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[Synth_floyd]

I'm reading an interview with MGS1 localizer Jeremy Blaustein and he said that Kojima was upset with the changes that he made to the script in the English version and that's why he hasn't worked on any of the subsequent games in the series:

Metal Gear Solid, of all the games he worked on, brought Blaustein the most recognition. Rather unfortunately, it also proved to be one of the most stressful of his projects and landed him in trouble with Kojima, who didn't appreciate the changes he'd made. Blaustein did a podcast interview with PushToTalk, where he highlighted some of the heavy goings on regarding the project.

"When you create an environment where people aren't allowed to question you, you get a translation by committee where the uniqueness of any person's speaking style is wiped away in favour of a bland approach which doesn't take any risks. You get something less direct, less stylised, less intentionally suited to that market."

I asked if Blaustein feels his work on MGS influenced Kojima's subsequent handling of the series. "Yes, I do! I absolutely do. Because if he proceeded along the lines that: 'changes were made to my script are not what I want,' and he's working under the mistaken view that changes during translation are a move away from similarity, then [he's going to reign in subsequent localisers]. I started out so well with Kojima too."

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/jb/jb.htm

MGS2 localizer Agness Kaku has talked about how constrained she was in translating MGS2:

The writing had to be cut down due to screen space concerns and Konami insisted on editing the product extensively...Many, many in-game terms/words were written in stone and non-negotiable.

etc etc

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/metalgear/agnesskaku2.htm

Anyone have any idea what some of the changes were in MGS1 that Blaustein made that upset Kojima so much?

 

[JWong]

The ending was too short.

 

[Persona7]

Didn't MGS2 have a typo in one of the first few text boxes of the game

 

[AutumnAve]

I'm curious about this too. Listening to that podcast a while back interested me quite a bit about the whole thing. I don't remember the specifics, and it's kinda off topic, but I seem to remember there were content edits even in the GC remake's script.

 

[Ninja Scooter]

it wasn't stupid enough.

 

[Zombie James]

Not sure exactly what, but there were some mistakes revolving around Dr. Clark, iirc. Something about being female in the Japanese version but male in the localized one.

 

[BocoDragon]

I actually have to side with Kojima here. I remember Blaustein scoffing at names like "Decoy Octopus", thinking that stuff like that simply must be changed for the western audience. I do think Blaustein was against some of the quirkier names and such, which would go on to be something that is rather beloved about the series.

Some of Blaustein's touches were probably a good thing though. It's not a black and white situation.

 

[WrenchNinja]

The dominant and recessive genes nonsense didn't exist.

 

[Ratrat]

Seems insignifant to me.

 

[TheDarkKnight774]

I've always wanted to see the material cut from MGS2 due to 911

 

[Roto13]

I still love the name Decoy Octopus.

Almost as much as I love the name Revolver Ocelot.

 

[Synth_floyd]

I actually have to side with Kojima here. I remember Blaustein scoffing at names like "Decoy Octopus", thinking that stuff like that simply must be changed for the western audience. I do think Blaustein was against some of the quirkier names and such, which would go on to be something that is rather beloved about the series.

Some of Blaustein's touches were probably a good thing though. It's not a black and white situation.

It's either in the interview I linked to above or in another one on the same site but Blaustein mentions that most of the character names in the MGS series sound pretty dumb. Decoy Octopus, Big Boss, Solid Snake, etc. In Japanese they sound cool because it's English words but calling the final boss of a game "big boss" (because he's the big boss?) and then retconning it to some CIA given title or whatever is pretty ludicrous. But it's the Kojima-universe so I guess in context it makes sense. But the names originally are supposed to sound cool and exotic to a Japanese person. Kind of like how latin sounds exotic to English speakers so that's why there are lots of latin phrases and mottos in English.

 

[Zombie James]

I've always wanted to see the material cut from MGS2 due to 911

It's in Document of MGS2.

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

I'm pretty sure one example was in the scene where Psycho Mantis dies. After helping Snake and Meryl by using his power to open the path to the communication tower, in the Japanese version, he says he feels nostalgic just before he dies. This is supposed to be a reference to his background, since his mother died giving birth to him.

I read somewhere that Blaustein thought the reference was too obscure and that the meaning of the scene would be lost on most players, so he had Mantis say that helping Snake and Meryl feel nice. In the Twin Snakes version, the line was changed to be more like the Japanese version.

The Twin Snakes' script is more literal than the PS1 version's, so going by the stuff Blaustein said in that one interview you could probably just compare the two scripts to see the kind of stuff Kojima didn't want changed.

 

[meltingparappa]

Unless I'm grossly misremembering it, the text and re-recorded voices in Twin Snakes were so bland in comparison to the original. Mei Ling lost her adorable accent!

 

[Roto13]

I'm pretty sure one example was in the scene where Psycho Mantis dies. After helping Snake and Meryl by using his power to open the path to the communication tower, in the Japanese version, he says he feels nostalgic just before he dies. This is supposed to be a reference to his background, since his mother giving birth to him.

I read somewhere that Blaustein thought the reference was too obscure and that the meaning of the scene would be lost on most players, so he had Mantis say that helping Snake and Meryl feel nice. In the Twin Snakes version, the line was changed to be more like the Japanese version.

The Twin Snakes' script is more literal than the PS1 version's, so going by the stuff Blaustein said in that one interview you could probably just compare the two scripts to see the kind of stuff Kojima didn't want changed.

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

 

[BocoDragon]

It's either in the interview I linked to above or in another one on the same site but Blaustein mentions that most of the character names in the MGS series sound pretty dumb. Decoy Octopus, Big Boss, Solid Snake, etc. In Japanese they sound cool because it's English words but calling the final boss of a game "big boss" (because he's the big boss?) and then retconning it to some CIA given title or whatever is pretty ludicrous. But it's the Kojima-universe so I guess in context it makes sense. But the names originally are supposed to sound cool and exotic to a Japanese person. Kind of like how latin sounds exotic to English speakers so that's why there are lots of latin phrases and mottos in English.

Yes, you are quite right. They do play differently in Japanese.

But I think MGS is far better as a kind of quirky series that every fan knows is from Japan.... I think Blaustein was basically trying to smooth it out into feeling like a domestic spy product, which, in retrospect to where the series went, was a fools errand anyway.

I like my translations to be legit representations of the home country's product. No, not "all according to keikaku".... but I don't need them to change all the ideas into something that looks like its made in America.

 

[Jac_Solar]

Kojima seems to be extremely arrogant.

I understand that localizers are slightly different than translators, but the meaning of the dialogue, scenes, etc, should obviously remain the same, or keep the intent, definition, of the words of the language it was translated from. The various Japanese words would most likely literally translate to something weird, so obviously some creative input is necessary, but it should remain as close as possible.

The script is one of the most insignificant things in MGS though. I just skip most of the dialogue and cutscenes.

Does Kojima design the gameplay and all that?

 

[OmegaZero]

I'm pretty sure one example was in the scene where Psycho Mantis dies. After helping Snake and Meryl by using his power to open the path to the communication tower, in the Japanese version, he says he feels nostalgic just before he dies. This is supposed to be a reference to his background, since his mother giving birth to him.

I read somewhere that Blaustein thought the reference was too obscure and that the meaning of the scene would be lost on most players, so he had Mantis say that helping Snake and Meryl feel nice. In the Twin Snakes version, the line was changed to be more like the Japanese version.

The Twin Snakes' script is more literal than the PS1 version's, so going by the stuff Blaustein said in that one interview you could probably just compare the two scripts to see the kind of stuff Kojima didn't want changed.

Twin Snakes the superior version of MGS1 confirmed.
Shame I can't play it on my Wii U.

 

[345triangle]

Unless I'm grossly misremembering it, the text and re-recorded voices in Twin Snakes were so bland in comparison to the original. Mei Ling lost her adorable accent!

by "adorable" you mean borderline racist for a character that was supposedly born and raised in the US?

of all the things to call twin snakes out on, that is not it.

 

[Risette]

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

For the English script. It's also the script used in the English MGS1 flashbacks for MGS4.

 

[Black Door]

I wonder what Blaustein would have changed the operatives' names to. Stuff like Revolver Octopus, Psycho Mantis, etc. obviously sound like bullshit names designed to throw off enemy agents, like guys giving themselves call signs like "Papa Bear" and "Goldilocks" in parody spy films. Making them serious would have messed up the idea majorly.

 

[Synth_floyd]

A funny thing in the interview with the MGS2 translator is how she basically dismisses Kojima's writing as amateur:

Something Agness has been critical of is Kojima's writing ability, or rather his lack of it. Offering her free opportunity to speak, I asked what she felt, "I think he's very bad at character, and I think he's extremely conventional, as in non-creative, when it comes to plotting.
...
I don't think Kojima's a writer. The fact that he would even be considered one shows how low the standards are in the game industry. Nothing in MGS2 is above a fanfic level. He wouldn't last a morning in a network TV writers' room, and those aren't exactly turning out the Dark Tower series or The Wire."

But, just like how "dumb" the character names sound, I think in the context of the Kojima-universe the writing is fine.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

Thing is the first MGS is much more well translated though.

Hell, considering that MGS2, 3 and 4 is translated according to Kojima's wishes and is such a fucking mess at times... I don't think it was a good idea too.

 

[entremet]

I'm pretty sure one example was in the scene where Psycho Mantis dies. After helping Snake and Meryl by using his power to open the path to the communication tower, in the Japanese version, he says he feels nostalgic just before he dies. This is supposed to be a reference to his background, since his mother giving birth to him.

I read somewhere that Blaustein thought the reference was too obscure and that the meaning of the scene would be lost on most players, so he had Mantis say that helping Snake and Meryl feel nice. In the Twin Snakes version, the line was changed to be more like the Japanese version.

The Twin Snakes' script is more literal than the PS1 version's, so going by the stuff Blaustein said in that one interview you could probably just compare the two scripts to see the kind of stuff Kojima didn't want changed.

Haha. Twin Snakes redeemed

Superior version confirmed.

 

[Risette]

Thing is the first MGS is much more well translated though.

If made-up jargon to sound "more natural" (sure is easy to make things sound more natural when you fabricate them from thin air) and rewriting characters is your idea of well-translated, sure.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I actually have to side with Kojima here. I remember Blaustein scoffing at names like "Decoy Octopus", thinking that stuff like that simply must be changed for the western audience. I do think Blaustein was against some of the quirkier names and such, which would go on to be something that is rather beloved about the series.

Some of Blaustein's touches were probably a good thing though. It's not a black and white situation.

The worst name in the whole series is "Big Boss", which sounds like something an eight year old would come up with. Or a non-native speaker.

 

[Femmeworth]

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

Kojima seems to be extremely arrogant. Still, isn't this just effectively a translator? I understand that localizers are slightly different, but the meaning of the dialogue, scenes, etc, should obviously remain the same as the language it was translated from. I didn't even think they got a say in the creative matters of things.

The script is one of the most insignificant things in MGS. I just skip them.

Does Kojima design the gameplay and all that?

 

[LevityNYC]

The worst name in the whole series is "Big Boss", which sounds like something an eight year old would come up with. Or a non-native speaker.

might has well call Solid Snake "Hard Dick"

 

[Grinchy]

It's in Document of MGS2.

whoa sweet

I so wish they left that in.

 

[-tetsuo-]

Probably good ones.

 

[XenoRaven]

by "adorable" you mean borderline racist for a character that was supposedly born and raised in the US?

of all the things to call twin snakes out on, that is not it.

I know plenty of people with Asian heritage raised in America that still have very thick accents. It's not really racist.

 

[BocoDragon]

The worst name in the whole series is "Big Boss", which sounds like something an eight year old would come up with. Or a non-native speaker.

That's true. It's also incredibly 8-bit era.

But I think the games are what they are, and I want to see them as they were created. I don't need it repackaged into something that better suits my western ears.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

If made-up jargon to sound "more natural" (sure is easy to make things sound more natural when you fabricate them from thin air) and rewriting characters is your idea of well-translated, sure.

There are things from MGS2, 3 and 4 that seemed like a result of REALLY bad writing but actually was due to being a literal translation. I can't remember much at the moment, but one in particular was this:

In closing, let us praise the one certifiably great thing about Metal Gear Solid 4, and the one shining beacon that fills us with faith in Kojima’s future productions: the flow of the dialogue. It’s occasionally hilarious how well Kojima is able to write rhythmic dialogue. It clips and breezes along; the most portentous sentences become urgent poetic moments that transcend the base stupidity of the plot. Of course, you’d never know this if you played the game in English — the script appears to have been translated by the Elephant Man banging his head on a keyboard. There’s a line where Naomi says “If you want to change your fate, you’ll have to meet your destiny”. What the shit? In Japanese, she uses the same word for “fate” (unmei) twice, one instance of which being the first word of the sentence. This is to lend the sentence some kind of parallel structure. Even given the flipping idiocy of the moment, it makes for a neat little verbal-ironic turnaround: “The only way to change your fate is to go forth and meet it.” In other words, the only way Snake can possibly outlive his terrible fate (death) is by running straight at it, instead of letting it crash into him while he sits there doing nothing. This is a nice little sentence that no doubt has already inspired several dozen fanfiction-writing Japanese fourteen-year-olds. In English, it’s a dud; the translator must have majored in newspaper journalism, had a professor tell him to never use the same word — even (ESPECIALLY) “the” — twice in one sentence.

http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=430

 

[matrix-cat]

by "adorable" you mean borderline racist for a character that was supposedly born and raised in the US?

of all the things to call twin snakes out on, that is not it.

People have accents, dude. Making Mei Ling and Naomi bland, neutral-sounding Americans was such a terrible decision. There was no reason for it, it was just a change for the sake of changing something.

 

[Sir Ilpalazzo]

Haha. Twin Snakes redeemed

Superior version confirmed.

Twin Snakes the superior version of MGS1 confirmed.
Shame I can't play it on my Wii U.

Actually, I think that's a point in favor of Blaustein's translation. The Japanese / TTS line is pretty much nonsense unless you read background materials (I'm not sure if you can find that information about his mother out through codec calls, though). The original English translation isn't what Kojima intended at all but I think it's a lot more effective.

 

[Emitan]

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

Who cares if it's canon when the original is so much more fun to play?

 

[Etrian Oddity]

I HIGHLY recommend anybody to track down that PushToTalk interview (I think it's up on Youtube). It's one of the first podcasts I remember listening to, and it is a damned good entertaining listen.

A lot of people inside and outside the industry just don't get the difference in quality between a translation and a localization.

 

[synce]

It's funny this is being brought up because if you want to talk major changes between the original script and the English localization look no further than MGR. Konami USA completely went to town on that game. A certain character that spoke perfectly normal in the JP version was transformed into Jar Jar Binks in the US version. There's also the usual stuff like completely changing lines around and even omitting some.

And although the MGS1 dub will always have a place in my heart I have to agree that the localization crew made unnecessary changes. In the JP version Meiling sounded very cute and innocent, in the US version she sounds like a Chinese stereotype.

 

[345triangle]

People have accents, dude. Making Mei Ling and Naomi bland, neutral-sounding Americans was such a terrible decision. There was no reason for it, it was just a change for the sake of changing something.

american people have american accents. mei ling in the original MGS sounded like she'd taken six lessons at a conversation school in hong kong.

 

[Synth_floyd]

According to Blaustein:

Anyway, so yeah, we got Dave [Hayter] to his Clint Eastwood voice through a process. And when we did Revolver Ocelot, it was Kris' husband I think, or ex-husband, if I'm not wrong. We arrived at that through a process. And when we decided that Mei Ling should have a Chinese accent, it wasn't because we mistakenly thought she was from China. We knew that she was raised in the US. But we said: problem is, she's got a young voice, and we've got these static visuals, she's going to sound a lot like Naomi, who sounds a lot like this, who sounds... You know, we need some different kind of feature to make her voice stand out.

They changed the accent for basically the same reason that Kojima calls his characters Solid Snake and Big Boss instead of whatever proper Japanese names he could've thunk up.

 

[crackhead_bob]

That isn't racist. I'm asian, and I wasn't offended by it. IIRC, the character was born and raised in China. She was supposed to have an asian accent. Naomi Hunter's character was also foreign, so it made perfect sense that she spoke with a more international dialect.

While I am well tuned to the topic of racial sensitivity, I think the tact they chose for MGS4 was overreacting, if this was in fact the reason why they dropped the accents. I always figured that it had more to do with synching the audio with the mouth movements in the cutscenes.

As an asian, I've seen my share of racist charicatures. This wasn't it. I remember watching a recent movie about the first wave of Chinese immigrants who worked on the California railways. It would have been really stupid if they spoke and acted American in order to appease to political correctness, and I speak as a proud liberal.

It would be akin to the word "negro" being deliberately absent in the films "Lincoln" or "Glory." Should black actors refuse to participate in these production in protest of the use of these antiquated, but historically accurate terms?

 

[Roto13]

That isn't racist. I'm asian, and I wasn't offended by it. IIRC, the character was born and raised in China. She was supposed to have an asian accent.

She wasn't.

 

[bernardobri]

Blaustein's theory, IIRC, was that someone that worked closer with Kojima in Konami went to him after the release of MGS and pointed out that the translation lost some meaning between lines. Now, the fact that Kojima distanced from Jeremy Blaustein (to the point of cutting his "ghost" in MGS1, the ones that you see by taking photographs with the camera) is really curious considering that Blaustein worked before on Konami America, later translated Snatcher, and then was given an all-access pass to the development of MGS1 (which was considered a luxury for the time)

Not sure exactly what, but there were some mistakes revolving around Dr. Clark, iirc. Something about being female in the Japanese version but male in the localized one.

From what I remember, Policenauts translator Marc Lombardi (not to be confused with the Half Life writer of the same name) said that Dr. Clark was genderless in the japanese script, or at least there was no information of the gender, (and Kojima himself has said that he doesn't plan storywise ahead at all) so it's not something that I think he would pissed off.

Paramedic being Dr. Clark and retconning the gender was just to fill some gaps in the timeline, in the same way that the Donald Anderson (the Darpa Chief) was Sigint.

 

[ExigentContact]

That isn't racist. I'm asian, and I wasn't offended by it. IIRC, the character was born and raised in China. She was supposed to have an asian accent. Naomi Hunter's character was also foreign, so it made perfect sense that she spoke with a more international dialect.

While I am well tuned to the topic of racial sensitivity, I think the tact they chose for MGS4 was overreacting, if this was in fact the reason why they dropped the accents. I always figured that it had more to do with synching the audio with the mouth movements in the cutscenes.

As an asian, I've seen my share of racist charicatures. This wasn't it. I remember watching a recent movie about the first wave of Chinese immigrants who worked on the California railways. It would have been really stupid if they spoke and acted American in order to appease to political correctness, and I speak as a proud liberal.

It would be akin to the word "negro" being deliberately absent in the films "Lincoln" or "Glory." Should black actors refuse to participate in these production in protest of the use of these antiquated, but historically accurate terms?

No she wasn't. She was born and raised in America, in a Chinatown, which may account for a weak accent, but I've never known any young person from a Chinatown to have a particularly thick one if they had any at all. Bilingual? Sure, but their accents were typically closer to the average American's.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

That isn't racist. I'm asian, and I wasn't offended by it. IIRC, the character was born and raised in China. She was supposed to have an asian accent. Naomi Hunter's character was also foreign, so it made perfect sense that she spoke with a more international dialect.

While I am well tuned to the topic of racial sensitivity, I think the tact they chose for MGS4 was overreacting, if this was in fact the reason why they dropped the accents. I always figured that it had more to do with synching the audio with the mouth movements in the cutscenes.

As an asian, I've seen my share of racist charicatures. This wasn't it. I remember watching a recent movie about the first wave of Chinese immigrants who worked on the California railways. It would have been really stupid if they spoke and acted American in order to appease to political correctness, and I speak as a proud liberal.

It would be akin to the word "negro" being deliberately absent in the films "Lincoln" or "Glory." Should black actors refuse to participate in these production in protest of the use of these antiquated, but historically accurate terms?

This. As an asian I find her accent pretty cute. I know the accent might not have made much sense, but it's cute and makes her much more unique.

 

[Synth_floyd]

Blaustein's theory, IIRC, was that someone that worked closer with Kojima in Konami went to him after the release of MGS and pointed out that the translation lost some meaning between lines. The fact that Kojima distanced from Jeremy Blaustein (to the point of cutting his "staff ghost" in MGS1) is really curious considering that Blaustein worked before on Konami America, later translated Snatcher, and then was given an all-access pass to the development of MGS1.

That's interesting. I also wonder what the real reason is that MGS doesn't use the theme from MGS1 and 2 anymore. It's been pointed out that the song is very similar to some classical piece by a Russian composer but has Kojima ever mentioned or talked about why he stopped using it? I mean if it's because that legally the song is too similar then I don't see why he doesn't just pay them money, give credit and keep using it. I mean 99% of the shit from Kojima's games is stolen from other sources (Snatcher = Blade Runner, all the portraits from MG2 were famous actors, the intro of Policenauts was stolen from Aliens, etc) so I don't see why he would object to one song being stolen.

 

[KittenMaster]

The worst name in the whole series is "Big Boss", which sounds like something an eight year old would come up with. Or a non-native speaker.

It's a name that lost context I think, since in the first Metal Gear game he was your supervisor over radio transmission so the name was fitting for that role. It's probably a good thing that the character is mostly known as Naked Snake now.

 

[Suairyu]

Further proof that Twin Snakes is the canon game. Suck it, purists. (See also: Naomi and Mei Ling's accents.)

I'd be ready to love Twin Snakes except for the stupid 'Snake is a superhero' Matrix-esque antics he gets up to in the cutscenes. It's ridiculous.

 

[Jean Valjean]

I HIGHLY recommend anybody to track down that PushToTalk interview (I think it's up on Youtube). It's one of the first podcasts I remember listening to, and it is a damned good entertaining listen.

A lot of people inside and outside the industry just don't get the difference in quality between a translation and a localization.

Agreed. Overall I understand and agree with Blaustein's approach.

And what he said about Scott Dolph was