Her dad—the big boss of the family gang of thieves—is in the hospital after being roughed up by a bunch of thugs from a rival gang. As if that wasn t bad enough, the thugs swiped a red diamond that was given to Jill by her mother before she died. With the big boss out of commission, the rest of the Red Dozer gang is depending on Jill to take over as the boss and lead them on their quest to get the diamond back. I m a big fan of strong female leads in games, and I think Jill is a great example of a female character that s unapologetically tough AND cute.

K: The character of Jill is an eccentric character in appearance. Were there any character-based eccentricities that had to be changed in the transition from Japanese to English?

A lot of times, we make changes to the characters to help them connect with gamers in the US. But we really didn t have to make any changes to Jill she s already such an interesting character. For me, the Drill Dozer is just as much of a character as Jill is in the game. In fact, in one area, Jill is separated from the Drill Dozer and you ve got to pilot the robot through the level while you search for her. They make an interesting pair a cute but gutsy girl and a burly robot designed for maximum destruction.