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Localization and You: Gackt < Fabio
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Okay, let's stop spazzing up the poll thread about games that won't be localized.
The final goal of any localization is to be good. This can be done without having a damned clue what the original script even looked like (see: Pizza Cats, Samurai), but changing jokes, dialogue flow, etc, to work across culture also works. Fixing things that the original fucked up royally is also an option, lest we forget the mangled mishmash the Japanese made of Valkyrie Profile's Norse mythos (and its godawful vocal casting). It's a little easier with games than, say... anime fansubs since they're not constrained by matching up dialogue lines as much and can add or delete them as seen fit.
Just being really Japanese isn't neccessarily a bad thing either. A game like Viewtiful Joe is basically nonstop sentai jokes, which because of stuff like Power Rangers, most of the world doesn't bat an eye at or even really strongly associate with being foreign anymore. To a lesser degree, because of The Karate Kid, 'sensei' and '-san' have entered the vernacular and any normal guy on the street can give you at least a reasonable approximation. Other honorifics... not so much.
The audience is also pretty important. If I can step on my high horse for a moment... having translated a [vidURL="
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4cKBAJZM_f4"]doujin Type-Moon SRW homage[/vidURL], even knowing that such a game exists pretty much guarentees certain degree of familiarity with basic Japanese foibles, like honorifics and the extended pronouns that aren't in use in English (onii-sama, senpai, etc). There are still things that don't have a good translation (the sword, Kuji Kanesada for example) that I had to sort of sneak in a description of what the Kuji was while they were explaining the sword itself, but 'Magical Buddhist Sword' is certainly a perfectly servicable description of it as well.
None of this changes the fact that bad writing and/or bad editing will still fuck things up regardless of how technically accurate or clever your other localization voodoo is. Oftentimes, far far more than just a poor translation will. See Wars, Chaos. Seriously. Who did the editing on that one? A drunk fucking monkey?
On the subjective nature of localization:
As I'd said, I know some people who translate from Japanese. They don't work in games and I'm not privy to anything special except their second opinion on my own efforts. Well that and insight into the process and industry as a whole, which is a small world.
First thing to note is that the with outsourced translation, the translator isn't usually the editor and may not even know them, and can be overridden. How often and under what circumstances this will happen varies from outfit to outfit, by the customer's demand, by the agreement with the original product's creator/owner/publisher, and the alignment of the stars.
I know of one example by a fine and meticulous translator of Mr. Alex O. Smith's caliber (but not him) where they localized something idiomatic into very natural English and their editor brought the smack down and told him to go back and make it literal.
In many cases by translators I don't personally know, they chose to make something up. They can't always be faulted either, as sometimes it's a real bitch, but that's what separates a quality translation from passable (and horrible). That and the money being spent on said translation. One specific case in point, among Monster Hunter 2 equipment names:
Japanese [literal] My translation, with some prof. assistance/Capcom's official decision
双剣リュウノツガイ [Sword Set ryuu no tsugai] Mated Dragons/Gradios Ultimus
ゲキリュウノツガイ [geki ryuu no tsugai] Estranged Pair/Corpse Blades
The actual meanings implied by "ryuu no tsugai and "geki ryuu no tsugai" not only required understanding of the game and what this item is in particular to properly convey, but a 20-minute brainstorming session between myself and a professional to figure out how to fit it into natural, concise English.
At length: "Gradios Ultimus", as Capcom put it, is a pair of swords with the distinct visual theme of one sword being clearly made from body parts of the male variety of a wyvern species and the other sword from the female variety. "Ryuu" is "dragon", "no" is "of" and "tsugai" is "pair" but with an additional implication of "couple/birds of a feather" or "hinge/joint". If you were a hired gun for the translation and had never played the game, even with a visual guide to the items chances are you'd have no damn idea what was going on there from the words alone.
It's even worse when you consider "geki ryuu no tsugai". We narrowed "geki" down from "the breaking of an intimate relationship" to meaning something along the lines of "marital strife" quickly enough, but then putting that into a short phrase with meaning immediately apparent to someone playing the game took some of the above-mentioned brainstorming. Finally, we hit upon "sundered pair". Perfectly accurate? Hell no, that's not even possible without perhaps a full sentence. Does it get the idea across properly? Well, you tell me.
To compound things, these can also be misread as "killer pair" and "unsealed killer pair" if you're not carefulNow consider that outsourced translators are usually paid by the word and that spending 30 minutes in all between two item names is not very profitable.
All this effort was spent on the best possible result for two item names. This is nowhere near the complexity of character dialogue!
In-house translation has slightly different motivations and better access to source materials (possibly even the creators), but you're still under time constraints, there's still an editor (but you may actually know or be them), and writing for entertainment is still more art than science.
The final goal of any localization is to be good. This can be done without having a damned clue what the original script even looked like (see: Pizza Cats, Samurai), but changing jokes, dialogue flow, etc, to work across culture also works. Fixing things that the original fucked up royally is also an option, lest we forget the mangled mishmash the Japanese made of Valkyrie Profile's Norse mythos (and its godawful vocal casting). It's a little easier with games than, say... anime fansubs since they're not constrained by matching up dialogue lines as much and can add or delete them as seen fit.
Just being really Japanese isn't neccessarily a bad thing either. A game like Viewtiful Joe is basically nonstop sentai jokes, which because of stuff like Power Rangers, most of the world doesn't bat an eye at or even really strongly associate with being foreign anymore. To a lesser degree, because of The Karate Kid, 'sensei' and '-san' have entered the vernacular and any normal guy on the street can give you at least a reasonable approximation. Other honorifics... not so much.
The audience is also pretty important. If I can step on my high horse for a moment... having translated a [vidURL="
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4cKBAJZM_f4"]doujin Type-Moon SRW homage[/vidURL], even knowing that such a game exists pretty much guarentees certain degree of familiarity with basic Japanese foibles, like honorifics and the extended pronouns that aren't in use in English (onii-sama, senpai, etc). There are still things that don't have a good translation (the sword, Kuji Kanesada for example) that I had to sort of sneak in a description of what the Kuji was while they were explaining the sword itself, but 'Magical Buddhist Sword' is certainly a perfectly servicable description of it as well.None of this changes the fact that bad writing and/or bad editing will still fuck things up regardless of how technically accurate or clever your other localization voodoo is. Oftentimes, far far more than just a poor translation will. See Wars, Chaos. Seriously. Who did the editing on that one? A drunk fucking monkey?
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There is definately a balance involved though. Can't be too literal, as some ideas just don't flow well from culture to culture. However you can go too far when trying to adapt something to a brand new audience (see: Persona, Revelations.)
Ctrl-C.
Ctrl-V.
I stand by it. Very few of the gags in GW games pan out. They seem a bit forced. Most of the PW gags are either subtly placed, done at a rabid text speed, or are just out there enough that they are funny with little to no context of what the fuck is going on.
Actually, a woman is more like a localization. They smell good, they look good. You'd step over your own mother just to get one! But you can't stop there... you wanna drink another woman!
[10 minutes later]
So I says "Yeah, if you want that money, come and find it 'cause I don't know where it is, you baloney! You make me wanna retch...” [passes out]
State things like Yoda, you do.
What struck me here is how many people are even going to give a shit. It's an item in a game. If they called it a Poop Stick in America I wouldn't care. I'd rather they spend 5 minutes making up a decent name for the item then 30 minutes for some butchered translation of it because it had to be just like the Japanese version.
Actually that'd be pretty damn hilarious to me.
Then again I'm old enough to remember both the "where's the beef?" campaign and SMB1.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
They spent 30 minutes coming up with 'Estranged Couple.' That's ridiculous. Why didn't they just give it a new name all together, or something similar but not exact? It was a nice look into just how poorly done translations are.
So wait, looking deeply into the meaning of an item and trying to get its meaning as close to the original as possible is bad?
This is a little embarrassing to admit, but... well, gotta rip off the band-aid.
Where IS the beef? Why is everyone always saying that? I don't get it! Where is that from? Aaaaaah!
I'm saying I couldn't care less. If it was the 'Omega Dragon Sword' in Japanese and you call it 'Kevin's Schlong' in English it's all the same to me. It has no significant impact on the game and I'd much rather they focus on something more relevant.
Nothing though is funnier then when back in the early days of SNES emulation some young turks with a couple of High School Japanese classes under their belts would throw out a hot fanslation of a game and completely murder it/add whatever the fuck they wanted. (See: Tiger, is like one in the sack)
An 80's Wendy's ad featuring a little old lady. So popular it was used as an off again on again slogan for a SUCCESSFUL US presidential campaign.
They spent time on it probably because they wanted to reflect the original intent of the work. Almost all of the weapons and armor in Monster Hunter have a connection to the world and the creatures and characters in it. Accurately recreating that connection in a different language is important to the continuity and cohesive nature of the game.
Really though, the guys who did the localization for FFXII need to do everything. Game bored the hell out of me but damn it was translated well.
Do... Re... Mi... So... Fa.... Do... Re.... Do...
Forget it...
Then you have times when they take the references too far, like the boss names in Megaman X5. Did we really need them all to be based on Guns n Roses? Really?
I'd say some of the best in the industry though are those of the Mario & Luigi games (probably Paper Mario as well) because you can't even tell that they weren't in english to begin with. It's so well done that you don't even realise the localisation is there, which is I guess the ultimate goal.
Agreed. It's called "doing their job".
Sounds like a stock response of some kind. Are you a robot?
But really, the priority in my eyes should be for dialog that is cohesive and flows, not a painstakingly accurate translation that comes out clunky because it was not meant to be read or heard in a different language. I've watched a number of foreign films, and I'd find it hard to believe that they didn't take creative liberties for the sake of decent translation. I'm not suggesting fundamental changes to the plot or anything, but the idea the dialog is trying to get across is, to me, a lot more important than the exact words used in the sentence. If people stopped worrying about getting it so perfect we might see more games with good translations.
Then why did you object to them trying to get the same meaning and idea that the original creators had as much as possible? Saying that "nobody cares"
I agree. That is the definition of a localization. What I'm talking about is doing both. Keep the original intent in mind while catering to the particular language.
Oh god it's spreading
You can't even get your criticism right.
Right. And spending a half hour on 'Estranged Couple' tells me that this person did not focus on the latter. If they didn't try to translate it exactly they might have produced something decent.
EDIT: Alright, guess I was wrong about that specific example. But my point still stands: some translations are horrible because everybody focuses on an exact translation, whether or not it sounds okay. I can get better dialog from Babelfish.
See my post above.
Duff McWhalen is awesome my friend, but the rest of it is solid gold.
I remember back in the late 90's when there was a backlash against Mr. Woosley. A bunch of young punks would diss the crap out of his work, promising to come out with their faithful version of FF VI or what have you. I played most of these for a hoot back in my real Japanophile period, and let me tell you, they all suck compared to the one man Square USA translation machine.
If you've ever read an interview done with him you'll learn about the incredible time (and memory!) constraint he was under. Getting a full script of a massive RPG localized and squeezed into these 16 and 32 megs was really a task unlike no other. People had it lucky in the PSX era and beyond, when you could easily program a game with a localization in mind with variable sized text boxes and the like.
Besides FFV (which never had a final polish up by the localization crew and in my mind came out disjointed as fuck in the first US release) the other two works he is largely credited for have really stood the test of time.
FF VI was barely touched in either subsequent US release, and I doubt they'll change much of anything in Chrono Trigger.
I think Chaos Wars is a better example for more blatant "ha ha, fuck you past localizations," or at least, a far sillier one. All of the Shadow Hearts stuff is just wacky. Yuri -> Uru, Nicolai -> Nicole, etc.
Then again, like I said, Chaos Wars' localization is godawful. They translated harisen as paper sword at one point, then changed their mind back to fan, and then occasionally back to harisen.
Here's the original ad:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ug75diEyiA0
There were a couple more too; you can probably find them on youtube.
If you didn't grow up with it, even watching it now 24 some odd years later, you probably would just scratch your head and say "huh?", which I guess was the point of your original post. :P
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Heh I remember the fan translation of FFV.
Good times, good times.
Of course, the GBA official localization is better in every way, but hey.
Localizations have come a really long way though, lest we forget Robotrek, which would occasionally just spew out a screen of corrupt text instead of English or Japanese.
That does remind me that localizing completely misused English in Japanese text is funny and silly at the same time.
That game takes the mostly finished script done for an aborted SNES release of FF V and does only a minor touch up.
It just feels unfinished in spots, especially when it comes to the backstory.
The PSX version doesn't make the villian's origins clear at all while the Advance translation is rather specific.
It's basically the difference between
and
According to Aksys staff, the original dialogue was pretty nonsensical also, so they gave Shiki 3 a similar(if more talent-driven) treatment.
Still far better than the likes of 2's
Emphasis theirs.
Hey buckethead!
I'm Captain Basch, from Dalmasca! Don't believe Ondore's lies!
If I can comment on this: While it is nice to have a translator with the ability and the skill to make an idiom work, I usually prefer to have the literal translation at hand while doing editing, and working with the translator to hammer it out if necessary. Even if it's something like an added comment (//he's making fun of K's hair here, it rhymes with "dog" in Japanese), knowing what's "actually" being said can save on headaches down the line. Lots of times a script will have little callbacks to what was said before, and so these kinds of things have to be kept in the mind of everybody who touches the text.
PSN: Wstfgl | GamerTag: An Evil Plan | Battle.net: FallenIdle#1970
Hit me up on BoardGameArena! User: Loaded D1
Got any tales from the trenches?