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NISA's Ys VIII translation seems to be off to a rough start?

Blue-kun

Member
I realize it might be a bit too soon to make a thread like this, considering the game isn't even out and there's a CHANCE this could all be fixed eventually, but I reckon there's already a lot of evidence that fans should at least be worried about what was shown and, well, be vocal about it so that the final product may at least address some of the concerns.

Anyhow, there was a Playstation Underground recently showcasing what seems to be an english build of the game and many fans noticed quite a lot of things that were simply off and/or wrong. Given the nature of the mistakes, it seems likely that translators were given a script without actually being able to tell where said text was being applied to the game, which resulted in things like the examples below:

xW0kUAp.jpg

SqZIt57.jpg

If you don't see it, check the bottom left, below the characters' names. Their description has been translated in a way that feels like the person who did it didn't know it was referring to a person, instead it got treated as a sort of item/weapon/whatever.

Same video also had other compromising bits, like the mini-boss of the 1st dungeon having its 'title' (that shows up above its name, Falcom fans will know, it's a bit of a 'description' of how the beast is known? lol) completely mistranslated into something that makes no sense.

Of course, these are 'minor' things, but it is enough to raise some eyebrows, especially as NISA lately has been somewhat known for not always stellar localization efforts. On the other hand, to maybe put some minds to rest, they DID fix some information on the character descriptions in their website that were just flat-out wrong originally. They were simple mistakes, but if you'd played the game they were also very easy to spot. The fact they went back and fixed it makes me hopeful that the game will receive the same care, buuut, yeah.

Also, I'm not even sure if this thread is fair game, but the intent here isn't to make some witch hunt against NISA or anything, just hopefully bring the issue to a bigger audience so that people can maybe make some noise and get the company's attention. XSEED has mostly done good to the series so far, and Ys VIII is, in my opinion, a fantastic game, Falcom's most ambitious title in ages, and it'd be a shame to see some of its quality be affected by stuff like this.
 
I love how they use "it" to describe a person.

This is literally a direct translation and will be edited. I know some people here really dislike Nisa, especially for things they did years ago (yet somehow those same people skipped everything since then), but come on, they aren't bad enough to to put this kind of low quality effort into this.
 

Eila

Member
Hmm we'll have to see actual text. Hope it was just as you said and it was just the character descriptions that got translated along with item descriptions and thus treated as such. It should be an easy fix.
But yeah with XSEED you already knew they were going to take good care of it. It's too bad they lost the license.
 

Blue-kun

Member
I love how they use "it" to describe a person.

This is literally a direct translation and will be edited. I know some people here really dislike Nisa, especially for things they did years ago (yet somehow those same people skipped everything since then), but come on, they aren't bad enough to to put this kind of low quality effort into this.

Dangaronpa was just the other day and that wasn't very good. I mean, I get it that this kind of thing can be edited, but these are just the biggest offenders. The boss thing mentioned is quite more 'serious' in how it's actually wrong, not just poorly edited, but I refrained from linking that one as it'd end up spoiling people who might prefer not seeing what it looks like or whatever.

I've no special hate or love towards NISA, nor do I think XSEED are the end all gretest localisation company. In fact, I've got my fair share of issues with Ys Seven's localisation as it were, buuut, yeah. In fact, I'd say I was happy to see them get it, if only for the PC port and Ys' return to the platform, but stuff like this isn't really something you'd want to be showing off.

Maybe a bit of an overreaction, but alas, NISA certainly has done enough to warrant such a reaction...

Naming a character "Laxia" seems to be the biggest mistake of all. "Blitz charge" indeed.

Lol, that one we'll have to blame it on Falcom! When the game was originally shown everyone actually assumed the name would be Raksha or something along that line given the kana, but then Falcom came out with their own romanization of it and thus Laxia was born. Can't go against them in this one, I reckon...
 
Who knows if any of these problems will show up in the final edit, which should be more a problem for Vita/PS4 players since it's much easier on NISA's end to edit the PC script. It's worth pointing out that E3 builds for some localizations are this sloppy and/or rushed, like XSEED's demo for Trails of Cold Steel back in 2015. But that doesn't excuse NISA for any problems in their final release which they may or may not fix. I just wish there was a better guarantee of quality for Ys VIII in English, since XSEED's editors would speak out more transparently about their process and the aftermath.

If things do really end up this bad, maybe the PC port could be hacked for a fan edit which cleans up the script based on the Japanese original.

Same video also had other compromising bits, like the mini-boss of the 1st dungeon having its 'title' (that shows up above its name, Falcom fans will know, it's a bit of a 'description' of how the beast is known? lol) completely mistranslated into something that makes no sense.
Aha, you mean this guy

o62O4Jy.jpg



The JP title uses an obscure kanji character which NISA mistranslated in context
.
 

Blue-kun

Member

Squire

Banned
Yeah, saw this the other day. If it ships like this I'm skipping the game. I expect everyone to be on their Ps and Qs after Persona 5. NISA acquired this when XSEED probably could've. That's fine. That's business. But deliver because if not? No sale, period.

I love how they use "it" to describe a person.

This is literally a direct translation and will be edited. I know some people here really dislike Nisa, especially for things they did years ago (yet somehow those same people skipped everything since then), but come on, they aren't bad enough to to put this kind of low quality effort into this.

Neither was Atlus until they did. And their track record is far better than NISAs, too.
 

jonjonaug

Member
Every NISA game I've played had a load of really obvious issues like this so I'm not sure why this would be unexpected.
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I played the hour long demo (a dungeon in a forest) and I didn't notice any localization errors, but I did find it a bit stiff and literal, with that sort of anime-tier "okay, it's valid English, but that's not quite how humans speak" text. Loved it mechanically though.
 

preta

Member
What really concerns me is that all of this is in a build that has translated/reinserted graphical text (i.e. for area and boss names) as well as a recorded and inserted English dub. That suggests to me that this build is pretty far along, and likely not just some one they've had sitting around for months. If the dub is in, the dialogue script is likely final or very close to it as well. And going off what's in the demo, said script is definitely a bit on the dry side, too, compared to XSEED's work on the other games.

I also don't think that the Cold Steel E3 demo is a good comparison, because that one's problems were mostly technical - the localization (what was inserted of it, at least) was sound. This demo is the opposite, being technically sound but having a poor localization.
 

Nachos

Member
Of course, these are 'minor' things, but it is enough to raise some eyebrows, especially as NISA lately has been somewhat known for not always stellar localization efforts. On the other hand, to maybe put some minds to rest, they DID fix some information on the character descriptions in their website that were just flat-out wrong originally. They were simple mistakes, but if you'd played the game they were also very easy to spot. The fact they went back and fixed it makes me hopeful that the game will receive the same care, buuut, yeah.
Sure, the issues don't break anything, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect professional-level polish from a commerical game. And a website is far easier to update than a game is, especially when there's a smaller amount of text and when they don't need to wait on any Falcom programmers to change things. I feel like if they aren't at least getting ready to fix things now, these things are going to be stuck in the final game. Would be happy to eat crow, though, since this might be my first Ys game.
 

Bladenic

Member
What really concerns me is that all of this is in a build that has translated/reinserted graphical text (i.e. for area and boss names) as well as a recorded and inserted English dub. That suggests to me that this build is pretty far along, and likely not just some one they've had sitting around for months. If the dub is in, the dialogue script is likely final or very close to it as well. And going off what's in the demo, said script is definitely a bit on the dry side, too, compared to XSEED's work on the other games.

I was about to ask this. Game's three months away, shouldn't the localization be far enough along at this point that they wouldn't have to haphazardly translate stuff for a demo? Genuinely asking/curious, no idea what kind of schedules localizations run on especially for smaller companies.

I hope DRV3 turns out okay. It would be interesting (in a negative way) if this year turns out to be the year of poor JRPG localizations. P5 and Berseria both had issues already.
 

AniHawk

Member
I will try to have faith! The images here are pretty bad.

i wouldn't be surprised if it still had japanese text in there a week before e3. consider that the japanese release was only a few weeks ago and there probably wasn't a ton of time to work on the demo, especially since the main game is a lot more important.
 
i wouldn't be surprised if it still had japanese text in there a week before e3. consider that the japanese release was only a few weeks ago and there probably wasn't a ton of time to work on the demo, especially since the main game is a lot more important.

The Vita version of the game released last year and the PS4 version has some new stuff, but is largely the same script/Menu/UI text.
 
I played the hour long demo (a dungeon in a forest) and I didn't notice any localization errors, but I did find it a bit stiff and literal, with that sort of anime-tier "okay, it's valid English, but that's not quite how humans speak" text. Loved it mechanically though.
I don't want to say the sky is falling at the first sign of trouble, but between this and P5 I really hope that stiff and literal translations are not becoming a new trend.
 

preta

Member
I was about to ask this. Game's three months away, shouldn't the localization be far enough along at this point that they wouldn't have to haphazardly translate stuff for a demo? Genuinely asking/curious, no idea what kind of schedules localizations run on especially for smaller companies.

I hope DRV3 turns out okay. It would be interesting (in a negative way) if this year turns out to be the year of poor JRPG localizations. P5 and Berseria both had issues already.

As far as I know, making many changes at this point would be cutting it a little close for a game that's getting a physical release. The console versions would also likely be harder to patch than the Steam version, because NISA probably has to go through Falcom to get new patches re-inserted the same way XSEED did.
 

Aeana

Member
I don't want to say the sky is falling at the first sign of trouble, but between this and P5 I really hope that stiff and literal translations are not becoming a new trend.

Persona 5's translation is nothing like what's shown in the OP, though. The character descriptions actually read like machine translated text.
 
Hmm we'll have to see actual text. Hope it was just as you said and it was just the character descriptions that got translated along with item descriptions and thus treated as such. It should be an easy fix.
But yeah with XSEED you already knew they were going to take good care of it. It's too bad they lost the license.

What does XSEED have right now? Senran Kagura , Story of Seasons and Trails of Cold Steel?
 

jackdoe

Member
Persona 5's translation is nothing like what's shown in the OP, though. The character descriptions actually read like machine translated text.
It reminds me of the more recent Namco Bandai half assed localizations. More coherent than pure machine translation, but full of mistakes that should have been picked up.
 

AniHawk

Member
I was about to ask this. Game's three months away, shouldn't the localization be far enough along at this point that they wouldn't have to haphazardly translate stuff for a demo? Genuinely asking/curious, no idea what kind of schedules localizations run on especially for smaller companies.

I hope DRV3 turns out okay. It would be interesting (in a negative way) if this year turns out to be the year of poor JRPG localizations. P5 and Berseria both had issues already.

the danganronpa v3 and ys viii demos are interesting because they are actually demos. sometimes you have people loading save states from roms in order to have something playable. in those cases, you might see japanese, experience some bugs/freezes, or have unfinished text - but it's all working towards a finished product and would be the most recent version of the game. a straight-up demo might have just yanked text a lot earlier simply to have something ready for a show, and testing would be focused on the actual game instead. in this case, ys viii might be showing text that's a month old compared to where things are now.

v3 is super different because it's an alternate story. so they probably worked on that during the rest of the game, and that text is probably ready for testing or has already been tested.
 
What does XSEED have right now? Senran Kagura , Story of Seasons and Trails of Cold Steel?
They recently announced upcoming releases of Sakuna: Of Rice and Ruin (2018, doujin developer, Metroidvania with farm-sim component, focuses on Japanese mythology during Sengoku era) and Falcom's own Zwei II ("Summer 2017" (originally 2008/2009 for Windows only), like if Gurumin had a fixed camera, two fighters you can switch on the fly to do physical/magic combos, even sillier humor with lots of detail put in the overall story, etc). Tom @ XSEED mentioned on their forums that most of their big projects wrapped up either last year or earlier this year, so the 2017 slate's much slimmer by comparison because they're getting to work on unannounced titles.
 

Tohsaka

Member
What does XSEED have right now? Senran Kagura , Story of Seasons and Trails of Cold Steel?

They're also doing Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection and Sakuna: of Rice and Ruin. According to retailer leaks they're probably doing EDF 5 and Schoolgirl Zombie hunter, too.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Well at least it's Ys and not the Trails series. God help us if NISA ever gets their hands on that series.

Yeah, the localization is the least of my worries with this game after Seven and Celceta.

I will continue to expect them to pick up Trails until XSEED announced Cold Steel 3 though.
 

Blue-kun

Member
Yeah, the localization is the least of my worries with this game after Seven and Celceta.

I will continue to expect them to pick up Trails until XSEED announced Cold Steel 3 though.

It's not gonna make anyone who has this much dislike towards Seven and Celceta completely change their minds, but I'd say the script for VIII was fairly better than Seven and Celceta's. If only because for the first time I'd say the whole party felt like they were truly part of the game and not just some random people who were tagging along with Adol.

The character arcs are all pretty decent-ish, and some of the interactions between the party members are miles better than whatever the two previous games had to offer. In specific cases I'd go as far as to say there's actual chemistry between some of the characters, so it'd be a shame to have that ruined by a poor localisation.
 
Persona 5's translation is nothing like what's shown in the OP, though. The character descriptions actually read like machine translated text.
Oh yeah, the stuff in the OP is a completely different level of bad. It does seem to be the type of thing that would be easiest to change (unvoiced text in a menu) so hopefully NISA does something about it. I mentioned P5 in relation to the bolded below:
I played the hour long demo (a dungeon in a forest) and I didn't notice any localization errors, but I did find it a bit stiff and literal, with that sort of anime-tier "okay, it's valid English, but that's not quite how humans speak" text. Loved it mechanically though.
If that text is already voiced in English, it's probably as good as final. In retrospect though, bringing up P5 is kinda unnecessary in a thread specifically about a different game's localization woes.
 

SOLDIER

Member
I don't know what the specific term for it is, but P5 had a lot of "overly descriptive" problems with their lines. Examples like:

"Now that we're here, let's get out of here!"

"Time to continue the mission that we agreed to finish!"

"Here's the money I owe you for the food on the table."

And let's not forget "They're getting serious to kill us and aren't holding back!"

Real curious what you call this kind of localization quirk.
 

Syril

Member
I don't know what the specific term for it is, but P5 had a lot of "overly descriptive" problems with their lines. Examples like:

"Now that we're here, let's get out of here!"

"Time to continue the mission that we agreed to finish!"

"Here's the money I owe you for the food on the table."

And let's not forget "They're getting serious to kill us and aren't holding back!"

Real curious what you call this kind of localization quirk.
That's called being overly literal.
 
First NISA game I ever played was Ar tonelico II and the translation in that was so shoddy it made me sceptical of purchasing their games to even this day. I haven't been thrilled about them localizing Ys VIII so hopefully this isn't representative of the final product.
 

UberTag

Member
Man, those who imported these were singing praise about the game.

Shame about these translation.
This is what Falcom gets for insisting on the "fast" localization with NISA instead of the "good" localization with XSEED.
Hope the final product doesn't suffer too much as a result.
I mean, hell... Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment had a terrible localization and people still bought that thing in droves so they might be on to something.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
I don't know what the specific term for it is, but P5 had a lot of "overly descriptive" problems with their lines. Examples like:

"Now that we're here, let's get out of here!"

"Time to continue the mission that we agreed to finish!"

"Here's the money I owe you for the food on the table."

And let's not forget "They're getting serious to kill us and aren't holding back!"

Real curious what you call this kind of localization quirk.

The proper description for this is "bad English syntax". What makes P5 worse is that it has bad grammar, misspellings, mispronunciations, syntax, the works. It's really baffling.

That being said NISA did respond on twiiter.
Please note that the text and content of the demo is not indicative of the final product as it is under development. Thank you!
 

AniHawk

Member
First NISA game I ever played was Ar tonelico II and the translation in that was so shoddy it made me sceptical of purchasing their games to even this day. I haven't been thrilled about them localizing Ys VIII so hopefully this isn't representative of the final product.

ar tonelico 2 was a really special case in that it was a perfect storm of things not happening correctly regarding scheduling. no one intentionally sent out a bad game, but the organization wasn't really prepped properly for a game that size. on the plus side, work on that game happened about eight years ago, and things have changed drastically in that time. the entire editing and translation team is different aside from the one editor who works on disgaea. you're much better off looking at stuff from 2014 onwards for a more accurate reflection of the current writing staff's work.
 
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