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So let's discuss Fire Emblem localization

Nanashrew

Banned
I'm so not surprised...

uzOWLRM.gif

Yeah =/

That tumblr post really does not help things at all.

EDIT: aw man, top of the page.
 

Sakura

Member
That's a lot mistranslated, then...


Not that I necessarily doubt what you're saying about mistranslation, but considering they dedicated an entire Live2D sprite just to Camilla's boobs, I think this is more than an innocent misunderstanding.

You see, a lot of the problem comes from the way some lines are translated, and the lack of context.
Japanese is kind of a vague language, and sentences can often have words left out that would be necessary in English. So when translating literally it can result in sentences having meanings that are not intended.

An example of that would be something like:
"Next time, your big sister will be doing the petting."
In English, petting can have another meaning. The original word she said in Japanese, does not.
So by choosing the word petting to translate it to, the translator has unintentionally (I assume) made the line more suggestive than it actually is.

An example of being out of context would be
"The armor's in the way, right?"
Now, I can't marry Belka, because I'm already married, so I will not see these marriage specific lines. But even so, there are specific areas of the body you can touch, and the chest/lower parts are not included in them. It's generally the head, neck, shoulder/collerbone area. As she is a character that wears armour, it would make sense when you are rubbing her shoulders or something for her to maybe say the armour is in the way. You cannot rub her girl parts, so I don't see how the line could be sexual.

Don't get me wrong, Camilla is a 'sexy' character, and her lines are somewhat delivered in that way, but the lewdness is really overexaggerated, and doesn't apply to most of the other characters.
 
It's nothing personal, Sakura. It's one of those things where we don't have enough information on the subject and no reliable source either way, which is no offense to you. There's a lot of ambiguous data being passed around and believing one source over a dissenting source is still unfulfilling without real proof from anyone.
Precisely. I'd love to have some faith restored in the game and believe that there are lots of biased mistranslations here being pushed to make the game seem worse.

But until someone can actually give me the corrections, we don't have much to go on.
 

PSqueak

Banned
We really need the original Japanese script =/. We keep seeing on pastebins and tumblr translations but we have no way of knowing how correct they are either. There is a famous tumblr post going around that says rape is in the game but there is no rape in the game. I can only take most of these translations with a grain of salt and a lot of misinterpretation.

Weird, the only tumblr post i have seen about the game is one were people are mad that the gay and lesbian characters aparently are horrible people and think this is nintendo being homophobic.

Which is weird, i thought the themes on the game were about the horrors of war and prolly how both sides arent saints.
 

rhandino

Banned
The Hoshido name changes, for the most part, seem kind of insulting to me. Sure, the name changes seem pointless for Nohr, but the Hoshdo changes just seem to suggest that they can't trust people to be able to understand any remotely-complicated foreign name, making them see the need to "westernize" them. We already have loan words like tsunami in English, so it's not like silent Ts are a foreign concept (even if they aren't actually silent in Japanese). All of the name changes are pretty bad, though, even though I kind of prefer Azura to Aqua
I wonder is something similar to the changes they made to Animal Crossing...
Tim O’Leary and the Localization of Animal Crossing said:
“I’ll never forget [NCL producer Takashi Tezuka] coming here and saying, ‘If we’re gonna do this, you guys have to change everything,’” said Swan. “Because they had designed it so specifically for the Japanese market.”

Take the shrine that originally rested in the middle of the game’s town, for example. Most U.S. gamers wouldn't get the Japanese tradition, so the Treehouse changed it to a fountain. Elements from Japanese culture are swapped with items or jokes that might be more appropriate for North America.

It’s an interesting philosophy, and it certainly contrasts with a game like, say, Persona 4, which is set in Japan and stuffed with Japanese culture. But that's just not how Nintendo wants us to see their games.

Kotaku - Nintendo's Secret Weapon (Article about the Treehouse and their Localization Process
 

Nanashrew

Banned
Weird, the only tumblr post i have seen about the game is one were people are mad that the gay and lesbian characters aparently are horrible people and think this is nintendo being homophobic.

Which is weird, i thought the themes on the game were about the horrors of war and prolly how both sides arent saints.

I think I've seen that one.

I've also seen some misgender Foleo all while calling Nintendo transphobic. The translations around the internet are just not something you can take 100%.
 

Nachos

Member
You see, a lot of the problem comes from the way some lines are translated, and the lack of context.
Japanese is kind of a vague language, and sentences can often have words left out that would be necessary in English. So when translating literally it can result in sentences having meanings that are not intended.

An example of that would be something like:
"Next time, your big sister will be doing the petting."
In English, petting can have another meaning. The original word she said in Japanese, does not.
So by choosing the word petting to translate it to, the translator has unintentionally (I assume) made the line more suggestive than it actually is.

An example of being out of context would be
"The armor's in the way, right?"
Now, I can't marry Belka, because I'm already married, so I will not see these marriage specific lines. But even so, there are specific areas of the body you can touch, and the chest/lower parts are not included in them. It's generally the head, neck, shoulder/collerbone area. As she is a character that wears armour, it would make sense when you are rubbing her shoulders or something for her to maybe say the armour is in the way. You cannot rub her girl parts, so I don't see how the line could be sexual.

Don't get me wrong, Camilla is a 'sexy' character, and her lines are somewhat delivered in that way, but the lewdness is really overexaggerated, and doesn't apply to most of the other characters.
Yeah, I get what you mean. Even though there's some interaction between languages, they generally develop independently and assume different connotations that don't exist in the other language. I'm sure it's always something to be mindful of as a translator.

I did manage to dig up Pieri's Japanese line, since that was the most egregious to me:
Pieri said:
あなたのドキドキしてるとこ、肉を裂いて見てみたいの…

I wonder is something similar to the changes they made to Animal Crossing...
Honestly, I'm fine with it in the case of Animal Crossing. It's just that since Fates is building itself up as an East vs West ordeal, it seems like it'd be a good opportunity to expose people to aspects of a foreign culture, since that's presumably what happened with Japanese players with the Nohr version. It obviously wouldn't suddenly make someone an expert on the subject, but I don't think the subject matter's as impenetrable as NOA might fear.
 

Sakura

Member
Yeah, I get what you mean. Even though there's some interaction between languages, they generally develop independently and assume different connotations that don't exist in the other language. I'm sure it's always something to be mindful of as a translator.

I did manage to dig up Pieri's Japanese line, since that was the most egregious to me:



Honestly, I'm fine with it in the case of Animal Crossing. It's just that since Fates is building itself up as an East vs West ordeal, it seems like it'd be a good opportunity to expose people to aspects of a foreign culture, since that's presumably what happened with Japanese players with the Nohr version. It obviously wouldn't suddenly make someone an expert on the subject, but I don't think the subject matter's as impenetrable as NOA might fear.

See, Pieri's line is basically saying she wants to cut open your chest.
She is crazy. She is always talking about killing people.
But because of the way they translated it, it sounds like something completely different.
 
See, Pieri's line is basically saying she wants to cut open your chest.
She is crazy. She is always talking about killing people.
But because of the way they translated it, it sounds like something completely different.

Well that's completely different than what that google doc says.

I did think it was a little outrageous after reading through some of the lines.

I guess after this it's safe to pay it no mind then. Of course, I don't think that will stop people from linking it in other threads as a supposed "faithful translation".
 

Sakura

Member
Well that's completely different than what that google doc says.

I did think it was a little outrageous after reading through some of the lines.

I guess after this it's safe to pay it no mind then. Of course, I don't think that will stop people from linking it in other threads as a supposed "faithful translation".

The translator either didn't know Japanese very well, or didn't know at all and just used google translate or something.
あなたの=anata no
Your

ドキドキしてるとこ、=dokidoki siterutoko,
place that is 'doki doki'(an onomatopoeia for heart beats, or "throbbing") - so basically the place your heart is beating ie chest

肉を裂いて=niku wo saite
tear flesh

見てみたいの…=mitemitai no...
want to see

So a better translation might be, "I want to tear open your chest and see inside". A little loose/lazy, but you get what it is supposed to mean.

Changing Tsubaki to Subaki is pretty bad. Not "Kangaroo" levels of bad but it's still annoying.
If they were going to change the name I think they should've changed it to another name that was easier to pronounce, but still Japanese. Subaki...? Come on.
 

Nanashrew

Banned
The translator either didn't know Japanese very well, or didn't know at all and just used google translate or something.
あなたの=anata no
Your

ドキドキしてるとこ、=dokidoki siterutoko,
place that is 'doki doki'(an onomatopoeia for heart beats, or "throbbing") - so basically the place your heart is beating ie chest

肉を裂いて=niku wo saite
tear flesh

見てみたいの…=mitemitai no...
want to see

So a better translation might be, "I want to tear open your chest and see inside". A little loose/lazy, but you get what it is supposed to mean.


If they were going to change the name I think they should've changed it to another name that was easier to pronounce, but still Japanese. Subaki...? Come on.

Yeah, I was looking through Google translate just now with that and got "Your pounding to have" out of the translation.
 

Nachos

Member
So a better translation might be, "I want to tear open your chest and see inside". A little loose/lazy, but you get what it is supposed to mean.
So something like "How I'd love to see what your beating heart looks like"?

Though I guess the confusion is what happens when 4chan translates things.
 

ppor

Member
Yes. And more importantly, they are difficult to remember. This isn't a "westerner" thing either. Cultures have difficulty pronouncing and remembering names derived from langauges other than their own. Even made up ones.

It can be extremely difficult to keep straight all the names of characters in a large cast when many of those names are not natural to the language of the player.

My old history teacher taught in Japan many years back. He said his Japanese students had trouble distinguishing between names like Washington, Hamilton, and Jefferson, sounded all the same to them.
 
Even if the translations were 100% correct, they're not that bad. Yeah, it's lewd, but the game will (probably) be rated T. Are we pretending that teenagers aren't emotionally mature enough to read some text that alludes to sex?

I'm sure NoA will clean it up a bit anyway of course, but it's just pillow talk, guys.
 

Javier

Member
I don't mind Treehouse doing the localization this time around if it means we're getting French and Spanish in the American release (FE13 was English only in America).

But I will miss moments like these.

YXodszq.jpg
 

Vena

Member
I don't mind Treehouse doing the localization this time around if it means we're getting French and Spanish in the American release (FE13 was English only in America).

But I will miss moments like these.

YXodszq.jpg

I mean, have you seen the Smash 4 localization?
 

Pizza

Member
I hope they don't change anything.

NOA keep it as is, thanks.

Yep, checked out those links and everything seems a-ok. Don't cut anything out Reggie, I want to see the artist's worked as intended.

No one censors boobies on old paintings, no need to start doing it now.

Reggie, while looking over the work in progress translation, finds he can touch virtual boobies with his stylus.

He starts sweating profusely, taking off his coat and shirt. After leaving the tree house room and shutting himself in his office for hours with the 3DS he finally emerges looking worn and tired.

"This needs to be censored"

"But why?" Asks Trinen

"Just do it."

Reggie tosses the 3DS on Bill's desk, leaving the office ashamed. Bill spins the virtual woman around a few times and then pokes her booty.

He giggles.
 

john tv

Member
Thanks for the kind words about 8-4. :)

It's true, we aren't working on Fates - we would have loved to be involved, but N's got us busy doing other work right now (hey, Reggie's spreadsheets aren't gonna translate themselves). The game is in great hands, though - I mean, it's Treehouse! Those guys are the gold standard. You know the end result is gonna be nothing short of amazing.

I doubt this game takes 6 months to localize.
Awakening took us nearly a year to localize, and we had a large team working on it non-stop the whole time. I honestly know very little about Fates, but seeing as it's THREE games this time (or two and a half I guess? I don't fully know how that extra DLC episode works yet since I've been avoiding spoilers), well...you can do the math. :) Our team for Awakening was really the ideal size, too; any bigger and it would've started negatively impacting quality. Too many cooks on a creative endeavor like that is NOT a good thing - you can't just throw more heads at a localization to get things done faster (well, you can, but you won't get good results in the end). So I don't think it's surprising at all that the game is scheduled for 2016. These games have TONS and TOOOOONS of text, and it takes time to translate, edit, check, voice record, polish, test and fine-tune all of it into a cohesive, entertaining end product. Plus, who knows what else these guys are busy with - they've got tons of games coming out, and only so many people to work on them. For all we know, maybe Chibi Robo's got 10,000 pages of dialogue they need to get through first. Cut 'em some slack! :)
 

L95

Member
I really don't get why people think this game doesn't take 6 months to localize... that's the shortest localization any FE has ever had (FE9/PoR it was, I believe?) and this is far from a short game.

FE7 took 7 months, FE8 (Sacred Stones) was 8 months, FE10(Radiant Dawn) was 9 months... Shadow Dragon was 7 months for the US, and Awakening was a whole year for Europe and 11 months for the US
 
8-4's probably too busy workimg on Tales of Zestiria (with there being 3 versions) and Mighty No. 9, and Nintendo probably wants a better handling of the project so it's easier for them to make cuts.

Why do the number of platforms for Zestiria matter? There's one script, I don't think 8-4 does the programming or QA.
 

Flowmoney

Member
How will Foleo's lines be handled by NoA?

I am not saying that the rough translations are correct but would Nintendo feel the need to change them in any way? Have similar lines ever been in a game before that go unaltered?
 

yami4ct

Member
Why do the number of platforms for Zestiria matter? There's one script, I don't think 8-4 does any programming.

I'd actually really would love to know how the localization process works for 8-4. Do they take the script/audio and hand it back to the pub who has the original studio or a contractor insert it in game? I know XSEED actually does the programming themselves for at least a good chunk of their games. Apparently it's sometimes really tough as the Devs never take multiple languages into account while programming the game. There's a lot of fudging around with character limits and sometimes dual audio is literally impossible because of the way the game has programmed in the voices.
 
I'd actually really would love to know how the localization process works for 8-4. Do they take the script/audio and hand it back to the pub who has the original studio or a contractor insert it in game? I know XSEED actually does the programming themselves for at least a good chunk of their games. Apparently it's sometimes really tough as the Devs never take multiple languages into account while programming the game. There's a lot of fudging around with character limits and sometimes dual audio is literally impossible because of the way the game has programmed in the voices.

I thought XSeed only did programming for their PC titles and everything else was handled in Japan by the devs?
 
Aqua is a lousy name. Azura is much better. I don't know, arbitrary name changes have been a norm with Fire Emblem localisation. Hasnt really bothered me. I dont really care what the Japanese player base calls the characters.
 

yami4ct

Member
I thought XSeed only did programming for their PC titles and everything else was handled in Japan by the devs?

Was that it? I know they've talked about programming the localization in their games at least once. Maybe it was just the PC version. I just remember them discussing about how crazy it was.
 
Was that it? I know they've talked about programming the localization in their games at least once. Maybe it was just the PC version. I just remember them discussing about how crazy it was.

They employ Sara to program for their PC titles. Console/handheld stuff is more tricky because you need dev kits etc., and I don't think they do any of that in house.
 

yami4ct

Member
They employ Sara to program for their PC titles. Console/handheld stuff is more tricky because you need dev kits etc., and I don't think they do any of that in house.

Yeah, I think that's what I read.

I've said it before, but I really want to some localization company to do a huge feature of what it's like to go through that process. Someone like 8-4 seems like they're be perfectly setup for it with the way they're getting involved in indie projects. I feel like that's a major aspect of gaming development that I only have a small knowledge of. It'd be fascinating to catalogue a lot of the troubles with doing that job and why certain changes are made.
 
Nothing should phase Nintendo anymore after releasing Bayonetta 2 .
That's what I've been saying.

This game will most likely get an M rating anyway for story reasons, so there's really no reason for anything to be cut. I think some of the dialogue will be toned down, but besides that, I think (and hope) everything else will remain intact.
 

Hikami

Member
So I ended up sending some feedback on the matter to Nintendo

Probably won't end up doing anything but oh well, makes me feel better that someone there at least actually read my concerns about the localization.
 

Mrmask

Member
I'm more of a "As long as we get it" kind of person, so not much bothers me if it would cause them to scrap localizing it or delaying it for a year+. Would love to import it...hmm, now if only I could read Japanese.
 

Shengar

Member
The translator either didn't know Japanese very well, or didn't know at all and just used google translate or something.
あなたの=anata no
Your

ドキドキしてるとこ、=dokidoki siterutoko,
place that is 'doki doki'(an onomatopoeia for heart beats, or "throbbing") - so basically the place your heart is beating ie chest

肉を裂いて=niku wo saite
tear flesh

見てみたいの…=mitemitai no...
want to see

So a better translation might be, "I want to tear open your chest and see inside". A little loose/lazy, but you get what it is supposed to mean.


If they were going to change the name I think they should've changed it to another name that was easier to pronounce, but still Japanese. Subaki...? Come on.
I knew it that the translated Amie line out there are intentionally made lewder than it should be just to stir the community.

Guys, please, always take anonymous translation of a game that you hardly understand the language with a grain of salt.
 

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware
"Boingy."
lol

With Treehouse in charge, I'm not really concerned. They're some of the best in the business.
 
At the very least they're going to change what the characters say. There's no way most of this stuff is getting through

NSFW text
http://pastebin.com/VH25QRxs

Christ. In this case yeah, feel free to change some stuff NOA. I don't like when the censor things but this? This is can do without in my FE game.

Edit: Now seeing that this may not be 100% accurate. I'll still say that dialogue "like" this doesn't appeal to me
 

Kasumin

Member
Nope. Treehouse is top-tier, even 8-4 looks up to them.

That's what I thought. I read up on localization from time to time and I got the impression that they were pretty well regarded in the industry. Why people in this thread are saying the localization will be worse than if 8-4 did it is beyond me. I like 8-4's localizations as well, but Treehouse definitely seems to have the bigger reputation.

Edit: Speaking of name changes, I do remember people in the Tales fandom getting angry over some name changes in both Xillia games. I know 8-4 worked on that. I can live with name changes for the most part, but when the name changes disrupt an intended theme I do get annoyed.
 
Corrin actually does make more sense to me than Kamui does, though. Why would a Nohr ruler, hating Hoshido, raise a baby with a Hoshido name when he could easily change it before the kid has memories of what it originally was? It seems like that'd basically be a good opportunity to assimilate Corrin into Nohr society while keeping their roots secret.


The arrangement hasn't changed much, actually. Awakening was a joint effort between 8-4 and Treehouse – it wasn't just an 8-4 solo project.

That's pretty much why I don't mind the Corrin thing. Also, I don't understand the hate for Treehouse on this thread. Treehouse is great. 8-4 definitely did a great job although there are people out there who dislike what they did with Awakening's script.

FE has always changed the names of characters from Japanese to English, most of the time they change it to something else entirely. I don't necessarily mind the Hoshido thing and I'll tell you why.

This is gonna be a pretty weak reasoning but just cause Hoshido's based on Japan doesn't mean it has to completely transfer over everything. It's a fantasy kingdom in a fantasy setting, so I'm fine with them having their own naming conventions. Maybe Subaki is just how they spell it? I don't think it's that big of a deal, especially considering Chon'sin was a pretty obvious Japan expy and had characters that I considered to have really dumb names. I like Say'ri and Lon'qu as characters, but I don't care for how their names are spelt. Ditto for Yen'fay and Key'ri
 

Chaos17

Member
oNdljCc.gif


Will they cut out the face rubbing though? I hope they cut out loli rubbing if it's in there or game will be ban worthy.

Stop focusing on this, many said in the OT import that game is great and it's sad that people are making a fuss about this because you're over looking the games good points.
 
Stop focusing on this, many said in the OT import that game is great and it's sad that people are making a fuss about this because you're over looking the games good points.

This. I don't care about fanservice of any of that as long as the gameplay is good. While I didn't care for Awakening's gameplay, it has easily the best characters of any FE, and I've played each and every FE there is.

The reason for that is because of all the dialogue that every character gets. In previous FEs you'd be lucky to have a handful of good supports for any given character. Come Awakening, every character has a crap ton of supports, and also DLC where they all have dialogue. All of that went a long way toward establishing Awakening's characters a lot better, and they all felt more memorable and unique to me. IntSys definitely wants to continue that trend further with Fates. I think that's where the whole face rubbing and hot tubbing ties in. Aside from fanservice, of course.

I already know I won't be face rubbing or hot tubbing myself, but I want the game localized without any cut content. That'd be unfair to fans in the west who legitimately want those features.
 

TI82

Banned
I'm okay with name changes, I also wish they had changed Nowi in the previous game. Either change her graphics so she doesn't look like a kid... or make her not romanceable. How that made it into NoA release but Tharja got a curtain over a bikini I'll never know.
 
Localization on general is in a cluster fuck state. Localization was perfect in the mid 2000s. Nice balance of respecting the original version and changing things that need to be changed.

Now localizations take longer than ever if they happen at all, and games like Dragon Quest have their original scripts and intent entirely disrespected.
 
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